Hikewise: Kozhikode's budding Ed-Tech Startup

On the 14th of March, 2020, I had the honor to interview Mr. Mohammed Ammachandy, who is the founder-CEO of Hikewise. Hikewise is an online career counseling company, founded in 2017 which is currently operating out of Kozhikode, Kerala. Mohammed Ammachandy is a graduate in Mining Engineering and a post-graduate in Safety Engineering and Disaster Management from IIT Kharagpur. While he studied in Kharagpur, alongside a group of friends he started a social venture in which students of the institution helped provide an education to the less-fortunate students who lived in extremely devastating environments very close to the institute. After his short stint in the social sector, he wanted to pursue a career where he could make a change and decided to pursue a career as an IAS officer. After he graduated in 2016, he attempted the UPSC examinations to pursue his IAS dream. While he was studying for his UPSC examinations, he also collaborated with an online UPSC coaching app named IAS Baba in developing its content. He also worked with an NGO based in Wayanad in the education sector in the months before he received his

UPSC Main exam results. After he failed to clear his UPSC Mains paper, he knew that he wanted to start a venture of his own that could make a change in the education space. This is how v-Lead Eduventures came into the picture. Mr. Ammachandy tells me, he had always seen himself doing something in the social sector, “probably running an NGO or a social venture of some sort in the education space, however, life had other plans for me”, he says. Within a few months, he had formed his founding team who together narrowed down the idea for an online career counseling service. They realized that the market did not have many big players and had lots of scope and potential. Hikewise then spent around one and a half years perfecting their psychometric analysis aptitude test, collecting data from over 10,000 students across the country. They wanted to be different from other existing career aptitude tests which were direct replications of career analysis tests from the west. Their product is different because it takes into consideration the Indian context. The product officially hit the market at the beginning of 2018.

Interviewing Mr. Ammachandy changed a lot of my views about an entrepreneur’s mindset. Unlike most of the cases I had read in class, Mr. Ammachandy has followed a path of completely effectual entrepreneurship. He made decisions on the way, learned A to Z about entrepreneurship through his journey. Neither he nor his founders have any sort of entrepreneurial exposure or corporate exposure. The company is a huge leap of faith taken by the founders. However, he tells us that he was always confident about his idea. He realized he didn’t know it all, only after the product hit the market. He tells me, “When I started my entrepreneurship journey, I think I was a bit too delusional, I thought that if any great product hit the market in this digital age, it would sell like wildfire”. From the basics such as having a marketing and sales team, he had to learn it all from scratch. They never had a proper expansion plan or outreach plan. Mr. Ammachandy says, he does wish he knew more about this field before he jumped into it, but this journey has nevertheless worked out for the firm and him.

His journey and the journey of Hikewise has been filled with challenges of various sorts and he tells me that the way ahead will probably only get harder when his firm decides to scale up. Since Hikewise followed a path of effectual entrepreneurship and the team consists of people from a non-business background consisting mostly of engineers, they faced their first setback within a very few months of starting.

1. Lack of Proper Marketing and Sales Team and Strategy

Hike wise realized the necessity of proper sales and marketing only after an operational duration of 4months. “Before these initial months, we thought that if our product provides accurate results and receives great customer satisfaction, it will succeed through word of mouth publicity”, says Mr Ammachandy. In the process of perfecting our product, we invested most of our efforts in this and did not develop a proper marketing strategy. It was after this initial setback, that Hikewise realized the importance of a proper marketing and sales team and invested in curating an efficient marketing and sales team.

2. Creating Product Awareness

For a specialized product such as career counseling, which most people do not realize the necessity for, creating a need for this product was one of the major challenges for Hikewise. In a social setup like India, where we make career choices in discussion with parents and other elders in our close connection, the need for this service needed to be created. For this, Hikewise chose the route of outreach programs through tie-ups with schools, NGOs and other educational institutions such as training/coaching centers.

3. Ticket Pricing and Unit Economics

Since the firm is founded by Mr. Ammachandy who is a social entrepreneur at heart, Hikewise has always wanted to become a firm that caters its services to all social groups. In this motive, Hikewise initially priced their services at a very low price. But soon realized that this pricing would not allow them to meet their basic unit economics. They later had to increase their prices by almost double. However, he tells us that this has not in any way affected their sales as most customers for their service value their services highly and are willing to pay any amount for it. In fact, many customers tell them that they are under-pricing their services, as most competitors lack this level of accuracy in their services and charge almost thrice their prices for the same services.

