How Pratham Mittal Is Fixing Indian Business Education?

How Pratham Mittal Is Fixing Indian Business Education?

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India's a country of billion  people, but only 700 universities   right so i thought there was a massive  massive scope in creating something very   beautiful in education, something that you  know propels India to the top of sort of these   you know rankings. currently as it stands  hardly any Indian institutions are in the   top 100 yeah i mean and we think that we have  IITs and IIMs and those are great and they are   but on a global platform they're also nowhere and  i thought that maybe i could solve that problem.   So a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of  sitting down and talking to the Pratham Mittal,   the founder of masters union and we talked about  his life and his entrepreneurial journey and there   was no plan, the interview was not scripted there  was no structure to it it was just a free-flowing   conversation but the thing that i found really  fascinating about his story and you can watch   the full conversation by clicking on the link  in the description down below that's the uncut   version of this interview the one that i'm going  to be showing you guys today is just a chunk   of the conversation that him and i had but the  thing that i found really fascinating about his   story is that his entrepreneurial journey actually  began long before he registered his first company   from experimenting with yahoo stores as a kid  to discovering hackathons in his college days   and then building this really fascinating tool  called Nuisance. what's really interesting is how   multiple times in his journey he had to stop short  he wasn't able to fully pursue entrepreneurship   because of the demands and requirements of the  education system that he was in, school ended up   occupying so much of his time and energy that he  couldn't become the entrepreneur that he is today   until he'd finished up with university and  so with his current company masters union,   Pratham is actually creating a place, a program  that allows students to experiment with and pursue   entrepreneurial thinking to a much larger extent  than he was able to during his college days.  

This company encourages students to think  outside of the box and tackle real world   problems in creative ways in fact after we'd  finished recording the interview Pratham told me   that a quarter of the students that went through  their first batch actually went on to found their   own companies for me personally I learned a lot  from the conversation he's a seasoned entrepreneur   at this point so he has tons of gyaan to share  about his personal philosophy, when it comes to   business entrepreneurship and starting up and  i hope that you're able to take away as much   from these two hours as i did during the time  that i personally spent with Pratham Mittal. What would you say was the first experience that  you had that was somewhat entrepreneurial? yeah so   uh i think we just got an internet at home  for the first time this is probably i was   like 10-15 years old and you know at the time on  the internet there were all these ads like make   money like make 100 rupees in one night you  know those clickbait ads they try to tell you   or trick you into like clicking something because  they'll tell you you'll make money this way you'll   make money that way right and i was just  intrigued i was like wait this just sounds   too good to be true right let me give it a shot  so once i clicked on one of those ads which was   basically trying to get me to promote an url uh  for a product i think it was uh um those uh like   phone cases like back in the day you have those  large phones or pagers i feel like there was some   case for that and like hey if you tell 10 of your  friends to click on this link and they purchase   using that link then you get you make all this  money and i was like hey this is easy money   then i started going deeper deeper deeper what  is drop-shipping, what is e-commerce what is   amazon doing, what is like this flipkart thing  right so i just went deeper and deeper and started   understanding a little bit more about the internet  economy so i think that's my initial sort of   curiosity bug right and from there on uh you know  once you're curious enough and once you go deep   into anything that just becomes your passion then  i was like wait all these people are making like   such interesting businesses without any investment  through dropshipping and through e-commerce i   gotta try this i gotta figure it out right and so  i remember setting up at the time some yahoo store   shopify came much later but yahoo stores i think  came in like much earlier just i set up a yahoo   store i didn't even end up selling anything but  just the you know just the fact that i like set up   an account on that website try to sort of like put  on some products as listings etc i mean i think   that was just a lot of fun just to do right um  and then you know then the indian education system   happened to me so this was before boarding this is  before boarding school or during boarding school   okay then i would come back home for holidays but  in the boarding school i would get so busy with   math and science and history that all these things  would sort of go for a toss completely so your   curiosity takes a back seat to the traditional  education which means you have to score well right   i mean you have the you have to of  course because then you have to go to the   you know the best university and then you have  to yeah so you don't have time to yourself uh   and to explore your own passions i think as  an in as a product of indian education system   uh still i think i was lucky because i was in  a boarding school that focused a lot on sports   okay right so i ended up playing a lot of  sports ended up you know swimming quite a   bit all of that stuff so i think i learned  a lot of uh things about life from sport   uh you know about again hustle because you know  one time what happened was that i was swimming and   i said okay i'm gonna be a backstroker right i was  naturally good at it so i became a backstroker and   at that time again uh very early days of youtube  very very early days of youtube and i was like   wait we have a coach here uh and he's teaching  everyone the same backstroke that he knows   i have a feeling that perhaps there's someone  better on youtube who can teach me swimming   better right and so i went on youtube and  there was this video of this guy teaching   backstroke on youtube right and i realized  that our coach had been teaching us something   fundamentally wrong really yeah so i mean like  there's a certain thing you have to do when your   hand goes back and he wasn't teaching us that and  that would easily shave off 20% of your time wow   right and i was like wait he's not teaching us  this now i know something that nobody else does   and the next day or whatever the next week there  was a competition i participated and i won that   i mean i kicked ass in that competition right  and i was like wait i mean i just like you   know there was this information asymmetry  i knew a little bit more than anybody else   