Ravi Pratap Singh, the Co-founder of Learnnovators, a leading eLearning company, shared some beautiful and motivating insights of his entrepreneurial journey and how his company went on to bag 60+ awards across the globe for their innovative elearning solutions. I, Karthi Easwaramoorthy, sat with him for an hour one fine evening to have a casual conversation with him. My takeaway from that conversation was that nothing happens overnight.
EARLY LIFE AND STARTING OF HIS CAREER
When I asked him about his roots, native, school and college life, how he got into entrepreneurship and his opinions on marketing and innovation, I was astonished by his answers. After school, just to escape from the clutches of Maths (and because of his love for animals), Ravi took up zoology at Loyola College, Chennai.
After graduation, he completed a diploma in IT and took up a 3-month internship as a programmer. But he quickly realized that programming was not his cup of tea and decided not to spend the rest of coding, His first job entailed door-to-door selling of the world’s leading home computer brand. “Life is strange, I never thought I would sell home computers someday.” he remarked.
Following this stint, he moved on to be a part of the franchising teams of two of India’s largest IT training companies. From being responsible for channel development in the state of Tamil Nadu, he rose rapidly in his career to handle franchising of IT training centers across nearly 20 states in South, East and North East India before finally heading international business where he set up and managed training businesses in 30+ countries across South Asia, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
His actions in the initial phase of his career were not planned. He went with the flow and always had the urge to learn something new. ‘The urge to learn more and more’ is a quality everyone must have because life is all about connecting experiences with opportunities.
BEGINNING OF THE ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY
In 2003, Ravi decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge along with three ex-colleagues and set up Learnnovators (then known as C2 Workshop), a company specializing in the design and development of custom e-learning solutions for the workplace. Seventeen years and several challenges later (which includes two of the original co-founders quitting the company), Ravi and Vidya have built Learnnovators to become one of the most trusted (and awarded) global brands in the e-learning business.
HOW TO MANAGE A BUSINESS?
Here are some of Ravi’s favourite mantras for business success.
1. “Building a committed and passionate team is key to a successful business.”
2. “Always strive to add value to all your stakeholders – employees, customers, partners, and vendors.”
3. “Like life, business is all about good and bad days. It’s not about how many times you get knocked down that count, but how many times you can get back up and how soon!”
4. “Don’t let success get to your head and failure to your heart.”
5. “When you are open to learning, your life will always be interesting and exciting.”
All the best for all his future endeavours.
Read more inspiring personalities here
- By
- Karthi Easwaramoorthy
- CEO, DigitalVillage.In