Interview With Uday Shankar - CEO of buddi.life

                                                                 

 1. Describe about your Business and founders

Buddi.life is a Micro Online Learning Platform!

This model is well suited for mass market wherein students can pick and choose on a per-hour cost basis (one of the lowest in this space), modules of their choice for learning. Also where we add a lot of value is in the form of buddiCERT, our Blockchain-based approach to storing, retrieving and verifying academic credentials, which we will offer to all schools, colleges and universities that can make the entire process cut down on time from days to seconds.

Mukundan Krishnaswamy

Head - Strategy and Operations at buddi.life | Consumer Internet | Blockchain | Strategy and Execution | Startup Specialist

Seasoned executive in IT and Consumer Internet. Management experience of 20+ years and has worked with diverse teams in the US and India.

Uday Shankar

Head of Technology at buddi.life | Blockchain Evangelist | Technology Executive | Digital Transformation Specialist| Startup & Growth Expert

Internet entrepreneur and technology executive. Executive with 25 years of management experience delivering technology solutions in B2B and B2C businesses.

2. What is the biggest challenge of being a CEO and how do you overcome it?

 

The Greatest Challange of the CEO is to always walk a tight rope, delicately balancing the expectations of  multiple stake holders. The best way to excel at this is to keep the focus on what is the fundamental value proposition of the business and if it can legitimately satisfy the need of the customer.

3. Where do you see the company in the next five years and how will you bring about the change?

 We see the company established itself as a leader and innovator in the Edtech space. We will create the ideal set of tools, processes and value additions on the platform that would lead to mass adoption with the target audience able to experience the full benefits of the platform.

4. Did you ever feel like giving up on being a CEO and what motivated you to pull this off?

 

On some days one may feel overwhelmed by the daunting task ahead which are part of the everyday startup experience. What one does is take introspective breaks, learn to prioritize better recharge and get going again.

5. Describe your biggest achievement

 

The ability to scale up, within a short notice and doing it in a way that is effective and responsive has been the hallmark of our entrepreneurial journey so far. We demonstrated this adequately in an Edtech project that we executed in 2019 at a level of more than 8,000 schools in less than 8 months.

6. From where you get the idea for business?

 

From prior work done in the Edtech space and having experienced success 

7. What was your aim to start the company?

 

Our aim in starting this company to make a difference in the Edtech space came about as a result of  prior experience combined with the objective of making education affordable to the masses. Our credo is effectively “no student left behind”.

8. Tell us some of your failures

 

As with many startups, we did have our fair share of failures and missteps along the way. One was about not broadbasing the client roster, resulting in too much dependence of a few customers, thereby tying the fortunes of the business to one or a few outside entities. We consciously decided that we should have a huge customer base even if the average contribution per customer was not very high. That way, even if there was churn, it would not affect the business.

9. What is the role of your family in your successful career?

 

Family certainly plays a large part in the life of entrepreneurs, since they are always the pillar of support and strength when the entrepreneur goes thru some of the low moments, which happens many times in this journey. Without the family as an anchor that also acts like a buffer to weather many a startup storm, many entrepreneurs may not be able to handle the pressures of a startup that well.

10. What is your message to the young generations and to their parents?

 

Our message to the younger generation is simply - “identify what you are good at and go conquer the world with that skill of yours”. Our message to parents is “your child is unique so learn to appreciate that uniqueness and not try to force fit them into your mold or what you think is right for them purely from the societal standpoint. Let them find their roots, flower and grow tall as each unique tree in the forest that has its own place under the Sun”.