He lives a fast life, and is passionate about exotic vehicles and unique timepieces. His name is Praveen Chelliah, but his friends call him ´Prav´.
This young and successful entrepreneur has charmed the world with his winning personality, but behind his confident smile there´s something even more powerful: championship level dedication. As the chief executive for one of Canada´s most celebrated real estate brands – The Bloomfield Group – and owner of lifestyle brands including Pluto Plants and Ballers champagne, Chelliah has developed a clear cut understanding of today´s business conditions which he was happy to share with our readers:
What is your “secret recipe” for financial success in the modern age?
This is a question I get asked often. It’s really too ambiguous to answer to be honest. That answer really depends on age, where you are born, the time you’re born in, etc. So many factors.
As a millennial business leader, what do you forecast for the industry in the short term?
Of course the main change I forecast is the shift of the global market to an everything online market place. This thought is further exaggerated during this Covid-19 pandemic we are facing. Many retailers are all forced to do business online, and of course what we see is the ones who don’t adapt are slowly going under.
What has been your biggest professional success to date?
Success can be measured in many ways. What has made me the most money (if that’s your definition of success) would easily be my real estate development firm Bloomfield Homes. Development can bring in tons of cash, but it’s slow cash, and the process to developing is also very capital intensive, you need to put in years of backend paper work, permits, city counsel meetings, etc. And you don’t receive any cash till the project is complete! So make sure you can last. I know a lot of developers who started developing yet had to declare bankruptcy due to the lack of cash flow to keep them afloat. In development you can be having cash outflows of millions of dollars for years until the project is finally closed.
What has been your biggest failure?
Trusting too many people. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, and I’ve learned you can’t do that, everybody’s in it for themselves.
What have been the biggest lessons you´ve learned?
Money doesn’t buy happiness. I was born and lived quite some on the lower end of the economic spectrum. But, I would say those were my happiest times. Money brings problems you thought were only in the movies. It’s always a constant state of paranoia, who do I trust? Who’s really my friend? Are they just with me for the free ride? Constant thoughts like this on top of daily hate mail from random Instagram followers really can have a strain on a human´s well being. I honestly don’t let it bother me, funny to say I’ve gotten used to it!
