Startup Circle: How did Digital Gurukul become Asia’s best Digital Marketing Institute?

Digital Gurukul was started in 2014 in a small room of 800 sq ft in Indore by its founder - Dr. Raj Padhiyar to train 7850+ students across Asia.

And today Digital Gurukul is expanding its course offering with 5 more diploma programs on Artificial Intelligence & Machine learning, Data science, cybersecurity, UI-UX, Software engineering.

Awarded Asia’s Best Digital Marketing Institute & 15+ National & International awards - Digital Gurukul - leading Edtech company of India offers Diploma & Certification program in Digital Marketing in Indore.

How did you come up with the idea?

Digital Gurukul which started as a just thought as Digital Marketing was growing rapidly with the growth of mobile phones & its technology which enabled startup revolution across Asia.

I thought as technology & startups are booming Demand of Digital Marketers would increase in the future. & current education scenario especially in MP-CG Region - students were forced to go out to Metro cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore & Foreign countries.

With my freelance experience in Digital Marketing Industry since 2011, I decided to launch Central India’s first Digital Marketing Institute - Digital Gurukul in 2014 which offered Complete Digital Marketing training to students, working professionals, wannabe startups with 360-degree training in Digital Marketing.

The journey from 2014 till now has been memorable for Digital Gurukul & its students with 12850+ students trained, 15+ awards including Asia’s Best Digital Marketing Institute by Soha Ali Khan.

How does your platform work?

Digital Gurukul provides full-fledged classroom training for entrepreneurs, students, professionals, and industry executives.

Our training pedagogy we proudly claim to be most unique across India. For a topic eg. Social Media Marketing - Students master complete classroom training, practical campaign creation & analytics, tools usage to handle client projects, case studies of leading startups/brands, Quiz contest, presentation on a campaign, proposal making with pricing trends & Live interview of students!

Thus students are prepared to face any client in the world for all the topics! What do more students want? & that is the innovation-driven training imparted to students of Digital Gurukul.

Back up classes are available to students in case they are not able to attend 1-2 regular classes. Students can also do training in 1 or 2 separate modules if they don’t want to enroll in a full course or have some previous knowledge.

What were the challenges and how did you overcome them?

Launching a startup in a new city with no contacts is a big challenge.

Following are 2 major challenges I faced -

Financial - As it was my first startup in an unknown city financial was a BIG issue as everything requires PAISA.

To save money - Multitasking was need of the hour. From counseling, delivering sessions, interviews, placement head to the sweeper. I tried everything. & All the money that I saved - I invested in Digital Marketing to reach students with Facebook, Google, LinkedIn & Instagram ads.

Winning Trust of Students & parents - In the Education industry TRUST Is very important as its service-based industry & not product-based. You need to put Students in the centre & deliver the course in a most creative, innovative way as possible & make sure the student gets his/her dream Internship/placement opportunities. And that’s absolutely right.

Winning a student’s & parents' trust is one of the most important challenges. With a highly satisfied and loyal student’s base, Digital Gurukul has scaled and made progress towards excellence. Student’s word of mouth is the real force behind Digital Gurukul's success. Their word-of-mouth power and their presence on social media have given us an edge against all the traditional Institutes/colleges.

How did you build the core team (co-founders and initial employees)?

Great things in business are never done by one person "~ Steve Jobs. A core member is what we believe that these individuals who perform above and beyond their usual required tasks to accomplish the expected objective. And a set of employees who drives the initial set of employees drive the culture of the organization.

At Digital Gurukul, the Initial core team was built with research on LinkedIn & Quora. We have chosen the right people who can perform given tasks in a challenging environment and are fit to Institute culture. Digital Gurukul is a family that is driven by a set of values for long term goals Our team comprised of full time/part-time/freelancers all over Asia for different job roles. Key members of the team are as follows:

Dr. Raj Padhiyar Founder & CEO who is the head force that drives the growth of Digital Gurukul across India.

Mohana Jain - Chief Marketing Officer (CMO): heads B2B/B2C client relationship & partnership Pan India.

Mayuri Maheshwari Padhiyar - Chief Finance Officer (CFO): who heads the Academic expansion pan India.

Sakshi Sabarwal who heads corporate engagement & student success department - Digital Gurukul

Pragati Kanungo, Assistant Trainer, Digital Gurukul & Head for Online program operation Digital Gurukul

Himanshu Paliwal, Assistant Trainer & Head (strategy & growth Asia-Pacific region).

Divyangana Singh, Assitant trainer & Program Head

Divyanshu Rathore, Technology Head

What has been your business growth till now?

Digital Gurukul started in a small room in 2015 now has 15+ awards including Asia's Best Digital Marketing institute with 12850+ students trained with 3000+ sessions.

We have students across Asia coming to Indore to master our flagship Master Diploma Program of Digital Marketing. We have been featured in 75+ news media across Asia.

What is the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors?

Innovation is the core pillar of Digital Gurukul which thrives the growth of Digital Gurukul. When it comes to innovation, Digital Gurukul aimed to innovate every aspect of B2B/B2C interaction consistently. From starting point - Implementing AI chatbot to resolve queries of students/parents to offering blockchain-based Diploma to students after completing programs. Our training pedagogy we proudly claim to be most unique across India.

Funding

As of now, Digital Gurukul is self- funded. We have acknowledged interest from investors to sell 10 % stake for $5 Million. But we have declined that.

Future Plans

In 2020 - As new generation programs like Artificial intelligence & machine learning, cybersecurity, Blockchain, Data science are gaining popularity. We are determined to launch a Professional program in the above-mentioned domain. We are also planning to expand our Institute across Asia.

Dr. Raj Padhiyar, Founder, Digital Gurukul

Dr. Raj Padhiyar is awarded Asia’s Best Digital Marketer of 2018. He is only Indian to have a Doctorate in Digital Marketing from the USA. He is also awarded "Youngest Entrepreneur of the Year" for Digital Marketing Education in the year 2017, 2018 consecutively.