Millionaire Mondays by Backstage with Millionaires

Shreyaan Daga was just 15 years old when he started an edtech startup called Online Live Learning (OLL) – which is a marketplace for teachers to offer live courses to students on everything from graphic designing to yoga to guitar to astrology to astronomy.  In this video, Shreyaan talks about discovering his passion, starting up as a young entrepreneur and building a profitable edtech startup. Introduction From selling paintings in 4th grade to lending money in 7th grade Journey of self-discovery and entrepreneurship Turning pandemic into an opportunity Moving from free courses to a paid business model Shreyaan on the importance of learning Future of Online Live Learning From selling paintings in 4th grade to lending money in 7th grade: Before Shreyaans even started his latest venture Online Live Learning, he had been on a path to entrepreneurship since he was 10 years old. He started selling paintings online to his friends and family when he was in 4th grade. It grew into an online marketplace for paintings when his friends using the platform to sell their paintings as well. Later in 7th grade, he started lending money to his schoolmates at high-interest rates and he even learnt about investing in the stock market on his own. Journey of self-discovery and entrepreneurship: Fascinated by the story of Gautam Buddha, Shreyaan went on his own journey of self-discovery when he decided to leave everything he owned behind. He got on his bicycle and started donating everything he owned until he was left with just his bicycle, which he gave to a kid on the street. Fortunately, he was discovered by his friend and was taken home. But this experience made him realise that instead of focusing on materialistic things, people should focus on dreaming big and spending their lives in the pursuit of those dreams. The only way he thought we can do that is through education. That’s why he decided to start Online Live Learning. Turning pandemic into an opportunity: He discussed the idea for Online Live Learning with his parents and hired a team of IIM graduates to help him build the platform. During the pandemic, teachers were finding it hard to make money, students had a lot of time on their hand and schools were still figuring things out. That’s when Shreyaan launched Online Live Learning to help teachers make some money through courses and provide a platform for students to continue their learning. Moving from free courses to a paid business model: Initially, they were offering the courses for free but with their initial investment of Rs 2 lakh running out, they realised that it wasn’t a sustainable model and people don’t really value free courses. So, they started charging money for the classes and started building a stable revenue source. Their growth has been organic from the beginning but things started to slow down when schools were opening up once again. Shreyaan on the importance of learning and dreaming big: He believes that the first time we are introduced to a subject, it’s called awareness. But learning happens when you start connecting and applying those concepts in the real world. Future of Online Live Learning: Their platform is already offering courses ranging across multiple fields ranging from graphic designing to astronomy to astrology to machine learning. But he and his team want to build Online Live Learning into a school for the world where students can learn any skill they chose. They now have an ambitious goal of getting 1 billion students on their platform by 2025.

Pradeep Poonia is a software developer, who was sued by WhiteHat Jr for Rs 20 crore ($2.7 million) for defamation and copyright infringement. He is the guy who created the YouTube channel called ‘WhiteHat Sr’ and started questioning WhiteHat Jr’s marketing tactics and business model when no one was listening. After speaking out against WhiteHat Jr, his 16 videos, two YouTube channels, two Reddit accounts, one Twitter handle, three articles on LinkedIn and Quora accounts were either removed or temporarily disabled. In this video, Pradeep Poonia talks about his journey in fighting the Rs 20 crore ($2.7 million) lawsuit filed by WhiteHat Jr and Karan Bajaj against him, how it bought a positive change, India’s edtech space and his plans for the future. WhiteHat Jr withdraws the lawsuit against Pradeep: It came as a surprise to Pradeep and his team but he is glad that some sense prevailed in the end and WhiteHat Jr decided to withdraw the lawsuit. He is also grateful to everyone who supported him in his journey, especially everyone on Reddit, Telegram and LinkedIn. Impact of Pradeep’s fight against WhiteHat Jr: At the time when Pradeep was the only one criticizing WhiteHat Jr and didn’t have a lot of support but now a lot of people are not just supporting him but also coming out and sharing their own stories and feedback on WhiteHat Jr’s business and marketing practices openly. The company has also stopped using FOMO to drive growth, due to which their sales have also gone down significantly. Benefits of Pradeep speaking out against WhiteHat Jr: Initially, the company was aggressively quashing dissenting views and taking down posts and accounts across social media platforms. Now, however, parents, students and even their employees are able to openly share their views without the fear of their account being suspended. Talking about India’s edtech space: The pandemic has been a perfect opportunity for edtech startups to grow rapidly and because they have been so focused on growth that a number of problems have cropped up like in the case of Vedantu, their own sales team had been taking advantage of the ‘any time refund’ policy to get more people to sign up to grow the numbers and claiming the refund later. This means their growth isn’t what it looks like from the outside and that is the case with most edtech startups that are too focused on growth at all costs. Possible solutions to edtech problems: Some suggestions from Pradeep include opening a dialogue with all the involved stakeholders like parents, students, entrepreneurs, teachers and startups to better understand the needs of each other. He also believes that it is time for the government to step in and create their own edtech platforms that can help reach the sections of society that are not served by these startups and also there needs to be a balanced approach when regulating the industry in order to leave room for innovation while keeping things in check. Focus on the solution, not the problem: More and more edtech startups are trying to get into the coaching market but the problem is that we still have more students that want to get into premier colleges like IITs and IIMs but there aren’t enough good colleges. So, rather than preparing everyone for IITs and IIMs, it’s time to create better schools and colleges. What’s next for Pradeep Poonia: While Pradeep is still preparing for his UPSC exams, he is also working on some ideas on how to teach computer science concepts to kids in a more effective manner. Now that he is free of the lawsuit, he will be focusing on a bunch of ideas that come his way.

