264: From a village to building a profitable business in 3…

About this episode

Amit Lakhotia moved from a village in Churu, Rajasthan to Delhi at 10, speaking Marwari and barely any Hindi. Twenty people shared three rooms. His father couldn't afford the school fees, so he made a bet with the principal: if his son didn't come first within a year, throw him out.That year Amit scored 19 out of 20 in Maths and Hindi, and 1 out of 20 in English. His tuition was waived from class four through twelve.He went on to NSIT and IIM Ahmedabad, helped scale MakeMyTrip, Paytm and Tokopedia, built a taxi business that was four times Ola's size before shutting it down, and then founded Park+ — which raised its first cheque two months before COVID shut down every mall and office in the country.In this episode of Unstarted, Amit talks to Avnish Bajaj about when to walk away from a working business, the vitamin versus painkiller test for choosing what to build, why he picked parking as the wedge into the car ownership market, how access control emerged from the worst possible timing, and why brand and revenue aren't a trade-off if you think creatively.Unstarted is a series for founders, by founders, with questions crowdsourced from the audience.Guest: Amit Lakhotia, Founder & CEO, Park+ Host: Avnish Bajaj, Founder & Managing Director, Z47Chapters0:00 Intro: the founder who gets away with scolding me 1:14 Churu to Delhi, and 20 people in three rooms 2:09 Arriving at school with no English 3:04 The bet his father made with the principal 5:01 How he survived that first year 5:47 19 out of 20 in Maths. 1 out of 20 in English. 7:21 NSIT, IIM-A, and where the confidence came from 9:20 Sitting in his father's shop and deciding to drop out 10:12 Turning around the IIM-A souvenir store 12:15 GetMeCab: profitable in month three 13:42 Why he walked away from a business 4x Ola's size 14:50 Q: I want to start a business. How? 17:57 Vitamins vs painkillers 18:38 The two ideas he shortlisted, and why parking won 21:24 Q: How do you measure progress during a pivot? 21:36 Two months in, COVID arrives 22:52 Turning a pandemic into the access control business 24:38 The metric that mattered: client acceptance 25:35 Revenue vs brand, and getting signage for free 27:43 Closing: build the network, and give before you take