A CEO Everyone Should “Look Up” To!

[Discliamer: This article has been written by a Housing.com employee, who wishes to remain un-named]

So Rahul Yadav, our young and brashing CEO has turned the tables around again on everyone, pledging the dollars from his pocket to each and every one of his employees! But at Housing, it’s not about money, it’s not about having those stocks worth crores turn into 100s of billions in the coming years. It’s more about the ideology that he shared today with everyone in our first Townhall! The respect for him just spiked up in everyone’s eyes or in his words it is now been made 10X!

So to start with, let me first throw out the critics! He didn’t make this move after the recent resignation fiasco. So please think before your write something! That exciting news was there way before on his list!

When I joined the company, On my first day I didn’t know who the CEO of the firm was. We were an early startup back then but I was very keen to know this very thing. I always imagined that CEOs were those clean shaved guys in decent clothes passing orders from a hierarchical level. Later that day I found one guy surrounded by couple of leads, I wanted to know who he really is and what is he talking about that everyone is so attentive to listen. I walked closer, saw this man in his 20’s, wearing a Maroon T-Shirt, Jeans and Sandals glaring from his specs on the screen and explaining the group of employees.

That very moment I realised he is the CEO. That was the first impression I got. Young, Uncompromising, User Centric, Down to Earth guy. There is not much you want or expect from joining a startup except the Man on the Helm of the Ship!

He alway calls upon the leads/co-founders in his office and there meetings stretches from half an hour to sometimes 2 hours. Brainstorming each and every aspect from what the company thinks? What does the user want? And Yadav always plays that role.

After the meeting everyone will walk out, laughing, smiling and then there will be a pause in Yadav’s words and he will look right into your eyes and will say:

Theek hai fir, macha dete hai! Mujhe pta hai Fod daloge tum log!” for which everyone will reply with the same courageous voice “Aree.. Haan! Macha denge!

In contrast for the critics outside our HQs, we just have one word for you STFU. Seriously everytime we wake up to journalists writing shit, we often feel like and sometimes joke around: “Ek kam karte hai Honest, Precise journalism ka Startup kardete hai, inlogone se kuch na hoga life mein”. So what makes him unique in our eyes?

Motivational

He is the key to motivation at Housing, if you ever feel low, or loose hope, he is a kinda guy who will make you feel better, he will share endless stories of startups and big giant brands and will really make you believe that we are gonna get there very soon. I remember when we threw the Brand Launch party, in the mid of all of the enjoyment, he came and sat next to me, and asked

Yadav – So how do you feel?

Me – Awesome! It’s just awesome!

Yadav – So what do you think past today?

Me – I can only see that we are gonna rock the current services we have, I guess

For which he smiled and said, “That’s just a tiny part of the game you know, we will make the next Apple Brand!”

Me – But Apple took a lot of time to get there, how are we gonna do that?

And then he glared right into my eyes and said

We will do it! You will do it! Every person you look around here will do it! That’s our DNA!

I was stunned! A cold shiver just went down my spine! I am just an employee, you know, and a CEO saying those words just makes your day! I never questioned myself again past that day about my own potential!

He use to do a test drive of our product after a certain time, will call our customer care or fill a form on our website, or just dial the numbers, look out for properties, find out the real pain by being a user, and he plays that role very well. He will come back and will let everyone know that “See, these are the things that I found bad, and these are the solutions I am looking forward to, and guess what these are the things which are awesome, and I loved it!”

Optimistic

He is very optimistic from the very day he started the firm, he shared in his own words today as:

“When we wanted to start, we first went to brokers and they said No one will give you real pictures, this system is never gonna improve, then they went to existing competitors and asked them Why they aren’t fixing things? For which they also turned them down that this things can’t be fixed” But back in his mind, he knew this can be fixed! And could be even turned into the best! He tried approaching Trulia and those people just ignored, you know, some guy from IIT sending you InMail on LinkedIn

And that is the real spirit behind the complete Housing which he summarised in few points.

At Housing, now that we have grown into 2000+ employees, everyone has a kind of modified version of Rahul version as a motto.

If you meet Rahul in person, he is cool and calm, he will only talk what is required at that moment, no bullshit, straight to the point, and it doesn’t matter for him if he is blunt in conveying you things that he wants to! He shared a little secret that he applies in his life “Time is more than Money”, if you are wasting time in conversations and not being real on your actions, it’s a sheer wastage of time!

He has a big goal at the back of his mind which always gets refined everyday, so from today’s TownHall to the next one we will no longer remain a “.com” company! Which starts with Housing pulling into the real game of “Housing”! That is one thing which pinched him from very long time and he believes that there is a better solution for it and that Housing will do it!

Unstoppable

You can’t stop him! And I will be honest with you, he has a goal in his mind, a vision of next 20 years for Housing and he will make sure everything fits at the right place in the right amount of time. Whether it be its investors trying to stop him or some VP or VC trying to poach employees, or a Print Press misusing it’s power, he is not the kind of guy who will sit with a thumb in his mouth just watching the game, no he can’t do that. He has a bigger vision and if these small things try getting in his way, he will make his own way. Recent resignation was also done by calculating the risk factors. And Investors knew, we knew and everyone knew, if anyone can take Housing from ground Zero to infinity, its him! They had a board meeting and resolved the whole thing! And this was the treat he sent to everyone later that day! “I’m still your CEO”

All of our funding has been closed at dinner tables. There have never been any power point presentations, its the product that talks, its the vision that talks and he think that’s how a company should be, you know, less of talking and more of actions and he is very good at doing both of them at the same time!

