Q. 1 Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans : Hello everyone. I am LN, part of founding team of Adaptive US. I have 25 years of professional experience in software product development, business analysis, enterprise analysis, ERP implementations, software processes and strategic change management. I have consulted and trained 150+ clients in US, Europe, India including Toshiba, Nordstrom, AkzoNobel, AXA, MindTree, iGate, Ness, etc. I have conducted 300+ workshops in business analysis, requirements engineering and agile, project management and requirements engineering.
I have had the opportunity to conduct webinars on the various IIBA certifications and have also actively been actively involved in the IIBA question bank setting committee.
As part of my knowledge sharing initiatives, I have authored books like Practical Requirements Engineering, Mastering CBAP, CBAP Question Bank, Mastering CPRE, CPRE Question Bank and Stories for IT trainers.
By education, I am an electronics engineer and completed management studies from IIM Ahmedabad. I have completed certifications such as CBAP, CPRE, Certified Scrum Master, PMP, and CSQA (World Topper Year 2000), and Six Sigma Black Belt.
Q. 2 Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans : Adaptive US Inc. is world-leader in business analysis products and trainings for IIBA certifications such as CBAP, CCBA, ECBAns : Our trainings are conducted online and we have the best in industry success rate of 95%. We are the world’s largest BA publisher and assessments provider and we have enabled our participants across the globe to excel the certifications by means of our superior question banks, study guides, simulators, flash cards, audio books, digital learning packs etc.
Adaptive US Inc. is the only training organization to offer success guarantee and all-inclusive plans for its workshops. We are a premiere partner to IIBA, Canada and IREB, Germany and our trainers are part of the BABoK V3 team. Over the years we have conducted 300+ BA workshops and have trained 5000+ BAs. We have crossed 300+ certified BA professionals and we are still counting.
We are headquartered at Oklahoma, USA and partners world-wide.
Q. 3 What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Ans : I was always inspired to create an organization that generates value for its customers and employees. I was always passionate about enhancing skills of individuals. I, in-fact, started my teaching career even when I hadn’t completed my studies.
Q. 4 What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans : Focus sharply, Have perseverance and keep a close watch on cash-flow.
Q. 5 What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans : Perseverance, Ability to stay focused and manage cash-flow
Q. 6 How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans : About 10 hours a day including weekends. I know it sounds awful lot but it need significant effort to get a business going.
Q. 7 To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans : Diligent effort, supportive family and colleagues.
Q. 8 How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans : We have actively leveraged LinkedIn, Adaptive website, webinars, event websites, promotions etc. for various products. Partnerships and digital marketing by far has been the most successful form of marketing for our organization.
Q. 9 Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Ans : We are boot-strapped and the initial investments came from founders personal savings. However, we are in the process of raising capital for scaling up the business.
Q. 10 What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans : Focus on your core capabilities and never stop learning. Learn to unlearn, accept challenges, take risks, keep yourself abreast with the latest happenings in the market and never forgo good advice from experts.
Q. 11 Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans : The #1 training provider in the world for BA certifications. Adaptive US should be the first name to come to a person’s mind when they think of business analysis certifications.
Q. 12 Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans : Few great companies that I admire for their innovation are Tesla, Google, and Amazon.
Q. 13 How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans : Good employees are valuable assets and the core strength of any organization. I owe the satisfaction of our customers and the success of our organization to our dedicated and sincere employees who have been a great pillar of support.
Q. 14 How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans : Till the time I realize it is not practically feasible.
Q. 15 What motivates you?
Ans : The overall success of the organization, empowered and happy employees.
Q. 16 Who are your ideals?
Ans : Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Vivek Wadhwa and Narayan Murthy.
Q. 17 How do you generate new ideas?
Ans : Read as much as possible. Talk to many people. Conducting quarterly brainstorming sessions with everyone in my organization has always been a great way to generate new ideas.
Q. 18 How do you define success?
Ans : Success to me is creating a business that empowers customers, employees and adds value to their lives.
Q. 19 How do you build a successful customer base?
Ans : I have spent considerable amount of time understanding my customers and prospects. The key to building a successful customer base is to offer great customer service and also leverage your network extensively.
Q. 20 What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans : It gives you the opportunity to develop and sell products and services that matters to you.
Q. 21 What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ans : When customers keep coming back to you for more.
Q. 22 What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Ans : Entrepreneurs need to have lot more risk appetite, you never know if you will get paid at the end of the month. At the same time, it allows you greater flexibility to try new things.
Q. 23 What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
Ans : Ours is a culture established on trust and collaboration. We have come out of the physical office concept and have given our employees a work from home option. With this kind of setup, faith that employees will continue to deliver without having to monitor them constantly gives them a sense of responsibility and advantage in terms of work life balance.
Q. 24 In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Ans : A great sense of fulfilment in helping our customers do well as providing a good life to our employees.
Q. 25 If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Ans : I will learn to be more focused, getting de-focused costed us a lot.
Q. 26 How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
Ans : It does impact. You have lesser time for your family. However, as business stabilizes, one can be able to spend more time with family.
Q. 27 What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?
Ans : Markets are changing very fast and I hope we constantly change with time. Not willing to change and resting on laurels are 2 things I fear most.
Q. 28 How did you decide on the location for your business?
Ans : It was based on founders home locations. Being an online business, it does not matter so much.
Q. 29 Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Ans : I truly don’t believe there is any great pattern. However, all great entrepreneurs are energetic, good to their team and have long term focus.
Q. 30 If you could talk to one person from history, who would it be and why?
Ans : Lord Buddha who taught compassion. We need compassionate businesses.
Q. 31 Who has been your greatest inspiration?
Ans : Narayan Murthy as he brought culture of professionalism to my home country.
Q. 32 What book has inspired you the most? (OR what is your favorite book?)
Ans : There are many, but the one I liked most was “Out of crisis” by Edward Deming.
Q. 33 What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made?
Ans : Made many mistakes but the costliest one was to getting de-focused from what you wished to achieve.
Q. 34 How can you prevent mistakes or do damage control?
Ans : Rather I would say, learn quickly from your mistakes.
Q. 35 What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Ans : Listening to old songs and watching old movies.
Q. 36 What makes you happy?
Ans : Being able to help someone.
Q. 37 What sacrifices have you had to make to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans : The sacrifices are mostly from my immediate family members who sacrificed their life-style. But I personally feel a contributing life is better than an expensive life.
Q. 38 If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?
Ans : How do you plan to scale-up your business? We are looking at establishing strong brand presence through thought leadership which will provide us significant growth.
Business Name: Adaptive US
Address: 19205 Blossom Court
City/Town: Edmond
State:Oklahoma
Country: USA
Zip code: 73012
Tel No: +1 877-872-2860 (Toll Free)
Categories: Educational Consultant | Business
Tags: ccba certification training, cbap training
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Adaptiveus
