Lessons Learnt from Venturing into Entrepreneurship

Dreams are not those that you visualize when sleeping. They are the ones that don’t let you sleep. Following this tenet, Rohit Manglik dreamed to have an enterprise of his own. Rohit is the CEO and founder of EduGorilla, a startup smartly fusing education with today’s technology. The enterprise was the result of the gaps between the key players of education and the students, he felt during his school days.
Rohit felt this gap because, as a student, the needs like choosing better coaching, choosing competent study-material, even looking for better schools, baffled him. He could imagine the plethora of difficulties that students, mainly belonging to smaller towns and cities, had to face. From there, the idea of a single platform for providing every kind of assistance to the students, related to education, took birth. And this platform was intended to cater to all things related to and assisting with a student’s education.
But, Rohit had to pay heavily for taking the first step to start realizing it. He took the risk of leaving his well-paid and well-understood field of work, which had made him proficient in the necessary skills.
Also, there was the dread of failure — everything collapsing in-spite of the best of the efforts being put. Every step, therefore, had to be put carefully and calculatedly. Thanks to the passion, drive, and dedication within him, Rohit took the plunge… and the story of EduGorilla thus began.
Incident That Made the Will Stronger
A visit to his school to meet his teachers for whom he held high regards, made the things change. Hence, apart from meeting them, Rohit also met the children there. The children, in the flow of their conversation, made him realize a huge gap in our education system. This gap had them and the education industry at two far ends, with the huge valley of disconnect between them. This gap was simply of no information about the right kind of career-guidance. A while later, he also realized that this gap of unknowing between the whole education industry and students needed to be addressed immediately. The students couldn’t be blamed for this scenario. Hence, the onus seemed to lie upon the education-industry consisting of schools, coaching and tuition centers, schools, colleges and everybody associated with it.
The disconnect, invariably provided a cue to merge this gap meaningfully. From there was born the idea of EduGorilla- the single platform to serve all educational needs of the students. The last nail in the coffin of Rohit’s fears had been hammered finally.
A Lesson Consisting of Challenges
The carrying out of the dream had begun. But, the beginning wasn’t easy. Luck didn’t smile at the NIT graduate from the start. Two or more problems used to raise their heads to replace an existing one. Initially, there were several tasks to be carried out on his own. These ranged from hiring right personnel, to the tasks of managing the accounts, taking care of other liabilities of the HR department and many others. Talking of conducting interviews, he would have conducted a thousand of them to recruit right personnel having desired set of skills. A famous saying professes that, the right selection made in the initial stage of enterprise results in great outcomes. Interviewing candidates under this light produced really great results for the enterprise.
This condition had to be stipulated only to verify that the right candidates were chosen for the right profiles. Once they got selected, Rohit thought to inspire them by the incentives based on successful completion of targets. This mode was considered better for the company, than that based on a fixed monthly stipend. The methodology worked two ways. While it motivated the personnel to work smarter, it lessened him with his managerial and financial liabilities. The personnel were further motivated by transferring a part of company’s ownership to them. This resulted in their approaching with ideas of betterment for the company.
After finishing their internship and having understood well, the company’s culture and work environment, the candidates were transferred to the full-time job profile.
Reflecting Upon the Past
Recalling that it all started with the company’s founding in Farrukhabad (a tier-III town in the country), it is really an achievement to see it standing firmly on its own, with a talent pool of over 60 people.
Apart from supporting the staff of these 60 plus people and helping in education and career of millions of students, EduGorilla also was fortunate to work with a renowned NGO named FUEL. In the campaign, EduGorilla counseled various students in the districts of Haryana. The start-up was also acknowledged by the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Sri Prakash Javadekar Ji for this yeoman’s service.
Reflecting Upon the Future
Reflecting upon the prospects 5 years later, it is quite hopeful that EduGorilla will effort to reform the lives of 10 lakh plus students in the country. Summarizing on the lessons learned, it will be fair enough to assert that an entrepreneurial journey along with philanthropy is never a smooth sail. Though, it certainly pays for the benefactor and the beneficiaries to have made the efforts, in the long run.
