'Demand for technical skill sets at all-time high'

Edtech firm Hoping Minds' interactive and gamified technical skill training program enables graduation students who have completed their graduation, but are unable to get a job or are in a slow-growth role and are looking to get into a high-growth tech career. "The demand for technical skill sets is at an all-time high and so is the number of students that want to go for specialised technical education. Every year, 1.5 million Indians enrol in technical courses after their schooling and an even higher number want to enrol, but are unable to. The career growth seen by students is also at an all-time high in technical roles," says Ishan Kapoor, co-founder, Hoping Minds in an interview with Bizz Buzz

What is the current market scenario? Who is your direct competitor within the same business model?

The requirement for technical skill sets is at an all-time high and so is the number of students that want to go for specialised technical education. Every year, 1.5 million Indians enrol in technical courses after their schooling and an even higher number want to enrol, but are unable to. The career growth seen by students is also at an all-time high in technical roles, as you all must be aware of.

A select number of firms offer placement oriented programmes on an income share model. However, we differentiate ourselves on the basis of our student centric learning experience and focus on career counselling and holistic development. We have spent considerable effort building very strong systems and experience initially rather than focusing on blind growth.

The concept of giving back to the community and our entrepreneurial passion led to the creation of Hoping Minds. Therefore, from the beginning, our mission has been to assist students in overcoming obstacles, so they are able to identify and pursue high-growth technical careers.

By putting our expertise and knowledge acquired by training and placing more than 10,000 students, we gained the ability to do this. We realised this impact can be achieved at a larger scale through virtual learning and the use of excellent educators who have drawn on their knowledge of the offline format.

We then surveyed numerous students to determine what would be an engaging and distinctive virtual experience for them to fine-tune our solution.

In the process, we also realised how most students are unaware of what they want to do in life and just follow a general trend in choosing their profession – which, in most cases, is not something they will be proud of later in their career. We, therefore, help such students identify the various career options available to them and those that will give them a career trajectory that they can be proud of.

Could you take me through some of the processes of Hoping Minds?

Learning from your peers and healthy competition is something we value. Hence, we have established a selective two step admissions process so that all admitted students are dedicated, competitive and have the ambition to learn and grow.

We have also gamified our course classes, assignments, and assessments to make the experience more engaging. Such a setup with competitive students (from our selective admissions process) also ensures that our students are constantly challenged and a step ahead of other institutions.

Furthermore, we are a very result-oriented school and hence do not follow a standard curriculum but design our courses based on real-time corporate requirements - this promotes the practical implementation of skills acquired and also easier placements for our students.

We (founders) ourselves, along with our technical experts, interview the trainers in multiple rounds to identify the best trainers. Equally important to the trainer's skill set is their ability to engage students and share knowledge with them.

What inspired you to be an entrepreneur, especially to work in edtech segment?

We have been driven by overcoming problems and creating a large impact to benefit society. The education sector is the place where the largest impact can be created as you train the future generation, who then amplify this impact as they start working and contributing to society. For this reason, we initially started training and skilling people for non-technical roles and placed more than 10,000 students. We then decided to move to an online format to have greater outreach potential and to focus on technical roles where people can create a greater impact. The entrepreneurial zeal to create and build something has always been present in all of us.

What are the company ambitions going forward?

To expand our impact to a higher number of students – we are targeting 15,000 students in our first three years. We want to train students that are unable to afford specialised education and get them into high growth jobs – providing the right opportunity to talent irrespective of their background. Also, aim to expand our geographical footprint and the domains of our courses and to enhance India's number one export – tech skills!

Enumerate the challenges that you've faced along the way.

Building the right team that is driven by the impact we seek to create – we have luckily been able to do this with significant effort and are proud of where we have reached. Since this is a model where our revenue is delayed but expenses are upfront, we had to initially limit our growth in a market that fears a recession – all the more in the recent edtech space.

What is the difficulty level you face in reaching colleges and conveying the mechanism?

It has not been difficult, so far, as it is an easy win for colleges with no upfront fees or financial risk for their students. Our courses help their students learn specialised skills and improve their career trajectory. We have already partnered with over 35 colleges as they easily realise the value of our course.

How big is your company now? Is Hoping Minds going to expand in the near future?

Yes, we have just started our expansion and will reach 200 students by the end of the month. Currently we are a team of 20, but steadily growing. We aim to place 15,000 students within our first three years.

Please brief about your business model.

Hoping Minds enables students who have completed their graduation, but are unable to get a job or are in a slow-growth role and are looking to get into a high-growth tech career. All at a zero upfront fee model, where Hoping Minds invests in its students and only receives a return if they are placed at a package of more than Rs5 lakh per annum (LPA). Thus, supporting students that are not willing or able to take on the financial burden of a specialized course, but want to build a career in tech.

Hoping Minds is assisted in its mission by industry experts who focus on current, high- growth market requirements and train students based on the student's current skill sets. Thus, unlocking the students' full potential while also counselling and motivating them. In addition to technical skills, our curriculum also covers aptitude, communication, problem solving, data interpretation, and interview preparation.

In recent years, edtech has emerged as the sweet spot in the startup ecosystem. However, this space is getting crowded with each passing day. Do you feel the business growth will be similar to past years?

Business growth and funding are two separate things. We expect business growth to be similar to the past few years, albeit the funding might be less as the market sentiment for the first generation of edtech firms right now is that their focus has entirely been on expansion with excessive marketing and at the cost of student experience/outcomes. Markets are changing and with the recession we are in, this type of funding is drying up. Our focus has always been on student experience and outcomes, and hence we have ambitious plans even though the sector might be crowded or seeing a decline in funding.

Are you adequately funded now? Will you look at another round of funding this year?

We have been bootstrapped so far with confidence in our business model and impact to date. We are growing at an intermediate rate to provide us with enough bandwidth to build a differentiating experience. Now that we see that in place, we plan to expand a bit more ambitiously and look to raise our first round this year to focus on technology and growth. We will build a very data centric learning experience where, through AI, we are able to tailor the assessments and experience of each student individually to focus on their weak points and skills particularly required for the career paths they choose.

What exciting things can we expect from Hoping Minds in the next 12 months?

Increasing gamification in edtech courses; AI to enable tailor-made learning experiences for all students; expansion to multiple types of technical courses; partnerships with universities; and accreditation of courses.

Last but not least, how do you see the future of edtech?

We see a bright future for edtech and are excited to be a part of it. We believe that this current recession and the closing of select edtech firms are good things as thy separate the wheat from the chaff. It shouldn't be about just growing, but ensuring that you promise a great learning experience and an edge over conventional education.