At Brilliant Read Media, we always strive to bring you meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community of investors, management students and aspiring entrepreneurs. This week we invited Swiss entrepreneur Melanie Martinelli who had made India her home for 17 years. She is a proven business leader and entrepreneur who successfully built her third venture while also taking care of her 17 months old son Kiaan. She is the Co-Founder and Director of The Learning Gym Ltd. Let’s learn more about her inspiring journey, her way forward and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Melanie:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as a woman entrepreneur;
I’m originally from Switzerland and I grew up in the tri-national area of Basel which is in Switzerland but located right at the border to Germany and France. This is also where I graduated from a unique collaborated university approach.
We were 10 students from each country so 10 French, 10 Germans and 10 Swiss students. We moved from one country to another, from one school to another. That gave us a unique cross-cultural experience. The degree was International Business Management with a focus on cross-culture competence and collaboration. In the final year of my studies (2004) I came to Bangalore to do research for my thesis on the topic of “The Hidden Cost of Culture in outsourcing projects”.
I had an internship opportunity with a company called Aztec Software which was acquired by Mindtree a couple of years later. I worked for them in the sales department for Europe and in parallel was researching about the hidden cost of culture in outsourcing projects, particularly, outsourcing projects between Germany/Switzerland and India. And that is where the foundation of my entrepreneurial journey started.
As I was supporting Aztec Software to find its footing in the European market and get more outsourcing projects, I quickly realized that there was a rather big need for building cultural bridges between the Indian and European markets.
In order to leverage the opportunities (especially the financial ones) that outsourcing had to offer, it was important to build strong cross-cultural teams that could effectively work together and trust each other despite differences in work styles and perceptions.
So in 2007, together with a colleague in Germany, I started my first venture called Let’s Bridge IT. Our mission was focused on supporting outsourcing companies in successfully bridging the cultural gap and make outsourcing projects work.
A couple of years into this enriching work, I joined hands with two like-minded guys from India and France and we merged our respective businesses into a new venture called C2C Organizational Development. Over the next 10 years, we jointly built a high-performing team of Organizational Development consultants, facilitators, and content designers who believed that people are at the core of an organization’s success.
And then 2 years ago I co-founded The Learning Gym (TLG). Having spent 12+ years in the training industry I felt there was a need an unique opportunity to start another venture that purely focuses on upskilling learning professionals. Learning professionals are often busy focusing on the needs of their learners, and their challenge is finding the time and the right tools for their own learning. This was the primary reason for the creation of The Learning Gym.
Both me and my business partner Shilpa come from a design and facilitation background and are both fitness enthusiasts! This explains the name we chose for our company 😊
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
That’s a good question and if I am very honest it was never really a conscious choice “entrepreneurship over corporate career” but my entrepreneurial life just somehow happened. I mean I was 26 years old when I started my first business and back then I just felt there was nothing I had to lose.
A corporate job was always something I could go back to. My parents say that I have always had a very adventurous and risk-taking spirit and typically lived by the mantra “unless you try something you will not know whether it works”.
Now after almost 15 years as an entrepreneur I have come to particularly appreciate the opportunity to be my own boss and to work on my own terms. Having the freedom to decide which hours of the day/week I work, the ability to spontaneously take a day off but most importantly to be able to select my projects and clients and follow the passion that allows me to do what I believe in.
‘The Learning Gym Limited’ is such a unique name; talk us through its conception. Our audience would also love to know what the idea was behind creating The Learning Gym.
The idea behind it was inspired by the 2 founders who have a passion for fitness and a passion for learning. To create a place where learning professionals, teachers, trainers and facilitators could come together to spend time building their own skills or as we like to call it
‘A place where they can come to build, flex and tone their learning muscles’.
While learning professionals are really passionate about training others and putting their hearts into teaching their learners, very rarely do they get time or funding for their own professional development.
And so, our idea was to create a place where learning professionals from different walks of life, different areas of expertise could come together. No matter how skilled they are, how far they’ve advanced in their career or how much time they have, The Learning Gym is a place where they can spend time and leave with a fresh perspective and a new set of skills.
Much like a gym tends to cater to a versatile audience and differing needs, The Learning Gym does the same by offering a variety of so-called workout formats and types of tools to suit the needs of learning professionals.
So it really is about giving learning professionals an opportunity to try out new things, collaborate with peers and be inspired, then take it back to their own learning environment.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures you have undertaken to continue your business without disruption?
We were in a tight spot once COVID hit. Everyone stopped trainings because there was so much uncertainty. No one really knew what was going to happen next. And very often the learning budget is, unfortunately, the first one to be hit.
We used to do face to face trainings using physical props, games, flip charts and other learning tools and now we were forced to think about how we were going to convert all of that virtually.
Luckily with my business partner, we really took this as an opportunity to create a space to bring together learning professionals that were “stuck” in a similar situation and jointly explore the options available out there in terms of technology.
We experimented with all kinds of different classrooms, zoom, google hangouts and also WebEx, GoToMeeting so that we could connect with learners on more than one platform. We also researched different apps and websites that would help make training more effective and interactive.
