EasyGovt: An e-commerce platform helping students to prepare for Govt Exams

 

EasyGovt is a Bangalore based startup founded by Praveen in 2015.

We have spent many sleepless nights studying every student behavior that participated during our research in developing artificial intelligence and psychometric tools, which will study the patterns of skill sets and make sure that we will solve one day the problem of unemployment and underemployment, says Praveen. 

We got an opportunity to talk with Praveen, and see what he has to say. I am sure his interview with us will inspire you.

 

 

Give a brief info about your startup?

EasyGovt (EG.) is eCommerce of knowledge addressing Govt Exams using visual art medium and psychometric techniques. During Market Research, 3 major barriers were identified causing unemployment & underemployment in India i.e., poverty, language barrier and lack of fundamental logical skillsets to empower them. So, concept explanations will be delivered in 5 languages namely Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and English covering the large landscape of India.

Visual Art Based Coaching Material PDF – Rs. 1/pdf

Story Telling Conceptualized Coaching Material – Rs. 2/mp3

Visual Effects & Illustration based Videos – Rs. 10/Class

VIP’s & Expert interviews from various verticals and instant articles of Govt Schemes are been posted on YouTube for free assisting career planning and as a pro bono exercise respectively.

 

What made you start your startup and what problem does it solve?

Unfortunately, India is observing era of unemployment and majorly underemployment. Only 3.5% of population is working for Govt Sector. There are opportunities available in Govt Sector and there are no takers. If we compare our education policies, there is defocus on education sector to make everyone self-sufficient but they are only worried about degree. 90% of the people are not working as per their educational status. Youngsters lack vision and zero confidence on their earned degree. We are solving this by teaching them the fundamentals of concepts using visual art medium, which will help them to visualize concept and connect dots of logic connecting it with similar concepts. Our belief is to have them go through 360 degree logic based coaching and have part knowledge of the opportunities available.

 

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

Founders of EG. have worked for MNCs for almost a decade.

Praveen Basavaraj, Founder was AVP of a Market Research in Brand Communications and Consulting for almost about 8 years before starting venture analyzing data of top fortune 500 companies of the world arriving at inferences and suggesting strategies to be undertaken. Using the same knowledge, we are trying address the nation wide problem of unemployment and underemployment.

Naresh Guniputi, Co-Founder was working as Sales Head of mobile selling top retail chain for almost about 6 years in UK and then in one of the mobile selling top retail chain of South India for more than 3 years. Meeting decision makers, focus group discussions and in deducing futuristic demands of the market was one of the primary responsibilities. So, I think our strategy in solving one of the biggest problems faced by India today is planned very well focused majorly on rural market.

 

Where is your startup based? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

Bangalore, India known to be hub of IT as it helped us hire resources for developing artificial intelligence and data mining techniques to analyze students coaching through psychometric analysis to personalize notes delivery system in future. Bangalore helped us in Focus Group Discussions as we have people living here covering larger landscape of India. Also, it helped us get knowledge experts who can help us translate to Hindi (covering almost North India), Kannada (covering Karnataka & Mumbai), Tamil (covering Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Kerala), Telugu (covering Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) and English (covering almost all urban areas of India).

 

As a startup founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

Building the leanest effective IT infrastructure to address the huge need is one of the biggest challenges in the market. Our overhead cost, advertising budget, studio is in control. However, bandwidth and server requirements to address at lowest cost are still a scarier thought, as rural crowd is recipients of 2G or 3G network.

 

Who are your competitions and how are you better than them?

360-degree approach is unaccounted by any player in the market. However, from an eagles view, it’s crowded with small time players and very big players who have got funded more than 1000crs. The challenge is in defining the uniqueness in our system to make everyone self sufficient by making sure the fundamentals are right which is going to define our path.

In Ancient Indian Teaching Techniques were vibrant and effective as we had Yoga, Generic Skill Set Trainings and Motivational Classes through Stories, which we have adapted through visual art to make youngsters more confident and filled with patience to achieve their goals.

How hard is it to have a work life balance as a startup founder and how do you manage it?

Obviously, it is very hard because we end up spending 80% of time in office space and cannot spend quality time with families as our dream to make India a better place and increase GDP per capita.

The only way that I have started circumventing the gap is through communicating with my son by video chat and talking to him late nights. I believe even on weekends it is very tough for him to understand that his father is working as 8 hours a day / week isn’t going to achieve what we have dreamt of.

 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

Currently, we have offers from couple of Angel’s however still haven’t agreed. Also, we have been presenting research papers to incubators and seminars, however we haven’t really thought through well to take up funding because we believe the responsibility is not just about making money but making every individual empowered and making them self sufficient.

For now, we have been working on service projects for other clients and using our earnings to fund our initiative. Our overhead cost and investment for studio is taken care through this.

 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?

The most misunderstood system in India is scored marks versus skills. If properly educated for Government Exams from younger days, we can have excellent Government Officials serving nation. Nobody wants to understand possessed skill of a student and what he/she can excel at but parents, relatives; neighbors only worry about achieving top rank to become as a doctor or an engineer as they are considered high paying jobs. I have personally known district collector’s who are making big changes in the system. However, even today parents want their kids to be either a doctor or an engineer.

 

What gets you excited about this company?

The thought that we can actually bring change in the status quo of India to solve the biggest problem our nation i.e., unemployment and underemployment is what makes us jump out of your bed early in the morning regardless of our late night sleeps.

We have spent many sleepless nights studying every student behavior that participated during our research in developing artificial intelligence and psychometric tools, which will study the patterns of skill sets and make sure that we will solve one day the problem of unemployment and underemployment. We are also going to teach students and parents entrepreneurial development programs so that they can actually earn their living asking students to continue education without dropping out from educational system for earning the livelihood.

 

Tell us how a day in your life looks like? Your schedule for a day right from the time you get up till you hit the bed at night.

Regardless of time hitting the bed at night, our excitement makes us wake up by 5.30 am followed by quick exercise for 15 minutes. I immediately start towards the company at 7am being scared of crossing Silk Board Traffic. Normally, I enter the company around 7.30 a.m. followed by the team by 9:00 a.m. Immediately, meetings with entire team explaining requirements of service clientele projects along with our own project. In a week, we end up interviewing multiple VIP or Expert’s as well. By evening, it will be about we checking out the status of the development of the projects and ensuring that we are able to integrate the services in the development of the project. At last, around 10pm, we end up moving towards our home.

 

Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

I started my entrepreneurial journey by 2012 and was working on service projects till I met my partner who was the general manager of e-commerce in mobile phone selling top retail chain in South India. So, we started EasyGovt.com in 2015 as a blog as we didn’t have the studio ready but got hacked by Pakistani Hackers. So, we decided to continue on services to accumulate some revenue to build a studio, which is an absolute must for visual art mode teaching. 1 year ago, we started market research talking to students and now ready to go LIVE with our Product Venture.

 

 

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