We are publishing an interview of Mr. Abdul G Sait, co-founder & MD, Passion Connect Technologies.
About the founders:
- Abdul G Sait, Co-Founder & Managing Director – MBA | Serial Entrepreneur, EC Member, JGI Ventures, Rotary Cultural Ambassador to Canada, Risk Manager, Member, TiE, NHRD, Rotary.
- Karthik Kittu, Co-founder & CEO – B.Sc | PGDBA | Masters in Psychology | Ex-KPMG, Ex-Infosys | Ex-President Rotaract South Asia | Rotary Cultural Ambassador to USA, Rep. India at Commonwealth Asia Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs in Brunei, Cyber Security Mission to Israel | Member – ISCA, IEEE, Rotary Bangalore South West, FKCCI, CII-Yi | Traffic Warden; Bengaluru City Police | Starting Bloc Fellow | Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London.
- Shubham Deva, Co-founder & CTO – M.Sc Integrated IIT-Kanpur | Mathematics and Scientific Computing | Ex-Head, Business and Entrepreneurship Club, IIT Kanpur.
What is the problem you are trying to solve? Can you share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
We are helping people to identify, nurture and live their passion.
Problem Statement:
· People do not know their passion
· People think they can’t earn through their passion
- People think they can’t balance passion & profession.
- They do not network based on their passion.
- They end up in a career with regrets and being unhappy.
What is unique about your Startup?
Most of the platforms available are in one space or the other like assessments only or counseling only, or connecting people or a site where people can ask questions or help them connect. We are developing a comprehensive ecosystem where in people can assess, discover themselves, get Inspired, connect and ultimately ‘Live their Passion’.
What is Passion Connect’s revenue model?
We make money from the assessments that we have created and from the counseling/mentorship that are given through the platform. Part of our revenue will also come from the publicity and online promotions that we do for various passions & movies on our platform. We also plan to introduce a marketplace for mentors where they sell their courses on our platform. This will be another big source of revenue.
Who are the consumers that you are targeting? How is this going to affect them?
We are targeting primarily 16-30 year olds; but anyone who wants to live their passion is welcome.
We believe in a 3-step module:
1. Identify – Identify your passion through psychometric tests, curated articles, blogs, quizzes, polls and passion videos.
2. Nurture – Your passion by sharing it with buddies and getting mentored by our expert panel of mentors.
3. Live – Your passion through our organized events (Bengaluru Passion League/ National Corporate Passion League) and through the internship opportunities we offer with various reputed organizations.
So we see, we are an entire eco-system within ourselves and this is what stands us apart from others.
A few Glimpses of our Ecosystem:
· Psychometric tests & tools to assess and uncover one’s passion.
· Real-life inspiring passion stories – Videos on youtube channel can be found on passion.
· Helping young people from 16 years onwards to live their passion, get mentored from experts & also get internships and experience.
· Providing content relevant to one’s passion.
· An offline (location based) community to help organize events and workshops to provide a platform to live their passion.
What is the big picture of your startup?
We strongly believe networking based on your passion will be the next big thing which will lead to productive and meaningful discussions.
Passion Connect was an idea, a thought to help people live their passion and be happy. We went from this idea stage to creating a complete platform, creating a movement where people rejoice in passion. We brought life in it by having live cases and we built the entire process of identifying, nurturing and living people’s passion. We did this beta in vibrant Bangalore and we have got a phenomenal response as we have done the course corrections along the way. Now our goal is to reach out to the real India that’s the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where 70% of our population resides and they need this exposure and access to various passions. Subsequently we will explore going international.
Our goal for this year is to turn Passion Connect into a revenue model because we need to swim the big oceans and we need the finances to support us. We also aim to work harder towards helping people follow their passion. We are currently working on National Corporate Passion League, which will be much like BPL, but for corporates only. We hope to change that 13% who follow their dreams to a much larger number with every passing year. We want Passion Connect to be a go-to for everyone out there discovering himself or herself!
What is the success story of your startup?
I was working with many entrepreneurs for the past 10 years and my experience made me realize that there are a lot of unfulfilled desires in terms of their passion and that is affecting the quality of their life. Karthik, working in the IT industry for about 10 years and also leading Rotaract (The Youth Wig of Rotary) at a South Asia Level and working with Social Entrepreneurs had the same observations. Shubham, having just passed out of IIT, had a similar thought. When we researched there was no such platform. So, we got together to build one.
Any other information about your startup that you would like to share with us.
I am most passionate about entrepreneurship and fostering entrepreneurs and that’s what I have been doing for the last 14 years. I have facilitated more than 40 entrepreneurs and co-founded 20 companies along with them. This has given me an insight that if people’s passion is kindled the potential can be unleashed infinitely.
Thanks Mr. Sait. Best of luck!