A raucous audience, a large stage and a spotlight zeroing in on the podium can be pretty terrifying. That’s probably why public speaking is cited as the world’s most common phobia, beating even death. That clearly doesn’t seem right. Which is why Vishal Vasanth, along with five others, armed with the gift of the gab, started Warhorse — to help people better their public speaking.
Vishal was well on the path to becoming an engineer till he began teaching English to underprivileged kids during his first year of college. As his confidence grew as a teacher, it sowed the seeds of entrepreneurship in him, and at 19, he crafted the first ever business plan for Warhorse and showed it to his friend, Sidhaanth K Dharmadheeran.
“Public speaking has changed my life; it has helped me increase my self-confidence in leaps and bounds and has allowed me to make a difference. We dream of a day where every student makes their transition from a member of the audience to a silver-tongued orator,” says Sidhaanth.
Holders of a Distinction in the Grade 8 exam in communication skills conducted by Trinity College, London, they gathered a team with an unparalleled passion for public speaking. The going, however, was not quite easy when it came to their parents, “We had our own doubts about the financial security and risks involved in the business which gradually receded as we made progress,” explains Vishal.
They inculcate different aspects of public speaking like confidence, body language, voice modulation, and content via experiential workshops.
Created with an initial investment of `700, they’ve now completed nearly 38 workshops and trained over 1400 students in the art of public speaking. Asked how their workshops help students, Kavya Srikumar, the youngest member of the team, jumps in and says, “Fear can strike even in the classroom where the student prays that the teacher doesn’t ask questions. It can happen in college where you experience a panic attack at the thought of making a presentation. In such scenarios, it causes us to miss out on many social, academic and career opportunities”
With all of them giving up on fancier jobs, Sharat Subramaniam, one of the trainees at Warhorse, also a Biotechnology student at SRM University explains how, “each and every one of us here is more of a workhorse than a race horse. When everybody else is scurrying after a regular job, having a start-up gives you the chance to sit on the ledge and observe the rat race.”
Reach Out: warhorse.in/
Moolah matters: Created with an initial investment of `700, they’ve now completed nearly 38 workshops and trained over 1,400 students in the art of public speaking