Bestselling writer Varun Agarwal's new venture is giving hope to those who want to take the unconventional path
The team of Grades Don't Matter has roped in experts such as Nitesh Tiwari, Amish Tripathi, Siddharth Roy Kapoor and Raghu Dixit, who offer master classes on how to get a head start in non-traditional careers
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I've done telecom engineering, and in my whole entrepreneurial journey, the only thing I used from that course was Microsoft Excel," says Bengaluru-based Varun Agarwal, founder of the website, Grades Don't Matter (GDM). "What I'm essentially saying is that only skills matter." In 20 days of its launch, Grades Don't Matter already has 30,000 young subscribers, who at Rs 199 get access to 300 videos.
What are the videos about? GDM's philosophy is simple — in a world that pays too much attention to grades, the website offers ways to go off the beaten track. "In India, we still only encourage traditional careers. But, a boy from a small town, who wants to be a stand-up comic, has no idea how to do so," says Agarwal, 30, who also wrote the bestseller How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded a Million Dollar Company.
Varun Agarwal
"When I wrote my book, or started my first company Alma Mater [an online store providing apparel and memorabilia to the alumni community of schools and colleges across India], I found out I didn't have any platform to turn to, to hone my skills. I realised there was a gap in the market. GDM is that platform that provides you ways to negotiate through newer career options. India is not a country which is big on self research, so one needs someone to tell them what to do," he says.
Grades Don't Matter has videos by experts such as Nitesh Tiwari, Amish Tripathi, Siddharth Roy Kapoor and Raghu Dixit, who offer master classes on how to get a head start in non-traditional careers such as music, direction, production or writing, among others. It was after his own book rights were bought by Ronnie Screwvala that Agarwal got to spend time with industry insiders and managed to build a network that he then, tapped into.
At the end of the course, students get a signed certificate by the influencer. "Even the video making process was an elaborate one. We got an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder expert onboard, because we know the attention spans these days are very small. He gave us a few tips on how to retain attention. So, with every video, we made 100-odd different edits. Then, we showed them to a target audience of young people, and zeroed in on the videos that finally got uploaded," he explains.
Agarwal could be targeting the youth, but his biggest critics are parents, who are already asking him why he's spreading the wrong message — that formal education is a sham. "I know it's controversial, but I have tried to explain that there is very little knowledge about the unconventional careers," he says. When asked if he thinks the world is finally ready for such a change, he laughs, "I think it's slowly moving towards a skill-based society, but right now, we still need a degree to get validation. I feel that this will one day become redundant."
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