Best Startup
Follow Omkar Shinde on Twitter
Tell us about yourself?
Omkar is a Serial Entrepreneur who started his first startup at the age of 18 and failed despite all of his hard work and recognition.
He is one of the DevIncept Community’s Co-Founders, officially joined in November 2020, and immediately began working on generating traction, executing guerilla marketing campaigns, overseeing the community’s entire growth operations, and creating a social brand for students who are dedicated to learning to code.
Later in life, He created the Bhagya Group with other members (DevIncept is a part of this group) with the mission of transforming education and bridging the industry-academia gap for students all over the world, and he has been building platforms to bring them together since 2020.
He recently joined Sustainable Transport Midlands Group (A Not-for-profit based in the East & West Midlands area) in Northamptonshire, UK, as Chief Marketing Officer, fueling their vision of creating a sustainable transport network by 2050.
Omkar is actively working on a number of vision-driven startups, one of which is the DevIncept community, with the goal of making a social impact in sectors such as E-Learning, Industry Readiness, Career Planning, and Transportation in countries such as India and the United Kingdom over the last few years. He is a goal-oriented individual with a pleasant personality and boundless tenacity.
A multitasking individual who is considered highly ambitious and eager to create technological innovations. An entrepreneur with a vision who pursues his passion.
What lessons has being an entrepreneur taught you?
– Family First, the rest comes next – Doing research before pushing new things – Always keep adapting to the new trends – Rome wasn’t built in a day, Everything takes time – Don’t be over-confident, Be confident about your plans – Be there for yourself, Believe in yourself – Time is precious, value it or suffer later – Dream big, Be ambitious, and Have a positive mindset
If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
If I could go back in time, technically, I could undo all the mistakes I made whilst initially setting up this developer-focused community.
I would rather follow this advice to be in a better position. – Create a social impact, Change the lives of people – Focus on building projects which can help society – Teach the stuff which is in demand – Develop your tech skills to stay ahead in the game – Don’t make decisions without doing proper research – Stay consistent with your goals & constantly upgrade over the years
A lot of entrepreneurs find it difficult to balance their work and personal lives. How have you found that?
One of the most difficult aspects of my job as an entrepreneur is striking a healthy work-life balance.
Like most of us, I have interests outside of work and a wonderful group of friends and family with whom I enjoy spending time. So, what makes it so difficult to distinguish between work and personal time?
These key strategies helped me achieve a healthy work-life balance. To begin, you must ‘Create Boundaries’ in order to establish a consistent schedule for yourself, whether it is 9 to 5, 10 to 6, or whatever hours work best for you.
The second thing I did was track my ‘Personal Time.’ If you find it difficult to disconnect from work, try scheduling personal time on your calendar.
If you have plans with friends after work, block the time on your calendar as you would any other meeting. It is also beneficial to receive reminders throughout the day so that you are not tempted to work through your plans. Finally, your work is your priority, so ‘get comfortable saying no’; it’s time to prioritise business over other activities.
For example, many entrepreneurs find it difficult to say no to opportunities, whether it’s taking on additional work, travelling to a conference, or accepting a last-minute keynote invitation.
While seizing new opportunities can be beneficial to your business, it can also be a one-way ticket to burnout if you’re not careful. Being an entrepreneur and working for yourself is an incredible experience, in my opinion, but it comes with its fair share of challenges.
Having the skills to deal with those challenges, including finding a work-life balance, is essential for growing and managing a successful community-driven venture.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
To understand the source of inspiration, one must first understand the story behind the creation of this next-generation E-Learning community, a boon to all student developers worldwide.
DevIncept Community was founded for students who wanted to learn to code during the Covid period in August 2020, when all colleges/universities were closed.
We at DevIncept began with the goal of making technical education accessible to all students worldwide, beginning with India, operating as a not-for-profit.
There are numerous factors that contributed to the formation of this organisation during these critical national times. Our platform addresses global issues such as a lack of group development learning activities, no real-time projects deployed on GitHub, and technical growth without a mentor.
Our competitors were selling expensive courses with video-based coding tutorials, in which students could learn coding concepts but not implement them in real-time. The content on these platforms was old and repetitive, and it did not reflect current tech industry trends, which change every year.
Our community of like-minded people who want to learn by developing; these people are classified as Coders, Developers, and Students who want to learn to code. We started with in-demand data science courses on industry trending topics like Python, Machine Learning, and Open CV, with a batch size of 50-100 students per batch.
