Exclusive Interview with Team LastBench! on their First Ride

Few days back, I covered an article on LastBench prior to their launch. So with the arrival of their first program Essentially Business, LastBench is all set for a ride. Here is an exclusive interview by Startups Media with the team of LastBench, Rajeev Chhajer (CEO), Sajid Chougle (COO) and Venkat Iyer (CMO), sharing interesting insights and experiences.



What exactly is your concept behind LastBench ?
Last-Bench is an education services start-up aiming to fill the gap between traditional formal education and applied learning. The concept ‘Last-Bench’ literally signifies the last bench of the classroom where the methods of learning are unconventional and requires a more comprehensive approach to aid the idea-generation process. Last-Bench highlights the difference in the learning needs of individuals, students or working professionals, and aims to provide customized learning solutions to promote personal and professional growth. 

How is the present business environment ?

The current business environment is extraordinarily challenging, competitive and dynamic. Companies are constantly in search of young professionals, a lot of students entering the workforce or people already in the workforce are from non-business backgrounds and there are entrepreneurs who need to stay ahead of the curve in order for their business to succeed and grow. In any case, you need the business and management skills to advance your career to the next level.

I have been hearing about your latest course offering. What is it all about ?

In accordance with research, Last-Bench has developed its first offering - a highly flexible yet comprehensive program suite, ESSENTIALLY BUSINESS. Last-Bench has begun delivering a specialized in-person course for young, ambitious students and working professionals called MANAGE WHAT which aims at enhancing an individual's ability of directing the activities of oneself and other people, while coordinating the goals of the individual and the organization. The program focuses on effective management with a strong personal dimension and puts you on the path to be a complete professional and a good learner with a high level of self-awareness and the ability to manage stress and time well. Apart from all the applied knowledge you’ll get, you also get a personalized report with detailed feedback about your strengths, weaknesses, performance and contribution.

That seems great and well researched. What is the current scenario of India as per your studies ?

Though the soft skills crisis is a universal phenomenon, the problems and reasons in the Indian subcontinent are peculiar because our educational system is so designed forcing students to concentrate more on rote learning than on developing a spirit of enquiry.

As a solution to this what do you think is the need of hour? How does your course targets to solve this ?

Soft skills are essential for career progression. If you can’t communicate well with colleagues or clients you might come across as incompetent, even though your technical ability is far superior to others.Our program focuses on effective management with a strong personal dimension and puts you on the path to be a complete professional and a good learner with a high level of self-awareness and the ability to manage stress and time well.

That’s great. We wish you all the best for your endeavor. All the best !

Visit Last-Bench here: LastBench!

Kobster - For all your Office Needs and Supplies

It often occurs that we need to move to market for buying small office stationery items, which wastes a lot of time. What if you can find all the office supplies you may need at one single destination.

I recently came across Kobster, a perfect solution for buying all your office needs online. No, this is not another e-commerce website in line. Founded by Vineet, Mohan and Karthik, Kobster has very well implemented the idea of providing all your office supply needs at one stop. Kobster has been recently launched on 5th September and looks very promising.

Be it a folder, a file, your laptop cooling pad, staplers, sharpners, beverages, a desk organizer or brooms, Kobster has everything in store related to Office Stationary, Electronics, Cleaning Products and other facilities. Kobster has tied up with very well known brands like Cello, Kores, Maped, Reynolds, Godrej, etc to provide you a whole quality range of products. It currently offers 1200+ items with online payment as well as COD facility. To test the prices, I searched few products and compared their prices with my recent purchases, and found its prices to be reasonable. Each product comes with a discount. Also the website offers a 21 day credit period for Corporate Buyers. The User Interface is as it should be. I was able to find out almost everything my office needs here. 


                                


So here is my take on this website. Kobster is very nice and useful. Just some good publicity marketing campaigns and this website is going to be everyone’s bookmark for office needs. This seems to be one of the next big thing.The plus point about its market is that all the users are going to be return users. So once someone comes here for purchase, he is surely going to return back next time.

Grab your office supplies here: Kobster

Watsi - Humanitarian Project To Help Those in Need Of Low Cost Medical Care

You see lot of startups everyday. But there are few, which are developed to deal with Humanitarian challenges. Founded by Chase Adam, Mark Murrin, Howard Glenn, and Jesse Cooke, Watsi enables you to directly fund low-cost, high-impact medical treatments for people in need. This story comes more of a personal interest than reviewing it.

Watsi in collaboration with other healthcare partners and experts tries to connect donors with the patients in serious need of low-cost medical care and enables you to fund high-impact treatments. It equally emphasizes on technology involved in this project. The website looks very decent as it should be. It presents the profiles of those in need and also mentions the total donation amount required, total donors till now and the progress of individual case.


Presently, 19 cases have been presented on Watsi out of which 17 have been crowd funded totally. Mostly the individuals in need are from developing countries. A minimum of 5$ amount can be donated. To make this process more transparent, Watsi also lists the medical partner of the cases. Recently the founders have also shared a doc which contains all the transactional details of these cases to make the process more transparent. Watsi has been approved as a 501(c)(3) non profit organization in California, which means that donations will be tax-deductible.

Watsi is definitely on the right tracks of tackling the global humanitarian challenge of healthcare. Its surely a good start. It works on the values of Impact, Innovation, Efficiency and Transparency. And we would like it to see it grow and extend. I request the readers to extend a helping hand to this noble cause. 


Visit and donate Watsi here: Watsi