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Prashant Kumar
Prashant Kumar

Prashant Kumar

Director

PromptCloud

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Prashant Kumar is a member of:

Brief description about me
I am the founder of a startup called PromptCloud . We are based out of Bangalore and deal with big data and cloud related things. We are primarily into enterprise space and have customers across the globe. Regarding my job profile - when we started, my responsibilities included a lot of tech since we were primarily into the product building phase. But with the changing phase of companies my role kept changing to product building/validation, early customer acquisition, team building , branding and growth. We have been there for about 4 years now. So my answers will be mostly in the context of my experience and learnings at PromptCloud.
Leadership qualities
The primary thing is to see from the perspective of the team and share a common goal. As long as your decisions are based on what is good for the overall organisation in the long term, you’ll be on track. But the catch is that it is not an easy thing to do always. Sometimes we get too bogged down in near term things. Regarding leadership skills - bottom line on which you’ll be judged is the ability to deliver. Other things will be forgotten sooner or later. Beyond that I think this presentation from Colin powell sums this up in a much better way than I’d have been able to do. Each line of it is so very true.
Ensuring Growth
Being in the thick and thin of things gives continuous opportunity to learn and grow, since best you learn is by doing. But beyond that you should set high standards for yourselves in terms of what you do for others. Continuous self evaluations is the key. Like what was the road-map I had planned 3 months back, how much of that has been achieved and how much did not see the light of the day. Why did it happen. ..Also talking to mentors and people who have hands on experience in your field helps a lot.
My advice
Basics remain the same. Maintaining a right balance between long term goals and short term execution is very critical to the growth of an organization. Also you should always looks at things in holistic way rather than in bits and pieces.
Balancing personal and professional life
Avoiding mistakes - I’ll say you can’t really do or decide to do that. Particularly if you are in a fast paced industry like ours, you need to take lot of decisions based on instinct and some of them will fail. If nothing fails then you are not pushing the limits enough. But the key is to derive right takeaways from them and inculcate them in the current scheme of things.
Influenced by
I find such questions difficult to answer. Of course my parents and family members and teachers in early days had a big impact and then there are things to learn from everywhere. We all know the story of two brothers whose father was a drunkard. One became like him and the other chose to be diametrically opposite .. so the focus should be on picking right things.
Handling Grievances
That is a tricky question because answer is so situation dependent. These issues may be because of multiple reasons. I guess key is to find the reason and take a decision that's correct (even if tough) and not one that's politically correct decision or gives an easy way out. Doing so helps in the long run and is a big contribution to the positivity and culture of the organization.
Important decision
I am normally evasive about these questions because there is no single decision that defines you but overall your view towards things in life. I have mentioned it elsewhere that this essay aboutLincoln's letter and Randy Pausch video is very close to my heart. So is this poem by Harivansh Rai Bachhan. Beyond that I guess life can give you a lot of things and in turn you can give the same back to society by taking a bit of risk and having a some courage and patience.
My family background
I come from a small place in North Bihar. Did schooling in Sainik School Tilaiya and then was at IIT Kanpur. My father is mostly in agriculture and mother is a housewife. Like all middle class parents they wanted us to be doctors and engineers :). So me and my brother went to IIT and sister became a doctor.
My views on India Technical development
You'll see it coming soon. Infact they have already started coming in, just that we haven't reached the psychological inflection point and that will take time. Gradually, the Indian tech tecosystem developing in places like Bangalore and NCR is enormous and real good and lasting things start at the root level. Also notice the career choices kids have been making of late after college. I see huge change from what it was 5 or 10 years back.



But overall an eco-system has to develop and everything takes time and we have a different set of socio (and sometimes political) situations.


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