Unstop: Empowering Talent, Fostering Opportunities, and Redefining Success

In an ever-evolving industry where talent meets opportunity, Unstop has emerged as a transformative force. The global talent management software market, projected to grow from 0.05 billion in 2023 to 0.59 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 12.5%, reflects the increasing significance of platforms like Unstop.

Formerly Dare2Compete, the platform rebranded in 2022, becoming a well-known hub for talent discovery, community engagement, and hiring. Founded by Ankit Aggarwal, Unstop plays a significant role in reshaping the landscape.

In this article, explore Unstop's journey, its visionary founder, business and revenue model, product and service offerings, funding, and more.

Unstop - Company Highlights

Unstop - About
Unstop - Industry
Unstop - Founder and Team
Unstop - Startup Story
Unstop - Vision and Mission
Unstop - Name, Tagline, and Logo
Unstop - Products/Services
Unstop - Business and Revenue Model
Unstop - Launching Company Strategies
Unstop - Customer Growth and Retention Strategies
Unstop - Challenges Faced
Unstop - Growth
Unstop - Funding
Unstop - Key Tools and Software
Unstop - Awards and Achievements
Unstop - Competitors
Unstop - Future Plans

Unstop - About

Unstop, derived from the belief to #BeUnstoppable, is a Talent Discovery, Community Engagement, and Hiring Platform to learn, upskill, showcase your skills, gain CV points, and get hired while unlocking your true potential through your academic journey. With 6 million users and 47 million monthly page views, Unstop touches 3 million monthly active users at present. Founded by Ankit Aggarwal as Dare2Compete, the platform was re-branded in 2022, from a go-to place for competitions to a playground of opportunities of various kinds called, Unstop.

With a vision to create the largest pool of employable talent, Unstop serves students pursuing graduation and post-graduation, as well as working professionals with 0-5 years of experience.

Unstop’s clientele includes 800+ distinguished organizations from industry giants such as Flipkart, Amazon, Walmart, Tata, HUL, Loreal, Accenture, EY, Optum, KPMG, Uber Boat, ABG, Reliance Mahindra, Publicis Sapient, Infosys, Wipro, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, JPMC, Swiss Re, Bajaj Finserv, More Retail, J&J, Vedanta, Maruti Suzuki, Hero, and many others.

Unstop has received the Best Workforce Enablement Startup award at the 2023 Startup Awards presented by Entrepreneur India. It has been recognized with the Startup 50 Trailblazer Award by Dun & Bradstreet. Unstop closed its Pre Series A round of funding by Mynavi Corporation, Japan’s leading job board and HR Tech firm, Coursera, which made its first investment in India through Unstop, Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns, and Pankaj Bansal, who invested in the platform through his fund Caret Capital.

Unstop - Industry

As per the latest AISHE report, there are 95 lakh graduates in the pipeline and this just shows how huge the talent market is. There are around 1,25,000 companies listed and hiring on one of India’s largest job platforms. This shows there is a gap that needs to be filled for companies to find the right talent.

Unstop - Founder and Team

Ankit Aggarwal is the Founder & CEO of Unstop, a talent discovery, community engagement, and hiring platform for students and freshers, where talent meets opportunities. Ankit's journey combines a background as a Consultant at top firms, including Sapient and Deloitte, with a passion for education, demonstrated through his involvement with Teach for India. Ankit’s dedication to Unstop has been duly recognized, earning Unstop the distinction of the Best Workforce Enablement Startup by Entrepreneur India and the prestigious Startup 50 Trailblazer Award by Dun & Bradstreet. His impactful ideas have reached global audiences through his engaging TEDx talks, and he was named among India's 100 Great People Managers by Forbes in 2020.

Beyond work, Ankit is an avid cricket player, adventurer, and philanthropist committed to Education, Diversity and inclusion, and Health and well-being. Ankit finds joy in spending quality time with his family and friends.

Current company size: 100+

Work Culture: Life at Unstop is full of excitement and energy. There is confidence and zeal to learn and experiment with new things.

Hiring Funda: Unstop finds people who have an intent for the brand, who have interest and zeal, along with functional skills, and who are also a cultural fit.

Unstop - Startup Story

The inspiration to start the company came during the founder’s MBA days in IMT Ghaziabad when he realized how competitions in B-Schools weren’t reaching all students timely which led to late applications and fewer chances of participation. So he put together a blog called Dare2Compete that had all the details of the latest competitions happening. He knew it was picking up because it got popular among the B-School students.

Other than this, when he got placed in Deloitte, he kept doing this on the side and received queries from brands like Reliance who wanted to collaborate with the company to do something big and engage and hire the right talent. That’s when he decided to go full-time with it.

Unstop - Vision and Mission

With a vision to create the largest pool of employable talent, Unstop serves students pursuing graduation and post-graduation, as well as working professionals with 0-5 years of experience. 

Unstop’s mission is to help talent meet opportunities by giving them a platform to unlock their true potential.

Unstop - Name, Tagline, and Logo

The name Unstop was changed in 2022 from Dare2Compete because it was realized that the platform was not just about competitions. The goal was to expand into Courses, Jobs and internships, Practice sections, and Mentorship for students & early talent.

