Conversations with a co-founder of Urban Company

I first met Raghav Chandra with friends in San Francisco. I was new to the city and it seemed to be filled with techies. My first impression of him was that he was extremely bright. His kind and generous side was revealed when he offered, along with his colleagues, to show us around the Twitter office. Fast forward to many years later, its amazing to see how his journey with Urban Clap began and the way it has grown over time into Urban Company. In this article we flashback to his internship years. Indeed - Some great learnings!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself

I am the founder and the tech mind behind Urban Company. We are Asia's largest platform for home services - ranging from beauty salon to cleaning to appliance care to home repair. I'm a techie at heart, love to spend time understanding simple science behind things and experimenting with new things at home.

2. What do you enjoy about your current work?

After spending 6 years in the Silicon Valley – having studied at Berkeley and worked at Twitter, I came back to India to start my company as a young 23 year old. My journey over the last decade has been full of learning things the hard way. That is what makes it enjoyable every day. We are a fast moving org, constantly pushing the boundaries. This keeps us on the edge and learning new things daily. Some days I could be working on new ways to improve hiring, some days maybe cracking a new business idea, or perhaps figuring out how to do a podcast series on computer science, while other days just having fun with the team.

3. Let’s zoom back, Can you describe a few challenges you faced while finding your internships?

Before my first full-time job at Twitter, I interned at multiple places. All my summer vacations in college (1st to 3rd year) I was busy learning. However, it was very hard to get those. The challenge in the 1st and 2nd years were I had no experience, and internships dont come by easily. I was happy to do just about anything. It took me multiple tries , often months talking to people asking them to give me a shot at learning. I was fortunate to get two amazing internship programs – one at Roamware where I learnt how to work with databases and the other at Infosys's InStep program.

The 3rd year internship had a different challenge. It seems like a good practice to have done an internship in 3rd year and hence the competition is really really hard. I was no genius in college, nor was I exceptional at impressing people at first-meet. I sat through over twenty interviews before landing Yelp – then a tiny startup. So a lot of effort and sweat in the pursuit of learning, but it all worked out really well.

4. Can you tell us about the skills you developed through your internships?

Each internship teaches one a lot. I was also in completely different industries in all three internships, and worked on totally different things. From a company that is an expert in networking, to a team building code assessment tools in R&D, to a real consumer tech app – I had seen quite the spread. I got to work on databases, on mobile applications, even on hardware! The other advantage is internships act as a trailer to the movie. You can do multiple of them, and hence learn a lot of things. I used them as a way to try different parts of what a professional career might look like and figure out what parts I like, what parts I don't.

6. How did your internships help you gauge the industry and build connections?

I believe that school and college teaches us curiosity and the process of learning. However, it is not a good indicator of the actual career and professional world out there. I have hardly used the hard knowledge gained in school or college after (or atleast, I can't recall top of mind). Internships are the bridge to understanding industries. You might end up working with founders and CEOs, your work will be of actual use to someone, you will be solving real problems. This hands-on learning is what gives you real perspective. At the same time, you end up developing some fun and deep relationships. Just like a summer camp – you interact with multiple other folks from different walks of life. I have had an internship program where there were over 100+ interns from all over the world, literally a summer camp after work! I have had internships where I worked with a lot of seasoned people with me being the only one in my 20s. I sat next to the founder. And a lot of those still remain good friends!

7. What learnings did you take from your internships that you have implemented at Urban Company?

Internships are a part of life. If you go back to how my resume evolved in college, the first two years were all about the course work and class projects. Then the final year and first few years at work it was all about the internships. So in a way, it meant everything to me. However, it's also important to realize it's a part of life. Once you have worked for a couple years, your most recent and deep experience becomes the biggest highlight. So I'd say, it's more about capturing those experiences. They shape you in ways you might not know. The hard skills, the tags that come with internships, or any experience for that matter – you'd probably forget over time. So do them with the right intent and motive.

8. Would you want to change your journey of navigating through the different internships? If so, how and why?

I think I've had a fantastic set of experiences so far. Wouldn't change a thing – cause I don't know who i'd be without those. Perhaps, the one thing I'd have loved to do is travel more. Maybe do internships at places that offer me a different cultural experience. Or even do internships outside my field of work. I remember most of those things that were done purely for fun. I remember my college classes on Hinduism and Animal Farming (I was a computer science student), because I could really learn without the stress. I remember my time spent working on election campaigns for a couple months – experiences learnt there are hard to replicate.So try different things. Optimize for experiences and stories that will last you a life.

9. Any advice you would like to give recent graduates, especially those who are finding it difficult to navigate and find a path, especially amidst a pandemic?

Take less stress! My classes, my grades, my internships meant the world to me. They were the absolute standard and messing things up meant game-over. I couldn't be more wrong. It's unfortunate, as kids, we have such a myopic view of success. We are all racing. After a few years, you look back and laugh at how irrelevant that stress was. Life pans out fine! Grades, Courses and all those tags matter less than you thought they would. I'm saying this not to make people lazy. I'm saying this to reduce the targets we associate with our work.

It's better to not overly stress. It will make you enjoy your time. There is no one right path, so if a particular opportunity is not working, it's okay. There will be another. Just enjoy and gain interesting experiences. Don't add tags, add stories to your personality. They will outlive everything else!