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- Sanjay Sharma, Chairman at Wood Barn India Pvt Ltd
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Sanjay Sharma: Way back in 2005, on a flight, I met a polish guy. He was mentioning about a wooden house near a river and he showed some of the pictures of the wooden house. I liked the photo so much that it was imprinted in my mind. The same year, I came across a wooden house company at an exhibition abroad. An idea sparked as to why not I start a company with a similar product? Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Wood Barn India Pvt. Ltd Sanjay Sharma: Wood Barn India(WBI) has a lot of products and services to offer. We make wooden homes, wooden resort cottages, wooden play houses for children, wooden pet houses, wooden pergolas, wooden gazebos and our company is the only company in India to have made multi story wooden structures. Apart from this we have a dedicated architectural team who have great experience in the hospitality sector including luxurious resorts, hotels, outhouses, etc. Great Companies: What makes Wood Barn India Pvt. Ltd different from hundreds of other construction firms? Sanjay Sharma: Our experience of over two decades and our technical collaboration with the world’s best and oldest Finnish company really differentiates us from the rest. WBI has built more that 600 structures and our next best competitor hasn’t even made 60 yet. We also has the best of the best team, each employ specialise in their field and aims to deliver the best of work. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Sanjay Sharma: There are a few challenges we face as a company trying to sell something unique and unusual in India where the consumers are price conscious and have various mind blocks, some being, ‘wooden houses are easy to catch fire’, wooden house are not long lasting Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Wood Barn India Pvt. Ltd? Sanjay Sharma: We are looking forward to create a dealer network in pan India and exports to Middle Eastern countries and Sub-India Continents. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Sanjay Sharma: This is industry has a lot of potential and the cake is too big that even if 100 more players like us enter the industry, it is enough to feed us all. There will be a time where concrete resources will be saturated, metal resources will be saturated, stone will be saturated but wood will be ever lasting and renewable, so choose wood. Website : https://woodbarnindia.com/ Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/WoodenHouseIndia
- Mansi Bihani, CoFounder at Video Factory
Great Companies: Can you tell us a little about your company? Mansi Bihani: Video Factory is an explainer video specialist company based out of Kolkata & Bangalore, pioneering in video production across animated, corporate, live-action, learning and development genres. Sparked by the spirit to Simplify Communication we empower brands to leverage their digital presence by creating compelling videos for them. Our content-driven and result oriented videos help brands optimise their conversions and visibility. Great Companies: Can you provide a gist of the number and types of services provided by the Video Factory? Mansi Bihani: We are an end-to-end video solutions provider, there’s literally no video requirement that this factory funnel cannot process or support. We help brands at every step of the way to bring alive compelling videos that will engage, excite and entice their audience. As a one-stop video solutions provider, we service client requirements through- Ideation and Content Development Graphics and Storyboarding Audio Narration Regional Translations Dubbing Music Score Development Stock Editing Over the years we have honed our skills across 10 broad animation styles and video formats namely - WhiteboardAnimation, 2D Animation, 3D Animation, Character Animation, Infographics, Kinetic Typography, Motion Graphics, Stop-Motion, Chalkboard Animation, Chroma-Key Animation. Moving one step forward in our quest for doing and delivering more, we also work on Digital Ads, Corporate Profile Videos, Live-Action Videos among others. Great Companies: What makes you different from other video companies? Mansi Bihani: I don’t see us as any different from another company that’s working hard today to build and sustain an impact today . As a women-led organization, we are a bunch of creative thinkers, visual animators, and growth drivers who look upon themselves as a factory that up-skills itself each day to be Collaborators of Change and Harbingers of New Possibilities. Having been in the industry for over 5+ years, delivering over 15,000+ minutes of animation we have just stayed true to the principle of being the voice of our brands. This has helped us exemplify our range of expertise in video production, right from animating the global message of health emergency heralded by World Health Organization to implementing the Government's schemes for rural social reform for United Nations Development Programme. We have closely worked with both National and International development sectors over the years and voiced the efficacy of several state-initiated novel endeavours like - Vidhwa Pension, State Treatment Fund Pension, Old age Pension, Economic Self-relaince through rural Self-Help Groups, Ration card entitlement, Micro-financing for women alcohol sellers, besides communicating several important messages on farmer training, safe abortion, child birth, and achieving zero malnutrition. The urge to constantly evolve by excelling in our given niche fuels us to think, discover, capture, curate, simplify and animate video solutions for the rural masses, thereby making us the eyes, mind, and messengers for the remote rural landscapes and micro-economies. Great Companies: How are your systems, cost-effective, and provided with the best creative solutions? Mansi Bihani: Unlike other products or services we neither swear by a 6 months guarantee nor a 30 minute delivery, but what we do swear by is a sustained value-addition to your sales, outreach, digital presence and growth. We truly work with the skills and hands of a factory that’s steaming up new ideas, segmenting its resources, facilitating its processes to be swift and seamless. We have animators, creative writers, audio artists, graphics designers, and account managers who tailor to perfection your visual proposition and brand story. We are both agile and adaptive towards learning new things and a great testimony to the same is a recent project that we helmed for Indiacharts - wherein we had delivered 700+ minutes of screen-cast and whiteboard animation about a completely alien technical concept analysis of stock market trading within 60 days. I believe it is this passion to build an expansive portfolio through learning, experimenting and achieving that helps us to deliver cumulative growth rather than just cost-per-cent offerings to our clients. Great Companies: How do you plan to achieve success in your future endeavors? Mansi Bihani: We go and grow as long as you, grow along that infinite ladder of success - this is the message that we give to our clients and the principle upon which we envision success. When we talk of ourselves as harbingers of new possibilities, we look forward to building one of the best video animation teams in the country, creating on our portfolio the biggest brands, create the most compelling videos, reiterating remarkable socio-economic impacts and blooming the knowledge engine in this factory to be the most robust video growth solutions provider in the millenniums to come.
