This will be the story of GyanDhan from my eyes. I will ask my partner, Jainesh, to write his version of the story at a later stage.
Birth of an idea: It all started during the communication week at IESE. We were asked to prepare a speech as our deliverable. I was not going to speak about world hunger, my first skydiving class and the 1 minute of madness when I thought a million things because we could not synchronize our jumps perfectly, or 'my experiences living in a third world country'.
After spending the evening choosing a topic, I realised that what had bothered me during the past few months was the fact that some of my colleagues seemed to be having troubles getting the student loan. Banks were back tracking on promises and admitted students who should have been preparing for what lay ahead of them were tensed about arranging finances yet again.
The next day I spoke my heart out. The media backlash post 2007 notwithstanding, I believe that markets can solve real world problems and I spoke for a couple of minutes about how I would solve the problem. End of the deliverable and the course.
Return of the idea: Third semester at IESE. I had secured an internship at one of the investment banks and was what others called relaxed. If there were any lingering doubts after my professional experience, the courses on leadership and team projects had already instilled in me the importance of a team.
The return of GyanDhan was in one of the economics classes when we were discussing government intervention and social reforms. I subscribe to the notion that governments should only provide protection for an individual's liberty, uphold the law (judiciary really) and ensure equality of opportunities when it comes to basic education. A child born in a poor family must not be deprived of basic education. However, any higher education and skills training should be based on his/her aptitude and the markets willingness to price it accordingly. So I went on another rant in one of those classes.
Social cause or a business: I started 'networking' and learning more about solutions out there. Some of the entrepreneurs and experts I hit up were happy to share their experiences and pushed me to think harder about the idea. The only thing I knew at this stage was that I was not going to run a not for profit venture. I liked to classify this as a business which ended up serving some social cause. I later got to know the terms impact investing / social investments and the likes.
The three stories: These three stories are the ones closest to my heart when it comes to GyanDhan. Names changed to protect privacy.
1. Sahil, a young bright chap from Bihar, had to quit his IITJEE preparation midway in class XI because his family could not afford the tuition costs. There were no loans available and the only option was to fall prey to loan sharks.
2. Anamika, a friend of mine, had to bribe officials to the tune of 100k INR to get her loan sanctioned. The hidden costs of capital. She had a GPA of more than 9 in her undergrad.
3. Avantika, another friend, had secured admission to a B-school. The bank reneged on their promise of the loan midway through the course. The family had to sell off their ancestral property to meet this unexpected turn of events.
1. Sahil, a young bright chap from Bihar, had to quit his IITJEE preparation midway in class XI because his family could not afford the tuition costs. There were no loans available and the only option was to fall prey to loan sharks.
2. Anamika, a friend of mine, had to bribe officials to the tune of 100k INR to get her loan sanctioned. The hidden costs of capital. She had a GPA of more than 9 in her undergrad.
3. Avantika, another friend, had secured admission to a B-school. The bank reneged on their promise of the loan midway through the course. The family had to sell off their ancestral property to meet this unexpected turn of events.
GyanDhan comes to life: I worked with a startup last year, shout-out to Grant from Quotanda. I decided not to pursue my own venture due to a potential conflict of interest until that partnership was over. In the interim, I presented a business proposal around rural tourism in India to a couple of investors as part of another course, hit me up if you want some slides on the same :-). I met a couple of great people at Quotanda but wonder if I should have started right after my internship.
January, 2015 is what I would have as the birth month of GyanDhan because that is when I had my first expense item for GyanDhan. I had planned a trip to India for my first face-to-face meeting with a legal expert. There was no turning back now even though there were doubts on job front I have mentioned in an earlier blog post.
GyanDhan - our mission: We want to enable education for the enterprising.
Over the past month and a half we have been moving around the country meeting institutions, potential investors, our customers (both borrowers and lenders) and legal experts who will help us shape our dream into a reality. We still have miles to go but the feedback and more importantly our conviction makes us believe that we will find the solution to education financing. I will write a follow-up post listing more about our offering.
In the meantime, we would love to hear from you if you had troubles with an educational loan, or are interested in being a lender to help shape the careers of future leaders.
