“… ultimately it was hard for me to know that I was doing something that I wasn’t 100% passionate about. That’s why I made the switch …”

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Passion, it seems, has played a big role in determining the course of Nikhil Daftary’s professional life. For the better part of college, Daftary was preparing to set out on a career path in the corporate world of finance. That is, until an internship working with start-ups during his senior year threw a wrench in the spokes. Nikhil was struck by the passion and energy he witnessed among the start-ups he worked with, and knew it was a path he needed to follow.

Daftary is now the CEO of Moodfish, a combination of local events calendar and search engine with a twist – users search for things to do based on their mood or a combination of moods. (e.g. sunny & energetic, or, mellow & quirky)

The path to launching his own start-up however was not a direct one. Daftary did go on to work for companies like Accenture and Target Corporation for a number of years out of college. Here he talks about why he finally pulled the trigger on the corporate world, which ultimately came down once again to a matter of passion.

MO:
Prior to Moodfish, you’d worked for companies like Accenture and Target Corporation. Why did you decide to leave the corporate world to launch an internet start-up?

Daftary:
Funny thing about this. I just realized a couple days ago my passion for consumer brands and startups.

During my last year of undergrad, I interned for a startup consulting firm and my job was to help them raise funding. My two clients were in the biotech and biotech security industries – two industries which I knew absolutely nothing about. What I loved most was working through the weekends and early hours of the morning – right alongside the founders. The passion I saw in these startup teams was something that I had never seen in the regular 9-5 type companies that I interned with. That’s when I knew (after spending 3 ½ years prepping myself for a finance career) that I would have to find something in the startup world or at the bare minimum in a growth team within the corporate environment. That was step 1. Step 2 in the process came from a study abroad trip where some friends and I took a weekend trip to Amsterdam. For all my years in undergrad, I absolutely despised the taste of Heineken beer. My friends managed to drag me into the Heineken brewery/museum tour and I’m not sure exactly what it was – but after that tour – I craved Heineken. And to this day, I’m totally fine with the taste of that beer. That’s when I knew that there was something magical / utterly devious about consumer branding… and I had to figure out how companies did that.

When I joined Target, I loved everything about the consumer product world. I loved learning the psychology behind why people spend $70 when they just wanted to buy a lightbulb. And I loved the idea that I could talk to anyone about what I did. I ended up switching gears and moving into the consulting world because I wanted more leadership and big picture opportunities. Accenture gave me exactly that. But what it made up for in leadership training, it didn’t quite have the consumer-world appeal that I loved about Target. I was getting really good at the B2B world, but ultimately it was hard for me to know that I was doing something that I wasn’t 100% passionate about. That’s why I made the switch to grad school – to reset my skillset and rebuild logical skills to something more specific to the startup world. While there are definitely aspects of the corporate world that I miss, I’m not sure I could ever go back.

MO:
With the focus of your site on moods, can you tell us about the company culture at moodfish. What is the general atmosphere at your office? Sunny? Energetic? Mellow?

Daftary:
Fun question… Sunny, Intense & Quirky. We’re all happy people, we’re all very driven, and we’re all just a bit off-kilter. It makes for a refreshing working environment.

MO:
As an internet start-up, do you find it’s still as important to be out there networking in the real world, at mixers, conferences and other events?

Daftary:
I’ve stopped going to mixers and conferences with the mindset of making specific connections. While meeting investors and potential partners is ideal, my thought now is everyone has something unique about them. While some people may be able to help out directly with Moodfish, others may be just as valuable in terms of ideas or helping me look at things from a different perspective. I try to get out to the mixers that I think will have the most creative/visionary types of people.

MO:
Do you feel it’s made a tangible difference to your business being located here in Austin, as oppose to anywhere else you could have been?

Daftary:
This one’s a little tough to answer since we’ve only ever been in Austin. That said, Austin has a lot to offer than no city can offer. Aside from breakfast tacos, Austin offers a creative vibe that’s not completely drowned out by the startup scene in the Bay. In contrast though, the Bay has a larger pool of investors that are comfortable with the risk profiles of consumer-web startups. In Austin, I’ve found that many investors are focused on biotech, semi-conductors, wireless and clean-tech. We’re working on finding a good investor fit here so we can stay in this amazing city and build a true Austin homegrown company.

MO:
What’s one piece of advise you have for someone considering to break away from a career to launch their own start-up?

Daftary:
Talk about your idea with as many people as you can. I don’t mean this as spill all the secrets, but rather don’t think for a second that you know it all. It’s amazing what you can learn just by someone’s non-verbal / emotional reaction to your idea.

MO:
Can you give us a glimpse of your road map and plans for the future of Moodfish?

Daftary:
Our goal is to build a site that works in the same way that people naturally plan their day and night out. To do this, we’ve got a lot of a legwork to do, but we’re getting really close. Just recently, we launched the mood-based search functionality of Moodfish. The next big piece is deep social functionality integration. We’re not talking about simple Facebook wall sharing, we’re talking about functionality that mirrors how people collaborate on finding things to do. Finally, mobile is huge in our space. While I might carry a laptop with me wherever I go, I’m pretty sure most of our users don’t. Mobile will be big for us, but there are a few things we’d like to test out before we roll that out.

A question that I’ve been asked a lot when people see that we’ve iterated and built upon 3 years of experience is why am I still running with Moodfish? The answer is really two-fold: 1) I completely believe in what we’re building. Finding things to do is time consuming and just not fun. It may take me 30 minutes to find 1 option, and then 45 minutes to find 2 options…to find 3 options is just not worth the time. We’re building something that can fundamentally change how people discover their entertainment options. 2) and most importantly – the Moodfish team is stellar. Our core team is made up of some of the coolest and smartest people I have ever had the chance to work with. This is the team that will build the next best live entertainment search engine – and that’s inspiring to me.