He doesn’t believe in old books or conceptions, he believe that shoving off the old books and starting up with new practices, with more passion, with more energy can only lead to Human Race to evolve, and I do agree on this and I guess everyone does.

Visionary

He has those big ambitions, he has visions that he really wants Housing to achieve, he really wants the company to be in a place from where there is no looking back. We have already achieved almost 50% of this target under him in a very short span of time!

Respectable

He is an iconic figure within Housing, trust me. If you start following his beliefs, you will be more efficient in life, more clear with your thoughts, more clear with conveying visions, and more productive! In the last open house meetup, a German company. who use to do the same thing back in 2012 and got acquired, their previous CEOs and CXOs had come to visit us, they were stunned with our performance, with our vision and they really wanted to be part of us and to be part of team of the man who leads us! Its Rahul, who represent the firm and people are attracted towards our brand, our work everyday and so, because we are solving a real problem, no bullshit!

Fun Loving

He loves having fun! Be it doing an internal AMA with all the employees and answering our stupid questions or through getting together with us at parties dancing next to us. For him life is incomplete without Fun! Even if we as employees are having fun, for instance editing the wiki page of a so called Startup Guru, he will back us up later if things go out of our hands. “It’s all Fun” – He often summarizes things in these 3 words.

Approachable

He is reachable to almost everyone in the firm, if you have something to add to the values of the firm, he will make sure that you meet up with him and he will block out his calendar for you. Maybe we would have moved out of our Startup phase but he still works in a Startup Spirit, so does everyone in the firm.

Nothing to Lose

He has got nothing to lose you know! Money isn’t a thing which fascinates him, shares aren’t what thrills him, what really matters to him is the people! People behind the success of Housing, those who spend countless nights just like him to make Housing what it is today! It’s more about solving the problem that humanity is facing, with those old conventional ways this world is never going to be better. Rahul is scared of that and he really wants to fix it! And he believes that it shouldn’t be just better, it should be Kick-Ass, mind-blowing, elegant and durable for years to come!

Answers to few tweets that just popped up on my twitter stream

 

Hope Rahul Yadav sticks to his decision this time around or else the amount of people he going to be is more than his board

— Pranav Menon (@PranavSMenon) May 13, 2015

Well, he will stick to it! Neither he, nor us care about other people’s perception. It’s not the game of money you know, money is a very small thing in life, change is bigger!  

If a book on ‘understanding women’ takes a million pages, understanding @Rahul Yadav would take a billion! http://t.co/RB3V9Vfaav — Arup Saha (@auroop) May 13, 2015

He is not complicated, he is quite simple and clear with his thoughts and I hope I have covered the points very well to explain them.

 

Crazy Kid .. transfer the money to some charity …If you want to compete Jesus !! #RahulYadav

— vupesh (@vupeshM) May 13, 2015

Umm… Meh :-/  

http://t.co/F9rXuZhyKQ CEO Rahul Yadav gives his entire stake to employees !! Hv dey changed d marketing strategy to resignation n HR way? — Swati J. (@SwatiJ3) May 13, 2015

Strategy? Well there is a strategy behind breaking the walls and just do the things that no one else has done before, to be more productive and to be more awesome! And just my 2 cents, you haven’t seen the complete Marketing Strategy yet, the bigger picture is still on hold. 🙂

This happens only in India http://t.co/0wk37zO6CT

— Amit Chougule (@amitchougule443) May 13, 2015

You should be proud of it, we are! 🙂  

Drama continues- @Housing CEO Rahul Yadav certainly becomes a case study on #Startup Leadership. https://t.co/Tkp4kR5P5i — Prem Shah (@dpremshah) May 13, 2015

There is no hidden game, there are no strategies, its simple and clear. You either don’t know Startups, or what Leadership means, do you? *Shrug*

Rahul Yadav- “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

— Avishek Talukdar (@avishektalukdar) May 13, 2015

On the list of iconic figures, he does have Steve Jobs on the top. So, yeah kinda fits well perfect! 🙂  

All millionaire & Billionaire funded CEOs, Dare to do this for your employees ? #RahulYadav Rocks ! — RanjithKumar (@iranjith4) May 13, 2015

🙂

Rahul Yadav from @Housing says its all about the Vision, not Stake. Thats why he is giving all his stake to the 2,000+ employees @livemint

— Swati Bhargava (@Swats26) May 14, 2015

At last some senseful words, True! 🙂

In the end I would like to close this way too big article by giving you my 2 cents, everyone at Housing is excited to work with Rahul, we all share the vision, we all share the same spirit, it’s not about shares, it’s not about the money, it’s about caring and his love towards the company! It’s about shutting the mouths of those critics who think, money is everything that can drive a leader, no it is not, money comes as secondary and for him, it’s not even on the list, its his passion towards Housing and his Kick Ass attitude to revolutionise the startup world!

And for all who are turning into Startup or Leadership Gurus who aren’t close to match with the things required for it! Guys I got something coming straight from CEOs wall! Take this!

Thanks to Inc42 to let me write my thoughts out. 🙂