First things first, Pracly is a startup that we are supporting under our Pre-Accelerator Program at The Startup Centre, that helps connect entrepreneurs and startups with expert advice.
So, here’s the story:
I get anywhere between 10 – 15 chat requests on Facebook with people asking questions about various things. Perhaps about 20 odd messages that are just broadcasted (like my page, we are launching etc – without expecting a response), and I get about 20+ emails a day with people asking for specific suggestions about their venture or asking for a time to meet. It’s quite an effort honestly to keep this 20 responded to, when there are several other emails flying to and fro. There are some requests that come in via twitter / linkedin, but I mostly ask them to email so that its easier to manage the commitments.
Jaydeep Halbe, jokingly calls this, the helpdesk service.
We have been thinking that this is not scalable. And if I am struggling with all intentions to help entrepreneurs, then so must many others, and there are specific skillsets – be it marketing, or business development, where there are pretty amazing folks (lets call them experts) out there who don’t mind giving their time for a call or two over a week, but they’ll do it if its systematic and doesnt throw off their work routine by much.
An ecosystem is effectively the right people from whom you can get help from. Naman’s post on NextBigWhat, to me was about entrepreneurs being able to get the right advice at the right time.
Hence the reason I am now on pracly. The reason is two fold:
1. It will radically help me, manage my time better. And focus on the few that really need help.
2. The 20 or odd traffic that I get will help a startup like Pracly iron out their process. And i believe the future of accelerators and the support system will be startup of startups like them.
While they are keeping it simple and starting off with a first call free, and Rs. 500 per session after that, they will start experimenting with alternate modes of karma and payment in the future. But they need to iron out the process of getting enquiries in and scheduling time and getting both parties connected first!
3. It is not about the money. Infact I have waived off that amount entirely. If you still want to pay for it, and give it to charity, it is completely upto you.
it seemed like an opportunity to both win (by organizing my time) and by helping out a startup that is in our Pre-accelerator program. We should eat our own dog food right?
So, here’s the link: www.pracly.com/experts/vijayanands
You can use that to schedule calls / meets – You’d be helping another startup out as well.