In the fourth year of his engineering degree, Pavan Allena had a lot of time on his hands. A flexible credit system allowed him to finish most subjects earlier, by a year. Until then, he had never really thought about entrepreneurship. He started observing some of the large startups like Uber, and noticed a common thread.
“Everything started with trying to solve a problem. I thought, why can't I come up with an app, but for school buses?” recalls Allena, in a video chat with Stimulus Unplugged from Hyderabad.
Pavan, who had done his schooling in Vijayanagaram close to Vizag, is the son of a voluntarily retired BSNL employee, his was far from what one could call a business family. At VIT in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, began his entrepreneurial journey at the age of around 20 years with IoT-based school bus tracker Fleetalytics. It was born to solve the problem of parents and kids waiting endlessly for school buses – if they could track the location of the bus, they could save time.
The venture, which evolved into a fleet tracking and analytics offering, was where Allena cut his teeth. Despite getting investors, it was a struggle, reveals the young entrepreneur who is grooming even younger school kids today to become entrepreneurs.
“I had never worked for a company before, so it was a struggle. To get the product out, to get the team in place... it took a year and a half to get the first customer. In two years, we were tracking 1,500 buses, but there were a lot of operational challenges. We were becoming a bus operating company rather than a technology company. At the time, there were also operational technology challenges (like 2G),” explains Allena.
It was the school bus tracking software that led the young man to his next venture. With schools being the target group, he started interacting closely with school managements. One such school invited him to talk about his journey as a young entrepreneur.
In that and subsequent interactions with school students, Allena observed that they were exposed to the new world of entrepreneurship and the likes of Mark Zuckerberg fairly early. They asked him questions about his business model, technology infrastructure and the like, while their school curriculum confined them to a CBSE, ICSE or State board syllabus. The subjects weren’t providing the potential future entrepreneurs with the fuel they needed, in his view.
In July 2017, he launched edutech offering Metamorphosis Edu (Actualization Edutech) to address high school students and provide them education for entrepreneurship. By 2019, it had grown to a team of 21 people, with its sessions reaching over 25,000 school students. In 2019, it was funded by Hyderabad Angels and Markset Networks. The Fleetalytics software was handed to a manager to run.
Next Gen Ideas
Metamorphosis started with a physical education model to impart its programmes, but soon adopted a virtual-cum-physical model. The shift to a fully virtual course structure has been hastened by the Covid19 pandemic. Work on the on-ground development teams has been reined in and the team size is now down to 14.
“All the systems have gone online, we have scaled up much better than we thought. We have about 50,000 subscribers, of which 12,000 to 15,000 would be for paid courses,” notes Allena.
Among paid courses on offer for students of classes VI to XII are a one-week Young Entrepreneurs Classroom and a two-year Certificate Course in Entrepreneurship. The shorter programme offers certification from IIT Bhubaneshwar. The longer course demands just two hours of a student every week, adding up to over 200 hours of content, besides case studies, projects, assignments and the like across four semesters.
Schools are offered free jumpstart programmes and from the numbers, it appears that the conversions are healthy. In addition to this school managements also get access to free webinars. As one would expect, the primary catchments right now are private and international schools. But Allena wants to democratise entrepreneurship education.
Over 50 ideas generated by students of Metamorphosis have been groomed to go to market and some are even generating revenue, says the edutech company’s founder.
He cites Phoenix Brush, an online marketplace for artistes, and Biopad, which has employed underprivileged women in making biodegradable sanitary pads.
Biopad has even forged a collaboration with the Telangana government, informs Allena. Prior to the Covid19 crisis, the startup was manufacturing 1,000 pads a month. Founders Sritha, Sannidhi and Shreya were Class X students when they conceived Biopad in 2018.
With a changing mindset and support of parents, there is a definite trend of young school students turning entrepreneurs, notes Allena. There is another segment of students taking admissions abroad after school, for whom the certification comes in handy for that purpose. The skills they learn are not just relevant to entrepreneurs but to all.
So are parents today more open to their kids turning entrepreneurs early in life than before?
“Since 2018, I am seeing a transformation. A lot of parents are letting kids choose what they want, with focus on the skills they need. From month to month, the thinking seems to be changing. After the new National Education Policy, we will see more change with 21st century skills becoming mandatory,” explains Allena.
“SINCE 2018, I AM SEEING A TRANSFORMATION. A LOT OF PARENTS ARE LETTING KIDS CHOOSE WHAT THEY WANT, WITH FOCUS ON THE SKILLS THEY NEED. FROM MONTH TO MONTH, THE THINKING SEEMS TO BE CHANGING.”
Of say 50 school students whose ideas are incubated by Metamorphosis, two or three ‘founders’ actually end up pursuing entrepreneurship, with their incubated ventures turning into startups. For an incubation pad for school students, that number is not bad at all.
A ‘Young Angels Network’
While Metamorphosis has targeted a segment under the usual catchment for entrepreneurship, we asked Allena if there are plans to move up in age to the UG and PG levels, where the conversion rate from idea to startup might be more.
Allena explains, “Till we reach the next level, I think the focus will be on classes Vi to XII. We tried to do this with UG students. We found that the curiosity to learn is not there at the graduate level. Ninety five of 100 join to showcase the certificate to the placement officer. E-cells are already available at the college level. For colleges, we have plans to launch a different kind of course. Very different from what is offered by entrepreneurship cells.”
He contends that the addressable market of schools is large enough in India for Metamorphosis to address.
In early August, Metamorphosis announced the launch of Metamorphosis School Of Entrepreneurship (MSE), billed as the world’s first virtual school for entrepreneurship at the middle and high school level. Students from 15 cities across the country have enrolled already, expanding the base from the catchment of Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad for the company. The target is to cover a million students by December 2020. The plan is to go global with this offering.
Allena quotes estimates on the total market size for edutech offerings beyond school in India, across subjects including robotics, coding and Metamorphosis’ domain of entrepreneurship. The total market is pegged at US $2bn and Metamorphosis has the first mover advantage in its space, he tells us.
A lot of the market for something like entrepreneurship education in school is understandably in the metros. The young founder notes that parents there are more involved and the ecosystem is also more helpful in larger cities – for example, a business can get a website up in no time in the city. But he does see small towns opening up.
“We don’t know where the market is going to come from. But my entire plan is to democratise entrepreneurship content,” surmises Allena.
Going forward, he also wants to create a ‘Young Angel Network’ exclusively to promote very early stage ideas at the school and college level. He believes there will be takers.