Endeavour

Endeavour, that’s their mantra Two friends, who quit their jobs to start their company with an investment of few thousands, have led it to a Rs 3.5 cr group in three years, reports Chitra Nair

Afew years ago, two young MBA aspirants dreamt of setting up their own coaching centre. Today, with Endeavour Careers Pvt Ltd, a coaching class, youth hangout joint and now even an HR company, they’ve more than realised that dream. Meet Vivek Tuteja (28) and Hitesh Devalia (28), who completed their BBA in 2000 from a Vallabh Vidyanagar college, and while preparing for CAT took up consultancy with an online tutorial. While working for the coaching class, they noticed a great market for MBA coaching classes. In 2002, Vivek got into IIM-A, and Hitesh proceeded to Pune. The dream remained on hold. Two years later, the duo got together and decided to turn their dream into reality by investing Rs 50,000 in setting up a small office in Vallabh Vidyanagar in 2004. The 350 sq feet classroom-cum office, kicked off with a sample batch of 11 students appearing for CAT in November 2004. At that time, Vivek was working with a news channel. He used to come down on weekends to assist Hitesh who managed the show here. Two of their students from that made it to the IIMs! And, today Endeavour Pvt Ltd is a Rs 3.5 crore group with around 1,100 students and around 80 employees. In April 2005, they started commercial operations, with a batch of 55 students. From there, there was no looking back. Two months later, Endeavour was registered as a private limited company. In December that year, they could afford enough to improve their infrastructure and by August 2006, they had rented an entire floor of a building for themselves. In December last year, Endeavour expanded its activities to include a youth hangout joint — Nukkad. Next in line is its HR consultancy firm to be launched in mid-July this year in key cities across the state to train students as well as corporates. After the initial success, the team decided to move to other cities as well. “It was a risk worth taking. We were surprised by the response we got here in Ahmedabad,” says Hitesh. Besides VV Nagar and Ahmedabad, Endeavour also has presence in Vadodara and a franchisee in Bhubaneshwar. Today, they have 1,100 students, whom they coach for CAT, GCET and GMAT. Meanwhile, Endeavour is striving to become the strongest youth brand across the country, if CEO Vivek Tuteja and his team have their way. “A few years down the line, it would be difficult to find a youngster who is not associated with Endeavour,” says Vivek.

(From left) Hitesh Devalia, TM Narasimhan, Hemang Patel and Vivek Tuteja at their office in the city

(Times of India, Ahmedabad Edition, 4th July, 2008)