Suumit Shah is the CEO and co-founder of Dukaan, an app that helps small  businesses by taking their stores online. Prior to starting his own  journey as an entrepreneur, Suumit was the Social Media Manager for  Housing and TinyOwl. Entrepreneurship: I don’t know what it means but it sounds cool – Back  in college, Suumit was designing websites and learned that he could make  money on the internet. While he didn’t know what entrepreneurship  meant, it sounded cool and he was already on track to being an  entrepreneur without knowing it. From being a social media manager to becoming an entrepreneur: Suumit  started working for Housing and TinyOwl, where he was managing their  social media – enabling them to rank their websites on search engines by  focusing on search engine optimization (SEO). After this experience,  Suumit decided to start his own digital marketing agency where he was  doing the same but at scale for a lot more companies. He found it hard  to scale his services company and that’s when he decided to create a  product that would help the companies to use their product suite to  execute different aspects of digital marketing campaigns on their own. Key learnings from first entrepreneurship experience: In a service-based  business, the best way to scale is by creating a product and monetizing  it. That is exactly what Suumit did when he was unable to scale his  digital marketing agency Rankz. Story of Dukaan: A text from Jockey during the pandemic changed the  course of both Suumit and Subhash’s lives when they realised the need  for digitising local stores and helping them continue their business.  Within a week of launch, the Dukaan app was already trending on Google  Playstore. Feedbacks and requests from the customers kept coming in,  which further helped them improve their product and today the Dukaan app  has been downloaded more than 4 million times. Dukaan vs Khatabook: Things got a little out of hand for a while when  Dukaan had a legal tussle with Khatabook in regards to copyright issues  and source code which led to Dukaan app being removed from the Play  Store for 50 days. But things have now been resolved and both Dukaan and  Khatabook are busy scaling their businesses. Dukaan overview: A user first create his/her store using Dukaan app,  they can then share the link of their store – which contain all their  inventory and catalogue, to their existing customers and they are good  to go. Now Dukaan is also enabling the store owners to expand and scale  by providing simple marketing tools as well. Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: The best way to learn to keep trying  things. What you learn today might help you build something a couple of  years down the line. If you have an idea, go and try it out – you will  either learn or you will succeed. It’s much better than killing your  startup at the ideation phase, which is the most common problem.

