At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring to our community some of the meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our community. This week we invited yet another young, passionate and purpose-driven entrepreneur Virendra Sharma – Co-Founder of MedGenie, Mentor, Advisor, Consultant, Trainer, Coach and a passionate Keynote Speaker with over 21 keynote speeches in top colleges and universities including IITs/IIMs for an interview with us to understand more about his journey so far. He is actively contributing to the startup ecosystems through his relentless efforts and various initiatives. Let’s read about his inspiring journey and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Virendra:
Talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur/coach?
I always believed in myself and my passion whatever have been the worst situations I never turned back in my past.
Being self-motivated and analyzing today’s education gaps in current society I started my journey being a trainer who knows what and how to train the upcoming learners keeping in consideration the gaps to be filled in the education sector.
Completed my B.TECH in I.T & Masters in Marketing, followed by Business Model Program from IIT-DELHI I am going on in delivering effective and powerful programs which help people gain momentum to instantly get results in their lives both from the professional and personal perspective.
I started my career with IT giant companies like Infosys, HCL, Tech-M & gained experiences year by year enfolding them at one spot by the breadth of the organizations that he worked in and founded an early-stage startup into training sector. Being multi-specialist and creative I played various roles in my initial start-up at the initial stage–being as the Founder, from calling to college departments to front-end development, from designer to a creative content writer with deep thoughts, from marketing to client dealing just for one reason that lies in my passion in helping people to learn and gain the real corporate learning which was hidden from them.
In my career being software developer, I was not given the opportunities to showcase my skill set and also I was demotivated that I can’t deal with work but the cruel reality was I was just slave for my team manager, not a good quality resource who knows his expertise well. To fill this gap and other learners don’t face this situation I started as a Trainer, Coach and a Motivator.
In 2017 during my IIT-Delhi program course, I found the gap was also in the healthcare sector while one of my friends told me his story. IIT-Delhi liked our concept and got incubated instantly. Our product is patented and a novelty product. Covered under Make In India, Startup India, GEM Portal, MSME, DIPP Certified and attached with FITT.
I didn’t study at IIT-Delhi ever and even never thought in my dreams that one day everybody will be knowing me there.
Currently, I am into Technical, Entrepreneurship and Motivational domain because training is my passion, entrepreneurship is my hobby.
My passion is to guide, assist and direct future leaders and industry professionals to propel their career which ultimately leads to fulfilling my motive being a Specialist Trainer with more than 25+ freelancing companies at present. I have trained more than 8000+ learners across different corporate segments and institutional sectors both offline and online. Given more than 200+ training.
I am always an ambitious, driven leader and passionate mentor in the education industry.
Apart from my startup running, I am currently associated with Startup India as Mentor, Keynote Speaker with more than 50+ institutions, Specialist tech trainer, Motivator, Leadership coach, TEDx speaker and now recently developed my interest towards a YouTuber as well. In my free time, I am writing a book as well as enclosing all my past personal experiences into it.
What’s your experience in both entrepreneurship and a corporate career?
When you think you can serve others well with full of capability and can listen to their hard words being you are so talented then I think you can survive well in the job but if you are unhappy from your job then I think the time arrived when you should always listen to your heart as what you can do the best. The corporate world doesn’t do well with individualism where your talent and skills are not recognized well, on the whole. It institutionalizes people; all too often people lose their identity and attach it to a company, or their job title, and corporations need you to act and perform a certain way. People love their jobs because they don’t have other option of survival to listen to their heart and follow their passion to make it a profession.
The employer can risk your career anytime by firing you when the company finds suitable and ready to work in less salary.
It is very risky to be solely relying on your employer for your main stream of income; it gives them total agency over your livelihood. They not only control your career but they also control your personal lives when you are at home. In short, “we are not living but we are just surviving”
Being into entrepreneurship you have your free mindset to control the things in your own way, you know what you are good at, you know how you can solve social problems with new thinking and providing the right solutions, you lead the way and you know what others are good at so you always provide them with those opportunities. A person who has suffered will not allow others to suffer because he knows the pain of survival. This is all in total contrast to setting out on the entrepreneurship journey.”
