Laid off during Covid, man turns entrepreneur. Now owns a startup with 30 employees
Premium- The ongoing pandemic has left many without jobs and no income, however, some have turned the adversity into an opportunity.
A man used the Covid-19 pandemic for better career prospects after losing his job in the year 2020 and became an entrepreneur
The ongoing pandemic has left many without jobs and no income, however, some have turned the adversity into an opportunity.
"To people who got impacted by layoffs, I was laid off in May 2020," writes Prashant Mahajan who is now the co-founder of product management platform Zeda.io.
Zeda.io was founded by Mahajan and Vaibhav Devpura in January last year in Bengaluru and registered in Delaware, US.
Mahajan added, "Fast-forward to May 2022 now I have a startup with a team of 30 people."
Narrating his story, Mahajan said, "I along with 100+ other people had to leave the company. Why it happened, I don't know, and I believe and trust the company and my manager, who is the CEO, to have valid reasons. But it was unexpected."
He further wrote, "I was lucky enough to be in touch with some great companies and a lot of people helped and referred me out. Here are few companies with whom I interviewed and was looking forward to...(sic)"
Mahajan started Zeda.io as a side project. “A product to make Product Management Simpler and Smarter," he said.
“The website was launched, the prototype was built, the team was built, and we had 150 waitlist customers all in a month. As a PM I like to talk to my customers and I did the same, I talked to almost 50 customers from the waitlist, and just talking to them gave me an idea that I am building something useful. I had been pushing the idea of doing something of my own by one excuse or the other, I always had a good job, which I was so comfortable in, that I never had the courage to quit it," he added.
Mahajan believes the layoff was the best thing that has happened to him.
Zeda.io raises $1.2 mn in seed capital
In January this year, Zeda.io announced raising $1.2 million seed capital from BEENEXT, Binny Bansal-backed 021 Capital and existing investors Whiteboard Capital, FirstCheque.vc and Paradigm Shift Capital.
The company will use the funds for product development and expanding its team across functions such as product, engineering, and business.
Zeda.io is live with about 300 users from 6 geographies on the platform in private beta mode, with 4,000 more on the waiting list.