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How to Use Storytelling in your Start-up Entrepreneur and technology enthusiast Madhavi Shankar advocates equal educational opportunities through her start-up SpaceBasic- India’s first technology forward, interactive networking platform, for day-to-day communication and task management within Student Housing and Coliving communities. She moved to Australia to study for her Masters in Business Administration and Masters in Engineering Management, at the University of Technology, Sydney. She was focused on the opportunity to live a more independent life. In 2016, Madhavi decided to experiment by setting up a startup, leaving behind a corporate job in
“Build customer relationships and not client lists.�
Sydney where she started as an intern when the company, Vodlo Pvt. Ltd. was an early-stage startup, and around five years of diligent work resulted in her position as a Product Manager, Asia Pacific. Her meeting with Indu Navar, co-founder of SpaceBasic and her mentor, gave her the confidence to kickstart her entrepreneurial journey. She decided to move back to India and work towards fulfilling her dreams, and this soon turned out to be a lifedefining moment. Madhavi always wanted to do something in the education space, and she accidentally stumbled upon the problems faced by students in student housing. At Spacebasic, she decided to address critical problems like safety checks, digital data management, open and improved communication channels between all stakeholders. After diving deep into the problems and talking to hundreds of students and parents from
around 50-60 colleges, she found that these problems were persistent, hence she decided to work upon them. Additionally, SpaceBasic also worked towards creating equal opportunities for students by connecting them with global corporations seeking student engagement in the form of skill development training, internships, and more. Launched in 2017, SpaceBasic started with 3 pilot customers and currently serves around 200,000 users across 70 universities and student housing facilities across six cities in India. SpaceBasic is a cash flow breakeven company today, registering 300% growth in the last two years. For her efforts, she is one of the few Indian Entrepreneurs to have secured a spot in the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia Enterprise Technology 2020 list.
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