I see it as the chance to solve problems, whilst creating impact and income. It’s being able to master many different areas – from marketing to technology, business to sales, operations to service everything. The success of getting the first client and first salary is always an awesome feeling whether you are earning less but that small new thing will always motivate you to look ahead and move with confidence.
You also get bogged down with lots of negative comments and critics from your family and friends during your startup journey as they don’t understand the pain and hardship that bought you there and they are only concerned about the job.
The growth that you get when you set out on this journey is exponential, and you really get to see what you are made of. People always say that entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, but no one really challenges if a corporate career is for everyone. Once you realize that in the entrepreneurship arena there is no ceiling to what you can do, it is challenging to fit back into the corporate box.
Where did the idea to start something like this come from? Please share with us your journey to date;
Being a Speaker and Motivator,
I never thought to be a trainer a speaker and a motivator in my life until and unless I felt that my passion is delivering confidence in others and a good mentor for their lives. In 2013 I started myself with the very first session at Amity University and at least for 1 year no any other college and university paid me any single penny still, I didn’t lose faith in myself and started moving ahead keeping in my mind that this is the learning phase for me. Self-learning is the biggest lesson in life.
Being an innovator and entrepreneur,
In 2017 during my IIT-Delhi program course, I found the gap was there in the healthcare sector while one of my friend (now partner) told me his personal story and that lead both of us to fill that gap of immediate healthcare need.
We struggled so hard because we were into jobs as well and side by side managing both the stuff was tough for us at that time. Every day we used to work on our product prototype and we made around 4-5 prototypes as well and whenever any client wants to see that we used to carry that machine in the car and then it was a too heavy machine as well. Day by Day hardship was more and tougher to carry forward.
We spent around 1.5 years just to research the product and finally came out with the cool technology-driven product.
Please share with us some of the challenges you faced in your journey;
Being a trainer was not easy to achieve when you know that there is tough competition in the market and people will ask you lots of questions and they will have a long list of expectations from you. I started my training passion in the year 2013 when somebody challenged me on my skills although I never wanted to be a trainer and never thought of moving into this sector.
The challenges were that every college/ company started taking free demos from me and I used to spend travel cost also from my own pocket. Nobody was taking me seriously and they used to promise lots of things but during delivery of training, they used to change their rules from paid to free of cost.
The biggest challenge was I need to call myself to every college and university and to request them that provide me at least one paid session but no response. Every day I was used to call around 15-20 colleges and then used to get no response. I then thought I need to change my way to present myself. I started learning new technologies which were in demand in the market on my own, creating slides, and assignments on my own. It took 2 years more to get my first paid session that too after 10-12 follow-ups. Life was not easy for me. If I put down my 100% efforts I used to get only 10% output as someone said your luck always a very crucial role in your life and I think it was never with me.
During the IIT-D prototype design, I used to travel in between my office hours as well and sometimes I need to take the office leaves as well. So I thought to do night shift job so that daytime can be utilized in my product prototype design. So I used to do my job at night and used to take just 5 hours of sleep and again wake up in the morning to do my startup work. It was hard so much to find any client in the initial stage where I was targeting to find the investor for my startup.
What is your Business Mantra: Money or Emotions?
For me, Money comes after emotions. To help and fill the gap in the Education and healthcare sector which was my prime purpose and I never thought from that point of view that this will give me more money. Money can’t buy you everything but emotions can make you big enough when you dig into other problems which they face in daily life and then take it as a problem-solving challenge.
“Sometimes I feel so fortunate that I choose this training profession because when you train your learners and other people and motivate them for life ready situations that is the biggest gift which I get in return when they say that I am the role model for them”.
I care about making sure they do what they need to do under my guidance to achieve what we set out to. I want to see them win.
From my healthcare startup point of view, I still believe that business mantra is connecting people with emotions, not through deals. It’s always good to be in personal touch with them because a person can win deals with good networking and good relations, every time money cannot make you rise.
The money is a by-product. In the thought leadership model, commercialization comes last. People don’t care about you unless they know that you care for them.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Just one thing you should know that pressure and stress cannot make you take wise decisions but it will always provoke you to take wrong steps.
