As part of our relentless pursuit to identify and share with our community some of the unique and compelling startup stories from the ecosystem, we spoke to Ayush Bansal, Founder & CEO, Shubham Sharda, Co-founder & COO and Aurvind Raj, VP of Sales & Marketing of Foxmula to understand more about their journey, their vision and the way forward. Let’s read their unique story!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with the team:
‘Foxmula’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem Foxmula is solving and with what vision?
Answered by Ayush Bansal – It took Me and Shubham 3 days of complete isolation and research to come up with it. The hunt was for a name that stays in the head, generates curiosity and delivers a vision.
You know how our traditional education revolves around mugging up ‘Formulas’ right. And of course, it’s not the smart way, the clever way. Well, that’s when it hit us that Foxes are clever and Formula with an ‘x’ instead of ‘r’ is Foxmula. Luckily the domain was available and we didn’t waste a minute to think, and bought it immediately.”
At Foxmula, we are connecting the dots of Learners, Communities, Enterprises and Educational institutes with our products and services for a mega ecosystem to help address skills, certifications, internships, Jobs, Workforce hiring and also the Placements & Operations of educational institutes. An Ecosystem with a feeling of belongingness, security & growth.
The deep core vision of Foxmula, in my words, is to take care of all worldly problems of society that revolve around skills, career, income and business so that people feel secured. Only when survival is secured, we will try to learn our responsibility and contribute to the world in our own ways with compassion. Which is a must given if we as a species want to last beyond 2050 on this planet.
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship? Your team is always positive and motivated, How do you manage yourself and keep on going despite the challenges?
Answered by Shubham Sharda – I would like to put this answer is simple and direct words. Neither of us three here have any special talents. We are just passionately curious and compassionate. And as history speaks for people with curiosity and compassion, the sky has never been the limit but the entire cosmos. Entrepreneurship opens those doors with no bounds, makes you capable of creating impact.
In fact, I’m the kind of person who believes in energies, who believes that there is a certain way this Universe works. With all the worldly problems we’re surrounded with, families, jobs, education, income, bills etc. we intend to forget the real purpose of our existence.
Love, compassion and curiosity. With love and compassion right, we can help the universe bring to us what’s meant for us, like resonating with similar frequencies. If you relate it with String theory, you might as well get a scientific approach to this law of attraction. Even Carl Sagan spoke about it once. Regardless of whatever happens in life, I remind myself every day that the ultimate goal is to sleep and wake up with a smile and to spread the same. Everything else is secondary and follows.
How exactly ‘Foxmula’ works? What services do you deliver exactly?
Answered by Aurvind Raj – Foxmula for Students & Educational Institutes not only aims to ease the process to explore trending domains but it also aims to address the skill gap existing among learners, the unemployability factor that often leads to decreased employment chances once they hit the competitive professional world.
For students, Foxmula offers industry-oriented skills, global certifications, events for intellectual growth and exposure via industrial internships through its Essential and Intensive Profile Building Programmes. Furthermore, it also offers Guaranteed Job programmes with pay after placement model for learners. All these three-level offerings are available for cutting-edge and most in-demand domains of the industry like Data Science, Cloud Computing, Web Development, Financial Modeling, Digital Marketing and more.
Foxmula for Enterprises creates a win-win situation for learners seeking jobs (via guaranteed job programs) and companies seeking talents in the most effective way by offering different flavours of services under two categories:
– Training and upskilling of the existing workforce.
– New Workforce hiring. (No Cost)
Workforce hiring with Foxmula has proven to be a relief for companies in the hiring process not just because it is free of cost, but also because it filters out all the complexities HR has to go through. The department has to handpick talented freshers from colleges just to train them again at the company’s cost before they start adding value.
Along with Direct hiring, Foxmula offers Remote hiring, Offshoring and Outsourcing services. Currently, all Workforce services for Businesses offered by Foxmula are in the Data Science and Full-stack Development sector but as the requirements keep growing the company plans to add more branches. Foxmula has already started placing its talents in companies like Nordstrom, PWC, Microsoft, J.P Morgan and more.”
Also attracting Outsourcing clients from Istanbul and India, Foxmula is working on multiple outsourcing projects helping businesses reduce project costs, boost efficiency and operational ease.
We are aware of Foxmula’s contribution in the industry and influence, talk us through your background and your journey as entrepreneurs, please
Answered by Ayush Bansal – It wasn’t easy of course given Bangalore is a city with hundreds of start-ups coming up and closing down on a daily basis. Also when me and Shubham were going wrong academically.
But we knew if we wait to start, regardless of situations, it won’t ever happen just like our Goa plans back in the college days. So we both stayed awake a night, purchased a domain, built the website on GoDaddy itself and launched Inversion Consultancy LLP.
It was meant to provide Website and Digital B2B services to MSMEs. Me and Shubham, we suited up and hopped on our scooter in the hunt of clients in the Malleshwaram market (A traditional and busy market here in Bangalore). We had in mind that whatever project we get we’ll outsource it to our skilled batchmates at the minimal cut.
It worked for a couple of clients until we cracked an HR services project with an Education company. That’s where we got the taste of the industry and launched Foxmula as an educational brand of Inversion Consultancy LLP (Now Foxmula Pvt. Ltd.).
