Success Stories
Certonce, Headquartered in New Jersey USA, with presence in USA, India, and UAE
Certonce Inc
Blockchain secured Digital Records that are time stamped, tamper proof, instantly and independently verifiable records using Blockchain anchored, open standards-based credentialing model. Certonce offers these solutions to Universities and EdTech companies across India and USA
- HQ @ New Jersey – USA
- 3 year old, team located across US, India Vietnam and Europe
- Blockchain product Markets – India growing market, good number of clients and annual committed revenues. Expanded to USA 2nd qtr 2023 -expecting fast growth
- AI product Market – Primarily USA, but being D2C global students can access
- Profitable by 2024, Series A within 2023
- Won Wells Fargo Challenge
Pawan Khurana
COO
Excerpts of the interview with Pawan Khurana on his experience with 11.1 KM-S and mentoring
I started as a co-founder and so it was always comforting to have someone with who I can bounce my ideas, which is very essential when we are trespassing new paths and any small error in planning or execution sets us back by couple of months. Since cash is low taking a wrong path is not an option
There are two thoughts that directed me towards 11.1 KM-S’ mentorship platform
First was post success with initial clients I was thinking “How do I expand my business”
Second when I first started thinking of fund raise. Although at that time I did not explicitly look for a mentor I realized it would be great if I can have such a person with experience to be on our side to guide us through the process of pruning the company, identifying investors and help us with the IM as well as pitch, and the whole finance-legal process.
One of the first things that we worried about when we planned to engage with an external person with who we would be sharing our plans as well as throw open our weaknesses is trust. We had to get the vibes to build the trust to share everything.
We were looking for someone who had built their own companies, experience in fund raise experience & a strategic thinker.
Very good. There is the right mix of aggression, positive pressure, understanding of the situation, & of course motivation
It of course started with a detailed strategic planning. Post which we have our structured weekly and monthly reviews something we had practiced in our corporate life but skipped at our own company. This brought in a lot of focus and discipline back into our planning and execution. On a weekly basis mentor is our bouncing board, who is our second opinion, and we utilize his decades of experience in startups, for both business development and fund raise.
Without support and guidance of 11.1 KM-S we would definitely slow down. All of us know what needs to be done, but this mentorship program has helped in bringing in discipline in execution and timeline based structure to every activity.
We would have probably be dabbling in more experiments, drifted and eventually come back on track after spending tons of time, money and resources