The courses later proved successful, resulting in an enormous amount of traction, which was unexpected. Thousands of students applied in our subsequent batches, so we had to institute a selection process to admit students who were genuinely interested in taking the course.
Hundreds of students used to share their devincept course certificates on Linkedin, praising the learning experience. Anyone who wants to learn to code can apply to free courses with peer/mentor support and interactive modules, and one can learn by developing with DevIncept Courses.
Numerous members of our community, including Community Managers and those who interned with us, have contributed to our success in achieving our objective of having 75% of Indian youngsters acquire the technical skills they need to excel in the workplace by the year 2025 using our e-learning platform. Our data revealed that over the 2020–2022 academic year, our project-based courses were improving student proficiency in coding environments and helping them become better developers.
Second, for students who wish to compete, show off their abilities, and earn prizes/swag from our side as a gesture of appreciation, we have our signature programmes like DevIncept Contribution Program and DevIncept Campus Program. DevMerch, an awesome e-commerce section we’ve developed for our developer community, showcases all of our premium gear, which includes items like bottles, mugs, mousepads, shirts, and more.
Recently, we teamed with Hashnode to create a forum for technical writers by adding DevIncept Blogs to our website. There are many members of our community on Slack, Telegram, Discord, YouTube, LinkedIn, and probably everywhere else online. Our group originally consisted of only Me (Omkar) and Arpit (Founder).
Later Ashish, Abhishek, Ashutosh, and Kushwanth joined the Dream Team. In fact, all six founding members are Engineers with CS/IT backgrounds who identified the problems faced by student developers in the modern era and eventually created this developer community that will soon become the Tech Hub for developers to assist with all of their technical career needs.
This is what drives Team DevIncept to become in charge of teaching, influencing, assisting, and guiding students around the world on their journey to become exceptional developers in the tech industry through our innovative learning approaches/methodologies toward technical education.
What do you think is your magic sauce? What sets you apart from the competitors?
DevIncept’s project-based learning free courses, open-source focused signature programs, and global community on social platforms like Slack, Telegram & Discord have set up a global mark this year.
One more important entity involved in making students succeed in their developer journeys through our E-Learning platform involves our Community Members, who can be categorised as Mentors, Program Admins, and Community Managers spread all across regions like Asia, the USA, UK & Canada.
They are the ones involved in managing our entire community cycle, which is leading to our community’s growth in these past few years.
This group of talented & like-minded individuals, our learning, training, development, and community-based methodologies integrated into the platform, is somewhat our USP for our users. As far now, We are performing really well in terms of our competitors in the E-Learning space.
As per past new reports, a lot of startups in the E-Learning sector collapsed, went bankrupt, and shut down, but DevIncept Community is still prevalent just because of our strategies to tackle such market situations; we did grow organically on the basis of our community growth/year.
For us, Our community who created us, we teach and help them grow in their tech careers; thousands of coding aspirants join us every year; without them DevIncept Organisation is nothing. Our community has been evergrowing since 2020. Till now, we have reached the 10k devs mark on our milestones for 2022 which was achieved.
By 2025, We have a goal to make this developer community – A Home to 100K+ developers. Sounds Crazy, right?! But we have the right 3P strategy (Product, People, Plans) to achieve this success in the forthcoming years.
To our direct & indirect competitors out there in the market looking to surpass us, DevIncept has a message, “We are ahead of the game; there’s no chase!”
How have you found sales so far? Do you have any lessons you could pass on to other founders in the same market as you just starting out?
Any entrepreneur’s fundamental skill is sales. There is no other job where you can lay the groundwork for a long and prosperous career. This is due to the fact that sales are everywhere.
The ability to describe something, strike up a friendly conversation, comprehend customer demands and mentalities, and finally persuade someone to buy a product or service necessitates sales skills and experience.
One must use their sales ability to influence someone’s decision. I would like to share three sales lessons for other entrepreneurs who are starting something of this sort.
Your first idea about where pain resides is nearly always wrong. Smart founders and smart salesmen look for customers with a painful problems rather than pushing a nice-to-have solution. No pain usually means no sales. Then every startup has to learn to pivot because their first understanding of the real problem is usually not quite right.
Proactively look for problems rather than react only. In every new business, as in every sales territory, problems happen. Reacting to a customer crisis is always more expensive to recover than viewing a problem brewing and heading it off with proper actions.