The tagline - Where Talent Meets Opportunities was decided after brainstorming and coming to a common point that on Unstop there are opportunities for everyone. Right from upskilling to finding a job, one can do it all. Hence, Unstop is the place where talent finds all the right opportunities throughout their academic and early career journey.

Unstop - Products/Services

Unstop is a community engagement platform for talented individuals to learn, upskill, showcase their skills, gain CV points, and get hired to unlock their true potential throughout their academic journey. This enables them to get hired by their dream employers and start their career journey.

Backed by the philosophy of skills-based education, Unstop aims to ensure companies find the right talent through unique engagements that focus on testing students’ real-life skills. Unstop strives to democratize hiring by recruiting the right talent globally rather than from a select list of institutes.

Unstop caters to both B2C and B2B users. Under B2C, the target audience is students and early talent (17-24 years). They have a playground of opportunities on Unstop:

• Learn: Unstop has a subscription offering of Unstop Pro which allows students to get access to 50+ courses, exclusive entry to masterclasses by industry experts, interview preps, and 15% off on mentorship sessions along with coupons from brands like Bombay Shaving Company, Puma, and an OTT Play Subscription.
• Practice: Gives students the opportunity to practice coding through a 100-day coding sprint along with mock interviews. It also helps students prepare for the interview and assessment round of companies.
• Mentorship: Offers the users a chance to connect 1:1 with seasoned mentors from top brands like Google, BCG, Bain & Co., Amazon, Microsoft, and many more.
• Compete: The OG section lists all corporate and college competitions for students to participate in and win rewards like PPOs and PPIs.
• Jobs: Users can find organic job listings under this section from various companies across the country.
• Blogs: With a plethora of blogs covering a vast range of topics, this section helps users read the experiences of winners, understand strategies to hack interviews, and much more.

B2B Vertical

• Brand: Unstop helps organizations amplify their employer brand through engagements, both internal and external. This helps users understand what kind of culture and work to expect from companies.
• Source: Through engagements, the company helps create a talent pipeline for brands. For example, Flipkart GRiD got 4.6 Lakh+ registrations which helped them have a pipeline for the whole year.
• Assess: Unstop offers a range of assessments, right from, coding, communication, and competency, to aptitude tests. And all of them are done on the platform itself.
• Hire: Unstop help in hiring through engagements & direct hiring methods, like listing organic jobs on Unstop.

Unstop - Business and Revenue Model

Unstop earns its revenue through the following streams:

• B2B clients contribute to Unstop's business by conducting hiring engagements, employer branding initiatives, and other assessments to assist them in hiring the right talent.
• B2C products such as courses and mentorships.
• B2B channel sales, involving the bundled sales of B2C products to colleges.

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Unstop - Launching Company Strategies

Unstop ensured it solved its customers' problems to the best of its abilities with the best product it could build. And the best service it could provide to them. Email marketing worked for the company. Word-of-mouth promotion through its first few customers helped. The company relied completely on organic promotions for growth.

Unstop - Customer Growth and Retention Strategies

By expanding Unstop's technology offering, scaling up its marketing efforts, and investing in Product Development and the establishment of Teams, Unstop aims to drive customer growth and retention.

Unstop - Challenges Faced

Unstop stayed focused on giving value to the users. Earlier, the company focused more on competitions and then realized the value of creating a playground for students who need to practice, learn, and upskill while speaking to mentors from dream companies. Hence, more products were added that can help Unstop's users in their career trajectory.

Unstop - Growth

Operating solely in India, Unstop has demonstrated substantial growth with an annual revenue generation of approximately INR 19 crores. The platform boasts a significant user base of 7 million and has established partnerships with over 800 clients, including notable names such as Amazon, Flipkart, Tata, and HUL.

Unstop - Funding

Below is the funding detail for Unstop:

Unstop - Key Tools and Software

Unstop is working with AWS (Amazon) and Google Cloud to ensure the ability to scale its tech solutions globally.

Unstop - Awards and Achievements

Here are the prominent awards and achievements of Unstop:

• Best Workforce Enablement Startup by Entrepreneur India
• Startup 50 Trailblazer Award by Dun & Bradstreet

Unstop - Competitors

Some of the top competitors of Unstop are:

• LinkedIn
• Naukri
• Indeed

Unstop - Future Plans

Unstop's plans include a strategic expansion in several key areas:

• Users on the platform: The goal is to significantly increase the user base, aiming to move from 7 million users to 12-15 million users by March 2024.
• Traffic through competitions: The focus will be on enhancing engagement by leveraging college and corporate competitions to drive increased traffic to the platform.
• Number of B2B clients onboarded and revenue from them: Unstop plans to onboard a greater number of B2B clients, fostering partnerships and generating increased revenue from their collaborations.
• Revenue from B2C products: There is a commitment to growing revenue from B2C products, as part of the overall revenue diversification strategy.

FAQs

What is Unstop?

Unstop is a Talent Discovery, Community Engagement, and Hiring Platform to learn, upskill, showcase your skills, gain CV points, and get hired while unlocking your true potential through your academic journey.

Who is the founder of Unstop?

Ankit Aggarwal founded Unstop in the year 2017.

What are the key tools and software used by Unstop?

Unstop is working with AWS (Amazon) and Google Cloud to ensure the ability to scale its tech solutions globally.