Pandemic Brought His Startup To Halt, Know How He Upskilled & Reskilled To Emerge Stronger

The COVID-19 pandemic affected almost every business in India and especially the entertainment, event management, and aviation sectors, to name a few. The imposed lockdowns across the country disrupted the physical movement of people, and businesses saw a sharp decline in their revenues.

A passionate entrepreneur, Hemachandran Logan, who is appreciated for his story of overcoming challenges in early life, has yet again transformed another challenge into an opportunity with his perseverance. Instead of shutting down his office and sitting back at home during the pandemic-led lockdown, he searched for opportunities.

Turning Challenge Into Opportunity

An engineer by educational background and an entrepreneur by profession, Hemanchandran witnessed the event industry on the edge of shutting down in March 2020. While talking with The Logical Indian, he mentioned, "Till February 2020, we did several events- we completed our Village Ticket, which was the biggest event of the year 2020, when more than 30,000 footfall came for that event at YMCA."

He added, "It's a very creative village festival that gives a raw experience to the city audience. It was the last event before the pandemic knocked on our doors. In March, there was a huge setback for us and the entire world."

Initially, he thought the pandemic might disappear in a week or a month, but it turned out to be a long affair. With this hope in mind, he continued working with his brand and event management company.

After a month, in April and May, he started receiving emails from clients mentioning- 'we are cancelling this event as we are not sure about the future.' Many established event management companies in Tamil Nadu also had to shut down their operations due to lockdowns across the state.

When other offices were closing down, Hemachandran decided that he should go to his workplace daily to search for better opportunities. He started looking for problems and found that the most significant trouble was communicating with others as there was no means to commute. He went on to meet the Commissioner of Chennai and found that they wanted to create a positive awareness program.

In the meeting, the corporation commissioner told Hemachandran about the situation around the state- people are panicking as they are unaware of the protection plan. Soon after, he started creating positive content and published it on Youtube under his channel, 'Avatar Live.'

He arranged travel passes for his team member to ensure they also come to the office daily. He and his team started creating content for the corporation based on COVID-19 facts, myths, and preventive measures. It received a good response, and the Avatar Live team never looked back.

Reskilling To Ensure Quality Output

One after another, content started coming, from the 'Chennai Speaking' video to other positive content. To ensure the best video output quality, Hemachandran reskilled his team members. The event manager became a camera person, the designer turned into a content writer, and the supervisor became his show director.

In the midst of challenges, he saw opportunities and transformed his organisational structure following the circumstances. He started conducting interviews of entrepreneurs and inspiring personalities to keep his 'Avatar Live' channel running during the pandemic.

Much of his content went viral and gave him popularity across the state. It positively impacted people and garnered more than 2.75 lakh subscribers for his channel on the video-streaming platform.

While conversing with The Logical Indian, he said, "So this is the first level of success during COVID-19. I didn't give up; I kept my hope alive and motivated my team to rethink, adapt to the situation, reskill, and create value for the customers."

After the upliftment of the lockdown, companies who wanted to re-organise events contacted his company at first, as they saw Hemachandran active throughout the pandemic, doing some activity to serve society. He now runs his event management company- Brand Avatar and Avatar Live, with expansion in services.

The Logical Indian extends warm wishes and all the luck to passionate entrepreneur Hemachandran Logan on his journey of inspiring others with his extraordinary achievements.

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