He appeared for interviews in one of the most prominent B-schools of India and everywhere, and faced the same question – “Why MBA?” – to which he answered “I want to learn about business and start a venture of my own”. It was during these interviews that Nikhil came to know about EDII, found it in sync with his objective and decided to join EDII’s Post Graduate Diploma in Management – Business Entrepreneurship course.

Unlike mechanical engineering, his decision of studying at EDII was a fairly informed choice. As he says, “In the two years of my stay at EDII, I clarified all the doubts that I had about entrepreneurship, probed into its various aspects and with each passing day, became more confident about my decision. Interaction with successful entrepreneurs, industry experts and faculty members readied me to take the plunge into entrepreneurship.” Nikhil gloriously graduated from EDII in 2010 with a Silver medal in Services Management specialisation.

Nikhil was working on a couple of ideas and the idea of starting a classified service got him interested. It was an era when mobile penetration in India had crossed over 70% while the internet penetration was hardly inching at a pace of 10%. He joined hands with two partners, one being an IIM graduate and another, an investor in his business, an experienced professional working in the US. They started “KuchBhiBikega” – a tele-classified platform that allowed people to post and access classified information through a phone call in addition to the internet. They got appreciation for the problem being solved by the business and got initial traction of early adopters along with recognition by getting covered in various media. However, the cash flow was negative and they could not sustain themselves for a longer time. They had to close down the business in a span of 18 months of operations. A learning that Nikhil drew was that raising funds on time and have a technical co-founder could have saved the venture and scale could have been achieved.

Nikhil now, once again, started scanning the environment for opportunities. As he says, “I was never in a state of anxiety. I knew I would make it. At every step and in assessing every opportunity, I was getting mentored by EDII faculty. That immensely boosted my confidence.” During a chance meeting with Nitin Jain who had just ventured into the business of digital marketing, Nikhil found his grounding. He gelled well with Nitin and partnered with him in the organisation ‘Digital Upstarts’, a start-up, with the aim of making digital marketing his primary preoccupation. Their roles were clear. Nikhil focused on work from the roots and at every stage, evaluated and implemented his understanding of business management. He concentrated on managing operations, finance and business strategy. 
Challenges, of course, were many. As Nikhil says, “Those were the days when people were just beginning to get familiar with social media and clients were hesitant about harnessing its potential. At times, they simply refused to go online with their details.” Nikhil also found it difficult to contend with self-proclaimed online social media experts who offered their services at one fourth of his price. Nikhil had to ensure that the clients learnt as well as unlearnt a lot of things to reach appropriate decisions.