The one factor that 37-year-old Ankit Aggarwal was certain of was that he had a ‘bug’ in him that stored pushing him to develop into an entrepreneur and construct one thing of his personal. At the same time as a scholar sitting in his hostel room, when most college students would run in the direction of getting placements, he says he can be busy entertaining the startup concepts that stored popping into his head.
At present, Ankit is the founding father of Unstop, a Delhi-based early expertise engagement and hiring platform, which has over 5 million customers and earned a income of $2.5 million this yr.
The corporate was lately provided the very best supply of Rs 5 crore on Shark Tank, which they refused.
From a weblog to a multi-million firm
The thought of Unstop developed from a weblog that was born in a hostel room and ended up being a full-blown multi-million greenback startup.
“I used to be in IMT pursuing MBA and wished to take part in numerous programmes and contests that had been held in several schools, universities, and corporations. Nonetheless, the details about these occasions wouldn’t attain us on time,” he recollects. “That is once I began a weblog the place I’d put up the data as quickly as I bought it. This was means again in 2010.”
Whereas nonetheless engaged on his weblog, Ankit joined Harvard Enterprise Faculty to pursue a scholarship programme. “I observed the identical development in Harvard too. The scholars wished to discover extra alternatives and discover out which trade they had been fitted to, achieve CV factors, and finally get positioned. Getting placement and the correct trade publicity is all that the scholars want. So, whereas in Harvard, I realised this concept might need a financial worth to it,” he shares.
The primary massive breakthrough that Ankit bought was when the Aditya Birla Group and Reliance approached him.
“It was the large push I wanted. In consecutive months, these two massive giants approached me. They requested me if I can attain out to college students and begin an employer model. I then determined that that is the correct time to remodel that weblog into an internet site,” he says.
So, in 2017, Ankit determined to present his full consideration to constructing his weblog and making it one thing greater. “Once I began in 2019, the corporate was fairly restricted. We had been collaborating with a number of faculties. Slowly we began constructing on it and integrated totally different fields being provided in schools, akin to engineering, arts and commerce in 2020. Then, in 2021, we pivoted from being only a itemizing platform. And now, a consumer can create net pages, make and take funds, do coding, and likewise do assessments on our platform,” he says.
Explaining how the platform works, Ankit says, “We have a look at Unstop as an early expertise engagement and hiring platform. It is sort of a mixture of Naukri.com, LinkedIn and an evaluation platform like Mettl. In a nutshell, in case you are a working skilled or a scholar, we will upskill your expertise journey by serving to you study new expertise, showcase these expertise to new employers, achieve CV factors, after which lastly, get the reward in hiring.”
“Finally, that’s the purpose — to get employed. At present, now we have 5 million customers, 10,000 schools, and greater than 1,000 corporations itemizing their alternatives on Unstop,” he informs.
Unstoppable journey to success
Whereas Ankit at all times had an eye fixed for enterprise, his journey was something however simple.
“Unstop was not my first attempt at enterprise. I’ve been attempting my hand at totally different startups and failed. All of them got here with their set of issues and learnings,” he says, including “The toughest one was to beat the concern of going solo. In my earlier gigs, I believe I used to be depending on my co-founders so much.”
He shares an occasion from when he was engaged on his first enterprise concept. “The thought was to construct an app the place folks can ebook reveals. We had been engaged on it, after which simply three months later, ‘E-book My Present’ bought launched!”
Whereas Ankit was satisfied that this was a good suggestion, he couldn’t persuade his co-founders to go forward with it. “I knew there was a marketplace for such a platform, however I didn’t hustle sufficient. I let go of it, and the one cause was that I used to be not courageous sufficient to take that leap and go solo,” he says, including that it was an inner barrier that he needed to overcome.
The entrepreneur lately appeared on Shark Tank Season 2, the place the ‘sharks’ provided his crew Rs 5 crore, the very best supply in Shark Tank historical past, which they refused.
He says, “It was a tremendous expertise, seeing all of the sharks and answering their questions. Initially, it may be a bit of intimidating, however then I used to be ready with all of the numbers. It was surreal to see the glimmer of their eyes as I shared about my startup and the plans forward.”
“We bought a suggestion from Amit Jain, however we didn’t settle for it for some enterprise causes. A very powerful takeaway from all of it’s that the ‘sharks’ noticed a lot potential within the enterprise and that’s actually motivating,” he provides.
As his startup’s identify goes, Ankit too has no plans to cease.
Sharing future plans he says, “For now, we’re sustainable development. We need to kind a group of scholars and employers. An individual can create tech in a single day, however you can’t create a LinkedIn in a single day. We want to develop our 5 million customers to 10, 20 and so forth. We aren’t wanting into the income facet of the corporate however the group facet for now.”
Edited by Pranita Bhat
