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Ritu Raj At Objectiveli Wants You To Break The Status Quo And Your Manage Goals More Effectively

 

 

Did you know that only 3% of people actually reach the goals they set for themselves? That’s a sad percentage. And, think about what this means for the success of companies? Luckily there are platforms like Objectiveli that help you manage goals and objectives to keep you and your team focused and on track for success. We caught up with founder Ritu Raj to talk reaching goals and doggy hotels.

 

 

 

How’d you come up with the name for your company?

The focus of the company is Objectives. Structuring Objectives as S.M.A.R.T. objectives, assigning them, then tracking and following through the life cycle of the objectives. Thus the company name Objectiveli, pronounced as “Objectively”

 

 

Why goals and objectives?

I think the answer is that I am very goal and objective oriented, and I come across so many people in my life that they say these Goals and nothing happens. Like after 3 months they evaporate. I want to empower these people to write their goals and objectives, and they can always change, delete or modify them, not only they will have a structure for them, but over time they will be able to see a pattern.

 

 

 

 

What’s the very first thing you do at work everyday?

Look at Kissmetrics dashboard.

 

How many people did you start the company with and how many people work for you now?

Kind of started alone, with some consulting help for the information architecture, then had a web developer help me design the UI/UX, and finally was joined by Jonathan my CTO.

 

Remember the early days starting up? Maybe you can share one anecdote that describe the struggle you went through?

I think one of the struggle is when smart people, people that you look up to hear your pitch and just say “oh, this is just another to-do application with new labels”.

 

 

 

How do you handle frustration? When/how was the last time you dealt with frustration?

I get frustrated when people say they will work on something and they don’t. I am not at all frustrated by a problem not being resolved, and the other frustrating thing is when engineers put point solution in without “conscious” thinking, its like a slap on… kills me. And how do I handle frustration – get flaming angry, or eat a pizza and go to sleep.

 

What’s your office environment like? Is it the kind of place where everyone is bumpin’ away to house music or is it more traditional?

It’s actually a pretty quite house, over a wooden dinning table in the living room. As my CTO says there is a “we” time that we get together and than there is the “I” time, where we split-up and work in whatever environment that we choose.

 

How do you picture Objectiveli in 5 years?

In an office, surrounded with marketing and sales people, solution consultants, support engineers and basically chaos of activity all around customers

 

 

 

 

Who or what inspires you?

I think the first person that always comes to my mind is Vinod Khosla, never dealt with him as a VC, but always inspires me as an entrepreneur.

 

Other role models include:

 

My fave quotes that drives me:

“It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.”

Alfred North Whitehead

 

“An entrepreneur is someone who sees something missing in the status quo of living of our life, and its not necessarily a technology area, and creates a solution or system to fill the gap — and is persistent to bring the solution/ system to the world against all odds, even when there is no agreement to the community around him.”

–Ritu Raj


“There is chemistry in love, in business, in life, in nature. It is equal parts science, art, luck, and experimentation.”

–Japanese proverb

 

 

 

 

How’d you fund this venture?

At this moment of time its funded by me and sweat equity, next phase will be to raise a seed round.

 

Got any great bootstrapping tips for the lean startups out there?

I think the number one tip is, before even starting a company know your customer, talk to them, use products like launchrocket.com to see how many people sign-up (we had 3200 people sign-up for beta, even before we had the product), understand your keyword competition on Google (not just the competition but also the volume, gives a sense of your target market).

 

 

What would you be doing if you had one year off and $500,000 to spend?

Think up of more innovative solutions, experiences and products, that make people’s lives that much easier.

 

Do you consider yourself a successful entrepreneur right now? If not, what’s it gonna take to make you feel successful?

I feel good where we are, but each day is a yo-yo, and always a roller coaster of emotions and feelings.

 

 

Website you couldn’t live without and why?

  • Kissmetrics (anlaytics)
  • WordPress (Website)
  • Sendgrid and Mailchimp (email blasts)
  • Facebook (love the community)

 

That was more than one! How about ONE Mobile App you’re in love with and why?

Side.cr (I dont have a car, hate taxi’s, SideCar is a car with a driver, that makes me feel like I am back in India, and I dont have to own a car)

 

Dogs or cats?

Love Dogs and Cats

Started a chain of the worlds largest chain of doggy hotels called Wag Hotels, we had a few cats there also, had an English Bulldog who died 2 years ago, just got a kitten and I adore the little one.

 

English Bulldogs are amazing! How about the number 1 country you’ve always wanted to visit but haven’t yet?

Israel.

What’s the greatest thing about Objectiveli?

Only 3% of people fulfill their goals, if we can make a dent in that percentage I would be fulfilled. On the corporate side, its about outcomes and accountability, but there are no systems to measure and manage that. At the end of the day its not about managing things to-do, its about producing an outcome.

 

Imagine you have done all the things to prepare food for your guests, tons of things to-do, shopping lists, recipe’s etc, at dinner your guests are looking for a meal, hopefully a tasty one which is the outcome and is not equal to all the things that you did.

 

Where can our readers reach out to you?

 

Thanks, Ritu Raj! Make sure you check out Objectiveli and start achieving your goals and objectives easier and faster. I too will be checking it out as my goals are getting loftier and my to-do lists longer. Time to start checking off boxes!

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