Shreyansh Jain is a dynamic young businessman who has exhibited considerable astuteness in exploring the power of youth. Meet Shreyansh Jain, CMD, Sjain Group, who is determined to harness the potential of the youth in our country.

Growing By Leaps And Bounds

From a start-up with negative bank balance to a turnover of more than Rs. 20 crores, life has truly been roller-coaster ride for Shreyansh Jain. Eldest son of the family and the child of academicians Professor Dr. B.C. Jain and mother Professor Dr. Sunita Jain, Shreyansh Jain did his schooling from Balaghat, which was great as far as extra-curricular activities were concerned but in terms of academics the school was far from satisfactory.

As he puts it, “A small town has multiple disadvantages, but by the time people understand the shortcomings, it is too late.” It is ironical that while his own education suffered in this small town, his father taught mechanical engineering to the students of Gondia Engineering College in Maharashtra.

Shreyansh spent his early childhood days with his grandparents in Kurud, who happened to be agriculturists.

The Turnaround

Shreyansh says going to Kota for coaching proved to be the best decision of his life. It taught him the value of discipline and motivated him to plunge headlong into fierce competition. The taste of success was heady and had him hooked for good. He says, “I just wanted to keep moving and creating new milestones in my journey.” Soon, he walked through the hallowed aisles of IIT-Mumbai to become a scientist.

The Grim Reality

The students and environment at IIT-Mumbai was very different from what he had imagined it would be. No one depended on the system to realize their dream. Shreyansh, too, decided to take the matters in his own hands and changed his career course within four months of joining IIT.

The thought of tens of thousands of students wasting their time at schools, without right mentoring and quality education compelled him to take steps to correct the situation.

“I wanted to serve students in the most conscientious way and to do so I invited the top IITians to join hands and share their experience, expertise and unique methods for my series of ‘Mentoring Booklets’”, reveals Shreyansh.

Turning Vision Into Reality

Nothing could dampen the spirits of the 17-year-old who wanted to open his company in spite of Indian laws disallowing it, due to age bar. His cousin joined hands with him and that’s how his first company Educell came into existence.

Reminisces Shreyansh, “The decision to get into education business was taken carefully by considering all the statistics and data available — 25 percent IITians join financial firms, 20–25 percent get into marketing, 20 percent into consulting, 20 percent into applied engineering and 5–7 percent get into core engineering. These calculations showed us the opportunities in entrepreneurship in the education sector. We realized that India has only a few premiere institutes and students of small towns are unable to reach them due to lack of proper mentoring.”

Through his series of books, his company minted great revenue in a very short span and Sjain series, that unveiled the strategies followed by top IITians, became an overnight success. A year later, Shreyansh opened a company called QEA Eduventure Private Limited.

The new firm started reaping rich dividends and his bank balance started swelling. Driven by the desire to excel in life, he diversified his business to launch DMS Infosystems Pvt. Ltd. at the age of 19 and then his media firm, Next Generation Media (NGM).

Transcending Barriers

The family, understandably, was not happy with Shreyansh’s choice to earn while he was studying. His father completed Ph.D. from IIT-Mumbai while his son was pursuing graduation, but he was far from supportive. Some of the partnerships, despite doing well in revenues, proved disempowering, so he has to start all over again with heavy. Soon came the challenge of managing several companies and maintaining their divested non-core assets while restructuring the debt, simultaneously raising fresh capital from financial institutions, running the business, both as a CEO and shareholder, continuing to create values for all stakeholders, while also keeping all teams satisfied, engaged and motivated all the time.

Striving For Excellence

“I see IT services becoming more and more versatile, from making software to operating BPO/KPOs, to consulting for any vertical, domain or niche. The technology and service industry landscape presents great challenges and opportunities today. Innovative, multi-platform, scalable social software and customizable analytics has revolutionized business across all verticals,” says Shreyansh.

With the emergence, marriage and incredible growth of the social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) domains, the world is getting ready to witness a sea change in the ways businesses are going to operate and the ways brands would be reaching out and connecting with a global netizen.

The IT-BPM spend worldwide crossed USD 2 trillion for FY2013, growing at a CAGR of 4.5 percent, while the Indian IT-BPM industry is looking at revenue of USD 118 billion growing at 9.7 percent for FY2014. “Changing business models, emerging new technologies and innovative solutions for emerging markets present a plethora of opportunities in IT and Digital Marketing to budding entrepreneurs like me today,” says Shreyansh