Passion to deliver high quality education and comprehending the gap of privatisation in education industry has lead to the emergence of Edukart.com. In an interview Ishan Gupta, Co-founder and CEO, Edukart.com shares the inception of the brand.
Neha Gohil (NG): Share with us your entrepreneurial journey. Briefly describe Edukart?
Ishan Gupta (IG): The journey so far has been great. It is amazing to see that the response that we have received in just few months. We have gone onto become one of most visited online education portals in the country. We are working continuously to reach out to maximum audience and gaining maximum visibility for the company. EduKart.com, India’s leading online education portal, delivers industry relevant courses in the areas of Retail Management (certified by Retailers Association of India), Financial Management, Digital Marketing, Programming Languages and Project Management. The online courses are ideal for students and working professionals who want to upgrade their educational qualifications and make advancements in their careers.
NG: How did you conceptualise this business idea? What are the major growth drivers?
IG: During our undergraduate days, we realised that the higher education system in India needs more private participation to improve the quality of education and this thought inspired me start my own venture and the passion for bringing improvement in the existing education system led me to start EduKart.com. We at EduKart.com believe in reaching out maximum number of audience with industry relevant education at affordable price points.
NG: What is the USP of your brand?
IG: Industry relevance, high quality, unlimited academic telephonic support and CD included in the course fee. Our courses are job description specific and have been whetted by industry experts making them relevant and appropriate for the requirements of the industry. Therefore, the participants can pursue our courses anywhere and anytime and just call us up whenever they want academic support.
NG: Who are your target customers? What all courses you offer?
IG: Our target audience is in the age group of 18 to 32 which includes under graduates, post-graduates as well as working professionals as these are people who are actively consuming content on the internet. We have many industry relevant courses in areas of retail, finance, digital marketing, project management, and programming languages which are all available online on EduKart.com
NG: What made you venture into franchising? What kind of business opportunity do you offer to the franchisees?
IG: Franchising is a great opportunity for both partners to gain revenue apart from the traditional sales channels. It allows us to expand and reach out to more audiences. It helps us build the brand and brings in a lot of visibility for the brand. Moreover, it’s an opportunity for the partners to diversify their business.
NG: What are the major challenges that franchisee faces while operating a franchise of your brand? What solutions do you offer?
IG: The major challenge that we face is the acceptability towards online education. Consumers in smaller states are still not very open towards learning online. We educate them about the benefits of online education and share the value proposition with them and so far we have been successful in that.
NG: What kind of training and support do you provide to a franchisee for maintaining standardisation?
IG: We organise training sessions through our counselors for their staff to understand and internalise the pedagogy and product (or courses) well. Also, entire logistic, operational and process building support is undertaken by EduKart.com.
NG: Tell us about your brand’s presence. How many of your institutes are franchised or company-owned?
IG: Our first franchise has been in Jaipur, launched in the month of April named as Ganesham Skills Academy, a part of Chandra Group. We would be launching more in times to come in state capitals.
NG: What are your company’s expansion plans? Which cities are you targeting?
IG: Our vision is to become the leading destination for online education and not only in India but many other emerging economies of the world which can benefit from high quality, industry relevant certificate courses at affordable price points.
We are targeting more on the tier II and tier III cities where there is a boom in the number of entrepreneurs but the lack of enough knowledge and upgrading themselves with the latest trends hold them back somewhere. The young entrepreneurs understand education as experiential learning and therefore, we are seeing a launch of lot of innovative courses which are much more industry relevant instead of theoretical.
NG: Is the business lucrative for aspirants?
IG: With the onset of e-commerce in India, online education is becoming a rage amongst the college students as well as working professionals because of its ease of access and affordability. Online education in India will definitely gain pace and become a well accepted medium to up skill oneself.
NG: What are your expectations from franchisees in terms of educational and professional background?
IG: Franchisees should have the ability to deliver trainings or create point of sales to sell courses. Since it’s an education product franchise, we have a bent to enroll franchisees who have had at least bachelors level education.