In this podcast interview, Caleb sits down with Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan (Founders of Ultraviolette Automotive) to talk about their journey of becoming entrepreneurs, building Ultraviolette Automotive from scratch, struggles they encountered along the way and what the future holds for Ultraviolette. Ultraviolette Automotive was founded by Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan in 2015. They started the company with the vision of building India’s high-performance electric motorcycle – F77. After years of hard work, the team at Ultraviolette is ready with their first motorcycle the Ultraviolette F77 and it is now available for pre-order. Early Childhood: Narayan and Niraj have been friends since the age of 10. While, Niraj started coding at the age of 9-10, Niraj’s interest in playing with Legos drew him towards building and designing stuff at an early age. College Days: Coincidentally, the two of them even ended up in the same college. They started tinkering with ideas and building robots and cool gadgets. They took their interests further by participating in a lot of competitions and winning around 30-40 of them. Going their separate ways: After college, Narayan decided to go deeper into learning designing automotive stuff, while Niraj went on to join Yahoo. But both of them continued to indulge in their creative endeavors on the side. Niraj quits his job to startup in the hyperlocal space: Along with a bunch of friends, Niraj decided to start his entrepreneurial journey by jumping into the hyperlocal space. They were building a platform that would connect people who had shared interests in their area. But they failed to monetize the platform and decided to wrap up the project. Narayan and Niraj come together to build Ultraviolette Automotove – The two friends came together and decided to re-ignite their interests and started exploring opportunities in the rapidly growing EV space. And Ultraviolette Automotive was born. Exploring opportunities in the EV space: At the time, While they were trying to figure out what they will build - they experimented with everything from smart wearables to batteries to last-mile electric mobility vehicle. Rejected by hundreds of investors: Investors had stayed away from investing in hardware startups as they demanded a lot of capital but had a low success rate. But the founders believed in their vision and moved ahead. Advice to entrepreneurs looking to raise their first funding round: Believe in your product and remain open minded. Evolve and polish your idea and product over time before presenting it to the investors. Ultraviolette gets seed funding to work on Ultraviolette F77: After hundreds of rejections – Ultraviolette found the perfect seed investor in the form of Speciale Invest. Hiring the right people: Equipped with capital, Ultraviolette was ready to move from building prototypes to building complete versions of their electric motorcycle – F77. But they needed to find the right people who would help them grow and get to the next level. Importance of capital while building an innovative EV startup: The founders soon realized that while building an innovative product, they would continuously need to raise funds and be creative with spending their capital at the same time. Turning challenges into innovations: The team was using their expertise to bring down the cost of the parts by ten-fold while keeping the quality intact in order to stay away from raising capital as long as possible. Key milestones: Ultraviolette was able to create batteries that were way beyond the normal batteries available in the market as they needed their batteries to pack more power in a restricted space. Future of Ultraviolette: The company is looking to scale production and distribute their electric motorcycle F77 to all parts of the country and also exploring options to sell overseas.

Growing up as an Indian in France: Ram’s family moved to France when he  was young and he ended up studying economic warfare. He is currently a  professor of economic warfare in France but at the same time, he is a  jack of all trades at Pravaig as well. How Ram met Siddhartha and got involved with Pravaig: Ram met Siddhartha  back in 2014 at a corporate meeting and discovered that both of them  owned the same laptops, which was not a very popular laptop and they  both geeked out on that which led Siddhartha to also talk about his own  company called Pravaig. After working on a few projects together,  Siddhartha decided to bring Ram onto the team to help them grow once  they started to get out of stealth mode. Building Pravaig cars with ‘No Jugaad’ approach: When building their  electric cars, the company decided to follow a ‘no jugaad’ approach,  which meant that instead of using any workarounds they focused on using  the best products, materials and processes to build their cars from the  ground up. Extinction Mk1 features: They wanted to make a car which would be the  best way to move around the city, which is why they focused more on the  interior of the car. This car offers the best audio system and enough  space and comfort to let the riders do everything from fixing their  makeup, finishing their work or even sleeping comfortably while on the  road. Who will be their customers?: For Pravaig, their customers are the  people who spend most of their time on the roads while visiting  different locations around the city for business. For those people,  Pravaig wanted to provide them with an ‘office on wheel’. Is the Extinction Mk1 made in India?: While the car is completely  manufactured in India and the company is also building their battery  inhouse, they do import a few parts from different parts of the world. Pravaig is not a startup: Unlike most startups that are started by  first-time founders, Pravaig has an experienced team that comes from  different backgrounds from energy to investment. Since they already had  investors supporting them, it was easier for them to get investment for  R&D and to develop their car. However, things