Don’t Be Bound By Your Corporate Jobs, Go Explore Yourself: Umang Bedi

On the sidelines of BW Envision 2018 ongoing in Goa. BW People caught up with Umang Bedi, President of Dailyhunt  and ex-MD & CEO of Facebook India. In a candid conversation with Taniya Tikoo, Assistant editor of BW People, Bedi spoke about his decision of leaving Facebook at the right time, his experience as an entrepreneur and the way he deals with the millennials in his organisation. 

Faceook Probably is the most employee friendly company in the world, Why did you leave the organisation?
Leaving Facebook was the best decision of my Life. My 18 month journey was great at Facebook where we grew the user base from 100M to 262M users, doubled the time spent and built a billion dollar run rate revenue businesses. 

But somewhere I was questioning myself if I was having fun because I was travelling across the globe running across cities and headquarters and had ignored my health and precious time with my family.

There was a thought one day about what does it take to build a billion dollar company in India? what was happening in the market about data, privacy and regulations? So one fine day I decided to do something of my own and resigned. In that journey I partnered with Viru (who had founded Dailyhunt) as my brother in arms and partner in crime and we are having a lot of fun building a truly Bharat focused business.

I would like to tell the youngsters that you don’t need to be bound by corporate jobs. It’s a time to explore yourself and your passions and find your true calling.

Dailyhunt is your current venture, how difficult was the transition from FB to this entrepreneurial sites?
FB has an enormous amount of data and has built an enormous platform built on data and user generated content (UGC). This gives rise to risks of harmful content being posted on social media such as live murders, suicides and rapes. So its all about being responsible. Daily hunt works on fundamental principles, we don’t ask for your personal information and monetise it. We aggregate content from 15 languages from 1500 partners. We want to be the largest Indian content. Our unstated role is to create an ecosystem of users and content generators.
 
Can you give a leadership tip for young entrepreneurs?
I believe that If you can empower people’s lives, and help them grow and achieve massive success, then they are yours and dedicated to you for a lifetime. Empower them to energize their passions and help them grow. Define a mission and be mission-driven, have a purpose and be very clear about the purpose.

What is your technique to deal with the millennials, the ideas of freshness?

Millennials are very sure about what they want to do with their lives. They also have an inflated opinion about their ideas. Give them space, throw them big challenges, don’t confront them, teach them even if they fail. For them it’s an experience, their goals are very different, they have a sense of entitlements. 

Our generation has lost the edge, we are scared of failing. There were great entrepreneurs who created great businesses irrespective of failing and we need to instill this in millennials.

Are you still on FB?
I am still there, but I don’t post.