Won title of Young Entrepreneur of the Year & bagged global projects
Apra (Samaj Weekly)- At 24, Vishal Kalra decided to make a job, rather than look for one, by founding Designistic (an IT start-up). In just nine months, he not only achieved various international projects for himself, but has also earned a whopping revenue of over Rs 15 lakh. And that’s not it. Vishal on Monday bagged the Indian Achievers Award for Young Entrepreneur, 2020, for the impeccable feats in the category of IT and creating a pristine online space. Vishal said he has been running an internationally accredited website — Designistic — from his residence in Apra village in Phillaur. Although, he hasn’t employed anyone on salary, he is associated with 28 freelancers across India and has been paying them for the amount of work they do for him.
“Becoming a young entrepreneur is not a piece of cake. It all started way back in 2018 when I was in my third semester of MBA and got pre-placement at ‘Justdial’. I was hired for the post of sales executive and worked to the best of my ability, but had a penchant to do something of my own since the very beginning of my graduation,” he says.
As a result, within the three months of joining, he left the job. Afterwards, in April 2019, he joined Kantar IMRB, a market research, survey and business consultancy firm as field In-charge.
“I learnt through this job different concepts of marketing and other business aspects, but I could not continue here too for more than five months and in September, I resigned”, Vishal expounds, son of Rakesh Kalra, a bank employee. Later that year, he started working on his entrepreneuring dream and in November developed his own website and expanded his reach.
He has a slew of clients lined up now. “Majority of them are from foreign nations. I have developed billing and database software and desktop software for various international and national businesses and political softwares for MLAs regarding data entry and have been handling social media accounts of many government and private officials as well as NGOs”, he shares.
When asked about the challenges he faced, he explained, “Starting your own business and being an entrepreneur is not really glamorous. In fact, entrepreneurs have to take a great financial risk to get the ventures off the ground and create their own path. But in my case, I did not have to make a big investment as it’s just a laptop that I invested in. When I started my journey, my ambition was to provide quality, affordable, innovative and high-end sales service to my clients. I am looking forward to making more positive contributions towards that.”
The award is an honour for the young entrepreneur and an important milestone that validates his beliefs. But according to him, it’s just a glimpse. He has more on his mind. “There’s lot more to attain and I will work with all my determination and zest for the same. I aim to make ‘Designistic’ a brand in the world of IT startups,” he says. The services his company provides includes website designing, mobile application development, graphic and logo designing, software development, market research and online promotions etc. “These have covered so many milestones in a very short span”, he adds.
Running an NGO to help patients
Besides his IT startup, Vishal Kalra has also been running his own NGO named Apra Blood Sewa since 2017. He says: “I was inspired to start this NGO after seeing one in Goraya dedicatedly working to reach out to patients in case of any emergency.” While working with that NGO he understood the importance of social service. “Therefore, I decided to start the same for the people of my village. I now organise blood camps and also arrange blood for the needy patients”, he adds.
Qualifications and achievements
Vishal has done his Bcom from DAV College Phillaur, while he pursued MBA in marketing and finance from GNA University, Phagwara.
By- Pardeep Kumar, Journalist
