Metvy is different from these current brands since we allow the learners to engage in live mentorships with people who have experience in that field. Apart from this, we aim at building personalized learning outcomes for the learners so that their experience is memorable and insightful.
1. Tell us more about your company and your journey.
Metvy has always been a platform for generating live mentorships and replacing online courses with cohorts. Cohorts allow Industry experts to guide and express their real-life experiences to people who have joined our networking platform. We now have lecturers from top firms like Netflix, Cognizant, Tesla, and many more esteemed brands.
My journey started in college when Shawrya approached me thinking of a popular entity and offered me a role in his start-up. Initially, it was a marketing role for a networking-based app to create an offline version of LinkedIn and connect with peers and experts from the same field of study and work. But during the pandemic, we realized the importance of cohorts more than the networking model. Pandemic was a very turbulent phase for me as I had suffered through Kidney stones whilst working 16-18 hours a day. Also having to take up a full-time job to support my family and collect enough funds to start working for the start-up with Shawrya. But all the hard work paid off to establish Metvy as a brand which is getting recognized in the market and has positive feedback.
2. What all does it take to build a start-up?
Everybody has their journey and experiences through which any establishment reaches its peaks of success. To become an entrepreneur is solely based on an individual's skill set and the willingness to take risks in this competitive world. Any new journey would have its failures and retributions which need to be tackled with a great deal of patience, endurance, and spirit to work.
Talking from a personal aspect, the three things which should be present in an individual to build their brand are willingness to fail and still come up with solutions to overcome any sort of difficulty within a stipulated period. The willingness to be persistent in the work that you are establishing. Keep reminding yourself of the cause of why you believe in this work and how it could shape up in the future.
Thirdly, the willingness to take risks and experiment on this tipsy and curvy path to success. Even multi-billion dollar establishments have taken decisions that have hampered their brand, but it gives them a sense of confidence to take even larger risks and experiment further. Lastly, the ability to learn from your own mistakes and the upcoming market trends. Whilst following an entrepreneurship journey, an individual is forced to take up new skills and learn them to exhibit in their business model.
3. What does your start-up deal with? What solutions does it provide? How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it?
The start-up namely known as Metvy deals with skill-driven cohorts which are backed by and certified by IIM Bangalore. At the same time, mentors from alleged brands like Google, Facebook, Tesla, Pepsico, Infosys, Citi, and Netflix are enabling learners with industry insights. Metvy provides the best of live mentorship through cohorts since the top brands can connect with young learners who wish to establish their careers in that field.
Metvy provides an active learning experience with industry-trusted mentors. Learners are allowed to interact, learn and network with these fellow experts and might as well get some referrals through them. Many also help in networking with fellow cohort members and identifying their common grounds of interest in careers. The concept of cohorts being established in the American roots requires a minimum investment of 1-3 lakhs whereas we at Metvy can service at a range of 3.5k – 5k. The main aim of the cohorts was to make it more accessible to the Indian market and allow credibility in the brand.
The current model was perceived when the networking members required mentorships and the development of skills for their future endeavors. Also packed with proper guidance from the people who are actually in the field and not some textbook lecturers. We started with free online workshops and mentorship sessions which made us curate the content into a meticulous structure. This would allow learners to gain in-depth knowledge about a particular skill from industry experts within 4 weeks.
4. What does the name of the company Metvy signify?
Since we started as a networking platform, we hoped to curate a brand name in that set of interests. The initial struggle came off with finding a suitable domain name following the networking brand and allowing them to have a common ground. Just then the team clicked on the name Metvy which signifies the art of meeting new people and networking with them.
At the end of the day, that's what human life is set to achieve, to interact and learn from the new people they have come across. The #MetatMetvy showcases all the mentors who had successfully connected with our learners and were able to inhibit a difference in their professional and learning lives.
5. Tell us about your companionship with the company's Co-founder.
I knew Shawrya as a friend in the past with whom I was able to dream and achieve such great heights of success. But since the passage of time, we have bonded over every failure and success we have gone through. Shawrya feels more like a brother who believes in the same things as me and that makes our brand more susceptible to profit and reach. I can share my personal life with him easily regardless of it affecting our professional and personal strata. I do feel lucky to have built this brand with him.