- Pawan Gupta, CEO at Betterhalf.ai
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Pawan (CEO) and Rahul (CPO/CTO) met at MIT as acquaintances but bonded well when they lived together as roommates in San Francisco once they graduated. While Rahul's first engagement broke, Pawan used many matchmaking products and had a frustrating experience going through the partner search process. It was a defining moment in their lives and scratched that piece of their psyche. They set out to fabricate a stage that goes on to make prescient matchmaking a reality. Pawan graduated from MIT Sloan MBA Program and Rahul graduated from MIT CSAIL with a Computer Science degree. They have been friends for 6 years. Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Betterhalf.ai BETTERHALF.AI: BUSINESS MODEL - Free access to women - Men pay a premium for access to following features: Received request, Intro message, 2X profiles and now Sparkles Our affordable Premium Membership benefits include: • View Received Requests: Unlock/ view all your received requests instantly • Instant matches: Claim up to 50 exclusive recommended profiles instantly • Instant boost for 24 hours: Stand out from the crowd and get 10 times more profile visibility for 24 hours • Personal note: Send a heartfelt note along with a connection request to put yourself in the spotlight. Other features include: • Sparkle: Get prominently featured on top of other connection requests and receive up to 10x better responses. Great Companies: What makes Betterhalf.ai different from hundreds of other matrimony app's? Today India has a varied number of matrimony apps. Betterhalf.ai has proved itself unique via various extraordinary features. Below are few: They are the only platform without the direct involvement of parents. A premium pool of working professionals from 25,000 companies of India, verified through selfie verification to ensure that the person in the picture is the same IRL. Profiles are regularly scrutinised to make sure they are genuine and looking for marriage. Compatibility matching Based on a 2-min personality quiz and 16 behavioural traits, AI matches you with profiles that share the same thoughts as you and truly compliment your soul. With likes, dislikes and interests, apart from just looking into traditional way of matching on religion and caste Single click matching (US Patent Application No. 16/777,773) Introduced single-click matching with Facebook sign up to ensure faster onboarding. AI predicts matches based on your basic preferences. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Betterhalf.AI had almost shut down twice during its early days.The first approach the team took was collecting married couple’s data via marriage agencies. This failed due to data reliability and operational issues.The second time when we pivoted and got our product live, we couldn't get enough traction and find a good fit with invetors as the interested ones couldn't relate to our long-term vision. Over the last one year at the peak of COVID-19, we had a limited runway for 2-3 months where the company fundraised for full 12-months and launched a brand new product in mid of hustle, grew revenues from $100k to $1M annual run rate, retain the employees and ultimately got into Y Combinator. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Betterhalf.ai? Betterhalf.ai will continue to grow 3X among urban Indians and then grow further 2-3X with the product launch for NRIs in countries like USA, Canada, UAE, Australia, Singapore etc. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Lately there has been a lot of news about funding on startups. This could be overwhelming and could be a distraction to entrepreneurs starting up. Fundraising is only 5% of the company execution but one should focus strongly on building products that customers engage, transact and drive revenues - this is usually 95% of the execution that is required to build the company in the early stages.