I believe that whenever you are in stress and pressure you should always leave that place and should move to some quiet environment where you can spend time with yourself and just close your eyes for some time and think of those days when you took this step and initiative to make it big.
Always remember that time which was bad for you because this will make you feel how far you came stepping from one hurdle to another hurdle and now this small pressure or stress is nothing before that.
Adding to above, I take enjoyment from the work because I see the growth and results, for myself, and for my clients – that energizes me, it doesn’t stress me! What growth happens from comfort zones? None. Diamonds are made under pressure.
Stress will bring negative thoughts in your mind and will stop you from progressing ahead. I always have some sweeteners like chocolate or having some spicy food at that time but it does not impact my performance or stop me working.
What has worked well for you so far?
The best thing that I could have done to propel my success is to learn, learn and learn that gave me the results that I desire.
I never stopped myself to learn from my bad times, my mistakes, and critics from people, hardships or wrong decisions. If there is one thing I will always bank on and invest in, it’s myself. I always explored myself into multiple roles whether being an entrepreneur, a trainer, a motivator, a coach, a leader, an author and now a YouTuber.
I don’t like to waste my time in activities which will not give me any result but I always give it a try and never say ‘NO’ to anything.
So for me learning new things, taking inputs from others, investing my time in the right direction to give right results and never stopped myself to give try to new things which I see that I am transforming myself into a multitalented individual.
Also sometimes your inner instinct and sixth sense guides you well but not always.
Borrowing the experience and insight from others is the most proven way to move fast towards your goals. If you do not invest in your own development, you will stagnate and become outdated, fast. I’m sure that’s not what you want.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
For me, learning and experimenting followed by planning with execution in a streamlined manner adding the flavour of hard work and a pinch of past experience into it will lead to success. Success is not a night activity it takes time and a long time. Sometimes you have to be patient in a lot of situations and not to lose temper if something doesn’t come your way.
Always utilize your time in the right direction and planning the things with writing somewhere what are your tasks for today in notes inside your smartphone or your personally maintained diary. This activity should be done while you are going to bed so that next day when you woke on time you have the plan with you as what you need to do today and this will save your time to think on tasks planning.
Getting early in the morning and start doing your tasks in steps, this way it will boost your confidence to complete tasks faster. There is a lot of mindset work associated with earning success and then multiplying it.
Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing, what are the leadership traits that are necessary for success?
Being a leader is a good and responsible act. Always think that being a leader is you are a role model for someone and someone might be expecting lots of things from you in terms of bringing change. The world needs thought leaders to first and foremost challenge, expand and transform the way people think, which in turn works to shifts their feelings, then their actions, and then their results.
You should always know that the team you are taking forward contains what talents and how you can help them to fit into those roles. Don’t direct or command but always move forward along with your team.
What matters most, is who you are, and knowing yourself intimately on the macro and the micro. People follow people, not titles, and external markers of success. So we really need authentic thought leaders to resolve the issues that plague society today.
What are the business mantras you have embraced as you sought to establish your success story?
Don’t look into past and critics that stopped you or don’t even think about your failures and don’t ever feel jealous of someone growth.
Be ORIGINAL and start doing it right away. Don’t wait for the right time or the right people. Once you start moving on your path people will start following you and will join you in your mission.
Don’t start revealing your ideas and plans to others until and unless you achieve them.
Don’t fear to take challenges and if you take them then don’t move back.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
As I always say that “Think beyond your limits to achieve success” means work and push yourself to that extent where your limits are ending then you will land up on your targets.
Don’t restrict yourself to one thing it might be you are not doing good in this thing and maybe some other domain/ role/ area is awaiting for you to come and grab that. Don’t quit if you fail just try, try and try
Never stop learning and keep on grabbing new opportunities even if they are tough to achieve just take that and work hard. Challenges don’t come your way, but those are grabbed. Don’t fear from failures.
Keep on moving, don’t think or wait for others to join you on your journey. Accept the negativity from surroundings that will be acting as an internal flame for you to keep you burning from inside and make your moves fast.
Chase your passion and don’t see dreams just LIVE them.
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.
