Suhruta Kulkarni – GoCrackIt
08 January, 2018: Today, the Women Start-up Programme 2017-18 was launched at IIM Bangalore, and I got nostalgic about the day I received the email in November 2016 and the roller coaster ride thereon. I had just quit my job after we had got a little traction for our business idea with two paying institutional customers and 200 satisfied students. The Goldman Sachs Women Start-up Programme seemed apt to take the business to the next level. I completed the MOOCs and got into the Bootcamp, and on 27th February 2017, the results for Top 12 to be selected for incubation were to be announced. I was as anxious as I was when I was expecting my IIM results in 2006. The results were announced and I got selected for incubation.
Fast forwarding to today, our venture, GoCrackIt (www.gocrackit.com), a career advisory platform, founded by IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore alumni, helps students and professionals choose, prepare and succeed in their careers by connecting them with relevant mentors through online channels. We have enabled 700+ students and professionals through 3000+ mentoring sessions with the help of 150+ mentors who are alumni of premium B-schools, working in top-notch companies across different industries and functions.
Our B2B customers include institutes such as IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Visakhapatnam and ISB. At each institute, we run a three to four-month program, called Daksh, which comprises career conversations, workshops, resume reviews and mock interviews. Career conversations and workshops are one-to-many sessions, while resume reviews and mock interviews are one-to-one sessions.
In career conversation sessions, students understand the key success factors, challenges and ground realities of a specific career from a mentor from that field. In workshops, specific career skills are imparted to the students. The workshops could be on financial modeling, product management, case interviews, etc. After career conversations and workshops, students have a better understanding of different careers and they move to one-to-one sessions.
Students provide their target career choice for resume reviews and mock interviews and a relevant mentor is allocated for each one-to-one session. In each resume review, the mentor discusses key industry expectations and guides students to tailor their resumes as per their experience and competency. Next, the students move to mock interviews, where they are tested on specific competencies required for the chosen career.
At the end of the program, the student has more clarity on different careers and is better prepared to succeed.
After getting incubated at NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), IIM Bangalore, we have grown from two institutes to seven institutes and our revenue has grown by 600%. Mentors at NSRCEL have helped us identify our levers of growth and identify metrics for long-term sustainability.
We want to reach out to thousands of students and professionals in the coming few years through educational institutes, e-learning platforms and other appropriate channels. We want to enable people to have successful and fulfilling careers.
We would love to connect with aspiring entrepreneurs and we have shared our linked profiles below:
Suhruta Kulkarni, Cofounder, GoCrackIt, IIM Ahmedabad PGP 2008 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/suhruta-kulkarni-8438617/)
Alok Shrivastava, Cofounder, GoCrackIt, IIM Bangalore EPGP 2013 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alokshrivastava1982/)
thanks