“While others see their job as a task, catch fun with yours.” — Utibe Samuel Mbom

I interned at Procurabl, a start-up working towards redefining the component supply chain for the EV industry. I applied via angel.co. This internship is a part of my 🎓NMIMS University curriculum. When I joined, Procurabl had already onboarded 10 OEMs with decent success, and were looking to experiment with their marketing and communication with customers to improve the customer experience.

As an MBA Marketing student, my internship started with understanding the customers. My intention was to understand the problems customers face in their business be it supply chain or manufacturing. I used to go through the previous documents and data of the customers, talk with the sales and operations team and become a part of certain meetings with customers.

Being a part of the meetings gave me the understanding of the customers. Some of the fantastic insights I got from customers was they were still fiddling around with excel sheets for running their procurement function, supplier discovery was a major issue along with quality management at scale.

My focus during this internship was to develop a marketing technique alongside the founder, to reduce the time it took for the OEMs to get onboard, get converted and ensure they are retained. This had a deep impact 💯 on the LTV:CAC ratio of the company.

Besides this I also worked to reignite engagement on social media.🚀 One of the ways to do this was with the DFMFriday campaign. It is a series launched on LinkedIn where we post content related to design for manufacturing every Friday named as #DFMfriday (Inspired by Cartoon Friday of cartoon network). The content is in PowerPoint format and has seen significant growth in engagement and click through rates. We started posting DFMFriday from June and the engagement has been amazing!

Along with the social media engagement, I was actively involved in developing partnerships. One of the feathers in my cap is partnering with NITI Aayog, for their Shoonya Campaign for increasing the penetration of EVs in India. The best part is that Procurabl is the only manufacturer in the campaign that is supported by the likes of Zomato, Eicher, Hero Electric, Uber, etc.

How Procurabl Works 😄

• Ownership: We are focused on getting the work done and not on completing our 8 hours/day. Remember that work expands itself to occupy the time available.⌛️ The level of accomplishment is always high when the work we own delivers success for customers or internal stakeholders.

• Communication: We prioritize over-communication. Written communication is important to you yourself as you get clarity with your own thoughts.✍🏻 This further helps you to articulate and over communicate well with the second person.

• Prioritizing: We use kanban style to-do lists for managing important projects. While already working on some project for the day many times small tasks come up whose priority is high. 📝We include that as well as a part of our to-do’s for the day and work accordingly, prioritizing the right things at the right time according to the team requirements.

• Humility: The entire team is humble irrespective of them in the hierarchy. Everyone is highly approachable. If you have a list of questions, they are always answered. Things become much easier at the office, since it’s a closed environment and small discussions don’t require you to set up a call/meeting.

Culture at Procurabl💼It is the early stage that determines the culture of the startup. I found things are pretty organized and systematic here as compared to other places I’ve worked. Especially in a startup it is very easy to have things vague and unsystematic. To give you a few examples,

• We have a simple meeting guideline for setting up meetings, to ensure that we get into meetings only for async meetings (Saves a lot of time). We make sure to share the agenda beforehand. Every other thing is resolved with real time communication.

• We have an all-hands meeting every week, where every individual contributor shares their accomplishments from the past week, and what they are on a path to achieve next week. Initiatives are applauded, learnings are shared. This meeting provides an eagle’s eye view about what is going on in every other division in the company.

• No one is exactly your boss here, until you take total ownership of the work. Procurabl believes in flat organizational structure who work towards getting projects completed where everyone has taken ownership of their task assigned. I am accountable to my team or to the individual I am working with irrespective of their superiority while respecting and appreciating everyone.

• We encourage healthy discussions around movies, songs, books, clients, our business, other start-ups, traveling, experiences, food and more. We also have a few team outings every month🍻

• There never is a question that is considered unworthy. We do ensure that every question is followed by a probable solution. I had learnt this from the book by Lois P. Frankel — “Nice girls don’t always get the corner office”. It is okay to ask open ended questions. It is understood here that it is not possible for a human to work continuously for 8 hours. We do smart work and not gadha majdoori.

To Conclude👩🏽‍💻

Being a part of a start-up gave me a sense of responsibility, accountability, achievement, and felt that the issues I encountered were taken seriously by others. Along with these, there are many tips that I followed to have better interpersonal relationships in the organization that I mentioned above. Most of it came from books, talking to the founder, seniors/alumni, listening to podcasts and simply observing the people who are doing it right. Lastly, everything is worthless if you are not delivering quality work.Some industries attract fewer women.

Supply chain and manufacturing is one of them. At Procurabl, we have this strong belief that irrespective of the roles, every industry should have a balanced ratio of male and female. A diverse team will always think more rationally. The products/services will be developed keeping both genders in mind. The workforce and culture will be more civilized.

According to McKinsey, the most gender-diverse companies are 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability and bottom line. Diverse teams ⚖️ are better at problem solving, rational thinking and they are more creative. My next role here is to join the CEO’s Office. Here along with marketing, I take over more responsibilities for me to be on a path to lead a team at Procurabl. There is a lot happening in the EV industry, and there is a lot in store at Procurabl.

🥳Also hey! We are always on a lookout for game-changers to join us. If you liked reading about my experience, and want to be part of the tribe, then send us an email to 📧 info@procurabl.com along with a nice write up about the impact that you will have while working with us.