Staffing Firm Co-founder Overcame Adversity after Father’s Loss to Build a Rs 15 Crore Turnover Business

Naveen Tiwari co-founded Scrabble, a Bengaluru based staffing firm along with Swati Saboo and Lakshmi S in 2021.

Scrabble is a staffing firm that deals with senior-level hiring for companies. In 2022, the founders founded another company named Jigsaw which deals in junior or mid-level hiring.

Started with an investment of Rs 30 lakh, the combined turnover of both the companies today has touched Rs 15 crore in just three years. Majorly, hiring below Rs 30 lakh is handled by the Jigsaw team, and above Rs 30 lakh is managed by Scrabble.

Naveen Tiwari co-founded Scrabble, along with Swati Saboo and Lakshmi S in 2021 (Photos: Special Arrangement)

70-75% of their clients are start-ups, and the remaining are established ones. A few of their clients are Pocket FM, Sleep Mattresses, Drip Capital, Grow, Aditya Birla Capital, Aditya Birla Retail, Lal Sweets, The Souled Store, Apsara Ice-creams & Go Zero ice-cream.

Sharing his life journey, Naveen remembers his early childhood years. Born in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, he faced significant challenges early in life. His father, who worked for Raymond Cement, passed away in a tragic accident when Naveen was just five years old.


The accident also claimed the life of his father’s younger brother. Naveen, his younger brother, and their mother moved in with their joint family, consisting of three uncles and an aunt, making a total of 14 people in the household.

As the eldest in the family, Naveen’s father’s demise forced his uncles to leave their studies and start a kirana store cum STD-PCO to sustain the family. “It was just barely a hand-to-mouth situation for us. Even eating dosa outside was a privilege. I remember the daily fights in the joint family,” says Naveen, recalling those days.

At the age of 13, Naveen was made to sit at the kirana store to get some exposure. “I did a little bit of clerical stuff but it was hardly any exposure,” he says. “But it was still better than home. During those days my school attendance used to be 90% because I hated being home.”

Naveen completed his schooling at Bharat Mata English Medium School in 2001 and, despite the family’s financial difficulties, pursued higher education in Pune. He earned a B.Com degree from MMCC College, Pune, in 2004.
During this time, his family sent him Rs 3,000 per month, which barely covered his expenses. “Rs 1,000 went toward rent, Rs 1,000 was for the mess fee, and I was left with just Rs 1,000. To make ends meet, I took up a job in my second year at Pyramid Mall in Pune, earning Rs 2,500 per month,” Naveen recalls.

Naveen and Swati also run a podcast channel

In 2005, during his first year of MBA, he secured a job at Kotak Mahindra’s sales department as a management trainee, earning Rs 3.5 lakh per annum.

However, the experience was challenging. “My boss was tough and abusive, even in front of clients. He harassed me to the point of asking me to resign. I pleaded with him not to fire me because I needed to repay my MBA loan,” he says.

After two and a half years at Kotak, Naveen joined Barclays as a Senior Relationship Manager, earning Rs 8 lakh per annum. He worked there for a year and a half before moving on to companies like UBS, Michael Page, and Native, focusing on recruitment and senior management roles.

Over the years, his salary grew from Rs 12 LPA to Rs 30 LPA. Despite considering entrepreneurship in 2013, he decided to stay employed. Naveen married Swati in 2018, after meeting her as a peer at Native, a recruitment company.

“I was happy at Native and was getting a good salary as well. I met my future wife and the co-founder of my company in Native itself. However, things in the company started taking a different shape when COVID hit in 2021,” says Naveen.

“During this period, my ex-boss from UBS suggested that I get into the staffing business. My wife Swati, who is a Marwari and has better business acumen, gave me confidence and we decided to leave Native and take a leap of faith.”

Along with Lakshmi and four colleagues from Native, they co-founded Scrabble.

“Our business model is simple,” Naveen explains. “If a company wants to hire a CEO, they can either rely on their HR team or approach firms like ours. We provide the best candidates within 4-5 weeks, depending on the company’s involvement in the process. Once the candidate joins, we charge 15-22% of their annual salary from the company.”

The founders faced several challenges while building the company, especially during the early days. “It was a difficult time but it was a great time for business. The three co-founders decided not to take any salary and managed to pay the salary of the four people who came with them from their savings.”

The team at Scrabble has been working hard remotely since the company started. Even now, the founders don’t feel the need to open physical offices.

Naveen recalls the tough journey and how investors initially reacted to their plans. “It was a scary journey and no investors showed interest in our project. Almost all of them wrote us off. One of the investors asked us for a five-year business plan, and when we gave the plan of touching Rs.30 lakh revenue in the first year, he rejected it to the core by saying that no start-up could do it. Fortunately, we finished the first at Rs. 4.5 crore, the second at Rs 10 crore, and the third and 15 crore.”

The founders decided to build a company that is completely employee-friendly. They gave unlimited leaves without a salary cut and removed the notice period. They focused on creating a secure environment for employees and only expected a high level of accountability in their work. From the start, they ran the company on the idea of paying more to employees and saving less for themselves.

?”We have fixed salaries and do revenue sharing with the employees. A person who joined us in our journey was earning a salary of Rs 10 lakh per month in the previous company, and took home Rs 28 lakh after joining Scrabble,” says Naveen.

The company began with seven employees and now has 70 employees who are spread over Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, & Chandigarh etc.

Every single employee in the company is a salesperson. They get business from three modes. First is where they have around 75 venture capitalists, who invest in private firms and then connect with them to get the right candidate for these firms.

The second is where team Scrabble hunts for companies that are looking for probable candidates on LinkedIn. Since Scrabble manages senior-level hiring, they are always in touch with top-notch professionals, like the CFO, CTO, CMO, & CHRO, etc., and have good relations with them. The third is the referral mode where word of mouth works in Scrabble’s favour.

Naven likes to do theatre and loves travelling

At Scrabble, Naveen manages Legacy Business, Technology, HR, Strategy, and Operations hiring. Swati manages Finance, Sales, and Marketing for new-age B2B and B2C businesses. Lakshmi manages Asset Management, Insurance, and Corporate functions for Financial Services.

Apart from professional commitments, Naveen and Swati have a very positive and humane side to their personal life. They got married in 2018 and the couple are now proud parents of a son Abhimanyu, 3, and a daughter Meera who is one and a half years old.

Naveen’s suggestion to the upcoming entrepreneur is, “Don’t wait for all your questions to be answered before starting a business, and don’t wait for the right time. The situation will keep changing and so will your goal post. Just make a start, and don’t wait for a killer idea to strike your mind.”

In leisure, Naveen likes to do theatre; he is into improvised theatre which is on-the-spot form without any script or rehearsals. He likes traveling, partying and watching web series. He and Swati are early-stage investors and also run a podcast channel ‘Game Room’. - ©TWL