6. What are your opinions on some of the most popular ed-tech platforms and how is Metvy different and better from the ed-tech platforms mentioned above?
These ed-tech platforms are practising massive online open courses which allow multiple learners to sign in and learn from the pre-recorded videos. This doesn't seem like a valuable option as they have a quite lower amount of completion rate. Since these courses are self-paced and allow users full jurisdiction to access them anytime they want, this gives the learners an added advantage for usability. But this also makes them more procrastinated to work on their skills and honing their professional career.
Metvy is different from these current brands since we allow the learners to engage in live mentorships with people who have experience in that field. Apart from this, we aim at building personalized learning outcomes for the learners so that their experience is memorable and insightful. The majority of our customers are led to the brand through the medium of referrals and that is what fuels our mentorship platform growth.
7. What has been the biggest challenge that you faced with Metvy and how did you overcome that?
I and Shawrya are both from non-technical backgrounds and taking decisions that helped curate the growth of the product was a challenge for us. But with time we were able to make data-driven decisions which helped us flourish as a brand. We learned through reading a lot of curated literature and viewing videos to better understand and gain insight into the product we are selling. The task of building our brand and being able to market our brand seemed like a challenge to us.
We were able to overcome that through the failures and miscalculated risks to which we have succumbed in our journey.
8. What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur?
Some of the most important qualities which must be possessed by an entrepreneur are leadership skills and man-management skills. An entrepreneur should be able to take calculated risks and at the same point be credible in the work. Being able to manage pressure and time seems like a great acumen for all successful entrepreneurs. The ability to learn and be dynamic in the work that an individual is exhibiting. An entrepreneur should be good at micro-management and listening to the colleagues they are working with whilst not letting anyone feel that their opinions aren't heard or valued.
9. What is the skill set one must possess before building a startup?
The first skill which I would think should be possessed before building a start-up is the ability to learn quickly. It's not about being able to just grasp foreign information but being able to practice them and establish the learnings in the prescribed work.
The resilience and endurance to overcome the numerous challenges faced in the entrepreneurship path and being able to adapt to the solutions in the course of action.
The people administration skill for being able to establish good productivity from the people who are working for the platform and allowing them to be a part of the journey. This seems like a skill that is learnt through time and usually requires a major amount of patience.
10. What are some of the most important factors for running a successful business?
The most important factor for running a successful business is finding a balance in the development of the business and the product. Initially, the focus could triangulate towards building a user-friendly product and designing its course of the path in the market. But later on, the focus should be equally balanced in curating the product and finding a suitable market to become a better business model.
Another factor would be to consistently experiment with the ways things are carried out concerning the sales and marketing aspects of the product. It's the consistency of experiments that allows any product or business to flourish and become a successful brand in the market.
11. What are your tips for first-time and aspiring entrepreneurs?
A tip for aspiring entrepreneurs is to learn everything possible related to the product and business that you are trying to build. Also, do not be scared of failure as I started to build upon an ed-tech venture without having suitable monetary backing to build it. Being the sole earner of my family and financing their amenities to building a brand of myself has been a very turbulent yet self-earning path.
12. How can one overcome a hurdle of lack of funds when starting up?
Engaging in the entrepreneurship journey without having a subtle amount of funds to invest is a very common problem faced by entrepreneurs. The only way to overcome it is to believe in the process of growth and start investing personal pocket money or monetary backing earned through internships or freelancing for companies. For a budding entrepreneur, I would suggest starting with a business that isn't money intrusive and allows mobility would be a great start.
13. What are some of your favourite books and why? Which book according to you is a must-read for freshers aspiring to become entrepreneurs or those who want to land in top MNCs?
I think Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a book that I would suggest to all entrepreneurs. Since it covers the general perspective of life and later focuses on how to build a business it allows an individual to have a logical and structured path of thinking. It helps an individual to set a concrete layer of principles in life and overcome the challenges in life with a broader perspective in mind.
Interviewed by - Anushka Srivastava
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