Interview: Sakshi Sureka, Director, Societynmore

ST Bureau

Mumbai

This
interview is a part of Startup Terminal interview series to mark the occasion
of ‘International Women’s Day’

ST: Please
tell us more about yourself.

Sakshi Sureka: I
am the first woman entrepreneur in my family and I feel it was my passion to
create, along with a lot of support from my husband , that has helped me
develop a service which is the need of the hour.

On
the personal front, I love to travel with my family and also love food and good
music. I compensate my love for food by following a very regular exercise
regime.

Sakshi Sureka,

Director, Societynmore

ST: Who is your biggest influence in
life?

Sakshi Sureka: My strength and my entrepreneurial
spirit comes from my father and my husband.

My father was brought up in Kolkata,
but due to lack of business opportunities, he set up his base in a small town
Hubli, where he ventured into a completely new business at a very small scale.
But his never-give-up attitude and hard work finally got him the requisite
success after multiple failure instances in the business. In fact, he was the
one who could taught me to detach myself from past experiences and move on. A
lesson which is very valuable when you start a new business since success and
failures go hand-in-hand on a daily basis.

When I met my husband, in an arrange
marriage set-up, I perhaps saw of reflection of these qualities and was
instantly attracted to him. While my husband was in a corporate job, he has
also worked his way up by sheer hard work and determination.

On my moments of weakness I turn
towards them for finding my way ahead.

ST: What
challenges do you face in your day to day professional life, if any?

Sakshi Sureka: Internally
the challenge is people management – it gets difficult to communicate with
employees in terms of expectation management with respect to work. Externally –
when you deal with societies you are not dealing with a corporate structure. One
deals with different people, some may not have even worked in a corporate
environment .One also works with the support staff of societies and its
difficult to get these disparate group of people together, in time to ensure
seamless work.

ST: Where
do you want to see yourself in next 5 years down the line?

Sakshi Sureka: On the pure business premise, we plan
to make Societynmore the preferred tool for managing Housing Societies. We want
to capture at least 50% of the society management work in the cities we are
present currently and also expand our technology offering to all other cities
in the country as well as overseas.

In addition to that, we also hope to
develop our software to support a strong & interactive society platform
wherein the society members can know & interact with neighborhood towards
creation of great Community living experience.

Besides, we are also looking to
enhance our security tech platform (Gatekeeper) for effective security
management and also integrate the same with Fingerprint & Biometrics device
to provide more intelligent security tool for gated communities.

Going forward, we also hope to use our
software to support environmental issues like save water, waste management
& create greener Society by promoting paperless administration.

ST:
What is your message to the readers on ‘International Women’s Day’?

Sakshi Sureka: Pursue
your dream with passion and dedication but don’t forget that your health comes
first.

You could send your feedback at
startupterminal@gmail.com

Tags: Interview