Mr. Darshan Vyas, Entrepreneur & Founder of InRadius Technologies

Interview with Mr. Darshan Vyas, Founder of InRadius Technologies

Darshan Vyas is the Founder of Inradius, India’s first radius based and talent search platform, and Debox, a business consulting firm.

He has over 12 years of industry experience of which the last 9 years were focused on management & business consulting.

Who is Darshan Vyas

Darshan has experience of more than a decade in the Business & HR Consulting space. Darshan began his career with Godrej Interio where he was driving Organizational Development initiatives and Business Excellence and got an opportunity to work with departments across the organization and design and successfully implement various Organizational Development interventions.

During his stint at Godrej, Darshan has worked alongside consultants from Boston Consulting Group, Cerberus, Hay Group, KPMG on various internal projects.

Post his Godrej stint he joined Stratum Consulting as a Senior Consultant and was soon promoted to the position of Lead Consultant and was spearheading the Business Consulting projects at Stratum.

During his days at Stratum, Darshan has serviced clients like Nippo Batteries, RAL India, Sanjeev Auto, Quality Power, FoxyMoron, Skarma, RepIndia and Schbang.

Post his stint at Stratum, Darshan worked with Sequent Scientific, an Indian MNC in pharmaceutical space where he was responsible for driving Organizational Performance and Building the Digital Reach and Employer Brand for the company.

Darshan holds a diploma degree in Human Resources, a Post Graduation degree in Marketing and Communications and has recently completed an Entrepreneurship Program from IIM Ahmedabad.

He is also a certified facilitator of CII Business Excellence Model and has a certification in Balanced Scorecard deployment.

Entrepreneurial Journey

Darshan Vyas: Darshan started his entrepreneurial journey back in February 2015 with a part time consulting project for a client that he used to cater over the weekends.

Darshan left his corporate career in June 2017 and started his consulting firm Debox by investing all his career savings in the business.

Over the last 6 years Debox has grown to a 20 member team and caters to clients in USA, Canada, Australia, Dubai and India.

Debox provides consulting services in the areas of Business and HR Consulting, Marketing Consulting and Technology Consulting and has serviced clients like National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), Khel Group, PayWorld, Advik Hitech, Scorpio Marine India, Parazelsus India, Kich Architectural Products, Kalki Fashion, The CAI Store and Mr. Makhana to name a few.

In January 2022, Darshan began working on his second entrepreneurial venture InRadius and is currently focusing on driving growth of the platform.

Kindly brief us about InRadius, its specialization, and the services that it offers

Darshan Vyas: InRadius is India’s first radius based Job and Talent search platform. At InRadius, our core purpose is to help people reduce their daily commute time to work by finding a job closer to home and finally achieve a better work-life balance.

The platform is now live in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad. We would be covering the major metro cities in the next 2 quarters.

Below are some of the key features and USPs of InRadius:

1. End-to-end hiring process, from candidate identification to their joining
2. Find Jobs and Talent that are closer, within a desired distance
3. Find Candidates and Jobs that are relevant, the ones that are matching to the requirements
4. Consent based information sharing, personal details like CV and contact details are not shared till the candidate is interested in the job
5. Progressively ranked candidates and companies based on historic interview feedbacks
6. Reduction in backouts, de-listing of candidates on offer acceptance
7. Employability Quotient (EQ Score for jobseekers based on the interview feedbacks received from the companies)
8. Employer Brand Proposition Score (EBP Score for the companies based on the interview backs received from the candidates).

What inspired you to start your HRTech startup, and what was the problem you were trying to solve?

Darshan Vyas: An average Indian residing in metro cities spends more than 3 hours on their daily work commute (to and from work). The number goes higher in cities like Mumbai and Bangalore.

By the time a person reaches the office⁠ — after having battled the choking crowd of a train, or the endless traffic jam on the road, through sweltering heat or the water-logged streets, delayed by the bus, denied by the cabbies⁠— the energy and enthusiasm for a long day’s work is significantly worn down.

As someone who is born and brought up in Mumbai (the suburbs), I have experienced all of the above in my professional journey over the last 12 years.

I have experienced commuting for 3 and half hours daily for work for almost 6 years of my life, including Saturdays.

I have spent 1029 hours a year commuting to and from work, which adds up to 6177 hours in 6 years, almost 257 days of my life.

