‘It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry,’ so said the great Albert Einstein!
Yes, it is a miracle no doubt, but the greater miracle perhaps is the fact that there are a few mavericks to this day who are busy creating a cocoon for nurturing the quality of enquiry in young minds, who are braving all odds to help intuitive learning find its place of pride amid the cesspool of rote learning and formulaic instruction of ludicrous promises and tall claims.
One such maverick is Rajesh Balasubramanian, Founder-Director at 2IIM, a CAT coaching company which is clearly a cut above the rest, with no claim to that effect!
I have personally scanned the length and breath of the online CAT coaching space as a pure pastime {with no skin in the game and no vested interest} to find all kinds of players – great, good, bad, and ugly – pervading this territory. Focusing only on the bright side, I never cease to marvel how dynamic and selfless folks like Ravi Prakash, Gaurav Kapoor, Belvi Srinivas, Anastasis Shankar, Bhanu Rana, Ronak Shah, Raman Tiwari, Ravi Teja, Gautam Puri, and Maruti Konduri et al go about sharing their profound knowledge and actionable insights with anyone and everyone keen to absorb them.
And yet, it is amply clear that Rajesh Balasubramanian’s 2IIM more than provides what is sorely lacking in the CAT exam market of high competition and higher stakes. The market vacuum, I believe, is the outcome of a serious void created by misleading “crack CAT” claims and counterclaims, more than a consequence of a glaring paucity of credible and comprehensive prep literature.
To me, one of the most striking aspects of 2IIM’s profound content is the smartly articulated preface and sport-centric analogies, precise and purposeful in their expanse and effect, amply reflective of the founder’s mastery over the subject matter (just to cite a case in point, the witty preface to the topic ‘Progressions’ reads “All things must progress, and progression is always a steady incline. Unless you have a negative common difference”)
Unlike a few others I approached (who initially agreed for an interview and later abruptly disconnected without a word), Rajesh graciously replied in the affirmative when I proposed an agenda-free, freewheeling interaction. Knowing that he takes leadership lessons from Dilbert and motivation to work from Bertrand Russell, it’s not difficult to imagine where’s he coming from and where’s he headed. And yet, I was curious to know more about his roots, escapades, trials, triumphs, and aspirations
The actual interview took what seemed like ages thanks to the incessant demands of our respective schedules. Needless to say, I am forever indebted to Rajesh for the faith he placed in me at face value.
Here goes:
Why do you say there have been no active choices for you for a significant span?
Yes, there was no choice in the truest sense of the word, till I turned closer to 30. I was good at Math, so I joined a bunch of coaching classes. I came to Chennai, which gave me a great peer group. Some of my batch mates went for JEE prep, and I followed suit. I got a good rank in JEE and I aspired to do mechanical engineering based on a flawed notion of mine, that mechanical engineering would be some kind of an extension of mechanics, which I liked. Obviously that was not the case. So when my parents suggested I take up electrical engineering as I had the requisite grades, I did the needful without second thought. Post IIT, MBA happened only because I did not wish to pursue a masters in a technology stream, and MBA was indeed a coveted passport to launch a noteworthy career in employment. Remember those were the days when the convention was to complete your education at one stretch before taking a plunge into the employment market. I had no idea whatsoever about what a MBA degree entailed, and what are the pay packages on offer for the toppers. I simply walked the path which seemed the most obvious given my circumstances.
The first time I did actively make a choice was to chuck my job and start out something of my own. Every decision prior to that point was either reactive or default based on broad premises and conventions.
Could you recount the highlights of your early years?
