5 years of failure (Entrepreneurship) AMA

referral. in today’s market, if you don’t have a good pedigree, the only hope is referral. believe it or not, luck is a big aspect in landing a role as a fresher in startup today

hey, this is a most common question, especially from people of non-technical background.

Startups are fragile and got to move fast, depending upon the stage (pre-seed to A+) are in need of domain specialists. Generalists or business experience is a myth until you are joining in as a co-founder.

The lesser the team size the more the specialists are required. I won't look for an employee with business/marketing skills (for example) if I am hiring for a full-stack developer. I just want the employee to execute tech for me faster.

So how do you get in?

1. PROVE, with the projects or your personal brand, remember your work and activity builds trust, that's the only thing for a startup to make decision earlyon (you may also do internships at multiple startups of same domain, say fintech)
2. PASSIONATE, startups look for people who love what they do and not looking just for a job
3. CULTURE-FIT, startups are highly demanding in terms of work, they check if you have a mindset to hustle and is a doer (most important)
4. KNOWLEDGE, study the startup, their business and competitors, and also look at the startup ecosystem in-general (this is a hack to impress that says you understand business from outside and you are passionate about startups)

Hope this helps, it's a competitive market, dont be ordinary, try standing out and showcase work proudly.

No, we are operating in a new vertical and not the usual upskill or entrance prep.

and yes we were bored too with the saturated Ed-tech market, so we didn't resume the upskill initiative of ours back from 2019

You are on the right path,

Also make sure you don't dodge the development part, when you closely collaborate with developers it's a chance for you to understand technical building blocks and challenges of a product because it's good to have knowledge when you are essentially building tech startup.

but do remember PM creates a product mindset but not necessarily an entrepreneur mindset. There's a thin line between both. So, keep seeking inspiration from all over the world, join online communities, follow startup news and connect/follow with VCs/founders on LinkedIn.

I moved from engineering and built products at quite a scale. So, I’m quite covered in that aspect.

I fear the product mindset thing might be correct. Anything I should do to get closer to entrepreneurship mindset? What is it even?

Brilliant question!

You know there's one thing that goes in the business world especially the startup ecosystem,

One builds, multiple follows, everyone is just running a race to grab the market share with a different flavour in terms of TG or biz model. The recent disruption in ed-tech was upskilling, in 2019-20 we were the early players of it as well (we shutdown in covid since we started with physical training and distribution) and everyone talked with recently limits the conversation till upskill market only. Why not think beyond? The education sector is a limitless opportunity, multiple loopholes and you can surely come up with solutions beyond upskilling if you think more.

Regarding investments, there's always money available that can be raised, yes it has slowed down and Ed-tech is cold right now. But numbers are everything, if you are able to make money and show traction (early signs of demand or early pmf) you are good to go.

We love and are passionate about Ed-tech, upskill was an eye opener for us, so we are onto our next journey.

Thanks for answering. Wish you all the best!

problem > solution > identify set of target users > build > identify KPIs > distribute to target users > get feedback > iterate > keep narrowing target users till you find your ideal user who is willing to pay or is your fan

What about B2B startups? Same flow?

We prefer not to sell courses directly in this highly saturated market. It's just not worth to burn on those conversion campaigns. Instead try a combination of campaigns+free content/tools which can assist user in the context needed.

this will lead to brand awareness and getting to know their needs at the same time, iterate the audience variable and source until you find the right distribution.

Ed-tech is suffering due to two reasons: primary being other sectors taking over (Generative AI, fintech, climate tech) and Failure of Byjus (they went on an acquisition spree and things went south)

This all is just temporary, a bump, so we need not worry much. Education is always a booming sector since it is basic need sortof.

Agree .. this is temporary , and most of the comments and elsewhere is that Ed Tech has no future .. I believe it is just different models being tried in volatile situations( pre covid ..Covid and post covid ) .. Cannot write of ed tech due to current scenario .

Haha yes, but Ed-tech is not synonymous to upskill or marketplace, there are many opportunities out there, you need to look deeper and identify problems.

We cracked our distribution channel early-on (source of user acquisition), and upskill vertical in edtech was just getting started, hence we hit profitability within the first cohort itself (we were cohort based upskilling model)

We hit 1cr revenue within 2 cohort and then the Covid hit. Since our distribution (we used to conduct an entrance test to filter candidates) and training both were physically done, we hit a speedbreaker and hence had to transition online within next few months, since we were bootstrapped we couldn't survive due to heavy cash burn and had to shut it down.

Good to hear from a fellow entrepreneur always, wish you the best my friend 📈💪