Alippo Learning: This Bengaluru-based upskilling app is churning out women entrepreneurs

The untimely Covid-19 pandemic-induced miseries and lockdowns had devastating effects on the economy around the world including India.

While some companies shut shop, others trimmed the workforce and reduced the salaries of the employees to weather the storm. Recent economic studies have pointed women have been the most impacted by the economic slowdown.

Be it rural or an urban setting, women, particularly in the Indian context, plays a very critical part in a family's welfare. In tough times, women are unfairly burdened with responsibilities to manage the whole house. If provided with good guidance, they can do wonders not just for the immediate family, but also for society too.

Born during the chaotic Covid-19 pandemic period, this Bengaluru-based upskilling application company Alippo Learning is on a mission to uplift women and make them job providers in India.

DH had the opportunity to interact with Bengaluru-based Ayushi Sinha co-founder of the emerging women upskilling app Alippo Learning.

Here are edited excerpts:
DH: Share with us the origin story of how the idea of Alippo app conceptualised
Ayushi Sinha: I always had the passion to do something of my own. After graduating from IIITA, I tried multiple jobs and did some freelancing and consulting. But my heart was set on building my own venture.

It took a lot of perseverance and sweat to finally build a dream company at Alippo. However, it started as an experiment during the pandemic and took the shape of a full-blown startup within a year.

Being a husband-wife duo (Ayushi Sinha and Nikhil Bansal) spending our entire time at home with our mother, we observed her passion for learning new cooking recipes which her relatives were posting on Instagram.

With quick experiments, we could see desperate demand from thousands of women homemakers to learn different skills and make an identity of their own. And, with this Alippo was born.

Ayushi Sinha - Co-Founder, Alippo Learning. Credit: Special Arrangement

To put it simply, if you look at the women around you, many women in India have the passion to thrive professionally but lack the opportunity and skills. Through Alippo Learning, we are providing a live upskilling platform for Indian women to learn, grow and set up their home businesses. The platform is helping women upskill in multiple categories like baking, cooking, stitching, makeup, and more, and encouraging them to become micro-entrepreneurs from home.

We are offering these courses at affordable rates from the comfort of their homes, and then helping them take it further by launching their own businesses from home. Apart from the live practical classes with experts, we also provide doubt sessions and a hyper-active community of like-minded women. We have thousands of stories where these women got inspired by their peers during the course and started pursuing their entrepreneurial journey.

The women's community is largely underserved and fragmented. We need structured platforms to upskill women. Alippo is creating a unique interest-based community like a classroom where the women together learn, make friends, ask doubts, share work, and feel motivated. We are creating further levers of engagement as well by helping our community with #SheBoss sessions (mentorship sessions) and providing value-added services like relevant license support.

DH: What is the current user base of the Alippo app
Ayushi Sinha: Currently, Alippo Learning has touched three lakh women across India spanning multiple categories such as baking, cooking, makeup, stitching, crafts, and stitching. More than 91% of our women use Android.

DH: How helpful was Google's mentoring programme for the company?
Ayushi Sinha: Google has been very helpful in providing us support and guidance on scaling and running Alippo Learning efficiently. While being a part of the Google Startups Accelerator Program this year, we attended multiple powerful sessions on marketing, scaling, hiring, and management that helped us in shaping the business in the right direction.
Android and Google Play have also played a substantial role in our growth story and have helped us build an engaged online community. We have seen thousands of inspiring stories coming from across India about how Alippo has changed their lives.

Within a year we scaled from 0 to 60,000 paid customers, 5-to-60-member team, and 2-to-25 instructors, staying an EBITDA profitable business. As we launched our Android app, it saw a consistent rating of 4.9 with customers sharing powerful impact stories in the form of reviews. This not only brought trust and credibility but also increased Alippo’s discoverability with the newer audience and boosted organic growth. I can’t be more excited about the future. Today, we have built an online community of over three lakh women mastering new skills and aim to empower millions of women across the country through its Android app.

Our vision is to create 10 million micro women entrepreneurs in categories like baking, stitching, cooking, makeup, and home decor.

DH: Some online-only skill development apps are planning to start physical classes. Does Alippo Learning has any similar plans?
Ayushi Sinha: Alippo gives its women unique opportunities to upskill from the comfort of their homes. This helps them manage their family and aspiration together. Given the customer base that Alippo is catering to, it will continue to be online-only.

DH: What measures are being taken by Alippo Learning experts to teach Beauty product formulation courses. It involves chemicals and care must be taken by students to be meticulous in terms of measuring the correct amount of chemicals in the beauty product formula. If not done properly, it can harm the client and the owner will face legal issues.

Ayushi Sinha: Our product formulation courses are taken only by certified experts who are themselves successfully selling their own products. All the products that are taught on our platform are with FDA and France Headquartered Eco-cert (a certification for selling organic products in India) approved materials. We are also in the process of getting relevant certifications for women who want to pursue this as a business to make sure the products are safe.

Alippo Learning app offers courses on baking, stitching, cooking, makeup, and home decor. Credit: Alippo

DH: Any new features or new courses, we can expect on Alippo Learning app in the near future
Ayushi Sinha: Exciting times ahead! Alippo Learning recently launched its ‘Professional Courses’ to provide deeper support in starting and effectively managing home businesses. In the near future, Alippo will be incubating a few handpicked learners and will manage their entire lifecycle of business from legal compliances to brand marketing and fulfillment.

DH: Share with us one notable success story of Alippo Learning app
Ayushi Sinha: Alippo Learning is proud of creating hundreds of women entrepreneurs who are becoming an aspiration for the entire community to follow. One such story is of Rachna, a homemaker from Bengaluru, who has taken more than 100 courses on Alippo Learning and is now earning more than Rs. 90k per month by selling professionally cooked food to nearby apartments. Rachna always had a knack for cooking but couldn’t turn it into a business. With Alippo’s support, she could learn the various nuances of running a sustainable business and combine it with her hard work and passion. Now, she wakes up at 04:00 am every morning to service the local demand.

She is proud of becoming financially independent without compromising on family commitments.

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