The co-founder of Focus Academy for Career Enhancement (FACE), B Rajesh, has over 3,000 friends on Facebook. This is not surprising, given that his company has trained more than 5.5 lakh students over the past five years. Rajesh grew up in Coimbatore, where he completed electrical engineering from PSG College of Technology in 2004. His campus job at TCS took him to Mumbai, which he left after a year to join IIM-Kozhikode.

This was where he met Venkataraghulan, a classmate who also hailed from Coimbatore, with whom he teamed up to win a number of business school competitions. Rajesh was fairly active on campus, as a member of the placement committee and a part of many sports teams.

Both Venkataraghulan and Rajesh had the entrepreneurial itch at college, but had to put it on the back burner after landing jobs at Deloitte and Citibank respectively. “We would meet from time to time to discuss a number of business ideas, trying to figure out the next big thing. We did not want to remain in the rat race for long,” remembers Rajesh.

The final push came when they attended the ‘Laboratory in Entrepreneurial Motivation’ workshop at IIM-Kozhikode, conducted by Prof Sunil Handa from IIM-Ahmedabad, and decided to quit their jobs the very next morning. “It was truly a life-altering experience,” recalls Rajesh.

They philosophised that instead of waiting for the big idea, they should convert any idea into something big. As luck would have it, they met a teacher from school, who was running a new engineering college. They started with providing communication and aptitude training to her students. CAT coaching is the low hanging fruit for any IIM graduate, so it was a logical progression for them. However, the market was crowded, with national players like TIME, Career Launcher and IMS in the reckoning. They pivoted the business when a college approached them to train its students for campus recruitment. It was a golden opportunity as there were no organised players in the market yet, and they haven’t looked back. They now have five offices in the south, and deliver all their programmes using in-house faculty.

Rajesh says, “Education is an interesting but difficult space to crack, given the number of regulations and the cadre of people currently in the sector. One needs a lot of perseverance along with nimbleness to keep adapting to the market needs and remain contemporary.”

Rajesh is a travel buff and a foodie, an interest that has taken him to many places in Europe and South East Asia. He also loves movies, Surya being one of his favourite actors. His mantra for success includes aggression, ambition and extremely good people skills. Visit www.focusacademy.in.

— rohit@learnbizsimulations.com

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Education> Edex / by Rohit Koshy -Bangalore / December 16th, 2013