Never get into the role of entrepreneurship for the sake of the designation or fame, you will fall flat. It is now a showsha for many youngsters to become entrepreneurs when they only see fundraising news in the media. What is not shown is the single-digit success rate, the failures, the perseverance required and how hard is this job of being an entrepreneur.
Tell us about your background, journey, and upbringing.
I was born and brought up in a small place called Govindpur in Dhanbad District, Jharkhand. My childhood days involved mostly being outdoor playing sports like Cricket, Badminton, and Cycling. An average student in academics all throughout my school days I aspired to become a doctor when I was passing my class 10th.
My parents were not very pushy and never pushed hard to really score the best in my class. So I had a liberal, eased-out upbringing. Later I prepared for medical entrance exams and went to the usual city Kota for its preparation in class 11th. Somehow my dad realized I should not become a doctor when I really cracked the entrance exam and then I was left with no option but to chose a random course in my college.
What inspired you to take action in your direction and what are your future plans?
While I went to my college in Bangalore & stayed with a bunch of friends in a rental flat. We wanted to hire a domestic helper and we came across a tiffin delivery boy whom we onboarded. One morning when I was going to college I saw that he was trying to read an English newspaper.
While I went to my college in Bangalore & stayed with a bunch of friends in a rental flat. We wanted to hire a domestic helper and we came across a tiffin delivery boy whom we onboarded. One morning when I was going to college I saw that he was trying to read an English newspaper.
I probed him and got to know that he dropped out of class 9th in Odisha and came to Bangalore for earning livelihood a couple of years back. And he really aspires to learn and do something good in his life. But clueless on what to do? What path to take? And that is where I realized and got exposed to this problem that India as a country has not got a single platform that can guide our youth.
This is when I decided to volunteer with a non-profit Youth for Seva in Bangalore and later Prayatna in Gurgaon to establish a solution and solve this problem. We did two pilots - one in Jharkhand and one in Delhi/NCR and validated our null hypothesis.
While I was working in a cushy Investment banking job, I decided to drop out from it when I was about to turn 23 and founded iDreamCareer (https://idreamcareer.com/), a platform to guide students on choosing the right career and empower them to make informed career decisions offering them full-stack personalized career & college guidance programs.
Since then it's been 9+ years that I and my entire team have been trying to make career guidance accessible to every student in our country. We have been able to impact over 20 million students now across government schools to International schools and colleges and we are moving on in our journey to further scale this mission.
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What does your typical workday look like?
I start my day with a quick run or cycling (swimming too before covid) & post the usual house chores (lockdown woes), I start my workday with a list of to-do for the day and prioritizing them. The day involves several reporting calls with the team and external stakeholders.
I always take up the very important and strategic work and thinking during late night or early morning as the day always takes away the time for the day-to-day operational work of the company.
Several global companies have come out and thrown their support behind not needing a formal education. What is your opinion about this?
I agree with this policy and large companies specially FANG taking this call will influence many others in the world to follow it too. However, we have a long way to go until we see this being followed by the majority of companies, especially in India.
I agree with this policy and large companies specially FANG taking this call will influence many others in the world to follow it too. However, we have a long way to go until we see this being followed by the majority of companies, especially in India.
Also strengthening our school-level education with learning focussed on holistic and future work skills will be critical if we want to make formal higher education optional.
How do you handle someone who has lied on their resume?
A resume is just a very basic tool in our hiring process to know the basic details about the candidates. We generally follow an assignment-based hiring process that is not dependent on your degrees/skills mentioned in your resume. So if someone lied we will get to know in our process.
A resume is just a very basic tool in our hiring process to know the basic details about the candidates. We generally follow an assignment-based hiring process that is not dependent on your degrees/skills mentioned in your resume. So if someone lied we will get to know in our process.
And to mention we never really care about candidates' educational background. For us, the most important criteria are having the right intent and then followed by the right skills for that particular job role.
How has covid changed things at your workplace & which of these changes do you intend to make permanently?
We started working from home completely. Briefly, when the first wave slowed down we came back to the office but then since April we are fully working from home and decided to be working from home until December with the need to have face-to-face meetings every week or fortnightly with the relevant team members.
We started working from home completely. Briefly, when the first wave slowed down we came back to the office but then since April we are fully working from home and decided to be working from home until December with the need to have face-to-face meetings every week or fortnightly with the relevant team members.
So I think a hybrid model of WFO+WFH will stick in the future too. Work from home is good but meeting people face to face is very much required to build relations and engagement among team members.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs or those eyeing the top job?
Never get into the role of entrepreneurship for the sake of the designation or fame, you will fall flat. It is now a showsha for many youngsters to become entrepreneurs when they only see fundraising news in the media. What is not shown is the single-digit success rate, the failures, the perseverance required and how hard is this job of being an entrepreneur.
One can only survive if you are really into it to solve a large problem that you are very closely attached to. Money will follow but that can never be the 1st priority. An entrepreneur is always in the game for the fun of solving large problems. So that is a strong piece of advice for aspiring young entrepreneurs out there.
Which is your favorite book/show and why?
It has to be ‘Psychology of Money. I wish to have read this book when I was in my early 20s. The book is a tremendous value addition for youngsters or adults to understand why saving is important, why minimalist living is important. This is my favorite line from the book - ‘The biggest benefit of having savings/creating wealth is having control over your time.
It has to be ‘Psychology of Money. I wish to have read this book when I was in my early 20s. The book is a tremendous value addition for youngsters or adults to understand why saving is important, why minimalist living is important. This is my favorite line from the book - ‘The biggest benefit of having savings/creating wealth is having control over your time.
Bio -
He has spent the past 11 years in the space of career guidance and as a full-time entrepreneur for the last 9 years. He has successfully led iDreamCareer to become the largest career counseling social enterprise in India empowering close to 1.5 Crore students annually.
Ayush was selected as India's top 10 Entrepreneur by the US state government to attend the GES 2016, hosted by US President Barack Obama. iDreamCareer was recently selected as World's top 200 EdTech companies by Arizona State University & GSV Venture for the GSV Cup 2020 & also as South Asia's top 100 EdTech companies by Holon IQ.
Ayush is a featured columnist & speaker on various forums including large media houses like Times of India, Hindustan Times, and also the United Nations. He has recently made it to the Business World Education 40 under 40 2020.
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