sure this is like people call this the unfair  advantage right you had the internet everyone   else had the internet too yeah but you knew how to  leverage it to actually get ahead of in this case   competition um but anyway so you went through that  you went through doing school then you went to   the university of Pennsylvania um i hope I'm not  skipping over any entrepreneurial experiences   along the way because i think the next one that  comes to mind from my research anyways is this   hackathon so yeah i mean it seems like that's  the next experience it could be that there   was something else was there anything  else in between no no so i think i think   entrepreneurship is also like a mindset right  so you're entrepreneurial i was entrepreneur   i think i was entrepreneur in my swimming i was  entrepreneurial when i was applying to colleges   right so for example all my friends thought that  pen was beyond our reach so nobody even applied   right people were like no no we can't  apply to these top 10 because the   sat score requirement is this much and that and  like you know let's give it a shot i mean like   let's set a target let's give it a shot and so i  applied to top 20 all 20 colleges like Harvard,   Yale, Princeton, Pen all of the colleges i just  applied to i was like what's the worst i'll get   rejected but at least i'll know that i tried and  i got rejected from all of them except for Pen   i was like all right one out of 20 times luck  will like save you i don't think i deserved it   at all but i got it i think just because i applied  enough places i was bound to trick somebody into   accepting me that's amazing i think so that's also  entrepreneurial and i think again it comes back to   that same idea of the going on YouTube and looking  for something that nobody else was even thinking   to look for which was how to do the backstroke  properly everybody just assumed that the teacher   was teaching it properly right uh your father  setting up the lovely autos like everybody just   assumed that that was the way to do things you go  to another city to buy your school scooter right   and and and everybody assumed that you can't  set up a private college private university   it's just not possible it can be done right so  the entrepreneur in you in your family and your   bloodline has this propensity to question the norm  and sort of try to see if there's any gaps that   nobody else is noticing because they have this  herd mentality and they don't even look around   to see if there's opportunities lying in weight  yeah bloodline is a stronger word but yeah sorry you know what i think it's just uh i think you  know i think 10% of or maybe 20% of all people   have this right it's also that i was i was very  privileged to to have opportunities to like uh   you know set up a yahoo store i mean i had the  internet i had a computer at home most people   wouldn't have that right so i think it was it  was the perfect storm okay so you went to the   university of Pennsylvania uh which is also very  cool i love talking to entrepreneurs that have   been outside of india that have traveled i'm  assuming you had some american friends while   you're there people from other countries as well  because it's university of Pennsylvania everybody   wants to go um so tell me about this hackathon  that i think you and your friend was it casey   set up yeah yeah okay so were you were you uh  weren't you i think i remember hearing that you   had like sort of taken that idea from Princeton  and did you up yeah so i'll tell you the story   okay sure so it's actually quite interesting um  there was this again this email newsletter and it   said that hey you know there's a startup weekend  happening at Princeton right now this sounds cool   right i mean it's at Princeton you know it'll  be a nice holiday i'll love to see the campus as   well it was like two hours away from where pen was  and so i asked one of my friends i was like dude   i mean there's a startup weekend essentially it's  48 hours of a hackathon we'll go set up an idea   build a team you know build that product and then  we'll see what happens if we win we when but we'll   just go worst comes to worst we would have seen  princeton right it's a beautiful campus right   it's this old victorian campus uh so my friend is  like okay let's let's do it right so we took a bus   to princeton we reached there and um that was that  was it right we just wanted to see princeton and   how far away is princeton from like  a couple of hours okay just like   you took a greyhound yeah yeah yeah megabus  okay so we we we reached princeton and there   we understood the format of the competition  the format was that hey listen you have to   first pitch your idea to the entire audience  and then you have to build your team   and then for 48 hours you have to hack your  product and then at the end of the 48 hours   you have to present and pitch to the investors  or the judges and we said fun okay let's do this   so we had an idea uh we weren't going to do  too many details that's a fun idea you know so   actually let's go into some details uh it was  basically a news product which would give you   personalized news so for example let's say  something happens in japan right like there's   a nuclear attack that happens on japan right  i don't know or is the nuclear leak let's be   less political gosh this has happened so let's say  there's some there's an earthquake in japan right   it's not relevant to you in any way but what this  product would do would tell you exactly which of   your friends associates acquaintances will be most  affected by that depending on you know who was in   japan you know who had maybe done a foursquare  check-in or maybe had put up a facebook update   from japan whatever right so it'll make news very  contextual so we built this product out built a   team of seven eight people uh we had no intention  of winning uh because there were people who were   much older than us they were mba students and  they were phd students and they were all princeton   princeton yeah at the end of the day um and so  we had no like we didn't even try to win right   we just tried to have fun we tried to so we built  a team of five six folks uh you know we worked   over the overnight um and then we hacked out this  product and then we went and presented and it just   so happened that at the end of the presentation  when they were announcing the results um i you   know they start with like rank three like rank two  and then they go to rank one right like you know   third prize second prize first prize and then the  the people who got the third prize were people who   i did not expect to even win right or like even  come top ten how's that more interesting like   maybe we still maybe we actually have a chance  and then second was someone that was predictable   and then third they said nuisance and we're  like wait what like like we didn't believe it   for something and then and so we all went to sort  of accept that price and then there was like this   confusion on my face and the judge who was giving  us a place like why are you so confused why do you   look so confused you actually won that so i think  that victory really gave me a lot of confidence   that hey