And trust me when I say these hours are completely unproductive no matter how passionate and driven you are and want to use them productively.

This is just not my story, this is the story of every other Mumbaikar. We are not even deep diving into the rising fuel prices, rate hikes of autos/cabs/buses, and the poorly planned infrastructure of the city where unless you use your own vehicle you will end up using at least 2 means of transport before reaching your workplace.

And lastly, how can a Mumbaikar not talk about the skyrocketing real estate prices that push the common man to go further away from the city to be able to afford a house.

Imagine if people are able to find jobs closer to them and companies are able to find Talent that live closer to the workplace many of the above issues will be resolved.

If not for all but many will have a better work-life balance. The time saved can be invested in learning and development, pursuing hobbies, time with family and friends, personal care, mental and physical well-being.

If 33% of Mumbaikars are able to find jobs closer to them, it would mean 33% less traffic, a significant decrease in carbon emissions by less usage of vehicles and public transport, more people will reach their office on time considering a slight reduction in rush and traffic, and lastly more ambulances making it to the hospitals on time.

How does your HRTech startup differentiate itself from other companies in the industry?

Darshan Vyas: We are the only HRTech startup in India that is focusing on solving the daily long commute problem. Our platform is an end to end hiring platform that covers the entire process from identification of the candidate till joining and has features like Criteria Based Matching, Progressive Ranking, Employability Quotient (EQ Score for jobseekers based on the interview feedbacks received from the companies) and Employer Brand Proposition Score (EBP Score for the companies based on the interview backs received from the candidates).

Our platform is the only platform that has brought data security to the hiring platforms with our consent based data sharing, where we share CV and contact details of a job seeker with the companies only when the jobseeker provides their consent.

How has your startup evolved since its inception, and what challenges have you faced along the way?

We did a soft launch in November 2022 and pushed our platform to friends and family to seek feedback and suggestions, we made minor changes based on the received feedback and opened our to the general public on 26th January 2023.

Over the last 3 months we have onboarded more than 300 jobseekers and 75 companies that are active on our platform.

What is your long-term vision for your HRTech startup, and how do you plan to achieve it?

• We want to be every Indian’s first choice when it comes to finding a job closer to home
• We want to be every startups and midsize companies first choice when it comes to finding Talent
• We would be the choice of every Indian who is relocating to a metro city to find a house closer to their office
• We want to help 5 million people achieve better worklife balance by reducing their daily long commutes
• We want to be the Indian SAAS company to take our product to the world and solve the long commute problem around the world
• We want to work with government in driving development and creating opportunities closer to where the talent is thus enabling other cities and localities in the country to develop

How do you stay up to date with the latest trends and innovations in HR technology, and how do you incorporate them into your products?

Darshan Vyas: Coming from a consulting background and running one, I do a lot of reading and do a lot of research and benchmarking on a day to day basis.

Having worked with more than 2 dozen consulting clients there is a lot of learning and on ground experience that comes while solving the ground level problems and challenges.

What was the inspiration behind turning an entrepreneur

Darshan Vyas: I lost my birth mother when I was 3 years old, I have negligible memories of her. The only thing that I remember is everyone telling me how she wanted me and my brother to be very successful in life. On the quest of achieving the same and making her proud.

What role do you see your HRTech startup playing in the future of HR and workforce management?

Darshan Vyas: Worklife balance has been a hot discussion topic since years now but nothing much has been done. We want to be the company that will help people have more time for themselves by helping them find jobs closer to their home.

We want to be the company that can work alongside the government to push development of other cities and areas that have good Talent but lack Corporates and opportunities. This will decentralize the opportunities and develop other parts of the country.

How do you see the HRTech industry evolving over the next 5-10 years

Darshan Vyas: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will make a significant impact in the HRTech industry. A lot of the repetitive and unproductive tasks and activities will be automated.

AI and ML will drive decision making across the process like CV Shortlisting, Interviews, Candidate Evaluation, Predictive Analysis and Performance Predictions.

What is your success tips for young and aspiring entrepreneurs

Darshan Vyas: Choose learning and complexity of projects over money during the early stages of business. You should have hands-on experience on all the crucial functions of your business, this way no one will ever take you for a ride and you will be capable of managing the business even with a small team during uncertain times.

Lastly I feel an entrepreneur needs to be the most profitable resource/employee of their business, if this is not the case then the chances of the business being sustainable and long lasting are rare.

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