START.The start is one of the most important steps in your entrepreneurship journey as once you start, the drive to take it further from there comes automatically.
Meet Riya Jain – a 21-year-old engineering student who loves to host people, talk to them and interview them. This is something that she always wanted to explore further and the current scenario has given her the time to do so. She goes LIVE from her Instagram account every week and does 30 min live sessions with COLLEGEPRENEURS. She interviews college students who have done a start-up or have started their own Instagram page to show their content. She digs deeper into the interesting and fun stories that they have to share. Her goal is to help them grow and enable everyone to know about their page a bit more and understand their struggle before each post or sale!
All ventures by college students are eligible for a COLLEGEPRENEURS interview.
Let’s learn a little about you and get to experience what makes us tick – starting at our beginnings. Where did your story begin?
Riya Jain: “The distance between an idea and venture is starting the execution.”
How did I start my Interview series? My dad and I had a small discussion on what I “really” want to do further? What do I enjoy?
Back then, I had hosted a couple of interviews for other organizations and my college radio. I had enjoyed them, and I loved the adrenaline rush it gave me! I instantly thought that talking to people and hosting them for discussions is what I enjoy, but what can I do about this? It was then when he said, “You anyway do these live interviews, right? Why can’t you interview people from your channel? If you enjoy something, make it consistent and improve.” A few minutes into this conversation, I was convinced and wanted to start an interview series or an Instagram live discussion series.
Now, the question was, “Whom do I host? Whom do I interview?” Back then, many of my friends and acquaintances were starting their ventures and exploring their artistic sides. They were my first thought as I knew there is a lot to learn from them, and I knew I would love to join them for a discussion on their journey.
After this, I posted about this on Instagram, and the response was overwhelming. From something that was just an idea, after the post, it became a small venture quickly.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up?
Riya Jain: Yes, there were a few hard times.
Most importantly, I was not sure how I was going to convince people to get on an interview with me? Would anyone be watching the interview when I go live? There was one time when I had zero viewers but had to keep myself full of energy and enthusiasm throughout that interview, and I am not going to lie – this is tough. The convincing people section of my journey improved eventually and now I have done 35+ interviews!
A few things I was not prepared for:
I did not know much about going Instagram live and the importance of “good lighting” (It is really really important) I was very unaware of the Instagram algorithm etc and I am still working on it! I have never considered giving up on this, this is the best part of my week and I hope I ALWAYS have this to look forward to.
Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. What’s the worst advice you received?
Riya Jain: “MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS WITH THE REACH OF YOUR WORK”
I remember asking a fellow entrepreneur, how will I know if this is going well? And he replied – ” If you are getting a good reach, you are doing good.” But you see, it’s wrong on a few levels, Metrics definitely matter, but not always. For a very long time, I spent hours worrying about the metrics of my interviews – and I would replay him saying this to me.
Took me a while, but I forced myself to remove this advice far from me and use a different measure for my success, here are a few :
- I ask the interviewee about their experience.
- I ask a few people in that niche what do they think about it.
- What new things did I learn?
- How many new questions did I come up with during the interview?
Resilience is critical in critical times like the ones we are going through now. How would you define resilience?
Riya Jain: I would strongly link resilience to coping with such times by being strong emotionally and mentally.
In these times, being strong emotionally is important to keep moving forward and staying goal-oriented, mental strength helps you in being content and satisfied with your growth and compels you to look at the brighter side of your venture.
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What is most important to your organization—mission, vision, or values?
Riya Jain: Collegepreneurs is a small venture.
My vision is to make everyone aware of the struggles and hardships Collegepreneurs go through. I wish to stick to this and support Collegepreneurs by all means.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?
Riya Jain:
- I don’t supervise continuously and offer full creative freedom to people working for me.
- Accepting that sometimes others have many valuable insights to offer about niches you are not aware of
- Quick learner – I have Googled and Youtube’d my way through everything I needed.
What have you learned about personal branding that you wish you had known earlier in your career?
Riya Jain: Grow your online presence on ALL social media platforms.
What’s your favorite leadership style and why?
Riya Jain: I think my strengths as a leader are effective delegation and communication. So my leadership style takes advantage of those strengths. I always try to delegate tasks to whoever is best-equipped to perform well in the task, and I try to communicate clearly about what needs to be done, and why.
What advice would you give to our younger readers that want to become entrepreneurs?
Riya Jain: START.
The start is one of the most important steps in your entrepreneurship journey as once you start, the drive to take it further from there comes automatically.
What’s your favorite “leadership” quote and how has it affected the way you implement your leadership style?
Riya Jain: “Come as you are, do what you love”
I personally believe that the best work comes from being highly passionate about your work and loving what you do. I have always felt that shifts in departments and allocation of work should be done considering what the other person loves.
This interview was originally published ValiantCEO.