listen like you know we're not less than  anybody else or like these Princeton folks or   these PhD folks our idea actually had some worth  or some um merit to it and and our execution   wasn't all that bad and our presentation at the  end of the day sort of brought it all together   so that confidence that it gave me was was  transformational i think because i think   that's what validated the entrepreneur  and make you okay you can do this right   and thereafter i sat out of the on-campus  recruitment cycle so at penn we have these like   google and facebook and bain and bcg and mckinsey  all coming in recruiting but i decided not to sit   because i was so sure of then continuing working  on my startup harder wow so you took nuisense   as a as a startup to actually build out as a  founder yeah i was like might as well i mean   like these three judges feel that it's a good  idea i have a team already let's just build   it out wow so we started building it out a team  sorry a team like a group of friends that you so   the people who attended the hackathon  hackathon yeah so you built a team   amongst the people who were at the ag got  it just new people that you've never met   never met before wow never met before so most  of them i mean they left the team obviously   because i mean it was a weekend thing for them  right uh but a couple of them you know stuck by   uh but then even like over a couple of years as we  worked on that idea uh we realized that this idea   is actually not going anywhere because it's very  hard to monetize it's very hard to scale there are   these issues that issues dependency on foursquare  dependency on facebook dependency on twitter   they change their algorithms every day we said  okay forget about it but that insight into all   of those things was amazing sure right you learned  i learned so much about that entire ecosystem apis   how to work with apis because we had to call  all those apis um you know i forced myself to   learn photoshop i forced myself to learn marvel  at that time all these apps to sort of you know   build the initial prototypes etc so all in all  a great experience it ended up completely as a   failed startup but a great experience nonetheless  wow and so thereafter i realized the power of   hackathons and then i started another hackathon  at my own school at penn or hacked the change   with casey which is i think sure we'll  we'll get to that yeah i want to understand   it's a really important experience for you a  failed startup right and i think people skim over   that they don't like to talk about their failures  they just want to move on you want to talk about   masters union you want to talk about more recent  things but i you know so many people who are   watching this video right now are either dreaming  of starting up meaning they're like on the cusp or   they're currently like actually ideating they're  in that that sort of ideation seed stage whatever   stage you want to call it right where they're  they're kind of like trying to find a co-founder   or they're trying to maybe talk to investors  like pitching some sort of prototype or mvp   um that must have been a really difficult thing  for you to let go of right nuisance or not really   were you kind of like oh it's not working out  that's fine i'll just start something else uh   i mean i think i've been working on it for like  over a year so there's something yeah there's a   certain commitment you have right however as soon  as i realized the inherent flaws in the business   it became very easy to let go of it right like i'm  not married to this i'm 21 or 19 at the time or   whatever 20. i'm like you know i can definitely  take the best of my learnings uh and create   something new right so so that's what happened  i mean i didn't get married to it uh it was   very easy to let go it wasn't that hard i mean in  hindsight i'm thinking whether like i really love   that idea enough or not i mean but but i think  i was flexible enough to let go of it i think   i think it's easier no wow i don't know i i get  sometimes i think about startups and businesses   as the same way i look at like relationships and  i feel like a lot of the time the first startup   that somebody creates is almost like their first  love their first girlfriend or whatever it's very   hard to get let go of it's like this very like  you think you're going to get married and have   kids and live happily ever after but maybe coming  from a business background you know your family   you'd seen your dad build multiple things your  grandfather as well maybe you were kind of like   you just didn't have that uh sort of puppy dog  love for your first startup you're like no i   can start another thing later on it's fine  i think i had puppy dog love for starting up   period ah okay right we weren't ready to let go  of that i wasn't later at go of starting up i had   some very good companies offering me jobs right  i mean all of that was there but i i i did not   let go of starting up i let go of that idea and  i knew that idea was going nowhere got it does   that make sense no it does make sense yeah yeah  did you have something that you were like ready   to jump into next or it was kind of like i'll just  wait and see no again i mean like you know college   is hard right uh i mean maybe you know exams or  trials started and then like you know we the focus   completely shifted and then you also want to score  you know you have all these expectations from home   that you'll do well in college so i think um  it was like a zigzag sort of a time right like   entrepreneurial not so entrepreneurial okay some  you have some time become entrepreneurial and then   you have exams and then you let go of it sure so  you sort of you know zigzag a little bit uh but   then uh another thing happened which was that i  i met i was part of this class and in that class   we used to have local companies come in and  give us problem statements that we would   have to solve for right the class was called  engineering entrepreneurship or something right   so solving problems through engineering  essentially and so one of the local companies that   came was this company called philadelphia inquirer  which is a local newspaper in philadelphia one   of the oldest ones and they said hey listen you  know we have this website we run it on wordpress   i don't know exactly so they just run it on  wordpress and then they wanted to run some polls   on the website because elections were coming up  um they're like you know we're gonna do these like   obama versus at that time  romney i think right these polls   and uh right now we have to code these  polls ourselves right and can someone in   the class help us create a system where we  don't have to code these polls every time   and so randy and i randy is one of my friends  from from that same class now my business partner   we decided to build out that small widget or  that small product for philadelphia enquirer   as a project and we send it to them over email  and we said hey listen this is done and they   replied back saying that hey listen here's like  a few thousand dollars um can you like make it   a little bit more secure right like because there  was no security feature that we had built into it   