4. Wrong Geographical Location for Setup of Company

V-lead Eduventures, the parent company of Hikewise, is currently operating in Kozhikode, a tier 2 city in the Southern state of Kerala. It was set up in Kozhikode due to the convenience of the founders, as most of the founding members are from places close to Kozhikode. However, currently, they are facing numerous logistical issues due to the location of their main office. They are currently in talks to relocate their main office to Kochi. “Currently, it is very difficult to woo people with great exposure and experience in this field to come and join us in Kozhikode even with huge salaries and perks. Kochi will give us an edge in doing so. Also, we will have a better outreach, after shifting our operations to an IT hub like Kochi, without losing out on our current reach in this area.”, says Mr. Ammachandy. Also, moving to an IT hub like Kochi or Bangalore will give them more perks in the scaling-up process.

5. Scaling Up

VLead Eduventures, the parent company of Hikewise is currently looking forward to scaling up as they have received their first round of funding, after numerous failed attempts at securing funding from big VC companies in India. Taking a firm in this sector forward is a very difficult task, especially, for a company that believes in the quality of its services over everything else. Training a large set of counselors is a large task and may lead to compromising on quality. The selection process for the current counselors involved scrutinizing over 600+ applications, so the company is looking at ways to scale up without compromising on quality. Hopefully, they will succeed in doing so and become India’s largest career development company within the next 5 years, both in quality and quantity, says Mr.Ammachandy.

Career Development Market In India:

The career Development market in India has a large potential. It is mainly categorized by a few small players each with a limited market share. The sector has currently not been completely explored, with only very few students currently taking career guidance before choosing their career paths. However, data from recent studies show that around 85% of students are concerned about which option to choose for higher education and 92% don't get any career-related guidance from their school (India Today). This shows that the career counseling market’s potential is waiting to be tapped. Despite such a low client base currently acquired, the career guidance and assessment market is a budding market and with the rising awareness, it is witnessing exponential growth over the last few years.

This is a service which is very important in this day and age, where every day millions of graduates are unfit and unskilled for the job market, and numerous others are dissatisfied with their current jobs. Among people who have a graduate degree or above in India, 35% are currently unemployed and this mainly consists of young people(Economic Times). This is mainly because these people don’t have the skills that the market requires or because they lack skills in general. If these students had received proper career guidance during their early years, they could have channelized the energy into areas where they possessed better aptitude and skill and they would be leading a life of higher quality now. Another major issue is the fact that with the rise in technological advancements, old jobs keep disappearing and newer types of jobs are getting created every day.

 

Only if students receive guidance in making career decisions will they be exposed to the plethora of jobs that will be available in the future. With recent innovations in technology and the ease with which it is being incorporated in the field of career analysis, to assist students in making career choices, the news is far more heartening than it has been for career aspirants from a decade ago. Career assessment tools are increasing in number and the detail in the reporting that they do is ever-increasing, offering a well-rounded idea of the capabilities that are present and those that need to be built up, in order to match dreams with opportunities that exist, or are appearing on the horizon. Examining multiple areas to help match career aspirants to their career paths of choice,

such as personality, aptitude, interest and work value preference are the services that this sector can offer. Other than career counseling, the industry also includes foreign university admission and application assistance and other services.

And above all, the biggest difficulty faced is that there has been a traditional over-reliance on a number of things that have passed for career guidance, such as the friendly advice offered by peers, parents or members of the family. It still remains a huge challenge for companies in this sector to convince potential clients to use their products. And this difficulty only increases for firms targeting audiences from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Currently, the career guidance market is highly disorganized and consists of numerous small firms which claim to provide career guidance but follow extremely unscientific approaches to career guidance. They mostly follow methods of intuition and suggest traditional career options that they are aware of. In most of these cases, the counselors have no skill in the field and may lead students to take extremely ignorant career decisions. Snatching clients away from these traditional players is an extremely difficult task, for these new online career assessment tests and counseling providers.

