Tech Table | Setting The Platform For Bringing Students And Startups Together

• ByAnushka Singh     |    February 8, 2021

“Life is very short u must try something new every day which make you happy. Find a reason for your life, why you want to wake up every day.”-Rakesh Raushan.

In an exclusive interview with Startup Story Media, Rakesh Raushan talks about his startup Tech Table that is building an ecosystem for students and startups.

Hailing from Gaya, the land of enlightenment, Rakesh Raushan, an aerospace engineer from IIT Madras was always passionate about problem solving. He started tech table in his third year of college in 2018 and that’s when his entrepreneurial journey started. He has been solving different problem for different stakeholders for almost two years now. The major focus of Rakesh’s Tech Table is on students and startups. Tech Table is building an ecosystem for students and startups by bridging the distance between startup and students and providing more opportunities.

Rakesh says, “we are not just providing services we are building an ecosystem. Tech Table used to be student centric but now it encompasses both students and startups and is working in several domains. On one side we provide training and mentorship to students and on the other side we have evolved into various fields where we have started providing technical or non- technical services to startups. If startups don’t have the necessary tech support, business plan or market research, we refine their ideas and help them. Their services are completely customizable since everyone is in a different stage of their problem. According to Rakesh his services depend on his clients and at what stage they are in be it web development or if they need help with their business plan.

Try and Try Till you Succeed

From his first year of college Rakesh knew he would be an entrepreneur. He started off with an idea of providing preparation guidance for IIT-JEE but that idea didn’t work out, so he moved on to his customized printed merchandize idea, but that didn’t work out either. Then he thought of bringing startups and students together on a single platform and this idea took off. “It doesn’t happen in a single go” says Rakesh.

What makes Tech Table unique is the fact that it is not just a simple service providing platform, it’s an ecosystem. The major factor of differentiation is the cost. As they work with early- stage startups who have a limited amount of funding and most of them are funded out of pocket, Tech Table’s target is to provide cost effective solution to them. They have trained and verified people which obviates the need to hire people who need to be paid a lot. “This is not just another platform from here and there. The IIT Madras tag itself brings a lot of audience and customers for us because they believe in that tag. If you don’t have customer you won’t provide service, you won’t have a portfolio, other customers won’t come to you. Our association with IIT Madras has helped us but our quality is what will sustain us.”- explained Rakesh.

The Service and the Team

Tech Table is a bootstrap supported by the E-cell and alumni of IIT Madras. They don’t need much investment as it is self -sustainable. This was the main motive behind building the ecosystem. Rakesh’s philosophy of providing more opportunities prompted him to work with his college juniors, who helped him in different aspects and learned from their journey too and eventually moved ahead. Tech Table used to operate out of IIT Madras earlier but, now they are operating digitally due to Covid-19. Working in the pandemic wasn’t difficult as the best thing about their platform is that it is completely digital and anyone can work from any place.

Having a team of twenty -two employees, Rakesh segregates them into different domains to make it easier because he believes that “all the people may not have the same vision you have, all the people may not have the same understanding you have. I don’t give them the whole view and confine to them to their domain to make it easier.”

Their services involve Startup connect to help connect interns with companies, Startup support to provide different kinds of services to startup and Mentorship which is student centric to help students move ahead in their career. The customers are amazed by how fast their service is and this kind of service isn’t available anywhere else.

Challenges Faced

Handling the team itself was a challenge for Rakesh but it became easier as they worked on different strategies and split into different section. Rakesh’s mentors said to him to choose one segment but he stuck with what his conscience wanted no matter how tough it was for him. He wanted to do something unique and become an aggregator for everything.

Rakesh told Start-up Story Media that “Sometimes you feel stressed, but I know I nee to relax take a chill pill, and come back again. Plus, the other team members are a big support. As an entrepreneur the thought of dropping everything will come but you need to believe in your team and you need to have a someone who will counsel you through tough times.”

He did encounter tough times where he thought it was too much but he got through them as he is a self-motivated person and he is running several other platforms to nurture leaders. He has built positive energy for himself. Talking about receiving support from his parents, Rakesh says, “I am a balanced person, I don’t go to extreme risks. My parents were like whatever you are doing you are doing a good job. If your parents have belief in you, you cannot give up. You enjoy the process learned a lot from this journey you become an all-rounder person. You think from a designer’s perspective, a marketer’s perspective. You pick everything.”

Founder’s Vision

Rakesh’s vision is to that whenever any entrepreneur gets an idea they want to build on or if they encounter any problem it will be taken care of by Tech Table and they will definitely get a solution for them. The first thing for Rakesh is customer satisfaction. Rakesh says, “Sometimes we don’t sleep at night. But customer satisfaction is what we strive for. We play the honest game”

On how to be a good leader, Rakesh says, “I always work with the team and for the team. I look for their opinion. Because you never know when something exceptional would come out of a fresh mind.”

Founder’s Message

You must try something different in your college days once because it can give you a broader perspective, it will help you become an all -rounder and problem solver. He recommends to start sharing your ideas. you should learn from your mistakes and move on. If you find a co -founder you are the luckiest. As an entrepreneur you will learn story -telling and it is an art you must know.

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