In our list of India's Best 50 - the 50 Most Employable Students from the Class of 2020-22, we feature MBA students who have walked that extra mile and done that little more to stand out! One of those featured in today's story, Abhinav Gyan, has shown an incredible amount of passion to achieve his true potential. Read on and find out his story!
The following are Abhinav Gyan’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Employable MBA Graduates of the Class of 2022. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Abhinav's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his own words.
Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
I have always been a person who is determined and result-oriented. It was during my junior year at IIT Patna (2018-19) when I was working towards establishing the Alumni Cell as the General Secretary of the student-led alumni-related body - SAAR (Students' Association for Alumni Relations). I had to reshape my comfort zone because the task at hand required a lot of attention to detail, and coordination and synergy among the team members - something that I had to ensure as the overall head. So, I led the different verticals to start working in their domains. I had to sit and brainstorm plans with each vertical. Slowly we started making progress. We established a digital platform for the alumni to connect. This included SAAR's responsive website and its social media pages. At the same time, we were reaching out to alums through the webmail but a pass out does not check the webmail very often, so the leads initially were very low. Then I recommended the team for reaching out to the alumni through social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook. This switch was risky as these platforms are personalized and not suitable for conducting such official communications. But, due to this switch, we were able to boost the connections and network significantly. Eventually, by the end of my tenure, I left the Alumni Cell with a strong network of over 900 IITPians along with a fully functional website that could accept donations and generate 80G(2) tax exemption certificates. Under my leadership, the institute conducted the first grand scaled alumni meet for the pass outs.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
I have always been a proactive person who takes responsibility and delivers. That is the reason why I have held so many leadership positions during my school and college. During my final year (2019-20), I was elected as the Vice President of the Students' Gymkhana at IIT Patna as the overall student representative of the institute. During my tenure, COVID occurred, and hence, the institute had to go online completely. Due to these unforeseen circumstances, I had to step up to ensure that the transition goes smoothly and the students living in the remotest of the areas can stay connected. So, I pushed hard to get mobile bills reimbursed by the institute so that this additional expense does not add to the worries of the students. My determined approach helped me get the administration to agree to reimburse Rs. 500 towards each student. During the same time, I even pushed to extend the counselling services (YourDost) for the students as the new medium had left many students stressed. Following this, I even strived to make sure that the final exams happened smoothly and the digital exam-giving experience for the student went seamlessly. I was able to convince the academic senate to conduct open-book exams for all the courses so that every student gets a fair chance to work out the solutions and their performance is not hampered due to the digital medium. Finally, while all this was happening, I was working with the Dean of Academic Affairs and his team to introduce the concept of "Minors" for the upcoming batches. This push helped the institute to launch 3 more academic programs at IIT Patna.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
While pursuing my undergrad from IIT Patna, I was simultaneously working on my gaming-based startup called Gamux Pvt. Ltd.During the lockdown, since most of the small companies were getting shut down. So, my friends, who were the co-founders too, suggested to shut down Gamux as well as it was getting troublesome to operate. However, I was against this suggestion because I was working towards getting preliminary funding from an investor. To resolve this, I first planned out a new way of operating in the online medium and then sat down with them to discuss the new alternative plan. I formulated strategies to introduce Livestreams and Superchat features to keep the audience engaged as the average screen-time for individuals had shot up 3X. During the same time, I onboarded two more online games on the platform. This resulted in a 156% increase in the user base. I also suggested enhancing the social media presence and the successful implementation of it funnelled 60 percent of new users to the website.
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?
I have had a variety of experiences - right from leading student bodies to inventing and applying for patents for bots to working as an entrepreneur. But among all these, I have gathered quite a lot of knowledge about running esports or gaming-based ventures.I started Gamux from scratch and have run it for over 20 months. In the beginning, in order to evaluate the idea, I had to study the global and Indian markets for esports. Then, to make the platform last and sustain, I had to study the local market and the user preferences which meant shortlisting online games to onboard over the platform. Then I had to oversee the operations to conduct the tournaments and matches for the users. As the platform and the user base grew, I brainstormed strategies to optimise the SoP. This led to an increase in the daily user count by 45 percent during the lockdown. The increase in user base pushed us to improve our online presence and hence, we enhanced our social media presence which funnelled 60 percent of new users to the website's landing page. I also led my sponsorship and finance team to engineer a revenue-generating business model and we crafted a pitch deck for funding to connect with the investors. Overall, I worked day in, day out to make Gamux successful and it took me to work across domains which resulted in an enormous amount of learnings about the esports industry, customer preferences, and customer relationship management, and most importantly people management.
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
I have a soft corner towards entrepreneurship, and hence, I would like to put a portion of my money into that bucket. I also know that the niche in which I was operating, esports, is one of the fastest-growing industries with a CAGR of well over 18 percent. So the investment into the startups operating in this field will be my choice. I will put a good chunk of the money into Gamux. I will use the money to acquire some more niche players and consolidate them into one to serve the market as a single entity with a vision to give the gamers the best experience.Then I would go on to set up a perpetual giving fund so that the interest income could pay out the scholarships for those in need. I would also like to build businesses with that humongous amount. I will help small and medium enterprises grow. Finally, I will invest in fundamentally strong stocks and cryptocurrencies. I will also take some risk by investing in cryptos like SHIB and DOGE which are sentiment-driven as they can pay out high returns.
Any Other Comments Or Factors You Would Like To Highlight About Yourself?
I am a student at IIM Bangalore. I have completed my undergraduate in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Patna in 2020. I have done my schooling from Patna where I scored 10 on 10 CGPA in 10th and 90.67% in 12th. Apart from being a sincere student, I have also been an active and versatile participant in other co-curricular and extracurricular activities. In my college, along with my studies, I was very keen on tackling real-life problems and I found the issue of waste management in my campus so I engineered an automatic waste segregation dustbin as a part of my final year project. I also led a team to develop a mobile-based app so that everything that a student needs in IIT Patna can be accessed centrally using the app. Because of the convenience that this app brought in the lives of campus residents, students, faculty, and staff members, I got appreciated by the Director for my efforts.Apart from academics, I have held several key positions of responsibilities during my undergraduate studies. To name a few, I have been the Vice President of Students Gymkhana of IIT Patna which is the apex student position at IIT Patna, where I represented the entire student body of more than 1400 students. I have also been the first General Secretary of SAAR (Alumni Cell) IIT Patna where I rejuvenated the lost connection of the alumni with the institute. I led my team and conducted the first-ever grand Alumni Meet for the pass-outs of our institute. I am also a dramatics and photography enthusiast and I have represented IIT Patna in the Inter IIT Meets too. Apart from my college, I also co-founded Gamux, a gaming platform, with two of my friends which is operational for more than one and a half years.
Read the stories of the other Employable Graduates here!