MYSURU: The global pandemic has massively hit the Indian economy. Various startups have begun upskilling employees to build and retain talent. One such startup ReadyAssist, Bengaluru based is upskilling individuals to empower them from the financial backward situation with free training and development programs in the automobile service domain with an assured job.
ReadyAssist is on a mission in creating job opportunities through its in-house re-skilling and grooming programme. It has expanded the service network to 26 states including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Shimoga, and Vijayawada.
The startup has managed to hire around 380 mechanics during the pandemic period. A recruitment team goes to rural sites to source students already possessing or still pursuing a diploma or a degree in automobile engineering. They have gone to smaller towns and villages and helped them in upskilling their technical knowledge in both cars and bikes, soft skills and personality development which makes them professionally deployable for a job through their internal training wing called Mecademy.
The candidates became professional automobile technicians through their in-house training programmes and they enabled them to become micro-entrepreneurs. They facilitate work orders of their customers to these mechanics through their technology platform, while they also work independently serving their customers. They also helped them get financially included by streamlining and digitalising their income through their banking partner, thus helping them get financial aid from many NBFC and Banks. The mechanics are also provided health insurance, performance bonus and loyalty bonus.
Additionally, the startup started an initiative to support the dropout and backlog students from automobile and mechanical background, who were mostly in semi-urban and rural areas in the aim to create fresher job opportunities in the market. These candidates go through an intense 360-degree classroom, on the job and on the field training for 3-4 months before they are certified or graduated to be deployable on the actual work. All mechanics are checked for their background under police and court record to ensure the safety of our customers.
The 24-hour emergency roadside assistance startup is training, grooming, and teaching mechanics on how to use technology. It has created its own academy – Mecademy- a special academy for mechanics. The startup is also holding discussions with the Tata Institute of Social Science and Automotive Skill Development Council (ASDC) to certify its course from Mecademy.
The company provides on-demand and subscription-based on the spot vehicle breakdown service and general repairs for both bikes and cars to direct consumers, large vehicle rental companies and corporates through its fleet of mechanics and tow trucks. The company has raised 2 rounds of the fund- an angel investment from an individual entrepreneur who has successfully exited from his previous start-up and a seed fund from a group of high-profile investors working in a senior leadership position with large corporates.
Vimal Singh, founder and CEO of ReadyAssist said that the company has grown many folds, from having 1500 to 45000 work orders a month now. It has clocked an overall revenue of 4 crores till March 2020 from 3 lakhs at the same time last year. However, it was operational only 3 months in the last year.
Tanveer one of the mechanic associated with startup said: “I cannot imagine how could my family survived during this lockdown days if I was not associated with ReadyAssist. Even though I am just a mechanic partner they paid me some emergency fund and helped me and my family with Ration kits.”
“I did not take the classroom and exams very seriously during my college times. Because of this, I had some backlogs in minor papers. ReadyAssist came to college and hired us for a training program and then deployed into a real job. I am able to make 14-16 thousand a month now, while they also encourage me to study and clear the backlogs. This has created confidence in life for me now. Also what I could not learn in 4 years of engineering, I have learned in 4 months of training with ReadyAssist”, added Manjunath one of the technicians associated with the startup.
Singh proactively addresses the real-time vehicle breakdown problems of customers by using deep machine learning, data intelligence, and operations efficiency.
Vimal began his journey in the IT industry and spent 9 years handling various roles working with large corporates and consulting for a few critical projects. His passion for the automobile, new-age technologies, and business transformation ideas, led him to conceptualize ReadyAssist in December 2015 and gave it a formal shape in December 2018. In a span of a year it is powered by a startup enthusiast team of 50+ in house team members and 500+ Mechanics.