Mr. Gaurav Mehta Chief Marketing Officer at - view linkedin profile

Q. - You have worked with various renowned brands,and been an entrepreneur yourself, can you please help our readers about, how someone should look at career decisions in their initial years?

I have always been attracted towards organic growth than linear growth, and to do that one always has to make sure that they look forward to learning new skills always, Another important parameter for career decisions can be, to look forwards for roles which excites you, going in for the roles in sunshine industries, you may ask yourself : what’s your job role’scontributionto the organisational growth and does it excite you?

Wherever you join don’t overenjoy your welcome, sometime people stay too long for the wrong reasons, they feel comfortable, everything is hunky dory, etc. its all good but it comes at a price. We should not discount the fact that if you are in your comfort zone & not making yourself a little un-comfortable, you are not learning new things which will ultimately hamper your career.

I became an entrepreneur back in 2003 October, I started a branding and consulting agency, and which was a super nascent industry back then. We analysed the need gap that small and medium businesses was not able to get sound marketing and branding advise and we were up to do that for them. Then again in 2008 I chose yahoo over HCL A) because I felt digital is the way forward, and Yahoo was the mothership of all internet companies B) I wanted to do sales which I haven’t done earlier but most importantly I felt that it presented a better chance of learning as it was out of my comfort zone and because of this decision next 4.5 years gave me understanding of digital, I was working on mobile back in 2008 and which was a blessing as I got super early access to understand mobile marketing. After Yahoo I joined OLX which was starting off in India, got a chance to establish the entire marketing team of OLX southeast Asia, (India, Pakistan & Bangladesh) and had a wonderful setting up operations including working remotely and set ops in Pakistan & Bangladesh, establish the brand and consumer behaviours in C2C classified space. This was an excellent experience from management perspective. After OLX,I got a chance to work in Car Dekho which went on to become India’s largest auto tech company and recently turned into unicorn and now I am with Zupee which is again a sunshine industry, mobile gaming this industry has gained prominence in the last 2 years so if you see my journey, I have always tried to be out of my comfort zone and keep on learning.

Q. - Can you please tell us more about Zupee and your brand vision for Zupee for next 5 years?

Zupee is into skill-based gaming, we are bringing back lot of games like Ludo, Snake N Ladder etc.this provide people a chance to hone their skill’s best part is these games triggersa nostalgic feeling amongst most of us, so it becomes easy & fun to play. Zupee is amongst the first few companies which are imparting upskilling through games, like entertainment which help to sharpen your decision-making skills, your strategic thinking skills etc. We also have Quizzes available on the platform.

We are looking at creating/ introducing games which can keep users engaged while offering them optimum difficulty levels so that they get sequential learning. The total addressable market is huge for gaming in India. We have already seen some very big companies’ footprint in India’s mobile gaming horizon. For example, approx. 350 million Indians play Ludo. Snake & Ladder is smaller in comparison, but potential is like Ludo. So,we are looking at a huge potential within India and hopefully we will expand to some more countries as well in next few years.

Q. - Mr. Mehta, you’ve workedon leadership positions for several years, can you please share what are the 3 most important action points you always follow during day-to-day professional life?

First, I always hire people who are better than me,otherwise I will not get feedback or opinions which are different than mine, for example if I am to hire a person for Media Planning then I will try andhire someone who is head and shoulders above me in Media Planning,, this is very important for mutual Learning & Growth.

Second, I try to make sure that everyone understands how his/her contributioneffects in overall scheme of things, and companies’ success.

Q. - What is the best part for an entrepreneur in India?

We have such a heterogeneous country with respect to economic strata, languages, cultural diversity etc that if you can build and scale a successful product/service in India it will have a very high probability to succeed in any market across globe.