are not so easy for  most first time founders as investors are hesitant to invest in a  product that might take years to come to the market. Strong Pravaig branding: Their strong branding and messaging is  intentional as they wanted to bring their name out there and get their  target customers excited about their cars, while at the same time create  an Indian brand with international appeal. What sets Extinction Mk2’s interior apart: Unlike most cars in which the  driver's seat is the best seat, Extinction Mk2 is built for the  passengers. If you want to find out more about Pravaig Dynamics and Ram Divedi, here are the links you can check out:  Pravaig’s website: https://pravaig.com Register for a ride: https://www.defy.city Ram’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramadivedi If you liked our video, give us a like and subscribe to Backstage with  Millionaires. Let us know what you think about this video in the  comments below. Follow Backstage with Millionaires to remain updated with our latest  developments. BwM Hindi Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMspFCCJpRkaiiHFetgauPQ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/backstagewithmillionaires/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/bwmillionaires/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backstagewithmillionaires/

Did you envision Extinction Mk1 and Extinction Mk2 from the start?: When  Dhawal and Siddhartha started, they wanted to build cars which would be  good for offroading, it was just a hobby at the time. They tried to  experiment by modifying Maruti Gypsy and Jeep but these cars were quite  slow and uncomfortable for their taste. Abiogenisis – Pravaig’s first prototype and their hobby turns serious:  After their failed experiment, the duo tried to create a car from the  scratch, which led to the creation of their first prototype –  Abiogenisis. Once they realized that building car was not that  difficult, they decided to go all in. What was just a hobby had now  turned into a full-time project to create an improved mobility solution. Protodonata – Pravaig’s third prototype: After creating a nice  offroading car – Abiogenisis and then a racing car Protocell, they  wanted to test their limits and went one step ahead to create a 200kg  low slung race car which was designed test the aerodynamics –  Protodonata. Offroad testing continues with T-Rex: After testing the aerodynamics  with the Protodonata, they wanted to test the reliability, which again  led them to create another offroading car T-Rex. They build it on the  FIA T1 regulations, which meant that this vehicle was durable and  reliable – it was capable of surviving a fall from a cliff. Key learnings from prototypes that paved the way for Extinction Mk1 and  Extinction Mk2: After designing and building six prototypes. The duo was  ready to use the learnings to finally create what we now know – the  Extinction Mk1. They are testing Extinction Mk1 in order to prepare for  their production model which will be the Extinction Mk2. Creation of Extinction Mk1: This was their first electric car, which  meant that a lot of things had to be done just right if they had any  hope of creating a class-leading EV. They used their experience to build  Extinction Mk1 with good aerodynamics, efficiency, reliability and  making them comfortable. 5 Star NCAP safety rating: Keeping the focus on safety, Extinction Mk1  and also Extinction Mk2 are going to be one of the few Indian cars that  will be getting the 5 star NCAP ratings, making them one of the safest  in the country and also the world. Getting to the production model – Extinction Mk2: Unlike Mk1 which is  designed to test the limits, Extinction Mk2 is designed for comfort,  which means this electric car will be different from Mk1. The production  model will have four doors, higher ground clearance, awesome audio  system, and you will be able to do everything from taking a nap to  working comfortably inside the vehicle. How much of Pravaig’s Electric car is made in India?: More than 80% of  Pravaig Extinction Mk1 and Mk2 will be build in India including the  battery packs but a few parts are still sourced from outside of India  including China. If you want to find out more about Pravaig Dynamics and Dhawal Khullar, here are the links you can check out: Pravaig’s website: https://pravaig.com Dhawal’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhawal-khullar-84b12417 Follow Backstage with Millionaires to remain updated with our latest developments.  BwM Hindi Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMspFCCJpRkaiiHFetgauPQ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/backstagewithmillionaires/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/bwmillionaires/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backstagewithmillionaires/  Discord: https://discord.gg/XySGGhXKep

Why was Pravaig Dynamics started: Pravaig started their journey of  making electric cars back in 2011. At first they just wanted to make a  good enough electric car as there weren’t any good electric cars in  India and the world at large. Setting China aside, there weren’t any  good electric cars in the market apart from Tesla’s Roadster or Nissan’s  Leaf. Key challenges Pravaig wants to solve – Resources (Money), Sovereignty  (Ownership) and Time: Any car that a consumer owns costs money and they  are spending money every year on its servicing to paying their EMIs, all  the while the value of their car is decreasing. People spend over 90  minutes on average on the roads, which is a large portion of our lives.  Now as more and more cars and also other devices adopting technology,  consumers have little to no control/ ownership over their own data and  how it is used. How Pravaig is doing things differently to address these challenges:  Interestingly, over the course of its lifetime, a car is used merely 4%  of the time and rest of the time it is just sitting in your garage.  Which is why Pravaig decided to take ownership out of the equation.  