Acom Digital: Helping startup to scale their business Digitally

Acom Digital is a startup founded by Baidurya. His main goal is to empower over 100,000 entrepreneurs by 2022 and help them jumpstart their business in today’s digital age.

We help people who’re just starting out in their journey, or who runs a very successful offline business and we enable them to scale it to new heights online, says Baidurya.

We got an opportunity to talk with  Baidurya, the founder of Acom Digital and see what he has to say. I am sure his interview with us will inspire you.

Give a brief info about your startup?

Our company, Acom Digital was born out of a singular purpose to help the new generation of Indian entrepreneurs establish and scale their business in the online world –  our mission is to help over 100,000 people by 2022 establish and scale their business in today’s day and age.

We help people who’re just starting out in their journey, or who runs a very successful offline business and we enable them to scale it to new heights online. We do this with a variety of methods including advanced marketing studies, creating high converting funnels, running hyperlocal ads and taking their brand in front of their targeted consumers.

 

What made you start your startup and what problem does it solve?

I have been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember, and this startup resulted from the experiences I faced and the hurdles I had to overcome.

See, in today’s digital age, creating a product and/or service is easier than ever – so everyone is doing it – which is good.

But the flipside of the coin is, when everyone is doing it, it’s really hard to stand out – and that’s where we come in.

We are a full service digital branding agency – so whatever our clients needs are –  from creating sales funnels and websites, to marketing automation and optimisation to even creating world class merchandise – we do it all!

 

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

My parents never gave me any pocket money – so I had to start earning pretty quick. I freelanced as a graphic designer when I was in school. I also used the power of Torrent to make some quick cash (which almost landed me in jail!).

But my first serious company, was called Hardluck which I founded with two of my college friends, Abhraneil and Nikhil.

Our college was in an University Town – so there were lots of clubs and organisations, and they would frequently hold events for which they required posters, lanyards and tshirts. We also noticed, that they would keep procrastinating (something which even I’m guilty of) and place all their orders at the last second.

So, to solve this problem –  we created a combined service where we would provide them everything from Tshirts, posters and lanyards and we also provided a service to design their merchandise (from my graphic designer experience).

In a few months, we were doing 6 figure sales per months and became one of the main suppliers in our University. By the time, I left college – there were 5 other companies providing exactly what we did

 

Where is your startup based out of? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

Our startup is based out of Kolkata. One of the reasons we chose Kolkata was because no one else was doing it. And because of that prices were really low in the city – which is a priority for us since we’re bootstrapping.

Also, the potential talent in Kolkata is immense and much cheaper than its metro counterparts.

 

 

As a startup founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

A healthy dose of paranoia is required for anything, however, in my experience. Too much thinking leads to too little doing and that is a perfect recipe for failure.

So, I try to limit my paranoia to a minimum. I also figured out that massive imperfect action is much better in the long term than planned perfection.

 

Who are your competitions and how are you better than them?

I have a theory about competition –  which I’ve talked about in my youtube channel many times.

It is that at a macro level – you should have competition because they are validating your market and making your customers aware of it by spending millions of dollars.

However, at the micro level, your services should be differentiated from everyone in your niche. It’s much better being a big fish in a small pond than vice versa.

Most of our competitors in the space main aim is to get a client – they do this by slashing prices, creating generic websites etc. Our main aim is to help our client – to truly understand their problem and offer our perspective on how to improve it. Our solutions are tailor made specifically for our client, while most of our competitors try to push a mass market product.

 

How hard is it to have a work life balance as a startup founder and how do you manage it?

When you’re an entrepreneur in your early days (which I’m still in), your work is your life and that’s that. You have to make sacrifices and put in hard work everyday without caring about the results.

That being said, I do pursue a couple of hobbies like writing, creating music and making Youtube videos.

 

 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

No, we are fully bootstrapped till now, and we’re not looking to raise funding right now. Thankfully, we have been profitable from our early days. However, we’re working on a couple of new products and if we see any major oppurtunities for them –  we might consider raising funding.

 

 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?

The biggest misconception people have about me, or in general, about entrepreneurs – are that they are their own boss –  and we don’t have to answer to anyone.

I think this is mainly due to media’s portrayal of super successful CEOs & entrepreneurs, and the recent obsession with startup culture.

Anyone, who’s an entrepreneur knows that is the exact opposite – my personal thought on this is, everyone is my boss – from my clients to my employees. I have to take care of all of them and listen to them and understand their needs and demands, otherwise I’m not a good entrepreneur.

 

What gets you excited about this company?

Our mission to empower 100,000 people gets me excited. We still have a long way to go, but we’ll be announcing something really exciting soon on our youtube channel, which we hope will help jumpstart a lot of people looking to enter the world of online business

 

Tell us how a day in your life looks like? Your schedule for a day right from the time you get up till you hit the bed at night.

I wake up around 6-7 am everyday and go through my morning ritual which consists of a short jog, some exercise and journalling. Then after a light breakfast, it’s off to office by 10. Usually, we wrap up our work by 6:30, although somedays we have stayed for much longer.

In the evening, I read some good books, research about any interesting topics and write an article or a script for a video. Then it’s off to sleep by 11pm. I’m a very boring guy.

 

Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

Right now, our team consists of 3 full time employees including me and we also hire some interns based on our project requirements.

My team mates included Siddhant Mahapatra, a computer genius who’s our CTO and looks over the technical side of everything. We also have Saptarshi Ghosh, who’s the head of operations.

And finally me, who’s pretty much useless but looks over the marketing and finance department.