Here at The Learning Gym, there’s one principle we live by ‘Learning is creation, not consumption’.
We started running something that we called “AL Cafe Experiments”, where we sit with a cup of coffee online and would try out things. We did this free of cost for pretty much all throughout April and May and slowly we migrated this to an actual offering.
With a very reasonable price ($20 for a 2 to 3 hrs. session) it slowly started gaining momentum. Over time, it really started to build a new brand and it started to be recognized by a lot of corporates and freelance trainers. More and more companies started reaching out to us, asking if we could help them in migrating their F2F sessions into a virtual format.
Right now, we offer a series of workshops/certifications that are aimed at helping trainers/teachers facilitate in a virtual environment and design interactive virtual programs.
It did take an investment and that also goes back to one of my entrepreneurial mantra’s ‘You have to give first to get something back’
Especially in times like these, you must bet on your expertise and passion. Amidst the fears and vulnerabilities that come with being an entrepreneur, you have to dare to test the waters and not just freeze. You’ve got to be proactive and not reactive, that’s a key skill as an entrepreneur.
One thing that has truly been a boon for us is to be able to collaborate with others. With the help of LinkedIn, we started reaching out to people across the globe and we realized that the world is just a click away.
It gave us an opportunity to meet a lot of people and invite them as guest speakers/trainers free of cost for our learning community.
How do you keep on going despite the challenges? What drives you?
At the end of the day, you have to know you’re in the driver’s seat. I have a responsibility towards my employees and of course also my family.
I made a promise to them and that’s what kept me going. Creatively looking for ways to keep the business afloat, so that we can keep all our staff on board because we know that they too have families who depend on them. It’s not just about me and my business partner, it’s also about the people behind The Learning Gym.
No matter how challenging things are, there are important lessons to be learnt from them and opportunities to grow.
In your opinion – what is more important: a good idea or a good team for a successful startup?
Yes, of course, you need a unique idea, but if I look at our business, there are similar businesses out there. The market is big enough and our team is great no doubt. Then what sets us apart?
What is most important in a startup is that you need to understand that you’re in it for the long run. You can’t just expect everything to be successful. It takes a lot of hard work and you must be willing to do that.
You should have a clear vision, purpose for yourself and what you want to achieve. Passion and drive are extremely important and the willingness to go the extra mile. The passion that you carry for your work is also what inspires your team. And yes a good team is crucial – you can’t do it all alone.
What are the business mantras you have embraced as you sought to establish your success story?
Believing in yourself is the mantra I believe in. If you don’t believe in what you sell, no one else will buy into it. Understanding that business is done by building relationships, treating people with respect, and investing in long term relationships.
Trust is the foundation for all of that. Building a business takes patience and I feel it’s also important to have the courage to say no whenever it’s required. Money while of course, a key factor of any business can’t be the driver. Take on projects that you believe in, that make you feel good about the work you do and the people you work with.
Please share with us what has worked well for you so far?
When you become an entrepreneur, the business becomes your life and finding the right balance is imperative. It is not easy but so important to make space for your family, space for your hobbies and space for your friends to resource and recharge yourself.
Trusting your instinct and not hesitating to say no or calling something off when you feel it’s not working out for you is another important lesson I learned. This also includes the ability to have open, honest and at times difficult conversations with your business partner. Avoiding conflict will not help the business in the long run.
Revisiting on a regular basis “the WHY behind your company” prevents you from losing sight of your entrepreneurial dream and ensures you are heading into the right direction.
What are the three most important lessons you have learnt building your startup?
1) Not every potential customer is a potential customer for you. It is about who you want to be and what you want to stand for. The courage to say no is crucial if you want to build a business that you truly believe in.
2) Don’t hesitate to ask for help and build yourself a trusting ecosystem with people you can count on and whose advice you can seek when needed. Asking for help is not a sign of weaknesses and it does not make you less of an entrepreneur.
3) While of course, it is important that you know your competition, don’t be too focused on them. Set goals for yourself and strive to achieve them and if you do achieve them, celebrate. Yes, creating a culture of “celebrating success” is so crucial especially when you have a tendency to be rather harsh on yourself.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring woman entrepreneur.
Believe in yourself and dare to be different. Don’t let someone else shatter your dreams. When I started my first venture at the age of just 27, a lot of people cautioned me about starting a business in a country like India, a place I was not familiar with.
A few went so far as to call me “mad” for doing something like this. And yes, maybe I was mad, and that madness made it possible. The same happened when I got pregnant and was just starting TLG. Many people believed that was just the wrong moment to start yet another venture.
For me, it just gave me that extra fire to make it work 😊 Listen to your heart. If you believe in it, it is going to work out. If it doesn’t, you can make amends and learn from those failures. Unless you try it, you’ll never know. Just go for it!
Another advice that I mentioned earlier is about surrounding yourself with the right people and not being afraid to ask for advice, support and or help. You don’t have to do it all alone to be an entrepreneur.
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.