 

The career guidance market in India is currently estimated to be above rupees 5000 crores and is constantly flourishing (Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, Ernst and Young Report on K12 Education, KPMG market report on K12 education). And with the importance of career guidance being recognized by educational boards like CBSE and other state boards, this sector can witness a spree in its market very soon. The CBSE has recently made it mandatory for all schools to make a career counseling facility available to students. Alongside this, The Draft of the New Educational Policy which was published in 2019 strongly emphasizes the significance of skill and personality-based career guidance. These governmental decisions are sure to boost this market further.

The career guidance market does not cater solely to young students of school and college, they also provide services for people who are currently dissatisfied with the line of employment they are currently in. They provide all sorts of guidance for people who are discontented with their current job and impart guidance on switching careers and how to do so. This market is a newly developing segment, with more and more people feeling frustrated with their current jobs which don’t let them live their life to the fullest.

 

As the market is booming, it also offers a lot of employment opportunities. According to the 2018 Annual International Career and College Counselling Conference held in August 2018 in Delhi, India’s 350 million students, would require at least 1.4 million career counselors to maintain a globally acceptable student to counselor ratio. As the sector reaches its complete potential, it can provide jobs to numerous young graduates.

 

Other than career guidance, the sector includes foreign university application assistance and counseling, and skill training workshops and internships and many more. Foreign university application assistance is currently one of the most sought-after services in the past few years. With the constant dissatisfaction with the quality of education in India, the number of students who prefer to go abroad for their education is multiplying year by year. However, with the long and complicated admission procedure for universities, most students seek professional help from foreign admission counselors and the demand for this service is only predicted to increase year by year.

 

Overall, the career development industry in India is witnessing steady growth and with the expected government policy which advocates the necessity of career counseling facilities, the future is bright for this industry.

Marginalization of Dalit communities in Indian Media

Media has the ability to influence society and this power lies in the hands of those who create media content. When the media is dominated by a group of privileged people, the stories and opinions of the minorities are dissolved or never heard. Mainstream media is often seen to marginalise minority communities based on caste, gender, race and, class. Indian newsrooms are seen to be flooded with the privileged upper-class Hindu men in positions of power. But why is this dangerous?

These majoritarian privileged groups will reflect only their interests in the media and the opinions and voices of the marginalised, continue to be suppressed. The news stories which come out of such homogenous media spaces are likely to be void of news that impacts marginalised communities. In mainstream Indian media, close to 90% of key media personnel belong to upper caste communities, who represent just 25% of the Indian population. Whereas, the Dalit community which comprises of approximately 17% has a media representation in key positions of less than 1%. [1]

In 2019, when the Dalit land reclaiming movement which started in 1940 by B. R. Ambedkar reached its peak, with 92,000 Dalit citizens from across 13 states participating in the battle to reclaim their land, an extensive report was published by a prominent media house.[2] However, this report received little coverage from the media and ever since, there have barely been any follow-ups on this movement, despite being a huge citizen’s movement. The struggles that the community faces are related to deep-rooted inequalities in our society are endless. Most Dalit citizens still face harsh discrimination on a day to day basis. In villages, many are still are employed in manual scavenging and their children are shoved into this generational employment cycle and are denied education in schools, where the “upper caste” children study. This sort of discrimination is not less prominent in urban areas, where it is still very difficult for a Dalit family to get housing, despite being on the top of the class spectrum. Within media houses which are dominated by Upper caste Hindus, Dalit journalists do not feel safe to risk “coming out” as Dalit in fear of humiliation and discrimination. This is visible in Sudipto Mondal’s article for Aljazeera in which he writes, “After searching the country for more than 10 years, I have been able to find eight Dalit journalists in the English media. Only two of them have risked "coming out”.[3]

I strongly believe that the increase of Dalit journalists in mainstream media is the only way forward, to include a caste lens in media. Only through a caste lens will media be able to bring about the oppression and discrimination faced by Dalits. The reporting of the 1968 Kilvenmani massacre in which 40 Dalits were burnt to death by upper caste Hindus is one such incident, where the lack of a caste lens is visible. The massacre was reported under the headline “Clashes between Farmers” by the Dinamani newspaper. The media widely reported this incident as a class issue when it was a clear-cut case of caste-based oppression and brutality. Mainstream media failed big time, to see this as a case of human rights violations. It was many decades later when Dalit communities redefined it as a case of caste oppression.[4]

The Dalit community is one among the numerous other marginalised communities, who have been restricted from newsrooms for decades. Their voices have not been heard, their stories will remain unknown, till we bring diversity in our media houses.  