Luckily when we started, we were surrounded by so many entrepreneurial mindsets. People who wanted to create an influence. From our first team of mutual friends to each and every member today have the same mindset and dedication.
This teamwork and relating with the company as their own is what has kept our growth chart exponential.
We started as a team of entrepreneurs, musicians, painters, pet lovers, and to date with a team size of 50+, this statement still holds true. We have worked in Cafe’s, Parks, Canteens, each other’s home and where not.
In your opinion, what is more necessary: An idea or a good team for a successful startup?
Answered by Shubham Sharda – I don’t think the answer is as simple as you expect. Cars can move forward only with all its wheels in actions, similarly for an organisation Teamwork and Implementation is as important as ideas and imaginations. It is something we have learnt the hard way as we started up as 3rd year Engineering students but we’re glad we did.
Talking about Good Team reminds me of ours. We love our team as every member thinks of the company and its vision as their own. We reciprocate with our care for them. In fact, there weren’t any pay cuts or any layoffs amidst the pandemic, unlike many others. Rather we increased in good numbers.
As a bootstrapped startup our aim was to work with a very lean team, so till March 2020, we had only 10-12 members including me and Ayush. But during the pandemic, we decided to take risks, as more students were looking up to us. So we increased the numbers creating jobs.”
Today we have a team of around 50+ working coherently with each other and building something which will completely transform the education sector as we know it.
What was the business like before Covid-19 and how has the pandemic changed things for you?
Answered by Aurvind Raj – We had a good flow of new users before the pandemic but of course, it was difficult to be accepted by the parents of prospective students as we are an online company.
With all the extra screen time because of the pandemic, with colleges and classes going online, many curious learners in higher education developed a new eye and trust towards e-learning and we saw a sudden rise in our monthly users. In fact, the business has never been better.
Also, this overwhelming response kickstarted new developments and offerings in the company for the target audience which we had planned for 2021. So basically, since we started we have been Bootstrapped and Profitable till date with over 15,000+ active users. As far as Pandemic’s concerned, we have only outperformed the growth in this market with:
~ 400% increase in monthly paid users since March’20 Before the pandemic, the average number of monthly new paid users were 200 which has touched the mark of 800.
~ 7,000+ New Freemium users since March’20
~ 4 times monthly revenue from March’20 The average monthly revenue before the pandemic was around 3.5 lakhs which has touched 30 lakhs mark.
Tell us the changes or achievements that were brought recently amidst the pandemic. What is Foxmula’s immediate and long-term plans?
Answered by Ayush Bansal – Foxmula is placed among the Top 9 Edtech start-ups in the global CIIE, Mexico, by Tech Labs and also selected for Start-up Istanbul Accelerator Programme 2020. Recently, from March 2020, we also gained 7,000+ new users, which is big as per our plans.
The biggest achievement if you ask is successfully creating a SaaS software that will completely change the way administration and management of educational institutes is done. We are almost in the final phases of approval with the government of 3 states for mass implementation. I wish I could disclose more about it, but soon.
Now the immediate plan is to strengthen our user services further, given overwhelming responses post-Covid, by introducing new domains and by implementing AI in the learning process along with
24*7 teaching assistant and discussions. We are seeing heavy traction from all over India of learners with different learning methodologies and that’s a small challenge to deal with. Along with that, we are tying up with several Businesses, inside and outside the country, to bring in job requirements for our learners. Unemployment is at its peak, and that’s what we are here to fight.
The long term plan from a bird’s eye is to evolve as a giant ecosystem where a learner gets in the early stage of higher education, explores, networks build careers, upgrades, and stays in the ecosystem lifelong. Meanwhile, for Businesses to become a one-stop HR services point with Offshoring, Project Outsourcing, and Remote/Direct hiring of extraordinary and tailor trained workforce hassle-free.”
We would love to know your team’s advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
Answered by Shubham Sharda – We’re no one to advise someone yet but yes if I were to speak to my younger self I would tell him to keep working on nothing but developing Curiosity, Creativity, Communication Skills, and understanding human psychology. With all this and a free heart and bold mindset to act and hustle no matter what. After all, Opinions never changed the world, actions did and actions will.
On a conclusive note, What kind of challenges do you think you or anyone in Edtech might face in India? In what ways do you think the government should intervene?
Answered by Aurvind Raj – For everyone in Ed-tech, reaching the traditional roots of this country is a challenge that can’t be ignored. Talking about Foxmula, one of the aspects of our company is offering guaranteed job programs. These guaranteed job services started right before COVID in Jan’20.
Now given major lay-offs and growing unemployment, it has been a small speed bump but we have taken some bold measures to address that with outsourcing, offshoring, remote hiring and more. It still is a challenge to get students and professionals the jobs they deserve but we have the confidence that we will deliver. Else we will not be charging our candidates a paisa.
Regarding what the government can do to help the public and the Ed-tech startups in the country. The government should make online education available to all government school students by posting tenders for the same for Ed-tech startups. Schools and colleges have been halted for a really long time, and it is already clear that traditional education alone can not prepare students for the job force.
By having Ed-tech startups compete for a government tender and present our innovative teaching techniques along with an updated curriculum, the students will have access to the best learning experience available and have the skills to enter the workforce. This will also give online education and Ed-tech startups the recognition they need to innovate, improve and get a much-needed boost which will result in the creation of a fantastic Ed-tech industry which can rival any foreign company in this sector with ease.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
