What does it mean to persevere? Does it mean to just keep going even if you don’t see results early on? Uttam Majumdar, Founder and CEO of Locuz, demonstrated what it really means to persevere through the initial phases of his company and his career journey. When starting a company, organization, or anything for that matter, getting people to believe you and your purpose is the hardest step in the initial phases. But how do you get people to believe you if you don’t have any customers? And how do you get customers if nobody believes you? Passing this phase is so hard but nowhere in his initial journey did Uttam let anything stop him.
Before starting Locuz, Uttam was a part of a couple other tech companies and he continually realized that the company that he was associated with did not use technology properly. He tried to switch jobs but it was hard, especially during that time, when there was no “database” like LinkedIn or Indeed that had all the jobs around the nation. Because of this, he thought to start his own deep technology company that would find companies who want deep tech and provide them with it. (Fun fact, my dad was one of his first employees 🙂 ) In the first stages of his business, he would go with a few of his employees and would pitch his business in hopes that there would be some company out there that was interested in being a consumer. Most of the time, customers didn’t trust him and the company because they were a new business. This was by far one of the hardest hurdles for him to cross. What made it even harder was that at this time, he didn’t have any resources or money that he could use to keep this up for very long. He had to learn how to properly persuade customers. Deep down, during this phase of the company, he didn’t even know if the company would last. The companies that did trust him were satisfied and he just kept going on that fact. Later, when the company did start making a little bit of business, he didn’t have enough money to pay his employees and execute the business. The main thing that he learned from this experience was that as he demonstrated commitment to the business and just kept going, business started to come to him.
As he kept going and the business kept growing, there were still obstacles that came in his way. However, the obstacles were related to competition and the marketplace rather than trying to get the company started. Something that Uttam felt like he constantly came across that was a challenge for him was to stay continuously motivated. We all have our ups and downs; there are some days when we are super motivated and accomplish a lot and other days when we just don’t have the mood to get anything done. Something that Uttam faced being the CEO of the company was that he could not always be high energy at all times, just like the rest of us. But being the leader of the whole company, he knew he couldn’t seem down to others as it would hurt the company and the motivation of the whole team. There were multiple days when he just had to fake his motivation and energy to get his work done and keep his team happy. Along the way, he would always find inspiration and motivation in his team and colleagues who work hard and overcome obstacles themselves.
Currently, Locuz is a fairly large company with employees all across the globe. Through the years, Locuz was also part of the Indian Moon mission, Indian Mars mission, and the development of the tsunami warning system in India. Uttam makes sure that he and the company continuously demonstrate commitment to execute and deliver the right systems to customers.
Shifting over to Uttam’s personal life and lifestyle, he tries to make time for everything and everyone he loves, including family, tennis, Locuz, and friends. As part of his company, he is invited to a lot of customer meetings and speaks to geography leaders in other nations to check up on how business is going over there. In his free time, he makes sure to make time for himself to work out and spend quality time with his family. Over the weekends, he tries to fit time in with friends. For his future, Uttam has no real goals that he aspires to reach. He believes that life is a journey and he is just walking on that path. The only “goal” he has is to constantly shift and push himself to reach higher. He says that “you should be a constant learner. Degrees are not what you earn in 4 years of college, you should have an enormous appetite to keep learning”.
Persevere and commit
Akshara Akella 