and we said okay thanks for the cash by the  way but so you know we made a few changes   and we sent it back to them and then they sent us  another leg check of like a few thousand dollars   can you make these other improvements and what we  realized was that we were actually building a full   end-to-end product for them which by the way we  could have gone and sold to anybody else as well   so then we went next to new york times and we just  like knocked on john pogue's like office and then   we said hey listen you literally showed up at the  office and just yeah it was in new york we were   interning there with some company um so we just  like went to i think it was 48th and 11th like the   40th 40th street 11th avenue um went up to them  and said hey can we get a meeting with john pogue   they said sure he's upstairs you know 11th floor  go we went to the 11th floor said hey listen you   know we built this thing would you be interested  in trying it out he's like i was looking for   something exactly like this wow and we got a  like like a hundred thousand dollar check from i   mean it took some two three months after that but  essentially we closed new york times as a client   and they're like hey listen we have hit the gold  mine now you know let's just finish college and   like let's go full deep into it none of both of  us are not ready to drop out so we said we'll   do this on the side oh my gosh and that's  when we sort of you know stumbled upon this   sas style pricing you know that 30 a month 60 a  month so we created these three packages like a   startup package and a you know mid-tier enterprise  package and a full large enterprise package   so it was started off thirty dollars per month and  went up to like hundred thousand dollars a month   uh depending on you know what services you were  using seriously a hundred thousand yeah yeah our   largest customer uh like a hundred thousand  a month they were willing to pay that much   their business depends on it wow that's incredible  so what was it like was it profitable then yeah   yeah i mean so the thing is that when is a company  not profitable a company is not profitable when it   spends a lot on marketing right that's usually  the major expense that causes you to burn cash   right um and that's the case with all the indian  startups over the last couple of years right   if your acquisition channel is word of mouth  if your acquisition channel is genuinely the   uniqueness of your product and not just you giving  discounts right in otherwise crowded market you   will be profitable right because even if you look  at for example zomato right on a unit economics   level they are actually profitable but it's just  that as a company they are not profitable similar   i think it's true for various other companies on  academy etc so you know essentially if you get   that cat game right um which if you have a good  product and good uh first initial early adopters   who are ready to sort of you know give the  reference for you i don't think you will be   unprofitable right like i i fail to see sometimes  that and like what are these guys spending money   on why are they not profitable what is like this  600 million dollar bond like why where is that   money going that's what number two the other thing  is that when you're uh acquiring customers right   google and facebook is the easiest way to acquire  customers right you can just throw more money at   google you'll get more customers more money at  facebook more customers not in a sustainable way   though but when you have money it spoils you right  it doesn't force you to think about other cheaper   acquisition channels like this is working  why would i sort of change right so i think   funding and easy funding makes founders lazy  and they stop experimenting with you know   unique acquisition channels they just rely or over  rely on google and facebook and that's when they   become unsustainable and i think it gives them  a false sense of of uh maybe security isn't the   right word success success right like oh we've  got so many customers coming in they don't know   if that's a result of their heavy spend in  marketing or if that's actually people who   are genuinely excited about their product until  the investors stop pouring money into the startup   and then suddenly they're like oh okay it was a  lot a lot to do with the marketing not so much   about the product now we need to quickly scramble  and fix the product up but seems like you were   basically listening to your customers as things  went as you started to improve you're getting more   and more revenue from these customers because the  value that you're adding is increasing day by day   i mean so we built the company over 10 years  had we had funding and we were serious about   it and we were not lazy with it maybe we would  have been able to do that in four five years   i would give you that that i think fundraising  can sort of accelerate the growth right   but it's up to the founder to be  responsible as to how that growth comes   but definitely i mean i think  nothing wrong with fundraising   but i think you have to be you have to be what's  the word responsible yeah you have to use it in in   the right way so um by the way that company  is still in existence all around absolutely   absolutely so randy and i ran that company for  10 years together now randy runs it full time   uh it's still based in the us uh are you still  you guys are the only owners yeah the only owners   um and uh it's been it's been a great experience  i mean like it's a in in hindi we call it dhanda   i don't know if you've come across that term you  haven't dhanda is pure raw business wow right   without these uh embellishments of fundraising and  you know burn and all of that ghanda means like   profit and loss right i feel like the mittal  family is a dhanda family india india's country   like ambani adani etc all these companies they're  all scaled up companies though those are yeah the   traditional you know big companies but when we  talk about startups that's a that's a different   thing right i'm not sure i mean i i challenge  you a little bit there i think there are plenty   of tech companies that did not fundraise and  have scaled up i mean fresh work soho nakri   i mean these are not companies that raised funds  early on in their lives yeah and they became   profitable and then they raised maybe a little bit  of money or went public uh to raise more funds but   uh i think you'll find more successful examples  of bootstrapped companies in india than successful   examples of non-bootstrap companies in azeroth i  mean you talk about zoroza so much on your channel   yeah yeah yeah 10 years building outgrow  and then what was the point where you   i mean you you would have  learned so much along the way   right about leadership about building a startup  uh not about fundraising a lot of time saved yeah   because so many founders spend all of their  time out there like my two co-founders   one is like the stakeholder management founder  and one is the ops founder yeah one of them is   just on a plane constantly so you saved  yourself a bunch of time um what was the   point where you kind of started to realize that  maybe it's time for me to