Founded by Rabindranath A, LeapCurve is an online career advisory site using complex assessment tools presented in a user-friendly fashion. It will provide assessors interface, link options to skill-up and give jobs to the seeker. “Over some time employees often feel if they are in a right place, position or company-wise or if they are still ready to move up in the ladder. LeapCurve is a unique site which is easy to navigate and provides quality, simplified answers to all career questions,” says Rabindranath. LeapCurve even encourages an assessor’s interface and has relevant job-listings as well. It provides sound advice on skilling-up after understanding the needs. The platform is managed by experts, using sophisticated, well-researched tools supported by a strong database from over 500 companies and presented in easy to understand actionable reports. In a conversation with CXO Outlook, Rabindranath discusses the unique offering of LeapCurve, his plans and much more.
The problems I try to solve through LeapCurve
This is an idea that has taken a long time to develop. In all the years of consulting, have realized that employees face a huge information asymmetry with respect to job or career change. Moreover, most career decisions are made in extreme privacy, which further restricts the ability to seek advice.
We decided to first collect and develop solutions rather than use the ‘develop an MVP and market to collect data’ approach. Such an approach would have been expensive and unsure. Our approach meant that we would be slow, but sure.
So, the challenge was to create a place where data, analytics and advice can be provided in privacy. Each of these aspects was a challenge – we collected over 480k data sets on jobs and roles and developed algorithms around it.
The founding story of LeapCurve
Having handled such projects several times earlier as a consultant, the methodology was not a challenge, but the challenge was on ensuring the companies from where we received data that the data would remain private.
Subsequent challenge was identifying the right technical talent. We had multiple false starts, and now we have a cracking team that can handle anything that we can throw at them.
Developing the product on a shoestring budget is a challenge, we are unable to move at the pace we would like to.
Unique services of LeapCurve
Allow professionals across industries and functions to explore, plan, learn and seek to advise on managing their own careers in complete privacy. This is supported by a backend that can automate this entire process- including assessing ‘my current competencies’.
The team that I work with
We have a good mix of experience and youth. The most important aspect is that brings to the table a deep experience of knowledge of the HR systems at work and ability to handle a large amount of data, data science and ability to create complex apps to make life simple.
Our team is a from XLRI, IIM Cal and ISB & IIT Delhi and Mumbai, with experience ranging from 5 years to 25 years.
Mistakes I made and the most unexpected lessons
The biggest mistake we made was to get into recruitment services. While our product is ideally suited to this, and this service is easy to get in to, we realized that this industry has no standardization of process at any level. Trying to push service was akin to boiling the ocean with a candle (that’s all we could afford!). We retreated quickly and moved into the learning space.
The bonus we received was an invitation from the Government to help them architect the solution. This helped us validate the different workflows and algorithms and puts us in place to mine humungous amount of data.
Milestones I achieved
- Collecting data and arriving at the Career Level algorithm to benchmark oneself easily against a whole set of attributes
- Forming the right team to help create the products
- Workflow and concept tested in the government environment
- Technical competency documentation covering over 40 industries and multiple functions with associated proficiency levels
All of the above makes our product unique and ready for use in a very short period
People who influenced me professionally
During all the consulting have heard many incredible stories, real ones. I have had the opportunity to hear Dr Reddy of Apollo, Sreedharan from DMRC and have seen how they planned the picture and kept at it for a long time, built the businesses bit by bit. Also, many civil servants who have had a really lasting impact.
My plans for the LeapCurve
The immediate need is to code the workflows and make available our services.
Get users to test out our automation products – interview, case studies and more different assessment methods.
Learning the curation algorithm also needs deployment.
The market is now ripe, thanks to COVID and the restart will not be the same as earlier- large tech component so micro-learning and just-in-time learning will be essential and is already being asked for.