The Artha Difference - Garima Gupta
Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Garima Gupta, founder and CEO of Artha Learning Inc., located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Artha Learning Inc. is a full-service digital learning design firm specializing in end-to-end instructional design and rapid as well as custom development of learner-centric courses. We partner with organizations to design and develop training covering all aspects of eLearning, such as instructional design, technical build, and learner experience & engagement.
Courses built by Artha for its client span topics such as onboarding, compliance, leadership, technical, software, and more. We build accessible, inclusive, meaningful, and engaging eLearning content that learners enjoy taking and use to retain information and change behaviours.
Tell us about yourself
Just ten years ago, I was an immigrant woman of color in a country with no connections. In the last 4.5 years, through grit and dedication, I have worked towards building a company that does well for all associated with it. Even as a small, fully remote firm, Artha provides full health benefits, competitive wages, and a flexible work schedule to all its employees. We believe in the power of education to transform – and as such, Artha sponsors full operational costs of ten primary schools in remote parts of India.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I am most proud of our work. The team we have built has a unified goal, to bring high-quality learning science to everyday work. This has fueled our growth in the recent years. Most of our clients have come to us through word-of-mouth referrals, and we have turned almost all of our clients into repeat business over time.
This is best exemplified by us winning the “Company of the Year” International Business Award with the Stevie Awards.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
I take a lot of pride in my team, and the fact that the business is now responsible for their career and growth does not escape me. When compared with being a salaried employee, this is probably the biggest onus and privilege as an entrepreneur - to be responsible for people other than yourselves. So building the company becomes an act of love and service.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Think long-term - Short-term gains are for short-sighted people. When you are playing the long game, think long-term. This changes one’s perspective in all aspects of the business – from hiring key people and building your A-team to managing change requests with clients. Every product that Artha sends out is a reflection of our belief in thinking beyond the immediate deliverable. When the learner progresses through a learning experience designed by Artha, they think, “Hmm, this is nice.” That positive response is important in the long term. It is imperative for us to change how learners think about learning online. We take our role in that very seriously.
- Values are greater than work - At Artha, we have always kept our values front and center. Revenue goals and profits are a side effect of our values – working hard and staying true to our purpose. Our values are reflected in our name – Artha, which means “Meaning, Essence, Purpose.” The learning strategy and experiences we build are flush with meaning for our learners. They are designed to help them and work for them. We support our clients with edits and fixes after our contract is over, we help them make the best use of their training dollars, we adapt and change as the needs of our clients change. But most importantly, we keep the learner experience as our touchstone in all we do.
- It is all about people - I can not be any prouder of our team. As most creative agencies, our team is a core+flex model of full-time and part-time employees. And everyone is very precious to us. Small as we are, we try to take good care of our people – whether it is good health benefits, flexible work hours, opportunities for learning and growth, or co-creating a happy, inclusive place to bring your best to. Even as some members of our team move on past Artha Learning, they choose to remain a part of our family, and why not? After all, it is all about people, relationships, and belonging.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Artha Learning has created a name of themselves in the Canadian eLearning scene. We are on an ambitious journey to become a reputable, well-known name worldwide in the eLearning industry- offering quality work to higher-ed institutes and non-profits that usually only huge corporates with big budgets can afford.
This is done through intense focus on customer needs and then utilizing the best possible bespoke approach to high-quality custom eLearning courses. Our mission is to build world-class eLearning courses that change how learners and clients perceive digital learning. We leave no stone unturned in our quest and support all our courses for no additional charge for a whole year.
Artha has won multiple international awards for our work and has been consistently recognized by major Industry organizations for the quality and innovation in our work. Here are some of the recent awards that we have earned include The Platinum award from Hermes & Marcom for digital media design, Two Best in Class from IMA, Gold from LearnX, Two Bronze awards from Brandon Hall, and more.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://arthalearning.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArthaLearning
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arthalearning/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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