Six years back when digital marketing was completely a new concept in Nepal and most of the people hesitated to get into it, three people started Nepal’s first full service digital marketing agency to introduce Nepal to a vast new world of digital marketing. The company was named ‘ads!’.

We had Prashraya Ratna Tuladhar, Co-Founder and Creative Director, and we talked to him not only about his company and its services; but also about entrepreneurship and its importance to Nepal. Excerpts.

Neo: Hello Prashraya. How are you doing today?
Prashraya: Hello Neo, I’m doing just fine.

Neo: What keeps you busy these days?
Prashraya: My work and work out keeps me busy all the time. I’m working all the time but I manage my time for working out and some time for family when I can.

Neo: So talking about your company, how did you come up with the idea of it?
Prashraya: We had a humble beginning when we started almost 6 years back. We were doing paper media advertisement initially when we realized how digital spectrum was changing around the world and how Nepal had not even started Digital Marketing. We then changed our vision and focused on Digital Marketing. We were one of the first companies in Nepal to start digital Marketing.

Neo: What were the challenges that you faced initially?
Prashraya: Challenges are always there and we face them everyday in different forms. Back then when we were 3 people in the company we basically had troubles explaining how digital marketing can work for clients. People thought advertising on social media was free and we had a hard to educate clients about how content marketing could work. Those were the times when very few people had smartphones not like now when everyone has smartphones.

Neo: Do those challenges still remain a problem?
Prashraya: LikeI said,  market is always growing and challenges are always present. But we normally don’t cry about problems rather find a way to solve them efficiently when we approach them.

Neo: Six years of Ads Market, what do you think are some of your major achievements so far?
Prashraya:Major achievements if I have to point them out would be:
– We are pioneers of Digital Marketing In Nepal.
– We were the Agency to get Chaudhary group’s wai wai to win People’s choice BEST BRAND Award in FNCCI award 2012.
– We are online Marketing partners for one of the best magazines in Nepal ; ECS and WAVE magazine.
– We are authorised reseller Agency for ekantipur.com and Koolkat MartOS.
– We are Authorized agency for 360 marketing solution, UK.
– We were ranked as top 5 agency in Nepal by chairmanmigo.com.
And recently,
– We were named as Authorized Agency for VIBER for Nepal.
These would be some of the notable achievements so far.

Neo: Are you satisfied with the progress you have made so far?
Prashraya: Definitely, I am. But I feel like we have so much more to achieve and so much more to do.

Neo: If there is one thing that you wished you could have done it better in this business, what would it be and why?
Prashraya: Frankly, everything that we do, we make sure we do to the best of our abilities. However at times managing work among team can get a little tensed due to tight deadlines. I believe we can improve in getting better at tight deadline tasks. Well that’s about the team and about the market I think there is still room for lot of awareness about digital marketing and how it actually works because most people still don’t have clear idea about it. I believe that by constant learning and writing about it on our website we can make a change. But we get so much busy at work that our blogs come irregularly, I hope to change that soon.

Neo: What are some of the major goals of your company in the near future?
Prashraya: Our major goals have always been to be known for our work and we will continue to focus on that. We are planning to partner with a company in Australia and India as well.

Neo: A piece of advice you would like to give to the aspiring entrepreneurs.
Prashraya: People think that you have to leave everything that you are doing and risk it all to become an entrepreneur. But I believe if you work anywhere in any position still you can have sense of entrepreneurship. That’s called entrepreneurship and that is how you can be entrepreneurs. Either start your own company or have an entrepreneurship approach to where you are working. But you have to be happy in what you are doing though. That’s the key. For example if you are good in accounting, working in an accounting firm, you don’t need to leave the company and start from scratch to become entrepreneur, you can work in a way that owners of the company take you as partner someday. That’s how you build your entrepreneurship attitude. I firmly believe “Being busy in effective pursuit of your passion is one of the keys to happiness.” So if your work makes you happy then don’t leave it, focus on how you can be partner someday.

This is something every youth thinking of going abroad should understand as well, not only entrepreneurs. Always remember one thing ”You create your opportunities, no one is going to hand it over to you. Not in Nepal Not anywhere”. If you are good at programming and love doing it find something in Nepal or try to find outsourcing work from companies outside Nepal. In fac,t if you work as hard as you would in other countries you can actually earn more!

Neo: What do you think is the most important trait one must possess in order to be successful?
Prashraya: Basically 3 traits : Hard Working, Loyal, Humble

Neo: Is there anything you would like to say to the highly educated youngsters who leave the nation as they think there is no scope here?
Prashraya: Exactly like I said in the earlier question, be happy in what you do. If you are happy going abroad and can afford it why not. But taking tons of debt to go abroad is not worth it. People don’t realize that no one is going to hand over opportunities: not here, not anywhere. Everyone must create their own opportunities.

If you want to learn the hard way have at it. But I think people can do so much better in Nepal if they work as hard as they do after they go abroad. They are willing to clean rooms but not willing to hunt for jobs in Nepal. This is a problem. But it’s not the only reason. If someone is highly educated then they wish for the best things but it’s not how it works in Nepal. There is no proper system here. Opportunities do come but pace is little slow compared to abroad and people don’t have patience, do they? Blaming government is so easy. And, it’s obvious as they are doing less it’s potential. Well, this is very debatable topic and I have no issues with people who go abroad as it’s their choice but if only they think positive about Nepal and give it a try here.

Neo: If you have to choose one new company or a startup that you have come to know about recently in Nepal that you think is the most promising one, which one would it be and why?
Prashraya: There are so many startups coming up lately. One of the startups “Nepzy mobile app” is really interesting app and I feel it has lots of potential. They are one of our clients as well. It’s basically making online payments easier as payments can be done by card itself, SCT or VISA. It has recently launched travel ticket booking as well along with utility payments. Another company is “Bhav Products”. It’s a creative stationery startup. Its products are very good. They have a clean website and good service and a great concept. I recently had their products distributed to my team during our Knowledge Share at ads! Session and it couldn’t be much fulfilling. Bhav Products too is a company with lots of potential. They are not yet our clients though.

Neo: At last, could you tell us that one success mantra that you think is the key to achieving your goals?
Prashraya: Work hard,work smart and have a lot of patience.

Find Prashraya on Twitter. You can also find his column titled ‘Go! Digital’ on marketing in every issue of Wave magazine.

Get connected with ads! on Twitter and its official website.