The Problem That Started It All
I wasn’t looking to start a company. It all began with a family wedding. We needed a banquet hall in Mumbai, something decent, budget-friendly, and available on short notice. What followed was chaos—endless calls, inconsistent details, outdated websites, and no central place to compare venues. Most of the info was either locked behind phone numbers or just not updated. That’s when I realized: booking venues in India was still stuck in 2010. I thought, what if someone just made a clean, searchable platform to fix this mess? That idea became the foundation of The Banquet Hub.
The Tech: Built to Work, Not to Impress
I started small. No funding. No team. Just an obsession to build something useful. I chose tools that could help me move fast and stay lean. React and Tailwind for the front end gave me flexibility and responsiveness. Node.js and Express handled the backend with ease, and MongoDB gave me the freedom to store variable venue data without strict schemas. For hosting, I used Vercel and Render, and Cloudinary handled the images. My admin dashboard? A simple Next.js app I whipped up in a weekend to make venue onboarding fast and visual.
In the early days, I didn’t even have a real-time database for lead tracking—just a basic Formspree setup. As things picked up, I built a lightweight in-house lead manager that connected venue listings to user queries via email and WhatsApp. Nothing fancy. Just fast, minimal, and good enough.
The Lessons: Solve Real Pain, Not Theoretical Problems
The real learning wasn’t technical—it was human. People don’t care about perfect code or fancy animations. They care about whether they can find a venue quickly and trust the info on your platform. So instead of over-building, I focused on three things: fast loading, clear filters (city, budget, guest count), and verified venue data. I manually onboarded vendors city by city and added only those who actually responded to leads.
No growth hacks. No ads. Just organic SEO and honest listings. And it worked. The Banquet Hub now gets consistent leads across major cities and real bookings—proving that when you solve something real, people will find you.
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