In India, edutech startups are teaching themselves how to grow

Unlike engineering degrees, edutech firms providing services to management course aspirants in India have not had an emphatic run, but the seeds are already sprouting. In the past few years, about 22 startups have emerged in this space, according to Tracxn, a market research firm which curates information on Indian startups. Only one of these is funded – IndiaCollegeSearch which raised US$1 million from Indian Angel Network.

“In India, every consumer of education decries low teaching quality and that is the problem edutech companies seek to solve,” says Ajeet Khurana, an angel investor and a serial entrepreneur in the edutech space. His startups, including MBA test prep firm Corpus Collosum Learning and Khurana Information and Training Systems, were among the first in the country to get acquired.

“The present solutions are more ‘tech’ than ‘edu’ which works in the case of multiple-choice variety (or e-testing). But when it comes to e-learning, the present offerings leave a lot to be desired. Hence, customers still pay much more money for classic classroom teaching,” says Khurana. “I have no sympathy for providers who blame customers for their unwillingness to change – the blame lies squarely with the providers.”

However, this is likely to change as most startups are engaging with education domain experts. To begin with, these startups have singled out problems like direct application for admission to universities around the world, checking institute reviews, and buying study material.

Most of them are focused on building an online community to drive traffic and engagement and eventually build revenue models on top of that.

Engaging community

Among these, Pagalguy, a social networking platform for the management community, is the oldest and claims to be the largest. Students can have discussions among themselves or with professionals on the site. Users can also follow each other and subscribe to relevant discussion threads. Many test prep companies and coaching institutions have created official user accounts and often post information and links to study material.

The startup is founded by Allwin Agnel, a commerce graduate. “It was tough to get a decently paying job without doing an MBA,” says Agnel. And so he decided to pursue the entrepreneurial route, starting a web hosting firm. Unfortunately for Agnel, his venture failed.

Due to parental pressure, he started researching on institutes offering MBA programs but couldn’t find much.

To serve others like him, Agnel set up Pagalguy. He coded the initial platform from whatever little he had learnt from his previous startup.

Meanwhile Agnel went back to university to study entrepreneurship while a two-man leadership team comprised of Rohit Awasthi heading marketing and Apoorv Pandit, content editor, temporarily took the reigns. When he returned, his startup had grown into a full-fledged company of 15.

Allwin Agnel with his Mumbai team