start something else   so uh outgrow is a niche right uh we don't have  too many customers right we have limited set of   customers and we don't intend to have more  right because we have to service them well   so at a point um you know two things happened in  around just before cover two things happened one   was that outgrow as a product uh was reaching  maturity right there was only so much that i   as a product person could bring to it right um  and randy who runs the business side of things   the sales and the marketing side of things his job  was now more important so essentially we discussed   that you know he will take over the company and  at the same time i wanted to move back to india   uh okay because i had been out of india for  a while and i never intended to leave india   and i felt that with all the knowledge that i  had gained in the u.s working on outgrow from   penn i thought the dividend that i'll be able to  extract out of that in india would be a lot more   than it would be in new york right also i wanted  to work in education in india because my parents   had been working in education in india and i saw  how fulfilling it was for them to be in education   right so i thought that education is  something that has a couple of things   going for it first it has great gross margins  right so you don't have to rely on fundraising   so that's the kind of business that i want to  run where i don't have to rely on fundraising   um second that it has a lot of impact  right people are straightaway touched   and thirdly uh you don't have to haggle with  the customer they're only a few things in life   that people save for right buying a home right  education um uh maybe a car um but that's about   it right so when people have already made up  their mind that they have to spend on education   um you know it's easier to sort of to close that  deal right um so having did you when you went to   college i know you dropped out of when you went  to college did you negotiate your fees no never   right nobody does yeah who does right so i thought  that with all those things going for it education   would be like the right space for me to enter but  most importantly it was also that india needed   good institutions right uh india is a country  of billion people but only 700 universities   right so i thought there was massive massive scope  in creating something very beautiful in education   uh something that you know propels  india to the top of sort of these   you know rankings um currently as it stands  hardly any indian institutions are in the top 100   of either business schools or engineering  schools or i've no i've noticed that yeah   i've always wondered that too because you hear all  about the ivy leagues and oxford cambridge yeah   you know universities in germany etc but none in  india yeah i mean and we think that we have iits   and ims and those are great and they are but on  a global platform they're also nowhere uh and   i thought that maybe i could solve that problem  um why did you decide i know you said you wanted   to get back to india and you would also identify  this this problem was there any like was there any   hesitation there like should i start a company in  the united states or go back to india like i feel   like a lot of people idolize this life of you know  moving to the united states as a startup founder   be in new york right the big apple you know  a lot of people would would decide or opt to   stay in the united states once they've and you've  spent 10 years right you've built up probably a   group of friends you know you you have your  favorite cafe and restaurant like your life is   there right um what was the thought process there  coming back to india or was it like a non-decision   you're like this is just what has to no i think  it's a very utilitarian decision right i mean i   i remember like you know making an excel sheet  and comparing the two options opportunities   the thing is that in india uh other  than the fact that i had my parents here   the opportunities in india are boundless right in  the u.s first of all the market is of 300 million  

in india it's one point something billion right  so first of all the market is much larger number   two the market is very underpenetrated right for  every you know one company in india there are 10   in the us right so when you enter a market in  the us you're already competing with a bunch of   folks in india when you enter into a market more  often than not you're competing with fewer folks   and by virtue of my experience in the u.s i  thought i would have a natural advantage over them   which by the way turned out to be wrong in some  cases because they knew the market in india a   lot better than i did but still i thought  that i had some maybe you know technical   dividend or maybe i had some you know insights  that might be helpful in india so you know in   that sense i realized that you know to build  a business in india would be a lot simpler   than the us also in the us human resources very  expensive right in india as compared to your   revenue um or your overall cost the human  resource cost is actually slightly lesser   so all those factors i realize that if i have  to start a company might as well do it in india   and also education is a much bigger  problem in india than it is in the us   very it's still a problem in the u.s by the way  of course a big one but in india it's it's it's   a lot more grave so i thought you know india  would be the right place all right so you made   up your mind packed your bags bought your tickets  or did you already start planning the the company   while you were in the u.s or was it like feed  on the soil i'm here in india now let's start   um i forget actually i think it  was a little bit of both right   i knew that i had to do something in education but  then i came back and then like spent two months   having conversations with stakeholders talking to  students talking to my dad market research market   research um and then after doing all of that i  realized that hey listen okay i've made a lot   of mistakes in life i don't want to repeat any of  those right um so one of the mistakes that i had   made was you know spending too much time thinking  and building the product before going to market   right so here i thought you know i'm going to go  to market first right and then build the product   around sort of the problems that i see um so  lots of those learnings i utilized in in in   you know in this chapter two um and then uh so  i think it was like a mix of it so i knew which   industry i wanted to get into but to figure out  exactly what i wanted to do maybe a couple of   months of market research i think we we kind of  skimmed over that with outgrow but i think what   you're hinting at with the problems that you or  the mistakes you made in the past was that you had   kind of gotten this early validation from those  customers and so you like built out the product   really quickly but then it was really messy and  sloppy and you and you realize that like a lot   of this stuff is not even adding value and nobody  even wants to use these features and so was that   kind of what happened without grow yeah i mean so  outgrow was an unplanned product and that's