We invited Mr. Kunal Vora- Founder & CEO of SHRM Biotechnologies Pvt Ltd, for an interview with Most Popular Stories. Let’s get to know about his entrepreneurial journey.
Mr. Kunal Vora is an entrepreneur, experienced with a demonstrated history of working in the biotechnology and Life Science /training/education and skill development industry.
- Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an entrepreneur :-
I am basically not a Biotechnology graduate, I am a management student while undergoing my internship at Ernst & Young, I got to know about the Biotechnology industry, and how the said industry would be an impact in each one’s life in near future. So I thought of starting a skill training center at Kolkata, (which was first of its kind) and still is the same.
Herewith I saw a gap between industry and academia – so as a business person, I wanted to tap the opportunity before anyone else could do the same, that’s how SHRM Biotech was incorporated.
Journey of SHRM Biotech:-
14 year back, who even had the vision to start a biotech training company, when Biotech itself was not commercialized, there were hardly few colleges back then in 2006 when the company was incorporated with a vision to provide industrial training and lab-based training in life science which would make students employable and make then use the instrumentations.
Even today- most of the students are not well equipped with the skills required to operate certain hi-end instrumentation of life science and biotech, then how would he/she get a job, when the demand and the projection of the said industry are like – USD 70.84 Billion in FY 2020 from UDS 4.3 Billion in Fy 2012, so in 8 years it has grown over 10x times, and would still grow further.
The first thing that I learned about entrepreneurship was – taking that leap of faith! To quit whatever else that you are doing, and to dive into this world of uncertainty.
Eventually, it gets to choose between low risk, steady cash flow corporate life, and a highly volatile life with uncertain cash flows as an entrepreneur.
- Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
I come from a modest family of business background, Every generation in my family (my father, grandfather, and great grandfather) went on to start their own ventures and found varying degrees of success. Having seen such entrepreneurial spirit in the family, embracing entrepreneurship came rather naturally to me. I am sailing the same boat, which I always dreamt of….I completed my Graduation from Bangalore, and did my MBA from Kolkata, been working with a Global consultancy Advisory Firm – Ernst & Young, that’s when the entrepreneurial bug struck me.
As it’s is well said – once you’re in, you’ll figure out how to swim….
So leaving a highly paid corporate job was not an easy decision, but we say the Gene of a Gujarati is always into business, that where I made up my mind to start my own venture
- What was the vision behind it?
The vision was very clear:- students in college often fail to get the best of the internship in any field, I choose life science because I saw no company able to provide real hands-on training, industrial training, and lab-based training in life science which would make students employable and make then use the instrumentations.
As most of the college did not have the proper infrastructure, if they have the infrastructure- students didn’t get the chance to work in certain instruments.
I also knew that in a country like India – healthcare would remain a great challenge as well as opportunity, and our healthcare would be backed up by Biotechnology. Currently, we all going through this pandemic, but the backbone is Biotech – so I had the vision to enable training skills so that the employable youth be employed.
- Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what way they are unique?
We offer the following services
∙ Biotechnology Training & Skill Development Programme for the College & Universities ∙ Biotechnology Projects and Dissertation Work
∙ Online Sessions on Dry Labs – Bioinformatics / Computational Biology
∙ Provide Video Content on subject Matters (Provide Lab-based video programs)
∙ Placement Assistance in Life Science, Pharma, Agri & food and Healthcare sector,
∙ Faculty Development Programmes on Biotech / Life Science / Pharmacy
∙ Entrepreneurship Programmes on Life Sciences / Biotechnology & Bio incubator
∙ Conduct workshops and seminars on many recent topics & trends
∙ Research & Development Programmes
∙ Contractual outsourcing work for Ph.D. Students, Companies, Start up’s and Content writing, etc.
With the new education policy, we trend to start Lab-based training, Summer & Winter School Programmes for Students of School which would also help them to get skilled.
The said programs would also help the candidates in school to choose the right subject in higher graduations, enjoy the Biotech lab exposure which they would not get in any school. We would also come up with a Mobile Lab for conducting training and skilling for school students.
We also working on using VR tech-based solutions for Skill programs on Biotech.
- What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?
For any Entrepreneurial journey, there are bound to be faced with difficult hurdles and setbacks, I was no unique, since my startup days, as I was not from the same industry, I had faced several challenges with understanding the subject and then interacting with the customer or team members, even today I feel that I should have studied biotech that time.
6. How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
The best way to handle pressure and manage stress is to meditate. Everyone has a different way of expressing stress and releasing it.
7.How do you market your business?
As regards to my trade, my market consists of School and Colleges / Universities, so my marketing is direct marketing and some digital marketing.
8. How many hours a day do you work on average & can you describe/outline your typical day?
For me:- a day usually starts from 10 am in the morning till 5 pm in office, thereafter all meetings lined up in connection with Business development.
Apart from that, we don’t have any particular no.of hours which we work in. We even reply to students (customer) messages late night also, provided we are able to provide him the best services.
That’s the reason I have a very strong network of students who do follow me and vice versa.
9. In your opinion what are the keys to success?
According to me, the 2 Keys element’s of being successful are:-
a) Integrity and Honesty
b) Become a influencer
10. What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
Not be afraid of taking calculated Risk, have patience, and don’t get disappointed with your failures.
Make sure that people should call you and you should also believe that Entrepreneurs are MAD
M – Motivator
A – Achiever
D – Dreamer
Connect here,
Website:www.shrmbio.com
You tube:https://youtu.be/ExTzMZtGeFw
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