Meet Pravas Chandragiri, the 20-year-old founder of a SaaS-led B2B retail company

Age is never a limit or measurement of success. One is never too young or old to pursue their ambitions. Young entrepreneurs possessing the courage to tackle day to day work problems with creative solutions not only reach great heights of success but also inspire the world to be better. Our young interviewee today justifies this statement like no other. Pravas Chandragiri, who is just 20 years old, is the founder and CEO of Soptle, a SaaS-led B2B retail commerce platform. The Telegraph Online Edugraph brings you his story in his own words.

1) As a young kid what were the pain points you noticed in your family business?

Hailing from the small town of Balasore, also known as the Missile City of India, I studied in a government-run school in the area. As a teenager, I always wanted to achieve big and be my own boss. I actively participated in the family-run Kirana Stores and started taking business lessons from my father and uncle when I was only 12 years old. I realized a few major pain points of a Kirana store like limited assortment, low margin, zero bargaining power, and so on. The computer gifted by my father gave me exposure to the world of technology, entrepreneurship, and business. I started gaining interest in coding and programming while trying to find a solution to the traditional supply chain issue faced by many local retailers and manufacturers. In a nutshell, my story starts from managing a retail store at the age of 12, to enabling 50,000 retailers at the age of 20!

2. What was the entire idea and aim for initiating and running Soptle.

At the age of 17, in 2019, I moved to Bhubaneshwar for IIT-JEE preparation, which I attended only for a week, and decided to start my entrepreneurial journey with a venture which primarily focused on connecting regional manufacturers to retailers. I was the youngest CEO of the networking platform known as RFT (Rural Future Technology) where I connected 1200 Kirana stores across 9 districts of Odisha and successfully introduced 20+ regional brands from India to them. It was a profitable venture with an annual turnover of Rs. 60 lakhs. I attended various entrepreneurship seminars across India and met several industry experts and successful entrepreneurs to validate my model. Fortunately, during this time, I met with a number of regional manufacturers as well and became aware of their challenges. I even met people like Pirojshaw Sarkari (Gati’s founder), Vaishnav Shetty (All Cargo Group’s founder), Ritesh Ghosal (Ex-CMO, Tata Croma) in those seminars who eventually became my mentors and team members.

Some of the biggest pain points of regional manufacturers are:

• 1. Unorganised: Multiple consuming component in a traditional Supply Chain to manage
• 2. Cumbersome: Time Consuming & Long Processes to get on new geographies
• 3. Expensive: Huge fixed cost to get on to a new geographies /region
• 4. Asset-high: To expand in other geographies, Value Chain Setup, last mile physical salesforce create asset high model for manufactures
• 5. Longer CRP: Cash Rotation Period in a traditional Supply Chain is more than 90 days (a quarter)

Understanding the huge potential of the business and the scope of disrupting a $500 Mn industry, I bootstrapped my first venture, Soptle in 2021 at the age of 19. Spotle is a micro-SaaS platform that enables FMCG manufacturers to digitize their workflow, day-to-day activities and conduct their existing business in a more efficient manner and also increase sales to retailers in other geographies by enhancing their utilisation capacity. Till date, the startup has on boarded more than 50,000 retailers and manufacturers on its platform. The company has recently closed an angel investment from Kube VC along with Soonicorn LLP and founders/CXOs of Dunzo, Gati, Fitso, Google, Unlu & All-Cargo Group.

3. How did you manage to strike a balance between both your studies and business at such a young age?

At the age of 17, I was sure I wanted to become an entrepreneur and solve for this massive opportunity that could change the lives of millions of small town kirana stores as well as lakhs of regional manufacturers. The opportunity was so huge, and the change was so impactful, that it kept me up for countless sleepless nights, constantly planning on the action plan. But it was also essential to manage my studies in parallel, so my passion of making Soptle a reality kept me driving to balance everything smoothly . Now I am ready and scaling up at break-neck speed!

4. What exactly interested you in coding and programming?

A. We are living in a fast changing world where technology is playing the biggest role. Coding is the future of the world and is one of the most essential skill sets that everyone should learn as technology is going to cut through all aspects of life/ work /career etc. It is the language of computers and in the future, with AI dominating every field, one needs to learn coding to stay relevant, improve their efficiency and be productive. As most services and products in the future are going to be digitised, it will be difficult for people to work without having basic coding skills whether that person is a writer or an engineer. I had realised this early on and learnt coding. Also when you are running a startup that is tech based, you should know how to run codes.

5. You’ve met the top businessmen of the country at a very young age. What are a few things which you found common in all of them and what did you learn from it?

A. Several things, but the passion to build something and the patience to see that something grow over the years is one big attribute of successful entrepreneurs.

As one of the youngest retailers hailing from a tier-3 city in India, he is on a mission to empower and uplift the lives of 8,000,000+ retailers in India. With his journey, he wants to inspire other young entrepreneurs of his age as well as people from small cities/ villages in India to dream big and remain committed to solving the problems they are passionate about. Edugraph wishes Pravas Chandragiri all the best in his journey to reach his goals.