Educating Generations, Building Nation

Entrepreneurial Venture 

Mohit: My entrepreneurial venture is of running a Central Board of Secondary Education School here in my home town Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India named as Olympus High. It is for the students of 3 to 16years i.e. from Pre-Nursery up to Grade 12th. So, we are basically into education field, catering to the students of Vidisha and nearby semi urban locality and the main motto is to provide students a better opportunity so that they could also be at par with the students of metro cities. And this theme or this vision itself makes us unique to our customers. Parents here in Vidisha or nearby rural villages have money but no resources to make their children educated. We have bus facility so that their child can be picked and dropped back. There cost of renting a house in city and other expenditures are heavily cut down with this facility. The USP of our venture is we have worked tremendously on human resource recruitment. So, we have residential facility that to with semi furnished accommodation that is being provided to our faculty and this is how we attract & retain best of the talents. The mix or blend of co-curricular activities with academics is another major USP of our venture. We focus on both and parents here in Vidisha have loved our concept of being a one stop solution to their child’s physical, social, emotional and intellectual needs.

The Journey So Far…

Mohit: My entrepreneurial journey so far is full of learning. It’s been almost 9 years into the venture and the phase of learning never finishes. Every day I am learning new things & facing new challenges. For example, in the initial years of sleepless nights to skipping lunches to make things work, the change is at least I am at peace these days. Thanks to the solid planning by our school mentors & a very well-balanced team who executes it so well. The major challenge I faced so far are mostly related to changing the mindset of parents. Vidisha is a small town with parents having less exposure to the outer worlds changing scenario and to make them realize that what is our offering & what is our major pointers which will help their child to grow was the major challenge. The other challenge was of the distance of the school from the city. Our school is about 8-10 kms from the city center but still parents have the tendency to put child in a school which is nearer to their house and to overcome this challenge we opened a feeder school named Little Olympian in middle of the city so that students of younger age can take admission there & later on they can come to main branch in their middle classes when they grow a little in age. Another challenge we possessed was of cost of resources. For technology, for training or to provide something extra we were dependent on cities like Bhopal or Indore and there we had to spend Little extra to manage that. 

Millepreneur versus Other Generation Entrepreneurs

Mohit: Being a millepreneur yes, I think it is easier for our generation to take up entrepreneurship than the previous generation. To start with the most important thing to be an entrepreneur is to have an idea and proper research to back up that plan. With the advancement of technology, we have internet the major source of doing research and that makes things easier. Then comes funding. To get fund in previous time from bank was such a difficult process. The state owned or centralized banks, with their lots of paper work and red tapism lead to difficulty in taking up entrepreneurship but now with privatization of banks and with many in options they are sitting ready to support us. This benefit was not there in previous generations. The other advantage we have today is to get more human resource which is employable. Earlier due to lack of education and less awareness they did not get good manpower but with the advancement of education we get good human resource and we can recruit them and our work has become easier. For me personally I feel that self motivation the quality which I acquired from my educators, mentors or experiences has really helped me to perform better as an entrepreneur and this quality I think was lacking in previous generation may be due to less exposure or challenges, lesser competition etc and therefore I think being an entrepreneur today is much easier than that of previous generations.

Pandemic Impact and Road Ahead

Mohit: Like many other businesses in the world, pandemic did affect my venture as well. For the first time in history, we had no children coming to school & we had to take everything on online mode.  Many students from rural background and of uneducated parents were left out of the online model as they couldn’t understand things online. This was a major setback for us. Many students due to this reason dropped out of the school and we suffered hugely.  In terms of fee collections also there were norms from the government to charge only certain amount of fees and therefore it impacted financially as well, because to pay salary on time and to each and every staff remained a challenge. But now post pandemic the road ahead is very challenging but exciting. We are again witnessing a rise in the number of admissions as many students post pandemic are now enrolling in schools but the major challenge is the level of their understanding, reading & writing skill also has gone down. To take the venture to the next level we really need to pull our socks up, work hard with these students. Be it remedial classes, writing program or anything of that sort we need to take up the job. To train our staff with the current needs also remains a challenge.  Although we have done certain tie-ups with external agencies for training, for spoken English classes, handwriting program etc. and we are sure that the road ahead is bright for the venture, and we will overcome all the challenges. 

Advice to Prospective Millepreneurs

Mohit: My advice to entrepreneurs looking forward to start up new venture is that you should always have an idea or experience of what you are looking for. Because till the time you do not get into what you want to do, you won’t be able to know completely about it, so a small pilot project or a work experience is must. For example when I was in college in my graduation and post graduation I always wanted to start my own retail business but when I worked in retail industry for a year I realized that this is completely different from what I was thinking it to be. So looking at things from both perspectives that is market study & experience both are very important. And to know when the time to take up the venture or the project is is about your instinct and gut feeling. When your inner self says it’s the right time then you should definitely go for it. Entrepreneurship is taking risks and analyzing it as per your situation and taking up the challenge and grasping the opportunities. When you are 100% sure then you should go for it. 

About the Visionary Entrepreneur

I am Mohit Raghuvanshi Director Olympus High group of schools. I did my graduation from Daly College Indore with BA Hons Business studies affiliated to De Montfort University Leicester UK. There after did MBA (marketing) from Alliance University Bangalore.

I am passionate about giving best to my city children, the possible education and to make them stand at par with the best of students from all over the country. I am a self-motivated person and always believe in leading by example.

About the Millepreneur Edition

Millepreneur edition puts a spotlight on the millennial entrepreneurs. Millennial entrepreneurs are a set of new generation entrepreneurs, brave and visionary. Armed with quality professional education and new-age technology tools, they are here to change the world and make it a better place to live. 

Edition curated by – Dr. Debashish Sengupta, Asia Editor of Future of Earth