- Akhil Chandra, CEO at Studio Mosaic
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Akhil Chandra: When I started in 2013, the app ecosystem was in its infancy and showed a lot of potential without the usual barriers like dependence on mobile carriers, capital investment and distribution challenges. I remember when I started, I wanted to build a business which would serve as a portfolio of widely accepted and appreciated apps that consumers love to use and of course, generate substantial revenue in the process. But after the 1st year, things didn't go quite as smoothly as I had planned and I pivoted to start offering consulting services related to mobile app businesses and became a solopreneur. Soon, my wife Chetna joined me and the consulting gig evolved into a growth-based marketing agency which has now delivered 500+ apps successfully for clients from all over the world. In that aspect, Studio Mosaic has developed into something different from what I had planned in the beginning. Though, my original vision of building a portfolio of apps is now being fulfilled by my other company called Epiphany Labs. Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Studio Mosaic Akhil Chandra: Our core expertise lies in helping mobile app businesses achieve growth. We’re able to understand the app business as a whole and formulate a holistic marketing strategy to scale the app’s earnings or users. Our team of app store experts draws insights from analytics to create the ideal strategy tailored to meet our clients’ goals including long-term engagement, retention, profitability and return on investment. We offer a specialised suite of services that include the following activities: Full-fledged App Audit for product improvement Appstore Optimisation (ASO) App Preview Videos User Acquisition - Facebook, GoogleAdWords, Apple Search Ads App Monetization Strategy to drive ROI Great Companies: What makes Studio Mosaic different from hundreds of other Mobile App Marketing firms? Akhil Chandra: Our first differentiation is the fact that we focus on mobile app business only. A lot of other agencies offer digital marketing services and also do app marketing. This approach is not necessarily directly replicable. Our mobile-first approach helps us devise better and more effective product and marketing strategies for our clients. Secondly, what sets us apart is our partnership-driven approach which prioritises the overall growth of the business in terms of revenue or users, through data-led decisions, over a unidimensional approach focussing solely on lower costs or higher downloads. Our endeavour is to provide true value to entrepreneurs & enterprises by enabling them to make a difference to this world with their mobile app ideas! Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Akhil Chandra: Two of the biggest hurdles that we face is hiring, and the opportunity to work with great products and product owners. With regards to hiring, there is a severe dearth of trained people in the app marketing ecosystem because it’s a relatively new and niche industry. Therefore, it gets difficult for us to find the right people for the job. As for products, sometimes a great idea does not translate into a great execution and it leads to a less than satisfactory uptake despite our best efforts. Finding well made apps is therefore a challenge. Also, since a lot of app owners do not understand the industry as well, they end up taking decisions which may impact the app adversely. And when they come to us, it is sometimes just too late to salvage the app. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Studio Mosaic? Akhil Chandra: We would like Studio Mosaic to become the preferred growth partner for all mobile app businesses in the world. Studio Mosaic should be at the top when people look for innovation, deep domain knowledge and reliability in an agency, that’s our goal. Hiring the right people and bringing in automation in our processes would help us achieve that. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Akhil Chandra: A few things actually. Get the idea right – Your ideas may be great, as per you but not so great as per your intended user. Don’t get blinded by your own conviction. Respect the user and give them what they want and not what you think they need. Invest more in the product – Put in your time, resources, efforts into making a product that users would love to use. The only way a business can succeed is by offering a good product or service at its core. Look, feel (UI/UX) and functionality are all equally important for a good app. You may be able to acquire thousands of users through campaigns and other means, but a truly successful app is one that can retain its users and that will only happen if the app itself is enticing and sticky. Analyse the data – Invest in a good analytics tool that can tell you what your users are doing and what their pain points are. Constantly optimise campaigns and product experience to reach out to a more targeted audience with a better product.
- Amit Chawla, CEO at Ooka Radio
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Amit Chawla: Thinking out of Box & always in glance to search new innovative ideas encouraged to give birth to Ooka Radio, in depth ,was in quarrel & finding a solution to get branded same music for all outlets because my managers were using music according to their style, this makes me to develop Something customised for retail stores this gives a birth to a vision to make anything replica of FM station but without any frequency & satellite but with internet. I feel internet will be new source of life by 2025, like water,air,sun,earth & food . Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Ooka Radio Amit Chawla: We are complete in-store music solution for retail & hospitality it purely B2B support format, we create mood map genres of music for the different hours of the day at outlets. Our vast music library will refresh automatically every day We customize the content delivery for music messaging to engage customers with a dedicated team to conceptualize, design & produce content on a day-to-day basis for the brands that is called spots /Jingles. Add to this the ability to play the adverts, promos and audio indents; will have the fully customized experience.We do create spot /jingles/Capsules/ festive announcements/ offer announcement according to the script suggested. We provide real time announcements like IPL Scoreboard & any info .We also offer 3rd party Advertisement to brands at their platforms /Outlets with good earning in revenue sharing format. We introduced Ooka App an Android based application for small retailers ,a revenue earning app for small retailers ,restaurant owners ,Paan walas & florist who want to earn good revenue every month . Great Companies: What makes Ooka Radio different from hundreds of other Media & Entertainment firms? Amit Chawla: We are very different from other media platforms Target Audience can be specified