Customers can ride their cars without owning them, which would save  their customers time and money while providing comfort on the road. Pravaig’s electric mobility solution and their partnership with fleet  operators: Unlike most electric vehicle startups that are selling  directly to the customers, Pravaig is partnering with fleet operators  who will be operating their cars and provide mobility service to the end  customers. They might even partner with service providers like Ola and  Uber. What’s stopping electric vehicles to take-off in India: There are  actually a lot of electric mobility solutions available in India across  various regions like modified e-rikshaws in parts of north India. In  fact, Reva was one of the pioneers in the electric vehicles space in  India. The reasons why the electric vehicles haven’t taken-off in India  is the fragmented markets – every region, class and section of the  country has unique needs and lack of reliable and trusted electric  vehicle makers. Is Pravaig really India’s answer to Tesla?: Unlike Tesla which is  focused on building electric cars and accelerating EV adoption, Pravaig  is more focused on solving the challenges around data and providing more  control to the users. While an electric car is their first product, we  can see them venturing into different niches where they can leverage  data and artificial intelligence to create an open ecosystem. Future of Pravaig: Pravaig is not just an EV startup but is looking to  use its expertise to enter the RoboTaxi and autonomous vehicles market  in the future at large. Future of cars - AI and data: Siddhartha believes that in the future  users will have a lot more control over their cars. They will be able to  chose everything from their energy provider, charging provider and the  increasing role of AI. If you want to find out more about Pravaig Dynamics and Siddhartha Bagri, here are the links you can check out:  Pravaig’s website: https://pravaig.com Register for a ride: https://www.defy.city Siddhartha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/sid_bagri Follow Backstage with Millionaires to remain updated with our latest developments.  BwM Hindi Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMspFCCJpRkaiiHFetgauPQ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/backstagewithmillionaires/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/bwmillionaires/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backstagewithmillionaires/  Discord: https://discord.gg/XySGGhXKep

Subhash’s journey starts in a small village in Bihar: Subhash Choudhary comes from a poor family in Bihar, his father passed away when he was  just 3 years old and his mother worked as a tailor to support his  education until he cleared his 12th. At the age of 17, he moved to  Mumbai, learnt the basics of computer hardware and secured a job at  Zenith Infotech. He learns Digital Marketing and starts a side hustle: When he saw the  company fire a large part of its workforce, he realised how insecure his  job was. He decided to take his destiny into his own hands by learning  digital marketing and starts his own side hustle which starts earning  more money than his full-time job. Subhash meets Suumit on Facebook and learns about entrepreneurship:  During that time, he is connected with Suumit Shah on Facebook and they  both share a common interest in building products, which brings the two  closer. Suumit had a keen interest in the Indian startup ecosystem and  the two end up going to a number of startup events and learn more about  entrepreneurship. They start their entrepreneurial journey together: Suumit and Subhash  decide to put their skills together and start a digital marketing agency  to help small businesses and startups to grow their business using the  internet. The two end up building two successful businesses Risemetric  and Rankz. Pandemic pushed them to help their local shop owners and Dukaan is born:  Coming from a shopkeeper's family, Suumit realised hardships local  store owners were facing during the lockdown as their business was  offline and was forced to shut down. That's when they decided to build a  product that would help these small local stores in their neighbourhood  to go online and continue their business and that's how Dukaan app was  born. Within a month, they had managed to take nearly 1 million stores  online without even raising any funds. How the Dukaan app was transformed by using input from their customers:  While building Dukaan, the input and feedback they received from their  early customers was crucial in transforming their product from a simple  platform for taking orders online to building a more comprehensive  product where store owners could keep track of their orders, receive and  send a notification to their customers on WhatsApp and add new  categories. Their investors showed confidence even amidst the controversy with Khatabook: Their investors continued to back them despite their initial  friction with Khatabook which was later resolved. Things to keep in mind when building the core team at a startup: It's  important to build a team that believes in the vision and is committed  to the idea. That's how Dukaan created a small team of 12 people that  helped them scale to more than 2 million customers in such a short time.  Subhash believes that people can learn the skills if they are  passionate about the product that they are building. The guy who built  Dukaan's android app was his first-ever android app. If you enjoyed this video and would like to learn more about Subhash Choudhary and his journey, you can follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/subhashchy Twitter: https://twitter.com/subhashchy Follow Backstage with Millionaires to remain updated with our latest developments. Discord: https://discord.gg/XySGGhXKep  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/backstagewithmillionaires/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/bwmillionaires/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backstagewithmillionaires/