How Vinay Kesharwani from Chhattisgarh is running a school as well as a software product startup

When India went from 25 to 28 states, erstwhile Madhya Paradesh was split into two, and Chhattisgarh was born. Famous for its ancient temples, Chhattisgarh is not known for much, outside of its tourism. However, today, we have a story of an engineering pass-out from the batch of 2009, with a burning desire to build things. He's the brain behind StoreHandler, an accounting and organiser tool for businesses. He's the director of a Shemford school franchise, and he does all of this, from Kawardha, Chhattisgarh.

Meet Vinay Kesharwani - an entrepreneur from a small town, but with big dreams.

The passion to build 

Vinay shared that since his college days, he was always interested in building things. He says, "You know how those college mini projects in third year? Most of my friends used to get a readymade project from one of these project centers and present it. But I wanted to build something of my own. You could say that it was the first entrepreneurial thing that I did." Vinay is proficient in php and shared that he has built many projects before the end of college.

After college, while most people were sitting for their college placement, Vinay started up a web development company - "I started up ICAN technology, which was a web development firm, from Chhattisgarh. I was able to serve some clients, but because of financial problems, I had to stop it. I come from a middle class family, and finances were a constraint."

The failure however, wouldn't deter Vinay from entrepreneurship.

A school, and a product

Once back home, Vinay went on to buy a franchise of the Shemford School, which is a Guinness book of world record holder in launching the most number of schools in the shortest span of time. It has been two years since then and Vinay shared that his school has over 270 students and has hired over 45 people from all over India for staff.

While setting up his school, he was looking for an school management software and he looked around for some options. He says, "Software like NIIT Guru cost a school as much as 4.36 lakh. I thought this was very expensive and thought we can build one ourselves. I also found that there were many stores in need of a basic administration software."

This was the thought chain that let to building Store Handler, which is now gradually acquiring clients. Vinay also shared that the School Handler is running beta pilots with a few schools, before he intends to launch it publicly. Above all, Vinay shared that he's building these products in his free time, when he's engaged with the school. He's partnered with Pune based Tesire Studios for the sales of the Store Handler and is optimistic of the partnership with the early traction.

On a concluding note, Vinay shared his ambitious vision. He says, "I know my strength is in php, and my aim is contribute something to php, that will stand the test of time. That's what I want people to remember me as."

We hope he gets there.

Check out Store Handler