easily Pan India coverage with single window Unlimited languages Specification of songs as per region from single dashboard Real time announcements /Spots in 2-3 seconds Customization according to mood/style/wish Very economical for Advertisement Life line for Modern as well Traditional Stores/Outlets/Malls Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Amit Chawla: Challenges & struggles were very hard from inception to make it profitable till date, we started selling the product at 3000/-yearly ,which was free to use & it was really very difficult to make people educate the benefits of InStore radio .The money & software was the biggest challenge ,many times we failed & forced to start from scratch & moreover with lesser money it was very difficult to hire the expensive team of Architecture & developers. It was also very difficult to get people influenced on my belief at age of 40 but gradually it started from team (Software & sales) ,then market accepted the innovation we reached from 2 cities to 400 Cities & 10 outlets to 5900+ outlets . Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Ooka Radio? Amit Chawla: The InStore radio is now become Indoor Radio, the brand Ooka has innovated many product line for B2B category & we planned & curated to make largest platform of Media & Entertainment with more than 200 million captive audience & looking to reach 25000 outlets by March 2022. Ooka Radio is now become Ooka Airport Radio,We have initiated a new concept to play music at Airports & bags the exclusive rights to play music & Advertisements at Airports without any frequency or satellite. Ooka Radio is now playing at 6 Airports includes Delhi Airport T3 ,Ahmadabad ,Lucknow, Mangalore,Jaipur,Trivandrum & planning to touch the count of minimum 20 more Airports by end of March 2023 . By another 5 years will touch the new base of International Airports & going to launch Ooka Radio in Canada , Srilanka, UAE & Australia by 2022 .Making it largest platform for new talents to launch themselves & create new content for captive audience . Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Amit Chawla: Would request every new start up just believe in ourselves focus on product quality ,Services keep trying competitive price . Website : www.ookaradio.com
- Santosh Raskar, Founder at Srajan College of Design
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Santosh Raskar: Actually I started my career as a primary teacher. While working as a teacher I completed my higher education. When I was working a teacher I usually think about our educational process - Our education is about knowledge and not skill oriented. There is no ideology about creating skilled, research oriented people. We are creating labours through this education. I tried to do lot many things as a teacher but it won’t complete my task. So I thought why not I should come out of this and start own education center to complete my ideology. Thus I thought I should start such Institutional programs which will have demands in future as well as I can prove my ideology. Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Srajan College of Design? Santosh Raskar: SRAJAN VIDYAVRAT Pvt. Ltd. is the parent company of SRAJAN College of Design. For SRAJAN this business is vow of Education. That gives you industry relevant world class curriculum and passion towards teaching. This makes SRAJAN synonym of Design Education Excellence. Our skill and job oriented courses empowers and gives confidence for professional career. Considering growth of Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming Designing, Web Design, UI, UX, Graphic Design, Artificial reality and Virtual Reality, SRAJAN provides best possible Education in the field. SRAJAN has unique approach towards these sectors as they are techno-creative sectors. SRAJAN has its own teaching methodology, Evaluation system and learning process. SRAJAN courses mean successful creative profession. We take care for our student who is hot property in the job market for the industry. In our college we have U.G. C. Recognized Degree in Animation, Graphics and Multimedia, We have Diploma in Computer Animation recognized by Maharashtra State Board of Education, We have also recognition from Media and entertainment skill sector, we also provide Adobe and Autodesk International Certification. Great Companies: What makes Srajan College of Design different from hundreds of other design academies? Santosh Raskar: Basically our ideology of teaching designing is the mile stone. We have developed best teaching methods for designing education. Not only that Our Activity and research based Education Methodology is proven now as we have given World first 3D stereoscopic Biography – SHIVATEJ SAMABHAJI to society, We have released 3D short film in Jammu & Kashmir, First ever Game on Marathi Film is also released by SRAJAN. Also we have 16 point learning program for students which helps students to learn well. We have our own operational manual that helps systematic admission, learning, teaching, evaluation and placement. A single rupee of student’s fees is utilized on students Education that means high quality of education in affordable fees. There are many things which make SRAJAN Different than others but in simple line we can in SRAJAN there is Santosh Raskar who is really a teacher. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Santosh Raskar: That was the time when people were not about aware about digital designing career. Parents did not believe on this field of Education. People usually came as a hobby. We convinced them to choose this as a main career. Who believed in us are very successful in life now but for this we have took lot efforts. I have travelled across and conducted seminars, workshops to aware people about this education. I have written more than 300 articles in various newspapers and also interviewed on televisions. In the beginning we train such students who even don’t have basic knowledge of computer then again we trained them for digital designing. In the beginning we were training failed students that were the big challenge. With proper treatment and our educational ideology we did it well. In the beginning we have to put lot money from our pocket to survive and run the Institution and give proper service and education to students. One more thing to place the students we need good connect with the industry. We did it well with various activities. I personally got involved in making policy of for our field with government. That time there was no degree or diploma recognized by the any university or government body, I tried lot to start Degree with University affiliation, Diploma with Education Examination Board. With lot of effort because of our efforts first Degree of Animation was introduced by YCMOU and First Diploma of Animation and Visual effects was started by Maharashtra State Board of Vocational Education. I designed and developed syllabus for both and wrote books for it also. