Impact Startup Academy
How to Build Startups with Purpose and profit
your 5-week guide to building startups that tackle an important societal problem AND are self-sustainable
Cohort 1 launching on october 7
reserve your spot
trusted by 350+ founders
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your 5-week guide to building startups that tackle an important societal problem AND are self-sustainable
Cohort 1 launching on october 7
trusted by 350+ founders
gaurav singh
varun chawla
₹990
+ gst
Impact Startup Academy, a cohort based course (cbc), is a collaboration between gaurav singh and build3.
built to bridge the gap between purpose and profit. To help the next generation of entrepreneurs solve important problems in the world with different approaches and business models that ensure financial stability.
Early stage Founders with an Idea
Individuals who have an impact idea but don't know what they need to do to bring it to life and build a startup.
Aspiring Founders looking for an Idea
Individuals who want to build an Impact Startup and want to learn how to find a good idea & build a startup around it.
individuals wanting to join an impact startup
Individuals who want to make a positive difference in the world by being part of an impact startup and are looking for knowledge & community
There’s an ocean of content around startups. We designed the Academy to cut through the noise and deliver clear, actionable lessons to inspire you to kickstart your entrepreneurial journey.
This course is built by founders. People who have actually built successful organisations. Expect high-quality, real-world learnings - nothing else.
A journey with friends over a journey alone :) Through this cohort-based course, expand your network, find like-minded individuals who may become your friends, supporters, customers, co-founders….who knows? :D
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participants who successfully complete the program with attendance above 75% and 100% assignment submissions are directly eligible for a course completion certificate by build3. additionally, build3 is partnered with srishti manipal institute (a constituent of MAHE, Manipal), so if you prefer, and fulfill above eligibility, you may avail a ugc recognised certificate from manipal by paying a small fee to the institute.
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It is possible to make money and make the world a better place. Learn how to make that happen as an impact startup founder.
Impact Startup Academy is an online 5-week cohort-based course. This is what each week will typically look like:
2 live sessions/week
live sessions will be from 6 PM to 7.30 pm ist on every monday and thursday. Each session will have a mix of pre-recorded videos that are played live and small group chats with cohort members. We will randomise the small groups so you get to meet different participants in each session.
bonus content
After each session, we will unlock a curated set of bonus resources for those who want to dig deeper. This will be a mix of articles, videos, podcasts & books.
weekly creations
Impact Startup Academy is not just about consuming content but also creating things. Each week you will get to work on something related to your startup idea allowing you to put the learning into action and get feedback from the community.
collaborate with your squad
Through the course, you will be part of a small group of 3-5 people. This small group will collaborate every friday on the weekly creations, exchange feedback, discuss ideas & support each other through the journey.
24x7 access to build3’s circle
Interact with Academy peers, founders, mentors, build3 team on build3’s community platform.
introduction
→ what are impact startups & why do YOU want to be part of one
→ 4 personal attributes that impact your success as an impact founder
→ do you need a co-founder & if yes, how to find one
market & biggest sin
→ what’s the biggest sin of startups & how does it happen
→ how to find good starting points for your startup
→ how to narrow down from starting points to your target market
understanding your customer & their JTD
→ lean canvas: what is it, why it's a great tool, how to start using it
→ primary market research: how to study your target market deeply
→ additional ways to understand your target market
solution, UVP & TOC
→ what does it take to build great solutions
→ simple test to see if your solution is great
→ what role does your uvp play, our favourite UVP recipes, theory of change
business model & pricing
→ why it’s amongst the most important choices you will make
→ how to come up with innovative Business models
→ what role does price play in your bm & how to decide & test yours
distribution/sales model
→ how to avoid the second biggest sin of startups
→ how do you crack distribution - 3 key things to do
→ building your sales funnel & sales channels
experiments, prototypes & MVPs
→ three types of tests to avoid the biggest sin
→ how to conduct experiments & build prototypes
→ MVP: why you need to build one, what it is, how to build it
launching, building org, pursuing PMF
→ launching your product
→ building a team and culture
→ what is PMF and journey towards it
✨real-world action you can take after this course
"the first time i met gaurav was when i visited his classroom in a government school in mumbai. i was amazed that he had managed to teach his children to do advanced math calculations in their head that even my own children might struggle to do. we kept in touch & when he asked me to fund his social enterprise, my answer was an immediate yes. in my decades as an investor, i have met very few entrepreneurs with the passion, intellect & execution ability of gaurav. he is an inspiring leader and an excellent organization builder. over the last 10 years he has had phenomenal impact with 321 foundation. i am sure he will create an even greater impact in the coming years."
