Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Last-Bench! turns ONE...


Message from Rajeev:
I am truly excited as our startup turns one. I’d like to use this opportunity to quickly let you know what has transpired over the last one year and what you can expect from us in the future...


I’d like to start by thanking everyone who has even been briefly involved with Last-Bench! What ever your role has been at Last-Bench! (colleague, friend, client, learner, well-wisher or fan), we are grateful for your support and help! It’s just been a great first year, full of challenges and excitement. From a 3 member team to a 13 member team; from a friend’s conference room to the incubation center at Sardar Patel Institute of Technology; from 1 training program to an array of training solutions; and from no product to a host of digital content and a mobile app – Life at Last-Bench! has truly been an exhilarating experience.

As with any infant, we’ve spent the large part of the last year planning, implementing, committing mistakes and learning from each new experience. As a team, we’ve grown together and greatly matured in the way we think, act and react to situations. And we’ve been really lucky to find constant support and feedback from our friends, family, customers, stakeholders, investor community and advisors.

Our ambition is to make learning practical, effective and FUN and over the last year, we have been making constant strides in achieving this dream. I have always been a proponent of focusing on building value and adding offerings that are strongly aligned with our mission and I can proudly say that in our one year of existence we have managed to do just that. Everything we have developed so far strongly reflects our goal, whether it is our training solutions, content or products. I would like to briefly discuss where it stands today and how it is preparing for take off!

We’ve shaped our business into two components:
  1.    Training solutions
  2.    Educational products
On the training side, we’ve been successful in executing projects at both a college as well as corporate level. In the first year, we’ve trained 560 participants and from our initial offering of Manage What, comprising around 8 learning modules, we have managed to add over 50 learning modules with distinct training programs for Corporates and Colleges. We have also managed to tie up with partners for core technical training to complement our soft skills programs. We plan to continue to expand in this direction and also look for opportunities in the online space.

On our products front, Easy Vocab, our flagship in-house product was launched in January this year. The product consists of entertaining, short and creative animations to help anyone, and I mean anyone, learn and improve their vocabulary in a fun way! All these videos include an interactive quiz along and are hosted on our YouTube channel (also called EasyVocab). This digital content was taken one step higher earlier this month, when we released our android app of the same name. Not only did we make the videos accessible through the app but also introduced intelligent flashcards, a completely customizable quiz option and comprehensive progress reports. All this through one completely FREE app! It really must be seen (and used) to understand how amazing it is!

So what does the future hold for us?

At Last-Bench!, our focus is always going to remain on 3 things: Customer, Products/Services and Growth. Our customers provide us with the encouragement and enthusiasm to create and achieve. We wish to be constantly challenged to meet (possibly even exceed) the demands of every learner around the world. Our products and services give us great pride in how they impact our customers and the feedback we receive about them. I think the best part about the team is that we welcome, both, feedback and criticism. The opportunity to interact with our customers is one we relish as it helps us learn so much about what we need to do to create amazing learning solutions! Our growth is our constant strife to improve our existing services, add new products and provide quality learning to everyone. We wish to make the learning experience enthralling and comprehensive for every learner irrespective of ability or skill.

And with our passion for learning reform, I can safely say that everything we will create in the future will be in line with the vision of our startup i.e. to promote and achieve PRACTICAL LEARNING by integrating education with quality content and delivering it in an efficient and FUN manner!

Last, I’d like to thank my team (my small family) for all the efforts put towards taking every step forward. Sajid, Venkat, Moushmi, Jesse, Samir and the entire intern team, you guys are AWESOME! I’d like to thank Prof. Anne, was being a great advisor to us and taking out the time to listen to our issues and providing steps to overcome issues. To all our friends, family members, well-wishers, professors, customers and partners - A big Thank You for the continuous support! And to all learners out there, as we enter into our second year, do look out for more exciting things from us!

“The game has just begun and we’re ready to take it to the next level!”

Signing off from year 1 #LifeOfAnEntrepreneur

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