This post is by Kumar Asheshananad, Director, Business at HinKhoj

People from different backgrounds face different types of difficulties in the process of learning English and Hindi. They commit specific mistakes in learning pronunciations, grammar, spellings, meanings and usages. The problem become more complicated for rural and small town students for whom good quality coaching and guidance is not easily available. This is the problem which HinKhoj is trying to solve by providing easy to use and interactive content for language learners on their mobile phone itself.

Hinkhoj was started as a hobby in 2006. The sole motive was of building a platform that can help various hindi speaking people learn language and build vocabulary with the use of technology. Since then we have grown tremendously and as of now HinKhoj English Hindi Dictionary mobile application is on top position in books and reference category of google playstore in India with more than 14 million downloads till date. This application is helping users in learning English and Hindi both. It is available on all platforms including Android, Windows, iOS and Tizen. Users can also visit HinKhoj website which have similar functionality and this website has been visited by 200 Million + users across the world.

We are able to acquire users in such a large number because we are solving problems faced by mass population of the country. We are living in a society where majority of population is not able to read the instructions on medicine, packaged food items and documents on internet. The language problem is becoming more acute because India’s rapidly growing technologically advanced economy demands a large number of students to pursue professional, technical and academic programmes which clearly require appropriate knowledge of the target language- English.

Journey So far

I have done my Integrated Post Graduate (Btech +MBA ) from Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Gwalior, already started two startups during my college time Megawebmart (Web Design and Development) and Citytrip (Online Travel Guide). It was quite a great learning experience. I was also part of core team member in one of the IOT startups in Gurgaon.

When I met the founders of HinKhoj and discussed my vision and thoughts, it was an almost instant synergy in our visions and I joined the team to head the business and take this venture new heights and to scale up globally. It was one of a kind experience where you meet like minded people which work with you to achieve a common goal.

Building Team

Building a team is arguably the hardest part of a startup , At a startup, everything revolves around people. This was the first thing which we had to tackle to improve the existing product. We needed some very good people from tech, design and content department. I got some of my college friends join us and currently half of my team members are from the same college.

Product Development and Improvement

We do continuous research and development and gather user feedbacks very aggressively. All these efforts have helped us improve our app and website from its basic version to the new one which you see live today. The highly customized experience with full offline support features which you see today are all based on user feedbacks.

Growth

In the world of digital progress and the fact that the internet has reached the masses on a large scale, e-learning industry has bloomed like never before. HinKhoj is more than happy to have become an integral part of this industry and to have contributed to the digital generation in many ways. The impact that HinKhoj has had on its users is what makes it stand out in the digital market. We are proud to say that there are 2.5 Million daily active users on smartphone, using the application.

Complete learning solution

The reason behind such response is the fact that HinKhoj is not just some another dictionary app that gives you mere words meanings, but it’s a holistic learning experience in itself as we try to educate our users in every possible way through our vocabulary tips, daily learning notifications and blogs. If someone is looking to learn English via Hindi, HinKhoj comes to the rescue. In line with our motto to help the masses to learn English through Hindi, we have also developed another application branded as Namaste English. This app helps the user to enhance their English language skills in every possible way. It’s easy and is loaded with fun games to help you learn in an entertaining manner and not just by using plain boring methods. We feel proud to say that Namaste English has got the same overwhelming response as HinKhoj Dictionary.

Future work and challenges

We are continuously working on various new initiatives to make our products more useful for our users. Further we are working to build a unique platform through which hindi and english language experts can contribute to educational needs of fellow users and also get paid for the same. They will be able to contribute through teaching, providing translation services etc.

With a vision of promoting Hindi across the world and helping Hindi users in all possible ways by removing language barrier, we strive to get better and enhance our scope to reach out to the masses on a daily basis. We push our limits everyday to improve user experience.