1. Describe about your Business and founders.
LevelApp, which is our brand name, is a global Ed-tech platform that is providing online One to One personalised coaching classes for learners all around the world. We are a B2C & B2B type start-up, providing coaching for various categories & have been proved to be successful right from Academics, Foreign Languages, IT Tools, Arts Training Programmes & Competitive Exams/Games & more. Our company is a three year old established start-up founded by Srikanth Sammeta (COO), Ashwitha Reddy, Suchitra Reddy & Sai Kiran Arni.
2. What is the biggest challenge of being a COO and how do you overcome it?
Well, it is a huge responsibility when you have 40 people under you to manage, ensuring that their career is on the right path, set-up a smooth process (everyday operations) that has scope for future & manage your personal time. I believe that challenges cannot be gauged by a meter & every single day is a challenge for an established start-up. I’ve never stepped back from accepting any kind of challenge.
To be honest there for sure challenges during client acquisition, talent acquisition or client retention, but my team has always been with me. The effort, hard work & passion that each individual who worked or is working with us, have equally played a major role in contributing towards LevelApp’s success which in return gives me the motivation to accept any challenge.
3. Where do you see the company in the next five years and how will you bring about the change?
The reason behind starting LevelApp is very simple. We have identified the challenges of traditional classroom training & believe that there is scope and demand for personalised one-to-one training for at least 90% of learners in today’s world. Though the statistics may vary, the problem still persists. Be it five or ten years, we see that LevelApp will be the solution for most of the learning challenges. Post Covid, the demand for online classes has boosted more than ten times & the requirements for one-to-one classes has become a necessity. We are aiming at acquiring 80% of the online home tuition market by the end of 2022.
4. Did you ever feel like giving up on being a COO and what motivated you to pull this off?
Never. The kind of team that we have has always been amazing which made me stronger but never felt like giving up on responsibilities. My belief in the idea & the vision towards the future of this company has always kept me motivated.
5. Describe your biggest achievement.
Bringing a company from nowhere to a self-sustainable & profitable model that it is today has been one of the biggest achievements of me, my partners & my team. There are many short milestones that we kept achieving be it in terms of revenue that is generated, client & talent acquisition within India/other countries & opportunity deployment. We never said “No” to anybody who approached LevelApp be it for their learning needs or teaching opportunities.
6. From where you get the idea for business?
The current idea has come out of our failures which we consider as one of the biggest learnings in 2017. Ideas are always brilliant on papers but the dynamics change once implemented. However, the concept of personalised learning classes came into picture only after our understanding & research on the challenges faced by students (Including us when we were students) during the days of traditional classroom training. There are currently more than 3,500 registered students/learners & have completed more than 10 million minutes of Training Sessions until today.
7. What was your aim to start the company?
I’ve always been an extensive researcher & was very curious to understand various markets of businesses. Looking at the rise of edu-tech boom during 2016/18 which was huge in terms of technology implementation & brand building, I felt there was still an opportunity to implement an aggregator model that works effectively in collaborating trainers & learners on a personalised coaching platform. And that’s when LevelApp came into existence & today the company is totally self sustainable.
We’re in the process of raising funds & the discussions are still in progress. Once after which, we will be looking at expanding the company for operations across the other states.
8. Tell us some of your failures.
Well to begin, it all started in the year 2017 with a simple agenda of giving students a platform to find Instant Tutors when required, targeting the one-night (before the exam) batters. The idea didn’t really work as we could not onboard as many students as targeted to. Later, we remodelled the idea & understood the importance of providing personalised learning classes & have seen a lot of demand for the same. So, failures definitely lead us to success.
9. What is the role of your family in your successful career?
I live with my parents; my father is a retired person & my mother is a house maker. My two siblings always motivated me in whatever I do. My work & responsibilities keep me away from them for at least four days in a week. The kind of support that I get from them cannot be defined in words.
10. What is your message to the young generations and to their parents?
Parents, please don't define/decide the ability/career/future of your daughter/son on the basis of their grades. Start believing in Skill Learning & push your kids towards the same. Let them do a lot of research on things that make them curious & self-understand.
There are quite a lot of talented youngsters in the current market, however it is important to understand that there is a lot of competition but nothing can stop you from whatever you want to become that you dream of.
- Srikanth Sammeta
Post a Comment