I have been an Entrepreneur for 20 years, and an Entrepreneur in the Education Technology space. 20 years ago, EdTech was not a often used word in Education and Industry sectors.
Many times, I have been asked about why I chose to become an entrepreneur, and I get invited to speak about entrepreneurship, its rewards and challenges. Mostly I say the same things but repackaged to make it interesting to the audience of the day.
I am sure for every successful entrepreneur out there in today’s world there are many failed entrepreneurs. Sometimes I tend to think being an entrepreneur is fashionable.
However, when you stay close to your heart and the truth, the journey is about courage, hard work and lucky breaks (being there at the right place at the right time).
Reflecting on my journey of entrepreneurship and the decisions I had to make at crucial times, I have to talk about the realities too.
I am an accidental entrepreneur. I became self-employed because I could not fit int the space and mindset os being a working professional.
I had to pick an area for my entrepreneurial journey. I was not from a business family. I sought advise and here was an idea. That I was a techie and my father was an educator. So, the sweet spot I picked was e-learning, now, Education technology.
Typical story of starting up in the Garage at home, with uncertainty of the future, but family telling me not to give up. I had to sell my product, for which I had to build one in the first place. Enter my act as a sales person. I was not trained in sales nor did I have any previous experience doing sales.
Armed with only a mockup/storyboard of a product I wanted to build, I had to win the first client. For those of you familiar with this type of situation. Every potential client wants to hear about your other clients, and you don’t have a client until you close the first sale and deliver.
So all I had was a bunch of ideas, my own prior experience, and a story to tell, that in hindsight was very powerful. The first lucky break! and then it is about leveraging on references, traveling and learning to live out of your suitcase to persevere getting more clients on board.
Being educated in the pre internet and pre social media era, I continued to lead my business and a sales team, working the ropes in the traditional way of meeting clients, tell a powerful story. We learned to understand and get deep insights into our customer’s requirements, their pain points. We learned to think alongside our customers, and sometimes ahead.
Hence our value proposition became stronger and conversion of prospects to clients became sharper.
Having been deeply embedded in the transformation of Education and training sector due to Digital transformation and the power on internet, we are able to connect the dots from emerging times to today’s Edtech.
We aspire to be thought leaders in Edtech and thats what drives our business.
I have been actively writing on linked in, about my views on the Edtech sector. A lot of us are doing that. I read about many successful Edtech Entrepreneurs, Edtech companies, why Edtech is a “must have” for all forms of education and training needs. How nCOVID19 opened a significant business opportunity for EdTech etc.
Lots of ideas out there. I felt I should be writing about my experience, the high and lows. The paradigm shifts in Education and Technology over two decades. Interesting circumstances that we have to navigate, and make some bets.
I plan to write about intersting twists and turns of my journey as an Edtech Entrepreneur. Hoping it will be interesting to a lot of readers.
