Shivendu, Abhilekh & AlokFounders of Xpert Arena Published On: Tuesday, August 25, 2015 Views 3179

“Challenges are meant to be faced and hurdles are meant to be crossed; have faith, open the clip of your wings and fly consistently; you will reach at heights”

If you have the desire to revolutionize a particular sector, then all that matters is the hard work and dedication. This notion drove the trio behind the vision to fill the gap between education, research, and technologies. The trio is Shivendu Ranjan – a bioengineer and research associate at VIT University, Abhilekh Raj – a civil engineer, graduated from MIT Manipal and Alok Rajshekhar – a mechanical engineer.

After completing their graduation, all three went on to gain vital experiences in multinational companies and organizations. During this period, all of them were accredited with achievements and awards from the internationally recognized organizations. However, all of them had a similar vision to revolutionize the education sector. All of them left their hefty paying jobs, just to simplify education and come up as a team called Xpert Arena “Famille la XA”. This platform allows students to be connected with more than 200 Experts from around the world. Within a short span of few months, it has managed to achieve more than 4 million customers.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

If you have the global vision, zeal and the desire to be the change, then definitely you will be supported by the globe, you just have to have a kick-start. Xpert Arena works on a concept of “from the generation of expertise; for the generations of experts to come”. Xpert Arena (XA) is framed for providing daily updates of global scholarships, internships, jobs and conferences. Several numbers of global scholarships are there but the upcoming generations are not aware of the correct information and guidelines for the same. XA is filling the gap between the two generations of experts. Currently, Shivendu is Founder of team XA, Abhilekh is Co-Founder as well as CEO and Alok is Co-Founder as well as Managing Director for Xpert Arena.

What inspired you to build the above product/service?

Being the part of expert team at global level and working with German, French and the advisory panel member of an American organization the team has realized that there is a lack of interaction among the upcoming generations and the experts over the globe. Today world is growing at faster rate, so, getting the proper guidelines from experts will make everything clear in front of you such as where do I really stand and where the world have reached. Apart from the expert panel members and updates on global scholarships, internships etc. team XA is going to launch several other features to support EduTech society.

What is your life mantra?

Well! Team XA is inspired from Sir APJ Abdul Kalam eminent Indian scientist, former president of India and Sir Barack Obama President of US. Because they all came from small town, worked hard, were consistent, struggled and finally achieved the heights in their respective fields. The real life mantra is “start small and make it big”.

What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?

The most challenging part of our journey was to compete and overtake with few old websites that are working in the similar field as updates related to global scholarship etc. but our user friendly services and attitude to not to compromise with the quality gave this success and international reputations within the shortest period of two months. Another most challenging part of our journey was to quit the lucrative offers from multinational companies and organizations with a vision to serve for EduTech society. It took a month for all three of us to initiate the execution of our ideas. Additionally, it took couple of years of research to understand the need in this field; soon within few weeks we are launching several other features to serve for the education, research, academia and technology.

How did you overcome those challenges?

In our perspectives the following 10 things are responsible to overcome those challenges and helped us to achieve global recognition: Dedication. Motivation, Team-work, Cooperation, Hard Work, Zeal to compete with world, Sparking Ideas, Technologies, Decision taking skills, risk analysis and management. Out of them the first five – Dedication. Motivation, Team-work, Cooperation and Hard Work – have really helped the team XA. We have planned to extend our arms in new fields and are very much sure that these new features will give us a cutting edge in EduTech sector.

Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.

We have launched our web-based service on 27th May 2015 and within couple of months we got millions of users and international recognition e.g. Dr. Eric Lichtfouse, an eminent scientist of French National Institute for Agricultural Research, Paris, France has selected few of our contents to publish in reputed French scientific magazine – Publier la Science. Now in our next move we are going to launch several other features in XA to benefit our users. The investment will go in this will be worth 3o million INR and a return of four times of it have been expected with a break-even-point of 2.5 years.

How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain? Tell us about your company’s attrition control practices.

The beginning of the XA starts with stopping the Brain Drain – decline the offers from Federal government organization and few multinational companies. Currently, Shivendu is recognized member of Elsevier Advisory Panel and writing few books with Springer-Verlag, Germany. All these are possible from being in India and gave international exposure in the field of education, research and technology. Abhilekh and Alok have declined their jobs after their exposure from multinational companies in their core fields. The past stories of Founding team, work culture and organizational behaviour in team XA is itself the motivation for XA employees and interns that working hard in your field with consistency will results in your international recognition.

According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?

Global vision
Zeal
Consistency

Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

Google apps are so useful in daily life and will recommend the same to all. From travel to entertainment Google has all.

Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.

Awareness for the global changes in education, research and technologies and the team work of XA

Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.

Well as a team and friends we must admit that we are spending few of our time on informal talks, parties and sleeping which we should minimize.

Answer in less than 50 words

One tip to success:

Global vision, Zeal, consistency and maintaining the high quality

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Don’t clip your wings – have faith in yourself and fly; you will reach at heights

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

Your hard work, dedication, vision, zeal and consistency will decide your success.

What are your plans for next 3 years?

To take our service to the next level and to launch new services and features. Many of the features are almost ready and the users will be benefitted within few weeks. To simplify the way we deliver the information and to add several new features to benefit the end users.

If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?

To go to our childhood and have dared to do “out of the box” e.g. Shivendu would love to be a novelist and writer, Abhilekh would like to be a painter and poet Alok would see himself as a musician and a car racer.

What are your top three getaway destinations?

To collaborate with world’s top institutes for quality work
To explore the world of different cultures and take XA to meet the global need
To take XA at global level as one of the leading EduTech company

Share a quote that inspires you the most.

“Challenges are meant to be faced and hurdles are meant to be crossed; have faith, open the clip of your wings and fly consistently; you will reach at heights” ~ XA Founding Team

Tags: Interview with Xpert Arena Founders