The lockdown taught us that there are only a few things that we can do from home, and online education is one of them. The whole world ceased to run, but one significant revolution that happened at that time in the history of humans is about how we connect.
The lockdown taught us that video technology could be a great way how we connect. People were compelled and then accustomed to joining over video. In that time, people did the official meetings and chitchat with friends and took the opportunity to explore and learn how to play the guitar or makeup or even cook and what not. It was all through either live classes or recorded classes. This is why the EduTech industry saw a massive surge during the lockdown, and it grows every day. A lot of prominent players are having a feast. But these Kolkata boys joined the party with their own brand of a unique selling point. They bring teachers and students from all over the globe on the platform to help them find teachers or students, but only for art purposes.
They only cater for art courses, from guitar, tabla, piano, singing, drawing, dancing to cooking, makeup, photography, tattoo or even calligraphy and magic. They have 18 categories that they cater for. They have named it First Art.
The CTO and CEO of the platform, Mr Syed Sabbir Sunny, is a self-taught programmer. He is an electrical engineer who started a career with his startup and failed. That failure gave him the knowledge and skill to get high paying jobs in big startups. He got to learn more by working in the industry for a few years and, during the lockdown, he made sure to use the work-from-home situation to make this massive platform on his own. In his words, he literally had to bleed to get to this. He used to work in the day job and the whole night till it was dawn on this one. But once the platform was made, he made sure he wanted to onboard a trustworthy friend Mr Sabir Dhali as cofounder, who made sure that he was with him to look after all other sales, marketing and support related work. Mr Sabir Dhali also has experience in sales for more than 5+ years.
First Art is now growing every day in terms of the number of teachers, courses, and employees. With their own invested amount, they are paying the interns and part-timers now. Hence, they are looking for investment. “We are looking at a ₹1crore of investment and want to onboard someone as an investor who could guide us and help scale First Art all over the world”, mentioned Mr Sunny. When asked about the possibility of scaling worldwide and acquiring the market, Mr Dhali said, “We have planned to scale worldwide from day 0, and hence we have launched with multiple currencies and languages. We need people and money to run”.
First Art looks set for a revolutionary idea and product. It has already progressed beyond the MVP stage. Who can say, First Art may be the next unicorn company?!