"in my 3 decades of seeing social entrepreneurs, i have realised that the ones who make the greatest difference are those who are both inventive and deeply driven to make a significant impact. gaurav is one of the rare leaders who is both of these things. i have been so impressed by the incredible impact he has made as a teacher teaching 40 students and as an entrepreneur reaching 1000s. he is an extremely insightful thinker with a proven ability to build & scale teams that have sustained impact. i have always seen him as a wise ‘old soul’ and have learned so much from our interactions."
"build3 helped us refine our business model. we were allowed the space to explore a much leaner, flexible, and scalable model to launch the company, and we started at a fraction of the cost of what we originally outlined. they also helped us with connections, and we were connected to our first client through build3's network."
"the entire build3 team has been more than just our investors. they are our partners, friends, and now family whom we confide in. build3 has been extremely instrumental in helping us find our north star. in a few instances, we also needed guidance from certain industry experts, and build3 has gone out of its way to make the connection."
"build3 provided me with direction and helped ignite my entrepreneurial spirit by being patient and teaching me the ins and out of building a solid foundation of operation and compliance which is the backbone of building a successful startup. they connected me to the right vendors for my accounts and legal work who have added immense value to our growth."
"gaurav has a track record of building exceptional teams, driving exceptional outcomes and helping people find their greatest potential, all the while tackling some of the hardest problems facing society. gaurav taught me how to manage myself so i could manage others, how to be nice while pursing ambitious goals, how to balance accountability & autonomy for my team & how to motivate others to work towards a common mission. the 4 years i spent at 321 working with gaurav have been the greatest education i have had so far. i attribute a huge part of my subsequent success to gaurav. every one i know who has ever worked with him feels the same way."
many of us today are unhappy with the world we see around.
we want to make a difference and dream of starting something of our own to do so.
but how?
how can I build something that makes the world a better place 'And' have financial stability while doing so?
we realized there are so many unknowns while figuring out this "and"
→ how to start?
→ how do i come up with a startup idea?
→ how do i find others like me chasing this "AND"?
→ what opportunities are out there for me to explore?
→ are there existing companies I can join, people I can work with?
→ who has done this before and has the lived experience to guide me?
to ease your journey of finding these answers, we built impact startup academy.
Designed for those wanting to make the world a kinder, more joyful place
on successfully completing the course, you will be awarded a digital certificate from build3. you may avail a ugc-recognised digital certificate from our partner, srishti manipal institute of art, design and technology (constituent of MAHE, Manipal) by paying a fee of ₹300 to the institute.
inspired 350+ founders — your turn next
*certificate image for illustrative purpose only.
“The retreat was like a startup starter kit. Starting up is not just for ‘tech bros’. It helped me become a more confident founder.”
“This retreat helped me find my ikigai (purpose). It was magical!”
“build3 is one of the coolest places. being a founder, you get to build along with other founders. there is a good team, and experts who keep coming. kudos to varun and build3.”
"Gaurav was a featured speaker in one of our Startup Social events. I was struck by his deep knowledge of leadership and management. He was by far one of the best speakers we have ever had at our event."
"I have known Gaurav for over a decade now. He has always been a deep learner and thinker. His learning lens is extremely broad—from lived experiences in challenged communities to reading from business, art, philosophy, psychology, history, etc. In addition, he has built exceptional teams throughout to help execute the vision. The teams he led always appeared to have that special energy and gleam that only comes through shared purpose, understanding, care, and ownership. Like others, I feel I learn and grow in his presence. And that’s before we start a conversation, which is always riveting and enlightening."