what   it looked like at the end of five years so for the  next leg of our journey we had to really sort of   uncook that entire meal and cook it again right  in a way that made sense so with master's union so   with masters you don't want to make sure i don't  make that same mistake and that i know enough   about the market beforehand that i plan my product  and i plan my approach in a strategic way right   not just sort of throw darts um at the world so  what did that what did that like consist of uh in   in you know the real world you first do a little  bit of market research you're talking to people   then what you start building or i mean so  i planned it like you know so masters union   is a planned project right i knew on day zero  exactly how much money you would have in the bank   in year three in year four in year five right so  masters union was a very well thought out business   plan and playbook and execution plan and we have  stuck to it right so i sat down spent a couple of   months just sort of making sure that you know okay  in first year we're going to target these many   students and year two we're gonna target these  many students in tier three because of the kind of   results you would have given in year one we would  we can target these many students this is how   much you would spend in marketing i knew exactly  how much you know what the the keyword mba costs   right on google so i'm budgeted for that i knew  exactly what kind of conversion rates i would   have right because of all the 10 years of work  that we had put in we knew exactly you know what   these economics and these funnels look like so  we planned for all of that and so when we sort   of built the car essentially on paper and then we  sort of wanted to manufacture and build the campus   we just had to execute the playbook that we'd  already planned out got it right so um you know   on day one we you know launched our website  um and by the way we didn't even have a campus   right we started building the campus once  the first class had already been admitted   oh right what did did that uh did that  sorry what's it called cohort yeah did   they did their opinions inform your  decisions about building the campuses   right so for example first year i said that you  know i'm going to target 60 students right uh   and you know this would be their age category this  will be their experience this will be all of that   but would i be able to get those kind of students  i had enough confidence that i would be able to   but it wasn't for certain right now imagine if i  built this beautiful campus right i spent money   doing that uh and then students actually don't  end up joining for whatever reason and by the way   we'll speak covet right so there's another risk  there right that what if like i you know schools   were shutting down the shutting down right and we  actually built our masters union in the middle of   pandemic like wave one by the way and uh so  there was a lot of uncertainty so we said all   right let's first admit the students let's first  admit the students let's go through the admissions   process and once we know that they're coming in  then we'll start building the campus and in fact   uh you know you have you require like capex right  you need to spend money building these walls and   carpets and you know tables and chairs and so  it was only when the students paid their fees   i was going to ask about that right i was like  how did how did you do this financially like so   you actually that's like taking a a note out of  these like ev startups right they take pre-orders   they use the pre-order money to build the product  that's what we did i mean it's kickstarter right   essentially yeah so we we we collected the fees  from our first cohort whatever like little amount   it was and then we used that to build the campus  wow so we had a negative working capital problem   right we didn't have to raise capital then so uh  education for the last five ten fifteen thousand   years has not changed it's still the same where  a teacher comes in front of a bunch of students   speaks something the students take notes  or make mental notes and then there's an   exam at the end of which it is tested whether  the students understood what the teacher said   that has not changed maybe it has come online  some of those aspects but still it's somebody   talking to somebody and somebody sort of taking  an exam right it's still the same education has   not changed and we know that to an extent this  works but it doesn't work very very well right   and if i were to ask you a question right  or if i were to ask anybody a question here   uh what is the one thing that you remember from  your classroom or from your college time right   more often than not people will have an answer  which has nothing to do with the courses they took   it would be you know the experiences they had  in the hostel it would be the experiences they   had running a club it would be the experiences  they had starting a company but it would never   be that hey you know what i learned this concept  in a classroom and that was the most rewarding   experience of my college life we forget all that  stuff we forget all of that that means whatever   we are learning from college or what we value at  a college is everything except for the classroom   but we spend for the classroom right we pay  money to sit in a classroom so i think what   what we understood or what the hypothesis  was that hey listen we need to look at the   education system from a different lens  right and we have to throw out all the   norms and all the sort of understandings of how  things work today right we have to sort of look   at it from ground up and recreate it right and  so we thought we'll do three things essentially   three experiments the first experiment was  that we'll try to bring in practitioners   rather than career academics to  come and teach in the classroom the reason for this was that in the us and  india across the world you have people who   are teaching in a classroom many of who have never  actually worked in the industry so you're learning   computer science from somebody who might  have never worked in the software industry   right and maybe what they're teaching  you is useful to you sure but   i think there is somebody else who maybe can  teach those concepts better and we always say   that you know our graduates are not employable and  all of that this is the reason if people who are   teaching them are not the people who have worked  in the industry how do you expect the students   to be ready for the industry now if you think of a  medical college right a medical college always has   teachers who are actual doctors who are doing  surgeries right so why is that not the case   in computer science education or in business  education or in any other field right so uh   so that was the first experiment we wanted to  run which is can we bring in practitioners to   come and teach and of course we'll have academics  as well who will bring rigor to the classroom   who will bring uh who make sure that the students  are serious about the assignments and all of that   so you need sort of a mixture of the two um so  that was experiment one second experiment