EduCrack CEO Anand Bhushan Discusses Innovative Test Prep Solutions for Revolutionizing Education With Technology
Year End StoriesThe EdTech industry has grown significantly in recent years as technology has become more widely available and more integrated into education. Edtech products and services are used in a variety of settings, including traditional classroom-based education, online and distance learning, and informal learning environments.
According to a MarketsandMarkets report, the Edtech and Smart Classrooms market is expected to grow from $125.3 billion in 2022 to $232.9 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 13.2% during the forecast period.
For this Interview, we invited, Anand Bhushan, CEO of EduCrack, and we talked about the growth, challenges, insights, and future opportunities in the ed-tech industry.
StartupTalky: Mr Anand Bhushan, please tell us about EduCrack. What was the motivation/vision with which you started?
Anand Bhushan: The company EduCrack is a Next-Gen EdTech company empowering the Test Prep Industry to help their students to follow their dreams by providing them with best-curated content by mentors, along with unbeatable test series through Technology enabled state of an art platform. The vision behind EduCrack was to leverage Technology to bring Education, specifically Competition preparation to the reach of all aspiring students, so that they can fulfill their dreams. Our Founder Mr Neeraj Sharma has a clear vision that âanyone who is willing to gain knowledge should never be left behind irrespective of their geographical and socio-economic conditions.'
StartupTalky: What other products/features have been added in the past year? What is/are the USP/s of your product?
Anand Bhushan: A technology platform which is state of the art but easy to use, incorporating AI and ML, Educators who are the best mentors for their respective content and subject, unbeatable test series, and AI-enabled Interview Evaluation and Feedback for preparation of interviews.
StartupTalky: How has the ed-tech industry changed in recent years, and how has EduCrack adapted to these changes?
Anand Bhushan: The industry has changed drastically in the last few years. From an industry, which was predominantly in the physical mode of teaching, learned to go online during a pandemic and online teaching with the use of technology became paramount. Post-pandemic, there was an immediate surge of getting back offline and corrections happened for the industry. Big shake-ups happened, and those having overleveraged have suffered in terms of revenue, students, and erosion of profits. Now things are stabilizing and finding a mid-way as a Hybrid model where online is going to complement offline and vice versa. We realized that this shake-up was bound to happen and had prepared ourselves as an academic and technology solution provider to the Test Prep industry across the country so that we are part of the Hybrid, and also in sync with the vision of imparting knowledge to anyone who is willing, irrespective of geographical considerations.
StartupTalky: How do you stay up-to-date on the latest trends and developments in the ed-tech industry?
Anand Bhushan: The basics remain the same. You keep your eyes open, and ears to the ground to hear the rumblings and changes around you. Industry forums are a great way to understand the developments. The web has become a big source of updating oneself with the latest trends, provided you can separate out the wheat from the chaff.
StartupTalky: What key metrics do you track to check the company's growth and performance?
Anand Bhushan: The key metrics are both tangible and non-tangible. A few of them being the acquisition of number of students and institutes, the number of courses being added, refinement in the tech platform, usage of AI-enabled interview process, quality of the test series and what the market is saying about it, happiness quotient of the partners being associated with us and the growth in revenues and student acquisition for them.
StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges EduCrack faced in the past year and how did you overcome them?
Anand Bhushan: With the opening up of restrictions post-pandemic, students vying more for offline classes on the rebound was a big challenge. EduCrack overcame it in two ways, one by the usage of social media for pushing in and showing to the students, the quality of our content and mentors as well as free tests for them to gauge the relevance and quality of test series. And secondly turning as an Academic and Technology Solutions provider to the predominantly offline test prep industry, so as to enable them to run a hybrid model and disseminate knowledge to more students.
StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack which you pulled off.
Anand Bhushan: Strategies for most of the edtech companies remain the same. It is the effectiveness with which you execute them that creates the difference in the market. One of the things which were effective for us was a six-hour marathon problem-solving session on all three sections of CAT by our mentors, in front of a live audience of students and also being streamed live directly. The program was much appreciated by our competitors as well.
StartupTalky: What are the important tools and software you use to run EduCrack smoothly?
Anand Bhushan: Without getting into the specifics, I would like to say that almost all of the digital technology EduCrack uses is developed in-house, including the LMS. We have also developed, in association with our partners, an AI-enabled Interview assessment and feedback tool, which assess on the broad parameters of verbal, and non-verbal cues and sentiment analysis. In addition, we use tools like Google meet, Google Docs, Zoom, etc.
StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in your industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you seen within states in India?
Anand Bhushan: Growth potential and opportunities are going to be there both in India and World. Some shake-ups are bound to happen, but the resilient will stay, adapt and grow. With the coming of Web 3.0, there would be a lot of positive changes happening in the education industry, and new possibilities opening up. In India, with the NEP being implemented, changes will happen in the way the education industry is being run today. Metros as usual will be the first to react and respond to the changed behavior of the markets. In the Corporate world also, despite the talk of global recession, India hopefully will not be much impacted and growth will continue leading to more hiring and better hiring solution requirement.
StartupTalky: What lessons did your team learn in the past year and how will these inform your future plans and strategies?
Anand Bhushan: The biggest lesson in the past year was that markets are going to be dynamic and fluid. Agility is going to be the key with fast decision-making and low turnaround time. Lean teams are the norm of the day and going forward too, with multitasking skills to look for in each employee.
StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, product, and team base in the future?
Anand Bhushan: Our expansion is going to be in two domains.
One as an Academic Content and Technology solution provider to the Test Prep industry. Providing them with a robust platform to augment their offline classes and helping them with online tests and content, so as to make it easier for them to cater to a larger student base with quality and convenience at their fingertips.
The second domain will be as a Recruitment solution provider to the Corporates, by way of providing them AI-enabled interview process for recruitment screening.
StartupTalky: One tip that you would like to share with people reading this article who want to get into entrepreneurship.
Anand Bhushan: There is never a shortcut to success. Itâs going to be a long haul. Strategies get overturned, revamped, and re-executed but you have to be resilient, once you have chosen a way forward, which your research has shown to be the right path. And finally. Never ignore your gut instinct.
We thank Anand Bhushan for spending his valuable time and sharing his learnings with all of us.
You can read other Recap'22 Interviews here.
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