Tapping the virtual space amid pandemic

An executive coach and a leadership development consultant, Teja Gudluru, the CEO and founder of UDO, a popular Android app that lets you connect to thousands of experts in over a hundred categories, spoke to NewsX about his company’s mobile app which helps people get connected to their buddies and seek expert advice related to any problems one could be going through. Here are some excerpts from that riveting interview :

Taking about the genesis of the app and how it evolved during the lockdown, Gudluru, who has trained and coached over 25,000 individuals across the spectrum of industries and hierarchies, says: “We started as an expert advice app where we wanted anybody with a special talent or a new way of doing things who wanted to make passive income. People who then need advice can search for specifically what they are looking for and the people who joined can guide them, with the lockdown we worked and introduced new features like online classes, video conferencing, ability to charge for paid webinars. A lot of things that other international apps do not have. That way we are integrated class teaching environment.”

Having travelled across the world during his 19 years tenure and expertise in the leadership and training arena, Teja whose niche training competencies include various Behavioural, Leadership and Management development workshops using a multitude of Learning technologies talks about turning this pandemic into an opportunity, he says: “So right now 30 percent of the world is freelancing resources from India but most of them are supporting and are made in accordance to the international market. With this pandemic people are losing their jobs and they are scared. They are thinking and looking towards solutions, for example if I can play the guitar and make money teaching someone, where is that one aap where I can sign up and users will be able to find me? In some of the other popular apps right now you have to create the link, you have to share it with people, here we let you connect with the people easily and there is no way people will know about you or even get to see what you are doing. From that perspective we have made it as a perfect aap for freelancers.”

 For all the budding entrepreneurs, Teja has a piece of advice especially during this time of crisis. “Collaborate do not compete, this is the time to take over Chinese markets and other companies. The only way to really fight and give the small Indian startups to perform better than the international ones is to collaborate and compete to diversify the market.” He sees an opportunity in this crisis, as he believes that Covid-19 will open a door for virtual/online businesses.

“The Indian economy is specifically steadily looking better than the other economies, not that we are doing fine it’s just we are doing better than most countries. This sector is the one that will see most growth this year as what this pandemic has taught us is to stay at home so the market for online and online learning, video conferencing, freelancing online,” says Gudluru who is a certified “Leadership and Management Trainer” by the American Society of Training and Development.