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[1] Oxfam India. Who Tells Our Stories Matters: Representation of Marginalised Caste Groups in Indian Newsrooms. NewDelhi: Oxfam India, 2019

[2] Gokhale, Nihar. “Dalit Battles For Promised Lands Rage Across India |.” India Spend, 21 Oct. 2019

[3] Mondal, Sudipto. “Indian Media Wants Dalit News but Not Dalit Reporters.” India | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 2017

[4] Balasubramanian, J. "Dalits and a Lack of Diversity in the Newsroom." Economic and Political Weekly 46, no. 11 (2011): 21-23.

How did the Global War on Terror change the way conflicts are covered in the media?

The relationship between terrorism and the media has long been clear. Terrorists aim to provoke irrational fear among large numbers of people to achieve their goals and the 9/11 attacks of 2001 was an incident where they successfully did so (Burke, “How the changing media is changing terrorism”). For the next three days, media houses reported without advertisement breaks on the aftermath of the attacks which sent shock waves down the spines of every person (Kellner, 2004). After, the attack which stunned the world, the George Bush administration in America launched the ‘Global war on Terror’ which used a moral rhetoric to propel it’s “war on terrorism” policies, especially in Iraq. This ‘morality’ was strongly echoed through the US media.

The War on Terror describes a vague enemy, opposes a ‘tactic’, has no clear measure of success and just lifts the problem out of political, economic, and historical context. However, this was never given any light by the media (Reese, 2009). Instead the US media was responsible for propelling moralist sentiments among their citizens. In fact, it went to such an extent that, media reports ceased to describe the policy as the administration’s ‘war on terrorism’ but reported it as ‘America’s war on terror’ (Reese, 2007). The ultimate closing of the loop came when journalists, after having helped brand the policy, labeled the frame as public opinion: ‘the struggle that most Americans call the war on terrorism’ (Hoagland, 2002). The mainstream media in the US privileged the “clash of civilizations” model and established a binary dualism between Islamic terrorism and civilization (Kellner, 2003). This continues to pose serious consequences to the US and the rest of the world as many big media houses in the US continue to follow similar irrational paths during crisis situations.

In opposition to the scene in US media, the Indian media seems to be better at learning from its mistakes. In India, during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the media released confidential details while the attack was happening, and this led to a lot of panic. Without appropriate systems and channels of information in place, journalists went by what they saw, what was visible to the naked eye to report to the world. Was it poor judgement of the journalists to release this information? In the hindsight, yes. After these shortfalls happened, the government ordered notices to television news channels. However, with no proper guidelines for the media to report in crisis situations, the media houses were let free without major consequences. While reviewing the failures and addressing new challenges, the absence of a simple protocol was glaring. In fact, it took an attack like 26/11 for both the government and the media industry to evolve new frameworks for coverage. After the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, India’s News Broadcasters Association, came up with a new set of guidelines for the coverage of emergency situations. Though not always foolproof, these regulations have a strong influence on most newsrooms. For the most part, evidence indicates that private broadcast news media in India have complied with crisis reportage guidelines since they were put in place. The government formed better security strategies and developed Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) for communications in crisis and the media has learned from past mistakes and experience. Both the government and the media had lessons to learn from the handling of the Mumbai attacks. Since the 26/11 attacks, reportage of riots and terror strikes, including those on the Indian Air Base in Pathankot and an army camp in Uri, has broadly indicated this commitment (Mirchandani, “26/11 and the media: Where were the protocols?”). Baring a few minor exceptions, today, networks in India have become more responsible in the visuals and details they report in situations of crisis. However, the condition of the media in US and in other parts of the world is still disheartening to witness. The role of media in public opinion is huge and is a job that needs to be done responsibly. Hope the world takes notes from the media in India!