Motachashma is a startup in the education sector based out of Delhi. Lokesh Sabharwal and Ankita Sabharwal started the company in 2013 as an information portal for students, parents, schools and colleges. It provides solutions for the educational needs such as details of entrance exams, competitions, scholarships, auditions and results.
Right from his graduation days, Lokesh has always thought about changing the way people perceive education opportunities after school. He did not want students to face the challenges the challenges he faced during his school days. Immediately after his graduation in 2008, he bootstrapped his first startup “BRIDGE” with his friend Sanjay Pal in Roorkee where they arranged counselling fairs and camps for students in schools & colleges in nearby districts and villages, and their flagship event was called “Paathshala 2 Profession” which was a 2-day event. They used to provide counselling support to students and parents through many well-known personalities, psychologist, and professional counsellors. The campaign had massive success in the endeavour and even had a case study published on the company in Asian Case Research Journal (ACRJ) at the National University of Singapore. Lokesh decided to pursue MBA from XIMB where he met Ankita. They worked together on the various education-based projects during MBA. Afterwards, they got married in 2012.
The objective of Motachashma was to bring opportunities closer to students. Lokesh and Ankita noticed that there are a plethora of opportunities regarding scholarships which go unnoticed by both students as well as parents. In today’s’ world where everything costs you money, founders brought money to the students. They acted as a bridge between scholarship providers and students, and both of them benefitted from this. This unique approach attracted some key players in the education industry to partner with Motachashma as early as in the first six months of the initiation. And with this began the 5-year journey of the company. The idea was simple yet relevant. Create a new niche in the market and grow furiously. And that’s what happened. Instead of burning the life savings, they began to make profits in their second year of operations and continued to expand.
The primary challenge that Lokesh and Ankita faced was that they had to build their company up from scratch without any external funding. Motachashma is still a non-funded brand and is continuously growing in the industry. Another challenge was to tackle the already established players in the industry. The company needed to find a gap in the market. The couple did extensive research on the market and industry. Lokesh used to visit many schools and interact with students and parents to understand the needs and pain points. They worked on this and decided to start their work from scholarships and build it up eventually according to the needs of users and market condition. Both founders greatly emphasise the support they got from their friends and families.
The initial challenge that they faced was in early set up of the website and getting clients onboard. People were very reluctant to work with a company that had just started from the living room of a house. But the work which the team at Motachashma did, gain an appreciation and helped them establish long-term contracts with the clients. This helped them expand and increase their reach to students pan India. They get good feedback from both students as well as parents about their work. That is precisely the reason that the firm has achieved so much popularity in such a small time only through organic growth.
Currently, Motachashma works with some of the Biggest Brands of Education Industry in India like university and coaching institutes. And, all this while they have never forgotten the primary objective. All the services they provide to students are free of cost, and they are continuing to increase the sections and options day by day. From the application process to exams and answer keys to results, Motachashma has become a one-stop shop for all your education needs. The company caters to students starting from 5th standard up to post-graduation.
Lokesh is keen on utilising technology to stay ahead of the game, be it SaaS-based solution to make the workplace more efficient or using tools to disseminate information in a fast and responsive manner to students. The team is soon planning to update the platform so that it can handle the increased traffic in a much more efficient way and revamp the website to better suit the need of users.
For more information regarding relevant scholarships and competitions for you, visit www.motachashma.com
Recommended for you
Leave a Reply
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.