Takeoff - connecting mentors and advice seekers

At some point in life, each of us would want some kind of guidance, support or advice. Be it an advice on career path, business, strategic guidance or growth, expansion mentorship or anything! But how far can we rely on advice and guidance that we get from our friends and relatives? This lack of trust brings in us a need to be guided by an expert or advised by a mentor who has the right kind of knowledge and sufficient amount of expertise. Where do you meet such people? At events? Business gatherings? Social forums?

To help people interact with experts, two Hyderabadis Sathya & Bhanu Prasad launched  Takeoff, an e-consulting platform to seek suggestions and advice for careers, startups, and established businesses. Takeoff helps  connect advice seekers with experts from the industry so that they can be mentored and guided by these experts in areas like business, strategy, career growth etc.

“With a one stop access to top advisers across the world, and a growing network of entrepreneurs, why go anywhere else to get your queries answered?” Quotes Sathya, the CEO and CoFounder of Takeoff.

“Bhanu and I have been running a services company and we always wanted to launch our ideas into products. We always had tough time reaching good mentors and investors for validating our ideas and pitch our b-plan. It was a long typical process. Once we started developing our idea into a product we believed that we wanted real mentors to guide us and validate our direction/goals.  That’s when TakeOff has evolved and we did a quick survey on how the callers would use such a service. Based on the feedback we received we built TakeOff. It nearly took us 3 months to get these kickass experts on board. We sent mails to few experts to bring them on TakeOff.” says Sathya, when asked about the idea behind starting such a platform.

The founders Bhanu Prasad Madala & Sathya  come in with rich experience spanning across engineering & management. Sathya completed his Executive Management program from Harvard University, Boston. Launched just last month in September 2015, Takeoff registered around 10 paid calls & 15 promotion calls (Until the 15th of October 2015). As a promotional month the team is giving a free 10 minutes call to each startup after listening to their topic of discussion. Today, Takeoff has experts who charge from Rs.0 to Rs. 500 per minute. They also have few mentors who do not want to make any money for talking to or guiding the startups that sign up with them.

“We definitely would not want to restrict “TakeOff” service entrepreneurs or tech industry alone, as we are busy in bringing in high quality mentors (pilots) from many interesting verticals such as stock brokerage, sports, film industry, etc. As of now we are picking pilots based on several credentials but however from the 5th month of the launch we would be open to public. Anyone who thinks he or she suits to be a pilot can apply & then Takeoff performs an extensive research and approves them if they deserve to be a pilot.” chips in Bhanu.

The mentors or experts at Takeoff are called Pilots. They have the authority to decide the price per minute for their advice/mentorship. An advice seeker can find a pilot (mentor) according to his/her budget, industry, expertise, time , location etc. Once an advice seeker signs up , they can search for a pilot and schedule a call. They payment gets deducted from their account only after the call is complete. You can add multiple people to your call or even pitch to an investor over a phone call!

As of today Takeoff has 40 pilots with them which includes experts, mentors & investors from various domains. Down the line within 12 months, the goal of this team is to bring in the best pilots from around globe with various industry verticals.  “TakeOff” has been the first e-consulting product which the multiple services from India. They aim to be best in the industry. They aim to be the India’s best platform for mentors & investors on board and strive to touch 1000 calls per month by March 2016.

When growing a business, networking and timely decisions are of utmost importance. Entrepreneurs need to constantly make decisions and face challenges on a daily basis and there are going to be several “I-dont-know-what-to-do” moments.  Takeoff is an innovative platform for all those entrepreneurs. Whether it is preparing a business plan or working on strategy for marketing or brand positioning, you can find mentors who can guide you on Takeoff.

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