In our relentless pursuit to identify and share with our community some of the unique and compelling startup stories from the ecosystem, this week we spoke to Team EdSanta Education to understand more about their journey, their vision and the way forward. Let’s read their unique story!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with their team:
Tell us a little bit about your startup (EdSanta Education) and the problems it is solving, please;
What if a salesperson has to negotiate his first big deal and the night before he sees a 5 min video on 5 effective ways to negotiate? What if a product manager is able to read one article a day that could help in prioritizing and delivering the next product release? We want to be able to make these a reality for our customers.
We started out as a group of acquaintances who got together inspired by a common interest in education. Not the formal version of education, but its more casual avatar. We were excited by the idea that knowledge—the kind that was once restricted to the hallowed walls of Ivy League colleges—could be made accessible to anyone, from anywhere.”
Our journey and the products we launched along the way were just milestones that took us nearer to our ultimate goal – to make continuous learning a habit. People should check out new skills and learn with the same ease with which they check into their FB or Instagram accounts.
EdSanta Education has many brands such as GetMeaCourse, Elite for Workplace and Elite for Individuals.
Where did the unique idea to start something like this come from?
The skill gap is a reality that experts across the world have been discussing for some time now. The World Economic Forum lent its voice to this global concern by announcing a reskilling revolution in 2019.”
The current global crisis precipitated by the pandemic has exasperated an already widening skill gap. Whilst enterprises acknowledge that reskilling and upskilling is the need of the hour, it is not as easily accomplished. Keeping an employee motivated and enthusiastic about “time-consuming courses” is an uphill task since most employees can dedicate only less than 1% of their time on skilling and upskilling. With remote work becoming a universal reality, skilling is now a bigger challenge to the organization.
Our R&D team designed this brilliant solution to grab and retain an employee’s attention – Elite, an AI-driven learning platform.
Elite is successful in keeping the employees’ attention by enabling them to set a career goal and then chart a skill map to reach it. Once the employee’s attention is engaged, the platform then aligns itself to the employee’s learning preferences. For example, if you are more of a visual learner, our AI platform will start sending you more videos as learning resources.
We work on the principle that the learner should be given the freedom to learn from the medium of their choice, at their choice of time. If they wish to listen to a podcast while commuting, they should be able to do so. We empower learners in this way.”
How do you find the industry/niche that you’re in?
Edtech is currently a very exciting space to be in. As this sector is fairly in its nascency, there is immense scope to innovate and make a mark for ourselves.
Bhanu Prasad COO at EdSanta Education
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives the team?
We are a young, vibrant team with varied backgrounds. We have experts in education, technology, analytics, leadership training, finance management, organizational planning, business process reengineering, and IT implementation within our small group. These diverse experiences allow us to bring different viewpoints to the table, which gives us a unique advantage to overcome challenges. We have come to realize that a challenge invariably results in innovation and this keeps us going.
What are your expansion plans?
Elite for Workplace has found great traction with small and medium enterprises in India. Our success in this market has encouraged us to launch the product internationally. We have plans to introduce this product to large enterprises. The individual version of Elite will also be launched very soon.
What is one strategy that you guys believe has helped you grow as a team/startup?
We have always focused on the product and the end-user. We believe that this single-minded focus is the reason for our success.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Your product or solution should have at least one differentiating factor that is unique and is done well.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures EdSanta Education has undertaken to continue business without disruption?
We’ve been lucky that most of our systems and processes could be easily transitioned to a remote working model. We did not really have a break in service because of this. Our employees were encouraged to work from home well before the government recommended WFH. As we are a closely-knit team, we decided to take voluntary salary cuts to ensure that the company could progress with its expansion plans.
Our sales and services teams embraced technology and ensured that our clients enjoyed seamless and uninterrupted service.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
