Shubham Rai started
Nodd after he was inspired by a bunch of goons threatening his life in exchange for money. (sounds a bit like the Stayzilla case, doesn’t it?)
What started off as a WhatsApp group of 20 people, now has nearly 5,000 members and aims to cater to the top 10 percent of HNIs around the globe; that’s nearly 150 million people and hopes to reach 3 million dollars in revenue by end FY 17-18. Right now the network has 8500 members and 70 percent of that consists of HNIs and revenue has grown 70 percent MoM. The Nodd network, which is in its alpha phase as a company, has done up to 20 events across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. It’s a network where people get invited based on their professional achievements, net worth and common interests.
Shubham Rai, CEO and cofounder of Nodd talks about what a saving grace a solid network is to an entrepreneur or an investor.
Give us 2 real life instances where your network of people saved you from certain personal and professional doom
1. My networking skills got me funded
The network I had established for myself helped me get my first job after failing at my first entrepreneurial stint when I had nowhere to go. 7-8 years ago, I connected with Jaison Jose, who at the time was running a PR Firm and had Marshall Amps as a client. I at the time was managing the rock band Sceptre, and helped him connect to many people in the industry, including Sandipan Chattopadhyay (CTO of JustDial around that time). Jaison and I became friends, and many years later, when I failed and had no where to go, he gave me a job. Both Jaison and Sandipan are now investors in Nodd.
2. My network helped me when funds ran out
A few months after starting Nodd, we had little money left. I had helped a lot of people, including Jaison, Sandipan, Mahesh Ahuja, Shalin Shah, and Vivek Lath connect to good people. My past efforts of networking and helping them network built their faith and trust in my ability to run a networking platform, and they ended up becoming early investors in Nodd. They are prominent members of our Nodd community, and they brought in their own networks which helped Nodd’s network spread wider.
How are you using your network to now build Nodd?
A lot of the initial members of the Nodd community were part of my personal network. For everyone in my network, I try to create value for them by connecting them to the right people. Whoever I meet, I take the effort to understand their business, current pain areas, and connect them to other achievers who can address their needs, without any expectations in return. This creates a lot of value for both sides, and builds their faith in me and Nodd. It also creates a culture of “go-giving”. Seeing this impact of Nodd and the people they’re able to meet, they get more engaged in the community, come to our events and end up paying it forward by helping others in the community.
At the end of the day, Nodd is a network of networks; a neural network of people who actually know each other well, and this network effect carries forward to bring more people into the community.
Any member of Nodd who has benefitted from being a part of Nodd community?
Of course. Shalin Shah, the founder of SPYRL Ventures meets entrepreneurs working on IoT and fintech ideas that he may find interesting enough to fund. The same goes for Sandipan Chattopadhyay, the CEO, Xelpmoc, who is able to meet aspirational entrepreneurs who is in search for the right mentoring and legal advice Xelpmoc typically provides.
Another is Aditya Mehta, the founder of Edgytal, a digital marketing firm.
Aditya, a numbers oriented person, recently wrote a blog he shared with me on how to calculate the ROI of ‘meeting interesting people’ through Nodd. His ROI so far is approximately 24x.
He took into consideration, business from new clients he first met through the community, divided by the man hour costs, event tickets, traveling and hotel expenses. Aditya said is that more importantly, the soft benefits and interesting experience of meeting an eclectic group of people are what makes him love Nodd.
His favourite moments include being invited over for lunch by a VC investor, having a drink at the home of the CEO of a leading startup, eating 4am meals with a group of startup founders, playing cricket with an ex-Ranji Trophy player (his team beat theirs, no surprises there), and sharing stories of nightmares experienced during their sales and field work assignments.
All this goes hand in hand with learning new things, having a bigger network, and improving one’s personal and organizational brand.
BW Reporters
Regina is a reporter for BW Businessworld. In her previous assignments, she has worked with Independent television Network as a news anchor and reporter in Sri Lanka
