In our list of India's Best 50 - the 50 Most Employable Students from the Class of 2021-23, 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, Shubham Jha, has shown an incredible amount of passion to achieve his true potential. Read on and find out his story!
The following are Shubham Jha’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top 50 Most Employable MBA Graduates of the Class of 2023. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Shubham'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.
My parents brought my sister and me from Bihar to Delhi, hoping for a better future and education opportunities. Unfortunately for my father, his education didn't get him a lot of employment opportunities. Every day, I saw my family struggle and wanted to do something desperate to help them escape it. So, when my dad had a business opportunity in his hand which was passing by due to his lack of understanding of technology, a thirteen-year-old kid (me) jumped in to help him. This meant that I had to go past my usual routine of studies and toil in those extra hours to help him, but I did that, and over the past nine years, my dad and I made a company that was started on an Rs. 25000 capital into an Rs. Fifty million annual revenue company. Due to that decision, I missed many moments as a kid/teenager, but it has made me a fearless person who knows how to get out of difficult situations.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act?
Although I have tried doing several selfless acts as those are something that helps me keep irrationality alive in me, I believe a little bit of which is essential to keep the naiveness and goodness inside your life. The one incident that I particularly remember is from my internship at the Chief Minister's Office, where I was responsible for the disbursal of the Tirtha Yatra scheme, where the elderly citizens of the city were eligible to receive some grants to visit the shrine of their choice. One elderly gentleman from my allotted constituency got my number from someone and called me to say that he wants to apply for the grant but cannot come to my office since his wife is ill and he cannot afford to leave her alone. While working there, I had to go at max at 8 pm from the office to reach home because, beyond that time, the traffic used to blow up, and it meant that I had to spend two and a half hours at least to reach home. This call came in at 7:30; I had to weigh in on the option because the next batch of applications was only a fortnight later. I still made up my mind and decided to pay the home visit to the gentleman, which was beautiful; the delight on his face when I reached his place and processed his application kept me smiling the whole journey on the bus. The incident made me realize one essential thing about service delivery that I confirmed in my MBA course it is not the core service quality or the supplementary service that makes the customer delightful. It's how you provide them the exception to make it personal, even if it comes with extra labor, time, and money.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
Disagreement brings the best out of thought and shapes it into an idea worthwhile to work upon. While working on our startup idea, my co-founder and I have had several disagreements, and there is one mantra that has always resolved this for us. Inspired by the founders of Walby Parker, we narrowed down one individual we both knew and respected and decided that whenever we would not agree upon a business decision, we would take it to him and get an outside perspective to our discussion. This external insight provided to us by our mentor helped us get two things. One, get an exterior overview of what somebody who has already been in our position thinks about it, and second, discuss things again in a shorter time (well, you can't take someone else's whole day) to make the communication relevant. Most of the time, even before our mentor advised us, we would identify our mistakes and resolve the conflict at the table. This tells you how straightforward and transparent communication can automatically solve the most significant problems without further complicating them.
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 that has led you to do deep work in that field?
Quizzing is one of my passions, even in my life's most grueling and time-constrained periods, like my MBA. The thrill of knowing the correct answer has made me travel across state boundaries and compete in leagues above my belt, like the Asian Quizzing League, where I play in the Gold Division. Having been a national-level quizzer, I have participated in more than 250+ quizzes, getting a win or a podium position in more than 100 of them. But, the most crucial part of my quizzing journey came when the world reached a standstill in the CoVid pandemic, restricting us to our homes and not allowing the trivia heads to get the adrenaline of quizzing. Then, my friend and I decided to start the now-discontinued Delhi Metro Quiz (later Quiz Vita). We started asking questions around the stations of Delhi Metro, and soon, our community reached up to more than 750 daily participants who used to answer our questions and engage with us. Our effort soon came to public attention when publications like DU Beats and CampusPolitik covered us. The network we built then continues with us, making our quizzing journey even more exciting.
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?
Suppose I had access to 10 million dollars and didn't need to give a "Miss Universe" answer to this question. I would first save 1 million from it and invest it for my future through a mixed-bag portfolio of equities, bonds, and other securities balanced to my risk aversion levels. From the rest of the corpus, I would build one of my dream ventures vital to rejuvenate the most critical sector of our country - agriculture. Despite being the most prominent job provider, the industry has lost its charm in the bid for our country to become a service economy. The root cause is the reduced profitability of the venture for small and medium-sized farmers. Indian farming market needs to be given an ecosystem model where modern technology becomes easily adaptable for the less privileged and educated farmers, thus giving them equitable access to markets. The company I intend to create will be a for-profit entity that will identify the country's most heavily affected critical areas where crop growth has constantly been falling in the past ten years. Then based on the capabilities developed from the past projects of a team of experts, we would make the farming ecosystem of the market profitable through our consulting in exchange for making them customers to our platform and connecting to them relevant stakeholders (like banks, contract farming companies) taking a cut from the transactions. Although the idea is utopic and may not become a unicorn, it is one of my dreams that I believe is important for nation-building and making sure that 30 crore Indians still have employment while going into the new India.
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As per government tax payers' data and our assessment, only about 6,00,000 Indian taxpayers earn an annual 'salaried' income of INR 30 lacs or above. And only 11,00,000 Indian taxpayers earn a 'total' income of INR 30 lacs or more.
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