That mentality has to be part of the culture of every startup team member from the start. Telling isn’t selling. Having a snappy presentation on your solution or startup is great, but it’s only half the battle.
Entrepreneurs need to actively listen to customers, investors, and other constituents, just like salespeople need to listen before they talk. Push marketing doesn’t work well today in the age of interactive networking and peer reviews.
I feel Sales is a skill that takes time to be mastered; these are the lessons for anyone who’s starting off in Sales as an Entrepreneur.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far in your business, and how did you overcome it?
That’s an excellent question. When new E-Learning portals enter the market, they each have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.
However, solutions to these challenges can be found gradually throughout the course of running the business through continuous user feedback and technical improvements. Firstly, Keeping learners engaged with their eLearning content.
Did you know that the average adult learner has a 20-minute attention span? With this in mind, it can be difficult to keep a learner’s attention while they complete their eLearning modules on their own.
Learners must sit in front of a screen, whether it is on their mobile device, tablet, or desktop computer, to participate in eLearning. eLearning, in contrast to more hands-on, interactive training, may be considered a more passive learning modality that does not require active participation from learners.
Second, Difficult to hold learners accountable for putting what they’ve learned into practice. Consider in-person instructor-led training (ILT). In this setting, instructors can facilitate in-person discussions and provide learners with real-time feedback to ensure they are properly applying what they’ve learned.
This type of interaction is not possible with eLearning because learners can complete eLearning modules from remote locations without an instructor present. This makes holding learners accountable for applying what they’ve learned to their roles and ensuring positive behaviour change more difficult.
The key point here is that if you’re going to invest in eLearning, one of your first steps should be to consider how you’ll hold learners accountable for applying what they’ve learned in their roles. Use manager discussion guides that mandate managers to follow up with their students before, during, and after their eLearning is complete.
These resources, which can be printed or digital, give managers various discussion points to review and reinforce course topics. eLearning is quickly out of date and needs frequent updates.
Third & most important, eLearning modules may quickly become outdated if knowledge, procedures, and interactions within them change.
Since eLearning costs around $200 to $900 for every minute of content, maintaining and generating new eLearning modules on a regular basis can be an expensive investment.
Additionally, corporations may attempt to overly extend the shelf life of their eLearning, giving learners modules with out-of-date content and interactions.
Plan on updating your corporate eLearning generally every 2-3 years to address this specific difficulty. If your company often updates its procedures and knowledge, you might choose to use less expensive microlearning tools like FAQ pages and quick movies.
According to my experience running the DevIncept Community, these were the main difficulties encountered while operating at first. However, these issues have been resolved over time!
🇮🇳 What do you consider are the main strengths of operating your business in India and the specific state you are in over other states in India?
One of our biggest advantages is, We are an online community for developers, covering all regions in India from Mumbai, Bangalore, and Lucknow to TN, Delhi, and Punjab areas; we are prevalent online, so that makes us reach all over India & other parts of the world where our community is present such as USA, Canada, UK.
Over the past few years, the IT field is dominating, competitive, and in demand. A lot of students/engineers aspire to work with one of those big organisations and master the area of coding.
Our courses and programs are proven to be built on industry standards, beginner-friendly to advanced levels, and guarantee industry skills/technical readiness on completion. Another strength is the team of skilled individuals who work on managing the courses and programs, which help us carry out the processes conveniently for students to start their technical learning journey for free with DevIncept Community.
Every year, due to our extensive curriculum, we have long lists of applications that go through selection criteria.
A lot of students all over India are part of our community, we are a home to 10k+ developers currently, and our community is our strength. They have been expanding since 2020 & separate us from the rest of our competition.
🇮🇳 What (if any) are some weaknesses of operating your business within India and your state?
Chances of distraction are very high: Students can easily lose track of their studies in online education since there are no face-to-face lectures and classmates to remind them about assignments.
Until and unless you keep yourself motivated, it will take a long time to complete your course or abandon your entire course. Fraudulent Online Courses:
There are many websites that offer online courses without the accreditation of any educational authority or in the name of fake authorities. Such courses will not help you to get any job. So it is very important to choose an accredited online/distance program before you spend money on it.
🇮🇳 If you could operate your business in another state in India rather than the State you are in, which state would it be and why?
