An excerpt:
Q: What was the trigger for getting into this business?
A: After coming back from the states I was approached by friends and cousins about various scholarships, application procedures and programmers in the US. There existed a wide gap which needed to be filled in. The first hand experience I could offer as a Michigan graduate seemed to help people and gradually through word of mouth we were approached by more and more people. Most of these students turned into friends over the course of the application procedure as we spent lengthy, exhaustive hours with them.
Our objective is to emerge as one-stop-solution to an aspiring student’s needs in areas of aptitude tests, SAT, TOEFL, IELTS, GMAT, e-counseling, college short listing, essays & SOP writing, scholarship & student loans, editing and proofreading, visa documentation, currency exchange, flight & travel services.
Q: How has the company grown over the years in terms of revenue?
A: We have grown at a rate of almost 400 per cent Yoyo. We never really marketed our services as we already had enough students coming in through word of mouth which saved us a lot of marketing expenses. We hope to cross our Rs 15 crore mark by 2017. Our growth falls in line with our targeted trajectory. We have very heavy expansion plans for this year and are looking to jump growth by almost 600 per cent.
Nearly 10 per cent of our company’s revenues are allocated towards building a scholarship fund which we plan on introducing later on this year which shall help students based on merit and need. Last year we used the money to distribute books and stationery. We are also tying up with various organisations which can help us shortlist schools or areas where we can actively help the needy.
Q: How do you stand out amongst the competitors?
A: We are quite new amongst our competitors and there are a lot of people in this industry who have been there for a long time and they have worked hard to get to where they are.
We are not tied up with any colleges / universities or institutes nor do we work as commission agents. We charge a fee and we try to push students towards top universities based on their academic history. We even ask them to apply to a few universities beyond their league; you never know when someone gets lucky. So if the cut off for a university is 95 per cent we do encourage students with even 93 per cent to take a chance. As many as 16 of our students appeared for the Oxford and Cambridge entrance exams. We ask them to take chances – if they don’t make it – well we already knew that but you never know when someone gets lucky.
We had our first student get into Oxford which, as we are expecting shall increase the number of student footfall in the office. Our crew is entirely made up of students who have worked / lived or studied abroad. We have done very well last 3 years – students are happy and we hope we continue with the trend.
Q: Do you have any plans to brunch out to other states? If so why, when and how?
A: Yes, we are looking at a few cities, and by 2017 we will have about 3 more offices in some of the bigger cities. But the smaller cities and towns are a bigger focus as many of these really bright kids in two tier cities have excellent academic performance, they are brilliant but don’t have the exposure or guidance for higher education. So the smaller towns are a bigger priority.
Q: How many students move out for higher studies from Bengal visa vies national average?
A: After China and South Korea, India stands third on the list of students opting for study abroad. About 150,000 students leave India on a yearly basis for undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD programs. The market in Calcutta is much smaller compared to Delhi or Mumbai but most students from Kolkata opt for various Masters or Research Programs.
I don’t even think that Bengal represents even 5 per cent of these 150,000 students due to lack of awareness mostly. But based on their outstanding parental upbringing Bengalis do stand amongst the top performers in all of these countries and do have a much higher chance of acquiring a specialist job compared to others.
Q: What is the growth rate you are looking at?
A: We expect the market to grow by 12 per cent at least year on year. But growth also requires more learned; educated and smarter people to come and help out this booming generation. The cost of an undergraduate degree in the US costs about Rs 1.3-1.5 crore.
Q: Do you have any fund raising plans to back up your expansion?
A: We do have a new project coming up called I Cud B – Pronounced “I could be” and acroymed for International Colleges &Universities Data Base. It shall house university profiles and make it very easy for a student to determine based on their academic performance where to apply and what places shall be suitable for them. Besides that we have a huge online test bank to help kids master GMAT, GRE, etc. The site’s name itself will help students with counseling and help explore new fields.
We are sufficiently well funded as of now but during the expansion stage we may seek investors whom we are already in talks with.