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Srajan College of Design? Santosh Raskar: Digital Designing is very fast growing sector and the requirement of industry are rapidly changing. Hence we are planning studio school in coming couple of years. This education needs more practicing so we are planning day boarding designing school with all facilities of digital designing education. Now we think we just don’t want to create Job seekers, we want to create job creators. So we have such action plan for coming days. In coming time SRAJAN will not only education-learning center, it will become research center for media, graphics and digital designing. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Santosh Raskar : Well, to start out only passions, experience and knowledge are not sufficient. You must have your ideology with you. Doing any business in franchisee module and being a franchisee is not ideal. Your services should be unique and as per the requirement of society or industry. One must be man of action for doing great business. Always plan ahead and there should be plan B. Last but not least don’t compete with other, compete with yourself, be better that yesterday you were. Website : https://www.srajan.in/ Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/srajancollege/ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/user/Srajananimation Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/SrajanInstitute One must be man of action for doing great business. - Santosh Raskar
- Nemin Vora, CEO at Odysse Electric Vehicles Pvt Ltd
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Nemin Vora: I have had an extensive experience in Manufacturing and distribution segment of Eco-friendly products since I understood business. I initiated my professional sprint by Joining my family business involved with distribution of CNG / LPG Kits of the World famous brand “Lovato” – Italy" in India. Thereafter, I was appointed as the CEO of joint venture with Lovato – Italy for production of Eco-friends CNG / LPG gas kits in India. I have had an enriching experience of 9 years in the alternate fuel vehicles and its ancillary industry. We saw India is transitioning towards clean mobility and that is where the idea of Electric Vehicles came to us, It being another Eco-friendly product and our expertise being in Alternative fuel based products with automobile at its core. Great Companies: What are the various product and Services provided by Odysse Electric Vehicles Pvt Ltd Nemin Vora: We at Odysse vehicles offer our customers wide range of E-scooter and E bikes models to meet requirements of all the segments. We have products that can be used by a teenager as well as an adult, by homemaker women or even a professional MNC executive, by a daily traveller as well as sports enthusiast. Our product portfolio has all type of Electric scooters & bikes available in the market. We have low speed scooters, high speed scooter for daily local use, another High speed scooter which supports 170 Km / Charge & also India's First Electric sport bike within an affordable price bracket. We believe in providing best service support to our customers and that has been our USP. Great Companies: What makes Odysse Electric Vehicles Pvt Ltd different from other Electric two-wheeler brands? Nemin Vora: Our Product portfolio is something which is hardly offered by any other EV manufacturers. Odysse is one of its kind 100% electric mobility platform that partners with world's leading EV part manufacturers, mobility technology experts and unlocks the era of smart urban electric mobility for consumers and deliver the the best of technologies this segment has to offer. Our Customer service commitment is what stands out in the industry. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Nemin Vora: Every Start-up goes through a lot of struggles. I believe that the struggle and challenges faced by the start-up founders is the true test , it defines our potential & hunger to grow and sustain. When we started major challenges faced were designing the right product, finding supplier who would support a start-up with small MOQ's, explaining potential dealers & customers the USP of the product, what problem we are solving and making them believe in our Vision, product & capabilities. When I started this company finding the Right people who can see your vision and work towards it was also one of the major challenge I faced. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Odysse Electric Vehicles Pvt Ltd ? Nemin Vora: We plan to have 50 outlets across 35 cities before the end of year. We are planning to rapidly increase our production capacity and 5 Years from now we will be present in all major towns & cities of India as well as expand in many other countries across globe. Within 5 years Odysse will be a well renowned name in the Electric Vehicle segment. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Nemin Vora: The Road to starting a new business always seems difficult and sometimes even over ambitious but when you have faith in your ideas and good team to support it, you are not far from reality. Website : https://odysse.in/
- Kalyani Capadia, CEO at K11 Education Pvt Ltd
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Kalyani Capadia: K11 back then was a gym setup and management consultancy firm. The company was co-founded by Kaizzad Capadia, with a Devaki Khimji as a 50% partner. I joined and first assumed the role of a Club General Manager. Then I rose to Head of Sales, and then as the company grew, I took on the responsibility of the Chief Executive. Our consultancy firm got a lot of jobs, and we got busy setting up gyms for people who wished to invest in the fitness industry. Setting up required expertise in real estate selection (location & internal specifications), interiors (aesthetics, fit-outs, electrical and civil work), equipment brand and profile selection, administration, sales systems, processes, management software, pre-opening marketing, pre-sales, and HR selection. Like any other business today, one of the biggest challenges was getting qualified human resource. We decided to do some backward integration and establish a School for fitness professionals, which would provide steady human resource for the projects that we set up. Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by K11 education Pvt Ltd Kalyani Capadia: K11 Education Pvt Ltd deals in vocational education for fitness professionals. We are focusing on doing what we are best in and reaching out to more people who want to become fitness professionals. We are launching the Yog Prashikshak Course in the month of June 2021. Once that is done, we will start work on launching the “Group Instructors course.” We do not want to do anything that is not connected to education. K11 education is only in the vocational education for fitness professionals. Great Companies: What makes K11 education Pvt Ltd Ltd. different from hundreds of other Fitness Education Firms? Kalyani Capadia: Actually, what is unique should not be unique. We, at K11, are still quite surprised that we are the only proper brick & mortar school of fitness sciences. In this tiny domain of education in fitness sciences that is provided to aspiring personal trainers, who wish to make a career in the fitness industry, we are the only ones with proper infrastructure, including fully equipped gym floors as Labs for the practical module of our course. We have specially trained teachers of exercise science, sports nutrition, pure sciences such as anatomy, exercise physiology, bio-energetics, resistance exercise specific. We also have lifting biomechanics, which is taught by Master Trainers. We have a team of 55 Teachers and 5 Assessors. Our personal trainer’s textbook is our copyrighted IP, valued at a making cost of 1.5 Crores (CA Certified). At 222 face-to-face hours of teaching, our syllabus is the longest in duration and hence the most extensive in the industry. Our course is recognized by Register for Exercise Professionals India (REPS India). Each student that passes our intensive assessments (theory, practicals pertaining to exercise execution, practicals pertaining to program delivery, vivas) automatically gets a one year membership with REPS India, under Category-A (Personal Trainer). This makes his or her credentials and qualifications portable in Australia, New Zealand, UAE, South Africa, Ireland, and Poland. Portability ensures that our student who immigrates to these countries does not have to spend again on education in the abovementioned countries if he or she so chooses to work there. Many certifications, internationally, simply comprise buying textbooks, self-studying, and giving a 125 MCQ theory paper. Giving these exams after studying from a text book cannot and should never be confused with actual education. We can safely say that K11 is probably the only educational institution in the domain of fitness sciences, or education for aspiring personal trainers, that can truly be called as an education provider whose education will make you job ready for the global fitness industry. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Kalyani Capadia: Honestly, I do not remember myself struggling, I have enjoyed my work so much that every struggle has been a stepping-stone, which added experience. Getting K11 internationally recognized was a challenge, and REPS India (Register for Exercise Professionals), which is part of the International Confederation of Registers for Exercise Professionals (ICREPS), made it possible to put K11 on the global map. The formation of REPS India was one of the best things that happened to K11 Education Pvt Ltd. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for K11 education Pvt Ltd? Kalyani Capadia: We are working on setting up K11 practical labs all over India with our equipment partner Being Strong. The K11 labs will be equipped with Being Strong equipment. So, in the next few years, we are looking at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Indore, Surat, Chennai, and many such cities. Students will attend personal training course lectures via online, live, interactive classrooms, and they will attend the practical’s at these labs. With the online, live classrooms, we will be getting students from all over the world, so we will be working on improving the digital platforms all the time. We are becoming a global brand. We will also be Launching the Yog Prashikshak Course and then working on launching Group Instructors course. We have also been approached by the Kerala Government to set up our school in their skilling centers. So that is also a part of the plan. So, in next 5 years, we plan to go national as well as international. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Kalyani Capadia: I have learnt this piece of advice from Kaizzad Capadia, Director K11 Education Pvt Ltd., and I am offering the same to the ones who are starting out. Treat your customer like a King/Queen. Do everything keeping them in mind. You will always be successful. A happy customer tells 10 people and a sad customer will tell 100 so we need to keep all our customers happy. Website : https://www.keleven.com/ Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/k11schooloffitnesssciences Twitter : https://twitter.com/K11School YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaPIkHYnzvFFrCxev5pBKpQ Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/k11schooloffitnesssciences/
- Abilash Haridass, CoFounder at WEGoT Utility Solutions
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Abilash Haridass: Water scarcity in India is a looming issue. WEGoT aqua was innovated with an aim to reduce the water consumption by bringing about a much need behavioral change in the way people use water. In April 2015, 4 engineers (Vijay, Mohideen, Abilash, Sundeep) with absolutely different yet complimentary skill sets founded WEGoT. In a country like India where almost all big cities are water starved, there is still no accountability for a consumer on his water usage. Growing up in Chennai and being witness to acute water shortages, the founders wanted to contribute and help the city solve its water shortage. Having understood the promise of IoT, the group ventured to develop a sensor-based IoT device and a software platform that provided an end-to-end water management solution. Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by WEGoT Utility Solutions Abilash Haridass: WEGoT is an IoT startup and we have developed an end-to-end water management solution which manages the entire water infrastructure in a property by acquiring granular consumption data that was previously unavailable through high precision sensors that track flow, pressure and quality of water and then applying it to the various water related applications in the property. The platform is primarily used to audit every building's consumption and help each resident track their own consumption. It will also detect leakages and remotely shut them off in real time from the mobile phone / web application. Further, the Facility Management team is able to stay on top of water related challenges like Tanker Lorry Management, Borewell Management, STP & WTP efficiency by bringing all the data onto the same platform and operational exceptions being notified in real time. Great Companies: What makes WEGoT Utility Solutions different from traditional water management systems? Abilash Haridass: We are the only product that tracks water at all stages of the lifecycle (source to consumption) and have a solution for each specific problem point in the water cycle. We have innovated on the business model to increase adoption. We give the product for free and charge a nominal monthly subscription. We have the smallest sensors available, thereby making it the easiest sensor to install. The entire solution is a simple plug and play model, which will help us scale faster. Our Wireless LoRa sensors come with remote set up feature that makes it flexible Our product is built on IoT first platform, unlike other water meters that use IoT technology only for some functionalities Ultrasonic water meters are flexible for mounting in all directions, are dirt resistant and come with negligible pressure loss Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Abilash Haridass: The mindset of people to pay for water did not exist because the cost of water is cheap. But as the water crisis became more pronounced and people realized the importance of having and actionable way to save water that makes everyone accountable for the water they consume through technology, there has been a shift in the mindset and far greater acceptance. