Trina Das, an engineering student, started a part-time math and science institute in Haldia, West Bengal, which eventually led to the founding of Gigchain. The Gurugram-based firm employs over 50,000 Indian blue-collar employees and provides services to companies like Amazon, PayTM, Uniper, ICICI, and Havells. Gigchain’s revenue is Rs 102 crore and employs employees based on interviews, background checks, and communication abilities.
Trina Das has always loved helping others. Her socially minded father pushed her to educate disadvantaged Haldia, West Bengal pupils as an engineering student.
Trina’s part-time math and science institute developed from 16 students paying Rs 400 each for weekend lessons to 1800 students and Rs 8 million in monthly income.
Trina Das founded Gigchain after two successful companies (Photos: Special Correspondent).
In 2018, she founded Gigchain, which employs over 50,000 Indian blue-collar employees.
The Gurugram-based firm provides security guards, retail store workers, factory workers, and delivery boys to Amazon, PayTM, Uniper, ICICI, and Havells. Its revenue is Rs 102 crore.
Gigchain hires based on interviews, background checks, and communication abilities.
“From three founders to 22 full-time staff. Trina, 32, says they’re enrolling 70-80 people in the next months.
Gigchain employees are business partners and compensated per job. They’re taught to work effectively and deliver superior services.
Trina started her entrepreneurial path by teaching a few students. Now she employs thousands of blue-collar people and helps businesses satisfy their last-mile needs.
Trina began tutoring schoolchildren in her first year of college.
Kolkata businessmen Tapan Kumar Das and housewife Sharmila Das are her parents. Trisha Das, her younger sister, heads Avitri Entertainment Private Limited, a media company.
Trina studied computer science at West Bengal University of Technology (2009–2013) after graduating from Ballygunge Shiksha Sadan, Kolkata. She began educating youngsters near her house for pocket money in her first year.
She joined her father’s fortnightly camps in disadvantaged neighborhoods to provide health checks, medication, and blood donations.
A group of students invited her to teach at one of her father’s camps in 2012.
Trina agreed and taught 16 Class 11 and 12 pupils physics, chemistry, and math. Each paid Rs 400.
Trina titled her classes “B-Genius.” “By the end of the year, we had about 1800 students,” she recalls. Trina taught in Haldia, three hours from her house, every Saturday.
Trina set up tents in government schools to teach huge classes. She hired extra instructors to help.
Trina Das, Neeraj Dahiya, and Arun Sehrawat launched Gigchain in 2018.
The tents had projectors with instructional content, and she earned Rs 8-10 lakh every year.
By 2013, Trina began seeking small-town replicators.
She quickly opened 86 franchised centers in India, Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
Her 2014-15 turnover was Rs 5 crore. “Each franchisee paid us about Rs 7 lakh to Rs 1 crore, depending on the franchise or roughly 10-30% of their profits,” explains Trina.
Trina received the Global Student Entrepreneur Award (Asia) in 2012 and was selected an Emerging Global Entrepreneur in 2015, receiving a $10,000 award from Barack Obama.
When African schools closed due to the Ebola pandemic in 2016, Trina’s business partners worked with the government to design a module to avoid a learning gap and educated 1.6 lakh pupils in 500 schools for free.
The Washington DC Curriculum Development Board invited Trina after this.
In 2015, Trina sold B-Genius for Rs 1 crore and started Teaching with Artificial Intelligence (TAI) with buddy Kalyan Kuramana.
TAI was a customized learning and soft skills edtech firm. It acquired Rs 1 million in angel finance but closed in 2021 owing to student control issues.
Trina and her team adjusted their business approach after Covid shutdown to target on blue collar employees.
Trina founded Talent Labs Pvt Ltd. with friends Neeraj Dahiya and Arun Sehrawat in 2017. “All of us had a great network, so we started this HR recruitment company to hire talents,” says Trina.
They made Rs 20 crore in a year, but issues came when they went into everything from CEO to IT to team members to blue collar laborers.
Trina and her colleagues found that blue-collar employees were especially affected by the epidemic during the 2020 shutdown. Over 100 distressed jobless employees called them daily.
Talent Labs then focused on blue-collar workers and established a methodology to serve enterprises.
Over the next two years, they placed 6000 employees in steady positions, and numerous corporations paid for their services.
Trina and her co-founders reviewed their company’s success in April 2022. As they talked, they worried about blue-collar employees’ pay and treatment.
Trina sympathized with these people and wanted to find a solution that gave them respect and reward.
Gigchain followed the Urban Company model by directly offering services to clients and controlling workers.
Gigchain has scaled swiftly under this new model while upskilling blue collar employees and improving employment prospects.
Harvard’s 2020-21 hybrid leadership program was Trina’s.
Trina, who married an entrepreneur in 2021, loves learning. In 2020-21, she completed Harvard’s hybrid Senior Executive Leadership Program. She’s learning tennis.
Meditation and to-do lists start her day at 7 am, followed by calls at 9 am. Her daily agenda includes solo, team, and meeting time.
As a business founder, she works long hours and sleeps less to manage her time.