was   that we said you know what we will not do classes  traditionally we will not have accounting 101 and   management 101 and you know computer science 101  we will not have um you know exams at the end of   every class where you know there's 100 marks  and then 20 marks of practical and t marks of   theory and all of that just throw all of that out  what we do here in masters union is essentially   we've divided the year into eight terms and  in each term students run a business right   in term one as it stands today they're running  an e-commerce drop shipping business so all   the students and teams of five will be running a  business and competing with each other on revenue   not grades so wait are they literally generating  revenue they're literally generating revenue   huh wow right so someone's someone's running  uh sort of a store where they sell you know   bed sheets right that are star wars themed  right someone's selling you know phone covers   and someone selling cutlery someone's you know  so people are actually doing remember what i use   the word right so business school teaches you  nothing if not how to make money right so first   term itself they're building a business they  will make mistakes they will get things wrong   but because it's no investment there's no  investment required right there's nothing to lose   only some things to learn this was my experience  in school where i wanted to get out there   into the real world and start making mistakes  and making money right consequence and reward   but the thing is that it's very scary when you get  out there because you don't have any safety net   you don't have a master's union or like a safety  net to kind of protect you from the real world so   here there's a bit of a buffer right it's like  we're building something but there's also not   really a huge investment there's also not really  huge consequences because if i make a mistake   it's actually a benefit because i learn from that  mistake so that when i do get in the real world   i can actually you know perform better absolutely  i mean see in college it's risk free right you've   already paid the fees you're already here you're  here to learn now now you know and universities   and colleges were safe spaces for experimentation  that's why they existed in the first place   we made them about exams and about classes  but that's not how it's supposed to be   um so in term one they build this drop shipping  business in term two they're all gonna be building   a blockchain business in term three they're gonna  all be building a youtube page and they're gonna   make money off of that youtube page in term five  they're gonna build um uh a cloud kitchen in   term six number seven so similarly they're gonna  create these eight businesses and they're gonna   learn business by creating these eight businesses  and making mistakes and doing all of those things   right we have professors and practitioners and  academics who come in but they come in and teach   workshops that directly help these businesses  that they run right so today that they're   doing this this drop shipping business we have  someone who's coming in and teaching them you   know direct to consumer branding how that works  we have somebody coming and teaching supply chain   we have somebody coming in teaching accounting  so that you can keep accounts right so those   things help the business directly and there are  practical skills that they need to learn as well   right absolutely what happens in schools is that  you learn something and you only get to apply it   four years later when you graduate by that time  you're forgotten right so here you get to apply   all the stuff that you learn in courses right  in the evening as you build those businesses   so that's how we're trying to create a  differentiated higher education institution   right and the third experiment we wanted to run  was that we wanted to mix business and technology   right so most universities are like hey listen  here's an engineering degree and here's a business   degree right and you choose one of the two but  that's not how the world functions right i mean   you run your own uh youtube channel it requires  tech and it requires business understanding right   similar is the case with most of  the businesses out there so students   today in masters union  study both business and tech   right so that's why we don't call ourselves an mba  we call it tbm technology and business management   so those three experiments are  around which we created masters union   and and you know built our first cohort  i don't know how exactly to frame this   but i'm listening to you describe masters  union what you're offering to your students   and i can't help but look back on the story  that you've already told me about your life   dune school you're building a yahoo store you  go to university of pennsylvania you're building   nuisance and you never got a chance to really  build those out fully you never got a chance you   also didn't have mentors who are like coaching  you or teachers in this case or professors who   are actually like walking with you through that  journey or maybe you did i'm not sure if you   ever shared this with your instructors you  might have talked about it but you didn't have   something like masters union where they're  actually like a structured way exactly you   never had that opportunity and so i i don't know  if you've ever looked at it from this perspective   but it really feels like you are trying to give  students what you did not have while you were   going through school in the traditional education  right now you're offering an alternative education   essentially right it is like a a business school  but it's structured in a different way right you   guys are doing you're doing something innovative  disruptive i don't know do you ever like it's a   great point actually i never thought of it like  that it's almost yeah it's like subconscious right   like you're just kind of you have you had that  desire when you were growing up and now you're   you're not able to go back in time yeah but you're  able to offer it to other students i i generally   never thought of it like that but i think to me  that's how learning happens you can only learn by   doing you cannot learn by sitting in a classroom  i just don't think learning happens that way uh   you know there's a class called accounting uh  fundamentals of accounting or something right   uh that was the most boring class i did when i was  in college right i used to wake up in the morning   and like accounting class i mean i don't know when  i'll use this uh i don't think i'm gonna become an   accountant i know it's important because you know  to run a business but it was just very irritating   to be in that class at masters union one of our  very popular courses is accounting and the reason   for that is that the professor the way he teaches  accounting is that he tells you that the business   that you're running in the evening i'm going  to check the books for that business every day   right and i'm going to see exactly how clean  those books are i'm going to see you know   exactly like how close to standards the  balance sheet is what is the quality of   you know the