I recently went one on one with Ritesh Raj, co-founder of CuddlyNest.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Ritesh: I’ve been in travel tech for over a decade now but I’ve been a traveler long before that. I’ve rarely had issues with airfare, but when it came to booking accommodation in the 100+ countries that I’ve been to — the whole process was always a big mess. No platform understood that we, as travelers, don’t know what property types we’re looking for and want to actually see all our options simultaneously, be it a hostel, hotel, or vacation home. I wouldn’t have gotten here without having taken all those trips. That trip around the world is the best investment I’ve made. 

Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?

Ritesh: CuddlyNest was born following our firsthand identification of the notorious pain point that I just mentioned. Pointing out the obvious here, but all business models need to be built in a way to resolve a problem or a need, ideally a problem or need that the founders have experienced firsthand. It’s important that when heading out to launch a business, that you are part of the demographic you seek to target, or at least have a decent understanding of it. I see a lot of founders try to build something for an audience that they’re not part of or have little familiarity with, only because they saw a window of opportunity. That might turn out to be fine, but exhaustive research and understanding are not optional. 

CuddlyNest is “built by travelers, for travelers” and that has made all the difference in our success. Within our team, we have all sorts of travelers — solo travelers, adventure travelers, digital nomads, couple travelers, business travelers (the list goes on and on) — and their involvement is essential when we’re working on a campaign specific to their psychographic. I really wouldn’t have been able to do it alone without them, because I’m just one kind of traveler, and that’s not enough. In fact, when we hire at CuddlyNest, we tend to open conversations by asking about the candidates’ recent trips or bucket list trips. You wouldn’t hire a carnivore to lead a vegan restaurant, would you?

Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?

Ritesh: User testing. During earlier stages, your network is your best base for user testing — get friends, family, distant cousins, and even acquaintances involved. You’d be surprised by how many people enjoy being asked to user test, and there’s no reason to splurge on usability testing partners early on when you have a great starting point to work with right on your LinkedIn page. Again, assuming you have a decent network, narrate your business model to them and watch for cues. What questions are they repetitively asking? Are there repetitive trends in all their concerns? That’s why beta phases are essential — so you don’t get too high on the thrill of your idea and lose vision of what customers actually feel and need, and not what you think they feel and need. 

Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?

Ritesh: Assume that tomorrow could bring around another situation at the scale of Y2K or Covid-19 and stay on your feet. Also, your business model can be destroyed at any moment, whether by a single competitor or changing trends that are beyond your control. Pivot when necessary and stay agile. If this pandemic isn’t a slap in the face, I don’t know what is. If we’ve learned anything it’s that we can spend so much time and resources on big data and forecasts, but then all that work is reduced to dust when the black swan rolls about. 

Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?

Ritesh: Know your audience, and know what’s out there. Get involved in all possible conferences, webinars, talks. Subscribe to the leading advertising magazines. Don’t get too fixated on what your industry is up to. I enjoy catching up on what Burger King and Netflix are up to, and our Marketing channel on Slack is an ongoing stream of fantastic campaigns that cross pharmaceutical, SaaS, F&B, liquor, laundry, dental — you name it. You’d be surprised by the ways in which distant industries have inspired us. 

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Ritesh: The ability to focus, for one. You can’t be scattered and all over the place and you need to set time for deep learning. Then there’s charisma — you really can’t mumble as you lead. I could go on and on, and I won’t say that I have all the qualities that I hope to have, but we’re all humans and the world’s greatest don’t pass any checklist out there. Between all these qualities you aspire to have, celebrate your unique quirks as a regular person, and maybe, just maybe, you can eventually leverage them into inspiring leadership. 

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Ritesh: Never schedule in an idyllic vacuum; plan things with the assumption that someone along the flow will get sick or miss a deadline. We’re humans after all, and there’s no reason to be overly optimistic in planning only to get disappointed later on and witness that inevitable ripple effect that will destroy your timeline. We schedule buffer cushions into every working sprint. It wasn’t perfect early on, but we’ve tweaked that buffer from one sprint to another until we got to our magic number. 

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Ritesh: I find it difficult to answer this question as there isn’t one single piece of advice that got me to that grand hallelujah moment but rather a combination of many. I like the idea of having a mentor, and I also like the idea of mentoring those you believe have the potential to succeed but who could use a little guidance here and there. Being on both ends has helped me tremendously. 


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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