Nisha ParikhCo-Founder of Ubergrad.com Published On: Thursday, August 06, 2015 Views 3850

Ubergrad.com is an online networking platform for students and higher education institutes worldwide. Traditionally, universities have employed the offline or agent model to recruit international students and there has been no innovation in this space over the past 25 years. Students on the other hand, often fall prey to these biased consultants and are limited by their lack of exposure. We plan to disrupt this model with Ubergrad.

When I graduated from high school in 2004 and was looking at future career options, it was decided that a higher education degree in a foreign university was my best bet. The constant running around from consultants to the tedious paper work that was involved bogged me down and eventually my visa was rejected (thanks to some indifferent advice of said consultants). I decided that going abroad was not for me. With time, I realized how students were at the beck and call of these ‘all-powerful’ consultants and something had to be done to help students make a better career choice. Keeping that in mind we first started off as an online platform that gave students unbiased and accurate information about various higher education opportunities abroad.

Always strive to be the best you can and aim high. Look to make a difference and add value to whatever you do in life.

In 2009, we had over 700 employees in 42 offices across India. Regulation had literally killed our company’s growth prospects and we had to shut down most of our regional offices overnight. Letting people go from the company and closing down offices built with so much passion and love, It was definitely one of the toughest moments in my life.

I couldn’t go to work for about 4 weeks after the setback. I realized that something had to be done differently this time around and to never let this happen again. We made some very conscious decisions about our business strategies and not to put all our eggs in one basket. We made a few bets and I guess that approach paid off in the end.

160by2.com was a disruptive model at that time. I secured large client deals from media houses like MTV, UTV, Fox Media, Warner Brothers that kept us in the green in terms of revenues and profitability. The learning about how consumer models work and how solving a problem made such a huge business growth I think all these experiences are what help me grow and give direction to Ubergrad.

We are in the business of sending students abroad to pursue further education, knowing very well that most of them might never return. However, if you notice the trend in the past few years you would agree with me when I say there is a phenomenon of “reverse brain drain” going on.

• To be passionate about whatever you do.
• To be ambitious.
• To be put your head down and work hard to achieve those lofty goals you set for yourself.

LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are the most used apps for me at this point of time. I often use work task management tools like Asana as well.

I always begin my day by writing out a ‘To-do-list’ using a pen and paper. At end of the day I make sure most (if not all) of my tasks are struck out.

I am an emotional person and sometimes I let that cloud my judgment about certain things. It is easy to say I want to change that about me but harder to practice.

One tip to success:

Aim high and rest not till your goal is reached.

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Coming to conclusions about people without giving them a fair chance.

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

If you really want something, and constantly remind yourself of why you want it, you will eventually have it.

The idea for the next three years is to get a lot of data science involved  on the backend to enrich the matching algorithm and the prediction analysis tool to help students shortlist universities best matched with and also standardize the entire higher education process.

We would also like to have any student from any country be able to go to any country using ubergrad, which means that open registrations for students across the globe and have universities across the globe be able to recruit students from any part of the world.

I started my career as a content writer for a technology company at the age of 19. Over the past eight years I have worked in various roles – marketing and sales, operations, international business, vendor sourcing and strategy development. Off all the skills I acquired, I take pride in my ability to read people, understanding their strengths and weaknesses and being able to guide them to achieving their potential. However my ambitions and commitment to my work has it downside. I lost out on a few key relationships and I would want to deal with those situations differently.

I love beaches and water and people who have been to Maldives have only had nice things to say. My work has taken me many places, but I think Venice would top that list. The Gallapagos islands, off the coast of Ecuador is one for my bucket list.

“Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first” – Angela Ahrendts