00:00:00 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:00:00] S0: Hello and welcome to the next episode, episode 46 of the DamaniTalks and tonight we have an amazing guest, somebody I think that is just so much to learn from and I'm hoping that I can fit all of this in in that forty five, fifteen minute period that we have. Because he's got so much experience, so many different things that he's done, and such an interesting story of how we met. Ah, and, and you know, the, the journey that he's taken, since we met, I think back in 2017. So without further ado, I welcome Akshay Chaturvedi from Leverage Edu. Akshay, welcome, welcome to the show. [00:00:35] S1: Thank you so much, Anirudh. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I've been on the other side as a viewer. I have learned a lot from a couple of the money talks that I've seen in the last couple of months. So absolutely thrilled to be here and looking forward to the conversation. [00:00:49] S0: Great. I I mean, I I don't I don't think I have much time to even do any much more buildup because there is so much to talk about that that itself is a buildup. But but to get started, you know, Akshay, maybe what would really help is if you could get give a little bit about what Leverage Edu do does. We'll come back to the topic obviously a little bit more deeper. But what does Leverage Edu do?
00:01:08 · Akshay Chaturvedi, Anirudh A Damani
[00:01:08] S1: No. Very briefly, we are a student admissions platform. We help students right now from across the entire country, help figure out what is right for their career. We tell them that they that they need to be doing something that they're really good at. And once they identify what that really good at is, they need to be in a geography, which is the right respect and the right economic opportunities for what they're doing. For example, if somebody is really talented at automotive, they need to be in Germany. If it's fashion, it needs to be France. If it needs to be sports management, it's gotta be under The UK or Australia. If it's pharma manufacturing, it's gotta be India. So essentially, people to kind of... We help them figure out what is right for them, and then we help them work with the... Our coaches, counselors, work with our platform. It's got a plethora of algorithms built into it to help them understand a bunch of things about their life, their journey in kind of three sixty degrees in reverse. And then as we move forward, we help them connect with universities and apply to these universities from across the world. And thereafter, we kind of help them with a bunch of value added services like education loan, visa, accommodation, all the way through till they actually reach their dorm room. [00:02:11] S0: And I think even when they get there, you also involved in making sure that they they get acclimatized to those to the, you know, environment in the other... On the other side.
00:02:11 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:02:11] S0: And I think even when they get there, you also involved in making sure that they they get acclimatized to those to the, you know, environment in the other... On the other side. [00:02:19] S1: Correct. Correct. That's right. So so that goes as deep as ensuring an airport pickup to kind of helping them make their first few friends, having a mentorship network, which connects them to people who graduate from the same school a couple of years back, and that's kind of helps them have a softer landing in comparison. [00:02:36] S0: So what's gonna be interesting is, like, while other ed tech platforms can say or say, you know, COVID was just amazing for us. Right? You had, a roller coaster ride and a half. Right? Because, you know, we we've... And we're gonna get into that in a in a little bit, but it's been a very interesting ed tech journey for you.
00:02:36 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:02:36] S0: So what's gonna be interesting is, like, while other ed tech platforms can say or say, you know, COVID was just amazing for us. Right? You had, a roller coaster ride and a half. Right? Because, you know, we we've... And we're gonna get into that in a in a little bit, but it's been a very interesting ed tech journey for you. [00:02:51] S1: Correct. No. So very interestingly, just to just just to come in as you say this, Anirudh, I don't think of our businesses at tech. I think our business is a mix of edtech plus migration tech, if I might call it that, plus travel tech, plus fintech, and a lot of those things all put together. We are very conscious of the fact that and very transparent that we're not a learning company like most other education technology companies in the country or in the world right now. We're a company that is kind of facilitating their movement into something which is next in life. I I think my larger thesis of building leverage also has been that we're doing long form migration. We believe that when people move from one place to another, they're gonna set up their life, set up their career. Great things happen. Magic happens. Everything that I've done in life essentially has been... Has kind of been woven through that thread. So, yes, we're doing long form migration in some sense, and we would just want to be kind of the best at that.
00:03:46 · Anirudh A Damani
[00:03:46] S0: What's it gonna be? And I think on that queue, because I think long form migration is something we talked about earlier, I think your life is all about long form migration as well. So think I on that, Kim, we're gonna get into a little bit about, you know, you started off in Delhi. And you, you know, after graduating, you you, you know, did not do your MBA right away. Right? You decided to go in for some experience. You would join, joined, I believe, KPM, AIESEC first and KPMG, a private private equity pro partners, then KPMG, and then EY before, you know, returning back to school at ISB. So, and and that usually was not a very common journey at that time. Know, people used to just think that, you know, let's finish our college and immediately get us go to MBA, right? But you decide to take, take, take, take a break and get into the professional world for a pretty good period of time. Why take that different kind of a journey? What was, what was the role AIESEC played?
00:04:40 · Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:04:40] S1: So, so Anirudh, so there's a background journey that was happening to everything that you've described as well. So, I was always, I'm, I'm, I would, and the next time we meet in person, I think we should do that. So I'm a startup nerd, and I kind of take a lot of pride in saying that. So I think at least before starting Leverage till 2016, everything that has ever happened in the startup ecosystem, be it in the rally, be it in this rally, be it in India, that's something that I would kind of really be able to kind of call upon in like to one degree. And be it in nineteen fifty five, fifty six what was happening in the VC space in the valley, be it something that was happening in the late 1990s for the Indian tech ecosystem like Rajesh Yen coming in and building a company which was kind of sold for 400 crores or Red Dev going all the way to $10,000,000,000 and then unfortunately crashing down. So I was I was a kid who in very... In my early years... My parents' biggest dream was that I should be able to have a conversation in English. So I read a lot of books. So I read a lot of... I I caught up my Oliver Twist and Jane out of the way by seven or eight. And then started a lot of nonfiction specifically focused on Silicon Valley. So those are those are those are are topic about what happened in the dot com boom bust when I was in in my early teenage years of sorts. And that is when I kind of developed this fascination with the startup ecosystem. So my... The parallel journey which is happening in my life, which is not there on the resume that you kind of spoke about, is in two thousand six, seven, I started I started helping host this event called Startup Saturday. This used to be an American cylinder in Delhi. And my simple job back then was that... So entrepreneurs used to come in, chat with a bunch of very small set of startups hopefuls of sorts when the ecosystem was kind of very... It was very naive in some sense. And I remember hosting Sanjeet Beach and Nandi sir, Deep Kalra sir, Ankur Singla who later went on to kind of start tabzo. And my job was that So I had developed this fascination of thoughts startup all of those things from a very early age. And I did a bunch of entrepreneurial things even when I was growing up in school, college. There was always a side hustle.