appropriations all of those things  right and he's basically built it into a game   right and so even though accounting in an  alternate universe or in an original i mean in   other universities is considered a boring course  here because they get to apply it and learn from   it in real life and see you know how it impacts  the business maintaining those books i think it   improves the student engagement in the class like  a hundred fold definitely it feels it feels real   but it's not real right he's not actually the  income tax department but he's pretending to be   exactly whereas in a traditional education there's  not even that professor who's watching over your   shoulder and trying to coach you along the way  right it's just like textbook exams assignments   that are just you put it so well i mean he's not  the income tax department but he is that's so   that's perfect it's great right i love it i love  this side he's gonna audit the books yeah just   the way perfect yeah and the thing the thing too  like that i just can't believe that i can't wrap   my head around is that if if i heard about if i  if i hadn't met you if i hadn't researched master   masters union i would have just assumed that  this is like a very idealistic company and you   know your your your customers your students who  are coming here they don't really they're not   going to actually get anything out of this right  they have a great experience they had their uh 16   months right and then they left and they actually  went and did a real education so that they could   get their degree and get a job but but the crazy  thing is that when you graduate from masters union   you actually get a job and you get a  salary or an offer that's higher than most   most is it most iims most yeah yeah right yeah  that's the thing that blows my mind because that   that's like proof that this actually works  right i remember the story of dipinder goyal   he finished his college he actually couldn't get  a job that's the way he said it i'm not sure if   that's that's the reality but the way he said it  was kind of like or at least he couldn't get a job   that he wanted you anyone can get a job you can  get a job at mcdonald's right but he didn't want   like some low-level job he wanted a a good job and  he couldn't find anything i guess maybe his grades   were a little bit low or something i could be  wrong about that but then he went and started the   sort of early version of zumato which was  foodlet called foodlit at the time that failed   but he spent time building it up right he had  a small team of people and then when he went to   go and apply for bain and company that was what he  showed them during the interview he said i've just   spent time i've been building this company food  lit it didn't work out but these are the things   that i learned along the way and they hired him  because of that like that's what he said he's like   i probably would not have gotten the job at bain  if i hadn't started foodland so it sounds like   it's sort of a similar thing right it's exactly  that i mean if i mean i recruit people right i'm   an employer here and if somebody comes and tells  me listen i started a company didn't work out   but these are my learnings from it i know three  things one is that the person is entrepreneurial   so he's going to be entrepreneurial in the job  he's he has or she has that dna second is that   they've learned from their mistakes and that's  the nature that they they carry and thirdly that   they're hustlers yeah i mean you know they've  they've like done something which is hard which   maybe like 90 people won't even think of  doing so you have to give them that and   that's straight away like a 10 or 10 on attitude  and you know so even if the skill is slightly less   i would still prefer that person over someone who  has a skill but does not have the entrepreneurial   bug or dna so basically anybody who's watching  wants a job at masters union those are the three   things that you need to have in order to get a job  okay the next thing i want to talk to you about   again coming back to the current landscape in the  edtech space we're kind of realizing now in this   funding winter there's a lot of com and we're  talking about this earlier too there's a lot of   companies that are not profitable they're losing  they're burning through tons of money and as soon   as the investors back off then suddenly they  just crumble and they go out of business right   um so is masters union sort of aiming towards  profitability and and if so like what are some of   the initiatives that you guys are actually using  to get to that to that point no it's you know   very interesting uh globally education businesses  are some of the highest gross margin businesses   right so when all these tech companies were not  making money i was thoroughly confused as like it   does not make sense it's impossible to lose money  in education right universities schools colleges   across the world if you look at harvard's like  balance sheet it looks so pretty like if it if   harvard was a business i'm sure it would be as  big as like apple right if it was a it was like   a listed business you know right okay in terms of  like the the price to earnings ratio in terms of   beta margins in terms of all of those things right  so when these tech companies are not making money   um it begs the question why are they losing money  right the reason a lot of tech companies are   losing money is because their core dna is sales  and not outcomes right when you have to sell a   product right and when you have to push somebody  to buy that product from you your cac will rise   but on the other side if you are  giving outcomes to your students   they will go and market your product for you let's  let's compare uh there's this company called allen   i don't know if you've heard of allen yeah  are they quota based the quota based uh   uh the tuition the je tuition and need tuition  company right uh they are probably some two   lakh students may be enrolled in island i  think their marketing budget is minuscule   right because they're on one ad or maybe a  couple of ads every year where they say hey   you know what j rank one my student j rank two my  student j rank three my student that's all they   need to do it's an announcement post right  but on the other hand some edtech companies   feel the need to like hey you know our product is  40 000 rupees but you get 20 20 discounts so it's   30 000 rupees whatever right let me give another  example right so when we have some online programs   as well called master camps that we run which are  fully online so when people apply to a master camp   they actually have to pay me an application  fees oh right with other ed texts by mistake   if you leave your email somewhere in their  jungle they will call you a hundred times   so you see the difference in the approach  right where if you are a institution that   gives outcomes people will actually pay you  to apply to your college but if you're not   the kind of institution that is offering  outcomes and just sort of selling a product   then sort of you'll have to sell you know  so that's really the

2022-08-24 22:49

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