"Gaurav Singh is one of my favorite sources for learning about learning. . . and about leadership . . . and about management . . . and about strategic clarity. I’ve been a manager and senior leader at large national and international organizations and networks for over twenty years, and I still call on Gaurav to help me grow and develop. Not only does he keep up with the frontiers of management and leadership research he manages to apply them to his work. Even more remarkable (and rare) is his ability to make them accessible and actionable for others. The best management and leadership advice I can give is that if you have a chance to learn from and with Gaurav Singh, take it."
"Gaurav applies his experience and wisdom to gently and humbly show how you can make your ideas better, your plans more robust, your organisation more effective. Across several years, Gaurav has helped me: write a better book, design a better professional development programme, create a better software product. His help is invaluable: sign him up now."
"Gaurav is one of the most generous, joyful & natural guides a founder can have. When I spoke with him, I really felt my project was seen and heard patiently & respectfully. Many things I held intuitively he validated with his insights & wisdom. And many other things emerged which I had not thought/considered but which immensely helped me creating my business model & strategy. I can’t thank him enough for his generosity & guidance."
"Gaurav is an outstanding leader. He is incredibly good at analysing situations, thinking strategically, creating powerful solutions, aligning people & ensuring implementation. As his manager, I admired the strong learning loops he built for himself which allowed him to get good very quickly. What’s been amazing is to see that he has managed to build teams that do the same. His teams learn from local & global contexts, are reflective, error correct rapidly & produce amazing results. I think a big reason for this is Gaurav’s ability to break down his own practice & teach it to his team. He has the rare combo of being a great leader & a great teacher."
Gaurav is one of the first people I reach out to when I face a challenge as a leader. Many of my core leadership principles emerged from discussions with him. He showed me the importance of simplifying things for my team: simple so they knew where to focus, simple so they could leverage their strengths, simple so they knew where their responsibilities ended, simple so they could succeed. He helped me realise that my team’s success was my success & this helped me transition from task management to people management. I have seen him help several others to become better leaders & build great teams.
"I have known Gaurav for a long time & been able to observe his leadership closely. I admire 3 things I have seen him do better than most leaders. Firstly he is able to navigate the difficult decisions & tricky situations that leadership involves through the lens of the big picture mission. This allows him to respond & not react to the multitude of difficult challenges every leader faces. Secondly he things deeply & critically about issues before forming an opinion. So he & his team have deep conviction in their decisions & are comfortable in going against the norm. Thirdly, he has always been at the cutting edge of thinking about management & work. For example, he moved 321 to a remote work setup even before Covid began, he started using modern goal setting methods like OKR before any other non profit in India & has been far ahead of most organisations in making learning a continuous process which scales with their team. He has certainly inspired me to apply these things in my own roles over the last decade, ranging from Senior Leader to CEO. "
"I was a successful professional in the US before I moved to India to work with Gaurav. I learnt more from him in 2 years than I learnt in any other 2 year period of my life. After coming back I have started a successful company & a big reason is I just applied everything I learnt from Gaurav. Gaurav showed me a leadership style that I had seen quoted but never demonstrated. He showed me how to build teams that strived relentlessly for excellence, how to use data for decision making, how to align different teams to a common mission & clear goals & how to innovate when your back is to the wall. I also learnt from him the 2 things which are extremely hard for any leader: how to let people go quickly but respectfully & how to get teams to debate passionately but constructively. He is also one hell of a coach who will show you the best in you & then motivate you to deliver on your potential. I was lucky to work with & learn from him."
"For me Gaurav embodies thoughtful, inspiring leadership. He goes to great lengths to understand the secrets of amazing organisations & what he did at 321 Foundation is proof of this. I am amazed by his ability to learn across disciplines, apply those learnings & then teach others to implement them. I value his guidance and I know he has been a wise and engaged companion to many a leader."
"Gaurav is the best resource a leader can have. He does the thorough research you need in order to understand leadership principles and put them into practice. With a background in education his approach is always patient. Always focussed on sustainable growth for the individual, team and organization."