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for WEGoT Utility Solutions? Abilash Haridass: WEGoT has currently implemented water management solution across 30k+ homes, 40 million+ sq.ft of Commercial space, having saved 3 billion+ liters of water already. We plan to expand our operations across PAN India to another 1 million+ homes, more than 5,000 commercial and industrial facilities by 2024 – targeting to save over 10-billion litres of water in the next three to five years. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Abilash Haridass: Be passionate about the problem you are solving
- Mayank Pareek, Founder at Scholify
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Mayank Pareek: So Scholify is actually a result of my personal experience. I was pursuing my PGDM from an expensive college in India and by the end of the 1st year of the program, I along with around half of the batch was asked to clear our due fees, ahead of our global immersion program in Nanyang, Singapore. Despite being a scholarship winner myself, I was unable to arrange funds in the stipulated time. Following a few discussions cum arguments with management, I and 2 other batchmates had to unfortunately, drop out, and this somewhere led to the inception of Scholify. I was lucky to get a PPO from the organization I was interning at, and it was while working there, I thought there had to be a solution to stop this increasing drop-out rate. A few nights of extensive researches, discussions with professors and mentors, in 2018, I, with a couple of friends, conceptualised Scholify. Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Scholify Mayank Pareek: Scholify operates in both B2B and B2C sectors. For students, it is the simplest scholarship discovery platform that seamlessly connects students with ideal scholarships they are already eligible for, in just 1 click. On the other hand, we have a SaaS offering that helps corporates as their CSR implementation partner. While our B2C offering is pretty straight forward, the B2B proposition is unique and is a one-stop solution for socially aware organizations, doing impact investing. We enable them to create campaigns that are impactful, sustainable, measurable and generated value whilst cutting down CSR implementation costs significantly. There is an array of data-backed solutions in our B2B offering. Great Companies: What makes Scholify different from hundreds of other Edutech firms? Mayank Pareek: This is one of my favourite questions. So besides being THE SIMPLEST scholarship discovery platform, our goal is to make education affordable, accessible and debt-free for all. At Scholify, we are not trying to teach the students by any means or promising them better grades, cluelessly. Our goal is to help them reach their career goals by assisting them with the financial help, that does not build a debt-mountain on their heads by the time they graduate. We are working hard to help them become successful-able and find answers to the WHYs and the HOWs, over the WHATs. Unlike a few websites out there that aggregates and lists random scholarships, internships and what not with irritating ads, Scholify is a completely ad-free platform, with all exclusive Indian scholarships and no other nonsense. We cut down a lot of steps from the usual application process with our 1 click application process, and make applying, a fun, easy and super quick exercise. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Mayank Pareek: Haha, we've hustled through a lot of them and thrived so far. Initially to build a product that is first of its kind, Building the right team, financial issues like any other startup, we too have gone through them all. The biggest challenge we faced as first time entrepreneurs was finding the best solution for the chicken or the egg situation. When we approached the students, they were like what do we do when you don't have any scholarship right now, and the corporates would tell us, what do we do with you, when you don't even have a significant number of students. Integral team members, ones we were heavily dependent upon for the technical part of the work, left us for reasons of their own. Finally around February last year, at a Hackathon in DAII-CT, Gandhinagar, where I was invited as a judge and a speaker, we got 3 fabulous young guys who joined us as interns, and now have become the core of the company. They are the backbone and the super heros of Scholify and it'll be unfair not to mention their names, Souma Kanti Ghosh, Ujjwal Tiwari, and Shubham Rai. Another pillar for the company has been Manoj Kumar, who has been with me from day 1 and he's the man who does the magic with his stupendulous design work. Besides all the hardships, I am not at all hesitant to say that we are a small but a super strong team of 5, and I couldn't be more proud of this team to have come this far. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Scholify? Mayank Pareek: We plan to continue serving India and Indian students for the next few years to make the world's biggest student scholar's community by helping many more students win scholarships and complete their studies, debt-free. This can be expedited rapidly by working with organizations with prescribed CSR budgets who want to invest towards promoting education. Education is the best tool to deal with most of the problems we are facing today in the country. We are planning a series of new things to be added to Scholify's offerings and will keep rolling them out in phases. We have plans of taking Scholify global and extend our offerings to students around the world. The vision is to make Scholify a synonym to the term, Scholarship! Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Mayank Pareek: It has to be our tagline, #KeepMovingForward, no matter who says what. If you are confident and have the right intent, sooner or later things will fall in place. Even in the worst, you'll end up growing as an individual, with experience and learning beyond usual. Also, as a personal suggestion, never, I repeat, NEVER take a plunge into entrepreneurship thinking it's cool and fancy. It's a journey of hardships, sacrifices, sleepless nights that is sure to give you the experience of a lifetime along with a lot of grey hair.
