Some personal update
A lot has transpired in the last few months and I wanted to share them with you
The last five months has been a roller coaster ride for me.
December 9, 2017 was a remarkable day for me as I married love of my life, Niti Shree , after being together for 4 years.
It was a tremendously high moment as being tech entrepreneurs we did something at the intersection of technology, future and wedding — bitcoins as wedding gifts
Let’s roll back time to April, 2017. Along with Nagesh Bansal and Niti Shree I launched Offrd as a platform for companies to hire non-tech talent through business challenges.
We were trying to bring much-needed sanity to the world of non-tech hiring for both candidates and companies and everything seemed to be going well until the beginning of 2018.
When we launched Offrd, we knew that there is an opportunity to build a venture in the non-tech hiring domain as the process hasn’t changed for ages. We began with a bang and things seemed alright till the realization that something was amiss dawned upon us.
Come January, 2018 and there was a realization that hit us strong
Till then we were doing good with substantial number( 5000+ in six months) of customers( both on the candidates and companies side) and had landed investors who were willing to back us.
When we started building the third version of the platform there were a lot of conversation that needed to happen with Hiring Managers, recruiters and other people in the hiring cycle.
After a few conversations, we realized that we weren’t enjoying talking to these people and in general weren’t inspired about going deep into the space.
The team sat together in January and wanted to go to the root of the problem before taking external money and below is what came out:
We had got into building a venture in a space that none of us had much experience in as well as none of us had the inspiration to actually keep digging and figuring things out
In my experience of having tried to build a couple of ventures, I believe there are two ways you build a successful one:
- Founder- Market fit: The founders know the space so well that the critical insight is mostly true and there would never be a moment where the inspiration is lacking
- Seizing an opportunity: Once you figure out that there is an opportunity to build a company in a space, you put everything you have got to learn about it and execute day-in and day-out to become a leader. You have the motivation/desire to know about the space/opportunity better than anyone else
The team started losing steam because none of us enjoyed the process or had the desire/motivation for the hiring/HR space.
Having run ShotPitch earlier, I know what an inspired company building looks like. When you are in that phase you are achieving 10x more everyday and there is no stopping you.
After due consideration we decided to pull the plug and not take external money.
It would have been a cardinal mistake had we raised money and then told our investors that we feel we may not be the right people to tackle this opportunity.
Two years and two shut downs, there has to be some hard lessons that I have learnt, summarizing two of them below( will write a detailed one later so that people can learn from my experience):
- When you are solving a problem that gives you the maximum joy, never ever give up under any circumstance. When I look back I always feel, I should have fought hard to save ShotPitch
- When you are starting something, start it in a space that you have experience in or the desire to build expertise very-very quickly. If none of this is true, chances are you will run out of steam soon
It was a dramatic turn of events as the entire planning for this year was gone for a toss and everyone in the team had to do some serious thinking on what comes next personally/individually.
After careful and deliberate thinking, I decided it is time for me to take a break from trying to build a venture and go back to contribute in solving a problem I am passionate about.
When I think of where I enjoyed working the most, it was Udacity. The reason being I get tremendous joy making people win and Udacity provided me a platform through which I kept helping more and more students achieve extraordinary things. It also gave me the opportunity to know that skilling/ed-tech or whatever you want to call it, is a space that I have a natural inclination for and a place where I thrive.
This is where I decided to get back and be involved in this domain so the below happened:
I have joined Springboard( not 91Springboard) as the India Communications and Strategy Lead( you will hear more about the role soon).
Springboard is an online learning platform that helps you acquire in-demand skills through a personalized learning approach.
The mentor led model and focus on project driven learning makes sure that it has far higher completion rate than other platforms.
It is a San Francisco based company with its engineering team in India and I will be overseeing a lot of action that we undertake back here.
There are multiple reasons why Springboard was just the place I was looking for, but I would leave that for the next post( lots to share on this front)
We will be doing very exciting things in the next few months and if you are a front-end developer or a back-end developer or a full-stack developer and want to be involved at place that gives tremendous meaning to your work and life, come join us. Open positions here: https://www.springboard.com/join-us
Let me also take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you who have wished us well and to me personally. It is only with your love and support that we have been able to achieve and do whatever little we have till now. I hope you continue showering the love and support in future.
To all the users of Offrd, we are sorry that we couldn’t do justice to your hopes from the platform( until today, we receive messages from candidates asking when the next challenge is coming up). Thank you for standing by us and trusting us to serve you.
Customers are everything when building a company and to disappoint them is not easy. All I can say is we are sorry and hope to do better the next time around.
Starting something from grounds up takes a lot of courage, dedication and trust.
This post would be incomplete if I don’t take this opportunity to thank Nagesh Bansal for coming on board the second time as a Co-Founder and CTO and for being the sport he has been through two tumultuous journey.
For Niti Shree this was her first shot at entrepreneurship, though it didn’t turn out to be fruitful, I am confident she got some valuable lessons especially on what can go wrong while building a venture. It will enable her to be better prepared the next time around. Bon Voyage!
A big thank you to Utkarsh Bhimte who started as an intern, got involved full-time and has now matured into a well groomed front-end developer.Your journey has just begun and I will do all I can to make sure you fly high, very high!
One of the great things that has happened with a couple of experience is we have become a closed knit family and the bond is only going to become stronger in the time to come.
So what are they up to?
Utkarsh is in the middle of finalizing his move from the offers in hand( you can still reach out to him if you are looking for a well-rounded front-end developer) and Niti is going to be taking up some interesting independent initiatives.
Let me end this with the quote that describes how I am feeling these days:
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.” –Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO
The entrepreneurial fire has not vanished, I will be utilizing the same fire within me to help students and professionals in India get equipped with in-demand skills and excel in careers through Springboard
It is an exciting challenge something that makes me jump out of the bed every morning and I am raring to go.
In the next post, I will be talking more about Springboard and why it is perfectly positioned to capture a lion share of the up-skilling market in India.
With love,
Prashant
