Version 2.0, the journey from the year 2020.
Today we meet an entrepreneur who had a roller coaster journey on the road to success and owns three successful ventures to his name. We are in conversation with Ratnesh Mehn, who tagged himself as the non-techie businessman five years back, today drives all marketing and sales revenue through the use of digital marketing campaigns and online sales.
He shares how the love for travel made him start his travel venture India Khoj, a travel company focussed at helping travellers explore some of the most unexplored destinations in India. Later on, as a company, they started catering to the international market as well. Things went awry when he diversified into a different industry trying to take advantage of the funding wave that had struck gold for many entrepreneurs during the said period. The volume game with the involvement of an app-based model landed him in deep troubles as not being from an information technology background and no one to guide or mentor, the struggles went up and technology bills just rocketed sky-high and out of reach. Times were tough and some strong decisions had to be taken, a failed startup burned pockets and unhappy family members, there was a lot to handle.
The interesting fact while having this conversation with Ratnesh was he had an amazing positivity to his character, the story of failure was also full of enthusiasm and he took positives out of it and moved on. Back to his travel business, he got a great partner and they together brought back things to good times soon.
The challenge ahead of them in the year 2020 was growth. 1x or 2x revenues were not what they were looking at. Exponential growth was what for which Ratnesh became an entrepreneur in the first place. At the same time, the COVID wave had struck the whole world and everything came to standstill. Travel was the worst-hit sector. Tough times were back. It was interesting what happened ahead.
Instead of bowing down and out of the industry and as many travel companies did, he invested his time in two new ventures. An education portal with his soul mate and spouse Anubhuti and an e-commerce online store with his partner Chinmay. Both projects were planned and executed within the pause period due to COVID and are doing exceptionally well today.
Ratnesh also shared how he used that time and took a conscious decision to take a course into Digital Marketing, which he considered as a future of global marketing. A strong medium to reach your customers across the globe sitting in your office behind a laptop. The reach of digital marketing and affordable budgets attracted him and he recognized the opportunity of using the skills to promote all the ventures he was involved with at the moment. The eureka moment arrived when he subscribed to an internship program with one of the best digital marketers in India, Digital Deepak, and there was no looking back.
Today we have an entrepreneur with not one or two, with three successful ventures, all grossing revenues of more than 5 crores per year each and all the ventures are debt-free with great valuations. Ratnesh credits all his success to his team and the decisions taken in the year 2020. The year really was a remarkable year to create a Version 2.0 for Ratnesh Mehn.
What’s your story of Entrepreneurship, share with us here. The world is waiting to listen and get inspired.
Jounalist, The Journo Journal, India.
