Based in Hyderabad, Nistha Yogesh’s startup, Hunar Online offers more than 30 skill-based courses and aims to help homemakers in India achieve financial independence.
When Nistha was in school, she used to intern as a receptionist at the Creative Design Learning Centre, where she saw numerous ladies come to learn and leave with a “renewed sense of confidence and belief in themselves”. “I thought how great it would be to have such a service across the country. I have always believed that education and technology are the two biggest equalizers and together, it could really level the playing field,” says Nishtha Yogesh.
Nearly a decade later, in 2016, while pursuing an MBA in business from Babson College in Boston, she began building a stage to offer skill-based courses. This later became Hunar Online. Two years before this, she quit her job as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG in Hyderabad to begin Project Prefix, an application for aspiring CA candidates.
Nishtha says, “There are over 200 million literate women in urban India out of which 148 million are not employed or studying. These numbers are staggering, and the factors causing this include family and household responsibilities, the lack of flexible work opportunities, cultural prejudices to women working in India, and the lack of flexible re-skilling learning opportunities. This is not an India versus Bharat problem, but is true for women from different income segments, from different geographic segments and socio-economic segments.”
She adds that most of them are homemakers whose lives are committed to performing unpaid care work, ensuring their family members are on the clock. As per Delhi-based non-profit Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE), unpaid work imposes cost in form of missed opportunities for education, skill acquisition or improvement, and public participation.
Taking “Hunar” Online
Supervising the work from Boston, Nishtha focused on building quality content for a very long time to design courses that will genuinely benefit its target audience — homemakers. The ultimate objective, she says, is to help them become financially independent. Hunar offers more than 30 skill-based courses, including embroidery, garment making, fabric designing, fashion illustration, jewelry designing, boutique management, and bag making among others. In the wake of finishing a course, Hunar Online helps different for a few months to build their collection and market them through its My Boutique program.
The startup officially launched its operations in May 2018 and claims to have trained more than 6,000 ladies (paid users). With more than four lakh clients exploring the app through free trials, the startup professes to be on track to achieve 20,000 paid clients by the end of this financial year. Its mobile app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. The startup has groups of experienced employees to build a curriculum program to shoot the course content and to work on post-production work involving video editing and graphic designing. The courses are certified by NSDC and approved by four-time National Award-winning style fashioner Neeta Lulla, who has worked on more than 300 movies in India.
The entrepreneur says homemakers are a unique audience and a lot of features are incorporated through their feedback. She adds, “They don’t spend frivolously but only when they are sure and on brands they trust.” Priced between Rs 3,000 and Rs 12,000, the course fee can be paid in two installments. Most women do not prefer online payment as for that they have to request their husbands or fathers. To address this, the startup introduced the option of cash payments while delivering a one-time starter kit. For instance, a student opting for embroidery design will receive basic stationery containing fabrics, needle sets, motif designs, threads, and embroidery frames. However, they would need a device with an internet connection to learn on Hunar Online.
Nishtha says they often have specific needs due to restrictions at home. “One woman from Visakhapatnam kept calling our sales team and said the kit could be only delivered between 2 and 3 pm on Thursday because it is the only hour she’s alone at home,” she recalls.
“The convenience of doing this from home — without having to go out, in your language, at any time that works for you — is really great for women who have a lot going on. Homemakers are one of the busiest people in our ecosystem,” Nishtha adds. There are no different entities providing similar services in India besides a few organizations teaching creative courses through classroom education or government programs.
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