Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?
Vineet Arya : The whole idea of the “COHIRE: Experts on Demand” platform, or more easily understood, the Gig CxO concept, was conceptualized based on my personal experience from a couple of years ago. While I was in my corporate job, I would get a lot of requests from entrepreneurs to help them out in their business management and operations. The entrepreneurs were either solo or had a young team, and they would ask me to help their businesses scale faster. I would help these entrepreneurs on a pro-bono basis, utilizing my past corporate experience. It would help me reduce the potential mistakes any entrepreneur or CEO would do which could hamper their growth.
Later, the problem statement that growing companies needed professional, expert (C-Suite) experience to help them navigate the complex business problems, gained momentum with me. I did deep research on the same and realized that not having an expert on board, derailed the growth of companies. Further, time is of great essence for entrepreneurs of not just startups, but also SMEs and large organizations. Thus, they need an instant doctor to remove these business roadblocks and get the company into a growth trajectory.
Thus, the idea of COHIRE germinated. COHIRE helps companies have access to business experts almost instantly to work for them on an assignment, temporary, or gig basis.
Great Companies: What are the various services provided by COHIRE?
Vineet Arya : COHIRE is an “Experts on Demand” platform. That means we are an aggregator of niche and C-suite talent who have a minimum relevant business experience of 15 years. Some of these C-Suite leaders have 25+ years of business experience in multiple domains. They are available to work for organizations on dedicated time-bound assignments. Companies can share the C-Suite leader on a semi-temp or project basis, with clearly defined KPIs.
This is also a beneficial plug-and-play model for companies who are looking for senior experts in domains like Technology, AI-ML, Data Science, QMS, Product, Sales, Marketing, Digital Transformation, Finance, Investment Banking, and many more niche domains.
COHIRE provides experts for specific tasks, who exit once the objective or targets are achieved. These experts work along with the management team of the company as their in-house team members. It makes the engagement frictionless till the completion of the task.
COHIRE is a very niche company, that focuses solely on making domain experts (for a wide variety of fields) with 15+ years of experience, to companies willing to take the gig route in C-Suite hiring.
Great Companies: What makes COHIRE different from hundreds of other talent provider firms?
Vineet Arya : As indicated before, we are an “Experts on Demand” Platform. Unlike traditional HR Tech firms, we focus only on senior hiring in temporary set-up. The goal of 100s of talent provider firms is to help you find a suitable candidate, who will be given fixed KRAs over a long period, have a permanent role in the organization – for example a CTO. COHIRE, on the other hand, will help you find a tech expert, who has CTO level experience, on a gig basis. He/ She will work in a temporary set-up, on a specific project, and be very flexible.
We are a one-of-a-kind model having created our niche in the industry. We have no organized players competing with us and our USP is the availability of niche C-Suite business experts on Gig Basis. This sets us apart from traditional talent providers like recruitment or freelancing or consulting platforms.
COHIRE is a new-age business model with great potential and growing demand as post-pandemic organizations have started to realize that hiring full-time CxO may not always be the most optimized way. Organizations, whose primary objective is cost optimization, with the need of experts, can COHIRE CxO and experts for a specific task, or temporarily, to help speed up business solutions seamlessly.
COHIRE also solves a perennial issue of challenges who aim to CXO for themselves.Finding the “right” C-Suite leader for a particular role is not only difficult but also time-consuming. While the organization identifies its “right” candidate, COHIRE can help temporarily hire a CxO from the platform to maintain business continuity without any disruptions.
Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?
Vineet Arya : The biggest challenge in our journey has been the acceptance of the concept of the “GIG” economy with the “CXO” concept; especially for Indian businesses, as the idea of a Gig CxO is much more accepted in the western corporate world.
Organizations in India are still not comfortable hiring a Temp CxO as a part of their business strategy to scale faster or to solve a particular business problem. Yet, in the pandemic where hybrid working has been a norm, we have realized a visible shift as Indian businesses are looking for domain Experts on Demand to address their immediate business needs as against looking to hire CxO’s as a full-time resource. However, this shift as a business strategy needs to be further accelerated for the benefit of the industry as a whole.
Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What do 5 years down the line look like for COHIRE?
Vineet Arya : As I mentioned before, the future of the Gig CxO concept is bright. India is poised to be become the 5th largest economy by 2025, but to materialize that number, new-age businesses need to grow faster and higher. For them to grow faster, they need experts in their team, especially in decision-making roles. New-age concepts like COHIRE will act as fuel pumps to this growth.
We would be at the forefront, making C-Suite Leaders and Experts available on-demand for organizations to navigate business problems efficiently and quickly. COHIRE has already
pioneered the space in the last few years. Now, we are working to make it an AI-based Tech Platform which would enable organizations to seamlessly find the right skilled C-suite expert or CxOs for specific needs, almost instantly in any domain and geography.
We aim to be largest & biggest Experts On Demand platform not in India but cater to companies in US & Asia region in next 5 years. The demand for C Suite leaders is only going to increase I future so not only Indians but any foreign nationals would be able to use this platform to find meaningful assignments & also companies would have the flexibility to find C talent across Geographies
Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting, what would it be?
Vineet Arya : Not one, but I have small bits of advice for budding entrepreneurs. Do thorough research on your business idea before you startup, as the time you spend in the initial years will eventually save a lot of time in the future. Convincing research goes a long way in pitching the idea and also boosting your confidence. It will help you be persistent with your business idea even when you face initial setbacks or failures.
Be open to asking for help from others in your business as there is nothing wrong with asking for help. Stay updated with the changing dynamics of the industry and the world, in general; you may never know what will directly impact your business. Entrepreneurship is not an easy journey. It takes many years to build a business, so be mentally prepared to face the challenges.