Meet Omkar Patil (Infigon Futures)
I am Omkar Patil, founder and CEO of Infigon, born and brought up in Maharashtra, finished my schooling and Engineering from there itself. I am a glad-hander and naturally an extrovert and because of it I get to learn more about people and their lives.
I also enjoy reading, a lot which definitely plays a significant role in shaping individual’s thoughts and ideas. And these two things I believe, have paved the way for Infigon as well. They say that one should try to involve their hobbies and passion into their career and I have always tried to do the same thing.
Also, I am thankful to my family who always encouraged me to take decisions on my own. Otherwise, I am sure it would have been much more difficult to come this far without their support.
When did you think about Infigon futures?
During my school time, I’ve always been involved in a lot of extra-curricular activities.
I stepped into the professional world when I was in Class 12th starting with an internship in Sales Positioning at Motilal Oswal. Then while pursuing engineering, I continued doing internships at SBI Mutual Funds, DSP Blackrock etc. In short I had always been interested in the field of Sales and Marketing due to the fact that it can influence the psychology of consumers and determines the branding and market position of any firm.
My reason for starting Infigon dates back to 2019 when I started a Youth Organization called The Summit Alliance.
The main motive was to create a platform for interaction, exchanges, group collaborations and associations amongst students who come from diverse educational backgrounds.
At The Summit Alliance, we organized various competitions and events like The Maharashtra Summit MUN 2019, Cleanathon 2019, National Business Championship 2020, and many other social and cultural events.
While interacting with thousands of students and parents who came from different backgrounds, we found a common pattern of- “FEAR”.
Students had fear in their mind regarding their career, employ-ability, academics and other uncertainties. We tried to address them at individual levels but these queries only kept increasing.
Upon further investigation, we came to know that there isn’t any organization as such which provides committed guiding or mentor-ship support to these students. Also there is a lack of awareness amongst most people, and they simply don’t realize the need or significance of counseling services.
Hence, we decided to establish Infigon Futures, to create a platform that can provide affordable education and career mentorship services to students nationwide. It is our mission to make our services accessible, user friendly and customized to the needs of every student.
Who inspired you to start ‘Infigon futures’ and who is your mentor?
I would say my mentor has been my experience. As I have already mentioned before that the “Fear” and Lack of Awareness that I have observed so far among young minds has been my inspiration.
The urge to provide help to such students, so that they don’t feel lost out in the world and end up opting unfeasible career choices, has been a driving force. We all understand the importance of getting a job, creating a career and it is difficult to find what all options that are made for you but what is more difficult, is to choose what is “THE BEST” for you.
And Infigon provides you the answer to both of these questions. It helps you, guides you and paves the way towards your desirable future.
Introduce your Co-Founder/Founders and Team
I am the sole Founder of this start-up. But it won’t be inappropriate to say that, Infigon was a dream and my teammates have made it come true.
I am very much proud to say that Infigon is backed by great team members from top reputed institutes in India like IIM Bangalore, IIM Indore, IIT Kanpur, NIT Trichy, NIT Surathkal, MDI Gurgaon, Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, Mumbai etc., and I am pretty sure that there are many more yet to come.
Because of these members only, Infigon has been able to win the trust of not only students but also their teachers and parents.
What makes ‘ Infigon futures ‘ special and different from others similar start-ups?
Infigon Futures is one of the EdTech sector’s fastest growing education and career planning platforms.
Individuals ranging from 11 to 30 in age can plan for their educational and career goals using our industry-leading Artificial Intelligence platform. And if you ask me what makes us special then it’s the 3 A’s that we provide – Availability, Affordability and Awareness.
We provide the guarantee to students or parents, who visit our platform, would leave with satisfaction. Disrupting the costly and time-consuming process of career development and ensuring that a lack of guidance or financial constraints does not become a barrier to pure talent and passion.
Each player in the market only provides a limited set of services, namely self-assessment, and expert mentoring. We provide complete target selection, as well as education planning and skill development based on those targets.
Furthermore, our features will be delivered via mobile applications as well and I strongly believe that this gives us an advantage over our competitors
What challenges did you face while setting up Infigon futures?
Founded in August 2020, Infigon Futures saw its inception amidst the uncertain times of the pandemic. For any business entity, the starting phase is crucial and is a period of growth and commitment.
Likewise, it wasn’t a cakewalk in the beginning for us as well. Since it was started in 2020, during pandemic, all our staff had to work remotely from home, which added constraints to our team management.
Innumerable meetings, video and audio calls over multiple platforms like Zoom, Google Meets etc. were our only medium to navigate through the crucial stage of strategic growth planning.
Another issue that we faced was Operations Management. Our marketing campaign started from 15th February 2021 and it essentially consisted of collaborations with colleges, schools and other institutes; wherein these collaborations led us to our present target group – students from class 8 & above.
Unexpectedly, by April 2021, we had associations with more than 70 colleges/institutions, which we had previously estimated to be around 15-20. It is a remarkable growth, no doubt but because it was unanticipated, we had to ramp up our operations and brace ourselves for this growth on a very short notice. But it’s rightly said that the business world is dynamic so we have to keep up with the pace but the determination and handwork of our teammates definitely made us survive.
Also Read:
- BrowserStack Funding and Success Story
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What is Infigon futures’ Funding Status and What are the Future plans?
Infigon is a bootstrapped start-up which was started with the target of associating with 30 schools and colleges within 3 months from our launch date of 15th February. But today we exceeded in advance by engaging with more than 70 of them in a span of 3 months.
For our digital marketing, we’ve seen a nearly 140% growth in all our social media handles on a month-on-month basis.
So now we are looking forward to accomplish our other targets in 2021 starting with the expansion of our reach to 500 schools and colleges by December 2021. The mission is to make use of innovative, leading-edge technology and bring career mentor-ship for everyone at the tip of their fingers to help them make decisions for a brighter future.
We currently have 2500 active users and aim to have an active user base of 50,000 by December 2021.
Infigon Futures Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
Android | App
A few words shared by Omkar about VID.
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Thank you Omkar for sharing your startup story and vision with us, team VID wishes you all the very best with your venture.