- Gopa Patwari and Jaspreet Kaur Khalsa, Founder at Brand Mender
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Gopa Patwari: To break the concept that digital marketing is expensive and does not provide results. We are affordable for SMEs and focus on achieving results With digital marketing agencies mushrooming all over, we conceptualized on how to stand out. With an accumulated 18+ years of experience, me and Jaspreet, my partner, we always had this dream of starting our own agency. Hence, when fate got us together Brand Mender had to happen! Great Companies: What are the various services provided by Brand Mender Jaspreet: They are divided into 2 parts. Digital Marketing: Search Engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing, content marketing and brand re-engineering Web development Services – Revolves around website and app design and development. We also provide graphic designing services for both online and offline requirements. Great Companies: What makes Brand Mender different from hundreds of other Digital Marketing firms? Gopa Patwari: After struggling to survive for 3 years as an agency, we have realized that honesty is hard to find today, and we take pride in the fact that we deal with our clients with extreme honesty and transparency. There have been times, when campaigns have gone ashtray or marketing goals seem to be too far-fetched but we dealt in all of these situations, with what is and not what should have been. Jaspreet: We’ve come across various clients that have burnt their fingers with other digital marketing agencies. We honestly love working with such clients that have their last ray of hope alive. It’s satisfying to see that they are still our clients and their businesses are up and running. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Jaspreet: With loads of platforms and updates on these platforms, we need to be on our toes always. It’s an interesting and a tricky part of our field. Secondly, though we strive to achieve the best results for our clients, what certain clients fail to understand is that we agencies do not have a magic wand. With increase in competition, succeeding with limited budgets is quite a challenge and persistence is the key. Overnight results can’t be achieved but with consistence efforts, they are guaranteed. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Brand Mender? Gopa Patwari: For us it is one step at a time. Especially the pandemic, has taught us things we never thought of before. As the song goes – “Zindagi ek Safar hain Suhana, Yahan kal kya ho kisne Jaana…” We consider ourselves survivors through these tough times, so giving our best in the ‘present’ is what we believe in. As for plans to grow in the future, that is what we help our clients with! Jaspreet: We started off with a team of 3 and now in the last 2.5 years, we are a strong team of 12. Hence, we are able to cater to a bigger number of clients and are able to do justice. So far, the plan is to continue the good work and provide more employment opportunities to the society. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Gopa Patwari: A very cliched but honest advice would be – “it’s not going to be a sprint that you can run in a single track and win, but a tough obstacle race, wherein you know not how many times you’d hit your head or fall. Just remember to stand up and continue the race.” With Competition getting tougher everyday keeping the strength and ambition intact and to never stop, is crucial. Jaspreet: Consistency and persistence is the key. Keep going. Self-motivation is extremely important especially when you are locked up at home.
- Hitesh Sharma, Founder at SG Auto Assist
Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business? Hitesh Sharma: Years ago I was a part of a Global Roadside Assistance Leader (Allianz Worldwide Partners). There I realised few white spaces (used cars etc.) wherein customers actually require these sort of breakdown assistance services and there was no one who can provide Pan India Support to this segment. Also there are few other pain points which I found and then I thought to start this company. Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by SG Auto Assist Hitesh Sharma: We at SG Auto Assist provide Emergency Roadside Assistance Services across India to Passenger Cars, 2 Wheeler's, Electric Vehicles and even Commercial Vehicles (Trucks & Buses). We provide Tyre Replacement, Battery Jump-start, Fuel Delivery, and Accidental, Mechanical and Electrical Breakdown Towing to nearest garage or workshop. Great Companies: What makes SG Auto Assist different from hundreds of other roadside assistance service providers? Hitesh Sharma: *Prompt Response *Skilled and Trained Manpower *Largest and most Densed Service Fleet Across India *Transparent and Standard Pricing Above are few diffentiators which makes unique in industry. Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Hitesh Sharma: As we are a bootstrapped company, finances was the main concern for us in initial days. Then handling India's largest network of service providers was not easy. But we always kept our focus towards service delivery so customer's appreciations was a reward for us after facing any hurdles. Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for SG Auto Assist? Hitesh Sharma: Within 5 years from now we want to become Asia's fastest growing Roadside Assistance company along with offering of Auto Ecosystem that will solve each and every need of a customer who need anything related to automotives like Motor Insurance, Service, Spares, Motor Finance etc. Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be? Hitesh Sharma: The advice is to keep your focus on sustainability. Slow but steady is the mantra to make any business grow. Learning from other's and own mistakes and try to avoid them in future is necessary for longer vision towards success.