If that is the case, DevIncept would operate in one of these states, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, or Goa, where we can find more developers, as these states are densely populated and have a large population of people who want to pursue a career in coding.
We can meet a lot of students and universities in these states who understand the value of learning to code, have an open-source mindset, and are interested in enrolling in our courses and programmes.
🇮🇳 India has an incredibly diverse population. How has this affected your consumer base and business?
India, which has the second-largest population in the world, has seen exponential growth in almost every sector of its economy in the last ten years.
According to World Bank, the ever-expanding country is globally ranked in the top 10% of countries in terms of economic development. But it’s not just India’s consumer product market that is thriving. One area of rapid growth is India’s e-learning industry.
Countries like India are beginning to see an increase in technological advances, which has a direct effect on the e-learning industry.
1. Huge Population = Huge Market With a population of 1.2 billion, which is bigger than the population of the United States, India possesses a huge eLearning market. The increased use of mobile devices and computers, as well as rising demand from growing businesses in India, has facilitated learning integration throughout the country. Moreover, e-learning’s popularity in India is here to stay. By 2017, India’s online education market is estimated to double to 40M, meaning India’s e-learning market will only grow in the years to come.
2. Government Promotion Although India’s economy is prospering, the majority of the population lacks basic education. India’s government is trying to combat this glaring issue by promoting learning to improve literacy rates and higher education. The government has been working with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) to support Research and Development ventures in the country’s academic institutions. With the help of India’s government, eLearning could be the much-needed solution for India’s education crisis.
3. Access to the Internet and Satellite Broadband The most obvious reason for the growth of eLearning in India is the country’s expansion of its Internet and satellite broadband coverage.
This increased coverage significantly reduces the cost of educating students and employees from remote rural locations. In addition, the expansion is especially important for the current technology-driven generation.
Millennials will be able to take courses from the best eLearning providers, which will help them remain competitive in the ever-changing world. India is clearly paving the way for the emergence of eLearning in countries around the world.
The country’s strategic use demonstrates how important online training can be to developing countries. eLearning has the potential to revitalize not only India’s education system but also India’s economy. In the next 20 years, e-learning has the ability to change not only India but the entire world.
🇮🇳 Infrastructure is really important to businesses. How have you seen India’s infrastructure improve recently? Do you see new opportunities opening up?
Yes! Without a doubt, infrastructure is critical and one of the most important aspects of an e-Learning business. We began with courses and, as demand grew, launched our signature programmes.
Our website is static, developer-friendly, simple to use, and effective. We have also linked our organisation to GitHub, where the platform was born with a single repository.
Many things have changed since then, and our team has built a dynamic infrastructure that is working well for us. After COVID, There’s a rapid increase in internet connectivity in the last few years has been an important catalyst for the growth of our eLearning community in India.
This, combined with the falling cost of smartphones and data, which has seen smartphone penetration grow to 29% (as of December 2017) in urban areas and 72% (as of September 2017) in rural areas, should boost adoption further.
However, in spite of the large pool of educated talent this country needs to build from, it faces a shortage of more than 160 million skilled employees by 2022. This is because India’s education system is not able to impart to its students the software skills that the industry requires.
Our E-Learning methods at DevIncept Community will assist you in utilizing a technology/developer-focused learning platform that is simple to use and understand.
It is well-known for providing the best of both worlds: mentorship and practical training. You can certainly increase student satisfaction through eLearning by delivering more interactive and engaging courses and programmes.
The significant increase in our community members from the beginning to the present is a perfect example of the enormous opportunities, as well as proof that there is an increasing demand for what we teach at DevIncept.
And finally, if people want to get involved and learn more about your business, how should they do that?
If you want to learn by developing with the DevIncept community, Start your E-Learning journey here at https://devincept.com/, or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter @devincept for more updates about our courses and programs.
You can join our Telegram/Slack/Discord for learning, interacting with others in the community & networking purposes.
Visit our website to learn more about our mission and vision of making technical education accessible to all and get to witness one of the best technical learning platforms on the internet.
If you aim to reach out to our business for collaborations, Our email is support@devincept.com. On the other hand, You can simply search DevIncept on Google and YouTube & you’ll find us at the top of your search results.
If you are a student who wants to work in the tech industry, target the highest-paying tech jobs, and aspire to work for one of the Fortune 500 companies, then you should start your learning journey with DevIncept, a developer community dedicated to creating future developers.
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