How building EDM Hunters helped Jaskaran get a 9.0 GPA and a startup job

There are a zillion whiz kids out there and whenever we get a pitch, the first instinct is to trash the mail. But when Jaskaran Rana, Founder of EDM Hunters, made a YS page, the description had genuine written over it.

What is EDM Hunters? It is a music discovery website for Electronic Dance Music. Developed and run solely by Jaskaran, the site’s ‘about us’ page says - “As fans of electronic music, we were frustrated having to search so many websites to find the information we were looking for.”

EDM Hunters lets you track favourite artists, listen to their top and latest songs and watch their videos. The website has everything an EDM lover or well, everything that Jaskaran wants. And the site is no miraculous feat but the story behind it is pretty empowering.

Jaskaran took up an Information Technology course in Manipal Institute of Technology and entered college in 2010. Being in IT, coding should have been bread and butter but till his final year, he didn’t know how to code. “I didn't know how to code until my final year. I had a 5.0 GPA and was barely passing my exams,” writes Jaskaran. And the main reason for this was the way in which the course was taught. “I just couldn't learn or pay attention in class,” he says.

Leaving that behind him, Jaskaran thought of trying out an online course. He signed up for various tutorials and learnt Python/Django, JavaScript, jQuery and HTML/CSS in a span of six months. “Being extremely passionate about Electronic Dance Music, I started building EDM Hunters, a website with the aim of helping both new and seasoned listeners of the genre to help them discover the best and latest of Electronic Music,” he says. This website also doubled up as his final semester project.

What was next? A 9.0 GPA in the final semester and a job at an upcoming startup, BuyingIQ.com, an online shopping advisor. Jaskaran works as a full stack developer at BuyingIQ and in his spare time handles EDM Hunters. The website currently has an average of over 50,000 users with over 1,10,000 page views per month. “The numbers are increasing at a rate of 30% month-on-month. The users are from various countries like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Indonesia, India and more,” writes an excited Jaskaran.

This story is no big deal in this now-massive startup world where upwards of $5 billion were poured into Indian startups last year. But what it shows is that how a desire to learn is all that is required to turn around your fortunes. Jaskaran could have easily given up on coding like so many other engineering students in India do but he had a passion for electronic dance music and a desire to learn.

The tools are out there on the internet, and with the right mix of dedication and talent, nothing is out of reach. This is a story of triumph and it is not restricted to coding. People in any field now have tools at their disposal to make their voice heard and show their work.

For Jaskaran, the current focus is on the job at hand and he’ll keep working on EDM Hunters to see if he can make something big out of it.

Website: EDM Hunters