I was connected to Gaurav via the Level Up accelerator program. The most helpful aspect of our conversations was how easily he’d help me funnel down from strategy to tactical next steps. Gaurav is a realist and optimist at the same time, a super unique combination that’s very well-suited to any entrepreneur seeking motivation + honest advice. I especially loved how invested he was in making sure I was personally excited about the direction we were discussing for my startup. He struck a wonderful balance between giving objective and actionable business advice and igniting excitement and enthusiasm to go get those goals!
Gaurav is a perfect motivator and guide: I had run a HR business successfully for 2 years and needed to scale. At the same time, we had been mulling over a product idea for over a year. As they say, daily urgencies take over in business and you lose sight of what is important for growth. There came Gaurav and showed me the forgotten path or shall I say the neglected goldmine of potential? He has the patience and positivity that is extremely rare to find for a mentor - He decluttered my mind and is today helping me build a product from scratch.Through the entire process, he has added more value than the program demanded and helped me structure the product, plan for its MVP and connect with the right people. Grateful that we connected.
Gaurav is a teacher through and through. His ability to simplify complex concepts and make them relevant to a specific context is phenomenal. When I worked with him I experienced first hand what it was like to be led with a no one left behind attitude. He drew on his deep and varied knowledge to ensure each individual was walking with him and could see his vision clearly. Every interaction with him was inspiring and stretched my thinking. I’m so fortunate to have had him as a mentor.
Gaurav is a compelling leader who is able to craft a vision as well as consider minute details needed for execution. His participative leadership style delegates ownership and empowers people in the organization to pursue audacious goals. He has built and sustained some of the best teams I have ever seen. He is an inspiring communicator & an excellent trainer. People love learning from him as he is warm, charming, respectful & engaging.
From our first interaction Gaurav blew me away with his vast knowledge of, what seemed like, everything under the sun. In these interactions, I would pick up a lot of stuff explicitly & implicitly. He is a passionate & skilled leader & he taught me the principles & techniques in a wide range of topics: building strategy, planning projects, analysing data, inspiring behavior change. To this day, I try to emulate Gaurav's behaviour and thought process while I'm at work. Gaurav is a leader who not only knows the way but can show it to others. I've been lucky to have learnt with him and from him.
I have known Gaurav for over 10 years and seen his evolution as a leader. When we first met, he was a guy with a plan, and I was privileged to have a front row seat to see him lead the execution of his plan into a 75-person organization. What I appreciated the most about his journey was the commitment to understanding ideas, sourced from a lot of different fields, and seeing how they could be used in service of improving education for all children. Gaurav is deeply curious, a master synthesizer of ideas with the ability to convey complex thoughts simply, and one of the best teachers/trainers I have met
I have known Gaurav for a long time & seen him in various roles: trainer, school leader, manager, CEO. From our 1st meeting. I was amazed at his intelligence, clarity of thought and his ability to mix an inspiring vision with a clear plan of action. When I became an advisory board member at 321, I was able to observe his leadership more closely. As a leader he led by example and everyone on his team had a voice in the decision making process. He saw to it that there was distributed leadership and that there was mutual respect and sharing among his team. Over the years I saw his team learning and growing and eventually taking on roles of responsibility within the organization. Most of his early team members are now in senior managerial positions and I would give due credit to Gaurav for training them, mentoring them and allowing them to grow. Gaurav is also a fantastic trainer & I learnt a lot from the trainings & meetings he conducted for the advisory board. His sessions were always impeccably planned & facilitated with every participant leaving with powerful learnings & a smile on their face.
Gaurav is a treasure trove of insights and wisdom. He has an exceptional skill of pouring through tons of material and then presenting it in the simplest, most intuitive manner. He crystalizes complex ideas from theory, his own experience, other people's experience to share tips and insights that are very valuable. I've had innumerable conversations with him discussing leadership, culture, management and much more. Every conversation has left me feeling like I've learnt something new that has stayed with me, I felt truly heard and understood and I've had a lot of fun. Gaurav has built such strong management and leadership practices at his organisation 321 Education Foundation, that led to some of the strongest culture and performance that I've seen across different comparable organisations. It is a pleasure to learn from him!
Have a look at most frequently asked questions.
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