An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Don’t try to be perfect right out the gate. Ruthless prioritization is key. The general tendency in most start-ups is to try a hundred different ideas. Be careful that you don’t fall into that trap. Always calculate the effort to reward ratio, figure out the key metrics you want to track, and FOCUS.
As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Bhavik Rathod and Tripti Ahuja.
Bhavik Rathod is the Co-founder and CEO at DIY.org. Bhavik was the founding leader of Uber in India. He launched their first city, scaled their operations across South-West India & Sri Lanka, and was most recently the Head of Uber Eats in India & South-Asia. Prior to Uber, Bhavik founded EmployeeSocial, a social rewards and recognition solution for large enterprises and has also worked at Ernst & Young as a Manager in Finance Transformation, consulting CFOs around the world.
Tripti Ahuja is the Co-founder and COO at DIY.org. Tripti has spent 10 years designing customer experiences for top companies around the world, and an additional five years being part of founding teams at early-stage startups in India. Prior to founding DIY, she was the Co-founder at 400 Things, a destination for luxury handcrafted items and the founding leader at Rizort, a marketplace for luxury resorts around the world.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
As business consultants based out of New York, we were both pursuing our individual careers. Over time, we found ourselves more and more interested in what was happening in India with respect to the burgeoning start-up ecosystem.
Reading up on the news and excitedly discussing new ideas, initiatives, tech innovations, infrastructure, and more had somehow become the best part of our day. We knew we had to walk the walk and take that plunge. We moved to Bangalore, India in 2010, which is where some of the most successful startups started and made their marks. The more we worked toward making our plans a reality, the stronger our faith grew that we could also one day be the kind of entrepreneurs that make a powerful positive impact on the lives of all the people that our business touched.
When Bhavik took an opportunity with Uber, it wasn’t only about helping our customers move conveniently from point A to point B, but also (and just as importantly), it was about the 100,000 drivers and their families whose lives were made better by being part of the Uber family. This emphasis of our work’s impact is what drives us to create and innovate.
Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Bhavik feels life has a way of sometimes lining up coincidences that steer you in directions that you later realize were probably meant to be. When he attended the Uber Leadership Summit in 2014, he interacted with some of the most powerful investors in the valley, like Arianna Huffington, Bill Gurley, and Ashton Kutcher, who were building eco systems that were improving the lives of every individual they touched. In that room, he truly felt as if there were no limits to what could be achieved and it truly inspired him to take that really big next step.
Tripti has a similar story. She had been looking for a home on rent and ended up looking at a house owned by Mohit Saxena, co-founder of InMobi. As she was speaking to him, she realized that this just might be a sign from the universe to take that leap and start her own travel start-up company — which she then went on to do!
Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?
The biggest principle that guides both Bhavik and Tripti is to Build What Matters. Whatever you do, big or small, work towards creating something that would make a valuable difference for your consumers.
“Making a product that you are proud of with people that you genuinely respect and care about is what gets us all up and excited for each new day,” said Tripti.
Another important philosophy they remind their teams of is that they’re not part of the proverbial rat race.
“You’re building something unique so of course there will be risks,” Bhavik said. “Go on out there and take them — your team will always have your back.”
Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?
Between the ages of 5 and 15, kids are in their most formative years. We also know that human beings are the summation of their experiences. What we are trying to do via DIY is to touch as many childhoods as we possibly can with positive content and hands-on learning. We aim to encourage skill-building by fostering a healthy competitive spirit and build a community of proactive, self-confident, eager-to-learn, and — above all — kind children. We hope that these kids will go on to become adults that have the same qualities.
How do you think this will change the world?
DIY is the largest global interest-based community where kids interact with each other and learn hundreds of skills through thousands of how-to videos, hands-on projects and live interactive workshops. Kids on DIY think, learn, and create in a safe environment that is moderated by mentors, 24/7, across all time zones. If a kid wants to learn how to do science experiments at home, we’ve got them covered. If a kid loves playing the piano but wants to learn some tips or showcase their talent in front of a global audience of supportive kids, we’ve got that covered too!
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?
A concern that we do have is how more and more dependency on screens is bound to have negative repercussions. Of course, adults generally know that too much of anything is never a good idea. But since our product is meant for kids, there is a lot more riding on us as creators to make sure that our platform doesn’t negatively impact the very kids we’re trying to empower.
We make sure that all the content we put on DIY has an action element associated with it. For example, kids can watch TV shows on DIY, but each show has inspired challenges that tells kids to get off their screens to go build projects based on whatever they have learned so far. In fact, we’re really proud of the fact that for every 10 minutes spent on DIY, kids spend 30 minutes offline thinking, planning, and creating.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?
Our moment of realization came to us in the early phase of the COVID-19-induced lockdown. The world was collectively going through experiences that were brand new, and in several cases, quite unsettling. We were worried about our six-year-old daughter struggling to adapt to the new online mode of communication and learning, but she adapted quickly! How?!
We’d always believed that the future of learning was online, but this positive experience brought home the sheer vastness of what could be achieved on a global level. The main idea behind DIY is for every kid to have access to ideas, tools, and techniques that help them pick up skills and also connect with other kids on the other side of the planet in ways that inspire them to be better learners, faster builders, and happier individuals.
What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?
We believe more and more parents need to focus on not just the academic side of learning, but also social learning and project-based learning. It’s important that kids are able to look at a problem and break it down into steps that bring out a solution. Kids need to ask more critical questions and be able to reason things out as a part of everyday problem solving.
We believe that the most practical way of doing this is by enabling kids to do it themselves via projects and real-world activities that help them pick up skills that stick for life!
More parents and educators around the world are adopting DIY as a way of life. They need better and more strategic resources that stimulate action. Through DIY, we want to become the biggest supporter of parents and teachers around the world as they raise their children to be smarter, more responsible and self-confident adults.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.
- It’s not going to be easy. Keep your head, even if all those around you are losing theirs, and it’ll all turn out for the best. Bhavik and Tripti started a travel company right before the COVID pandemic hit, and they were quick to pivot to an ed-tech startup for kids.
- Define what success means to YOU. Ultimately, what matters is the user joining your community and staying on long-term for the experiences that you offer. Everything else is just noise.
- Don’t try to be perfect right out the gate. Ruthless prioritization is key. The general tendency in most start-ups is to try a hundred different ideas. Be careful that you don’t fall into that trap. Always calculate the effort to reward ratio, figure out the key metrics you want to track, and FOCUS.
- A great team is far more important than having even the best idea in the world.
- There will always be 20 opinions. Stick to your convictions no matter what.
Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?
- Prioritizing mental health.
- Carefully giving time and attention to family.
- Being data-driven and focusing on key metrics.
- Celebrating even your small successes.
Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
DIY is here to change the world. We believe it has the power to change mindsets and build communities that care about kids acquiring important life skills that place them in good stead to take on all the challenges and opportunities that the world has to offer. Offering a very strong solution in the after-school learning space, DIY is an amazing proposition for kids, parents, and educators globally.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Instagram: @diyorg | LINK HERE
Facebook: @diy.org — The Social Learning App For Kids | LINK HERE
YouTube: LINK HERE
Twitter: LINK HERE
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
DIY.org: Bhavik Rathod and Tripti Ahuja’s Big Idea that Might Change the World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
