190: From Investment Banking to Gift Giving 🎁… The Entrepreneurial Journey of Suvendu Pal & Gift Hero.

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Background on Suvendu Pal of Gift Hero:

Suvendu Pal, also known as Du, is the brains behind Gift Hero. When he’s not dreaming of his next wish list to create, he enjoys long walks on the beach and candlelit dinners.

The idea of Gift Hero was a seed planted by Suvendu in 2015 after he found himself stumped by what to get his niece for Christmas. Frustrated by not knowing what to buy friends and family, and having to deal with returning unwanted gifts is an issue that everyone faces. Gift Hero solves those problems and brings new ways of showing love and generosity to the world through online social sharing. That simple idea planted years ago, with the work and dedication of the Gift Hero team, has now blossomed into The Best Wish List Ever.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

  • [1:32] Suvendu Pal is the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Gift Hero, which is a social gifting platform for consumers and nonprofit organizations. They make their money through an affiliate revenue model.
  • [4:07] Users are free to add any type of wishlist they want into the app. Suvendu provides an extreme example of how Gift Hero can be used.
  • [4:57] In 2015, Suvendu came up with the idea of creating Gift Hero.
  • [9:56] Privacy is a top priority at Gift Hero to protect its users.
  • [11:04] Before starting his own business, Suvendu was working in the corporate world for 19 years.
  • [13:21] Commitment within yourself is one important lesson that Suvendu learned earlier when starting a business.
  • [16:58] Suvendu introduces a term called Wantrepreneur, which is someone who wants all the rewards without taking the risk.
  • [18:20] During his corporate years, Suvendu worked for several well-known companies.
  • [22:08] Having lived in Japan for 2 years, Suvendu described it as one of the best years of his life.
  • [24:41] Suvendu talks more about investment banking and his experiences in the corporate industry.
  • [31:49] Trading foreign currencies and stock derivatives is one of his obsessions.
  • [37:57] He launched his own consulting firm.
  • [43:29] Raising money to start Gift Hero was very challenging for Suvendu.
  • [46:31] Since the release of Gift Hero in 2017, their goal was to sign up 3,000 users by the end of the year. They ended up with 17,000 users by the end of the year, which was much more than what they expected. Suvendu discusses more regarding the fast-paced growth of his company.
  • [52:00] There was some inefficient spending during the start of Gift Hero, which taught Suvendu a valuable lesson.
  • [57:44] Suvendu offers his final key advice that he has personally used in his business.

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Fabulous 4 Questions:

  1. 📖📚 Favorite Books? David Bowie: A Life (current), Blockchain for Everyone (current), The Martian Chronicles, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Namesake/The Interpreter of Maladies, A Farewell to Arms + and any book by Edward Gorey and Michael Krakauer.
  2. 🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? There are SO many purchases, and purchased SO frequently. If I HAD to pick, I would say a Sprout mini-amp to support my Uturn turntable. I'm a vinyl junkie.
  3. 🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Google Analytics (which is 2nd place after my Dev team, obviously).
  4. 💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Capital. Not a surprise. But we've reached profitability and can self-fund for 50%-100% growth year-over-year.

Key Point from the Interview:

  • “Greed will kill a business, almost every single time.”

Resources Mentioned:

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