We were neither poor, nor rich at any point in time. Our economic status was in line with the wherewithal of a typical Indian middle class family. I come from a vintage South Indian family. My father worked for Union Bank of India for 25 years, and it was a transferable job. Hence, I travelled quite a bit and studied in as many as eight different schools, largely across Tamil Nadu, including Thanjavur, Thindukkal, and Kumbakonam apart from Chennai. I was also in Bombay for a couple of years, class 4 and 5 to be precise. Since shifting scenarios were part and parcel of my early education years, there was no single anchor point that I can single out to revive fond memories of the time. Having said that, I remember clearly that when I shifted to Chennai, I was a class 8 student. I was moved to prominent school from class 9 onwards and this relocation worked out rather well for me as I found a great bunch of classmates and teachers which sparked in me a certain transformation which I subliminally sensed, albeit in vague terms. It sowed the seed of intuitive learning as the environment here was in line with my intuitive approach to education and learning.
Talking of role models, I stayed within the four walls of my own cocoon and knew so little about the mavericks and super achievers across different fields like business, academia, sport or entertainment that there was hardly any scope for being influenced by any of them. Later on in life, I developed great reverence and deep respect for Ratan Tata and Narayan Murthy from the business and entrepreneurial world, and Rahul Dravid and Harsha Bhogle for their talent and temperament in their respective spheres of sport. I have great admiration for the renowned historian and environmentalist Ramachandra Guha. Above all, I am a gigantic fan of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, and Dr. Ambedkar, three towering thought leaders and freedom fighters our country was blessed with.
Academically, I was always a bright student of my class, yet never among the top 3 rankers at any point in time. Math was my favourite subject. I was fascinated by numbers initially and later mathematical concepts left me mesmerized, and ultimately I became kind of obsessed with rigorous proofs. All my teachers played a key role in help shape my thought and action in the right direction. Thanks to them, I could appreciate the role of rigour in study, and their invaluable advice from time to time sharpened my intuitive understanding of different concepts. Having attended a bunch of non-routine math lectures during class 9 and 10, a few teachers noticed a spark in me and urged me to do deep into mathematics. I am indebted to them for having verbalised their sentiment which had a lasting influence on my mind at an impressionable age.
How did IIT and IIM happen?
I was naturally attuned to JEE prep world during class 11 and 12 which paved the way for my entry into the grand institution called the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The intensely competitive environment of the place in many ways put me in my place. Till this point, academic excellence had be a breeze but now I was surrounded by some of brightest minds of the country who were not only good at many things I was not so good at, they outshone me even in the areas I was supposedly very good at. This was a moment of truth for me which I relished in full measure. Thanks to the open culture of the place, I let my loose and made the most of my hostel life freedom, more like an explorer than a student. Consequently, my academic performance was subpar and that is a very charitable way of putting it. I was a below median student in an excellent peer group.
I have been excellent at grasping the intuitive stuff diving deep into the fundamentals. As for some of the rigorous academic stuff that I struggled with, I can say I have got better with age, although I never come up with a ‘toolkit’ to master it. Somewhere along the way, I realized I was not really attuned to tread the onward path of engineering, so there was no question of pursuing a masters.
The obvious choice for me was to have a crack at MBA through the CAT exam route. I soon realised I was best suited for the CAT prep as the Math came naturally to me, I was completely at home with the data interpretation part (there was no logical reasoning then.) I was not bad at Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension either. So, I knew I had what it takes to clear the CAT exam which I did, and found myself in the inspiring environs of IIM Bangalore, especially in the context of my IIT Madras stint, although my peer group was good but not great, no offense to my IIMB batchmates, they were sharp but in different ways. Life was a breeze but not academically challenging or intense, I never sensed the need to up my ante from the second and third gear that I was used to.
Could you elaborate on your ‘chiefly loitering’ escapades at IIMB which I am sure was rich with experiential learning and progression
As I told earlier, I had tons of fun at IIMB, relished freewheeling conversations, playing the role of a placement co-ordinator, and super active on the sports front. I was one of the few students who got along well with pretty much everybody and I was part of many core circles given the academically stimulating environment. The biggest plus for me was the ability to learn things without any pressure whatsoever, it was more of a fun-filled exploration. I made the most of the group learning dynamics of MBA learning. This experience was in total contrast to the studious environs of IIT M, a learning that happened on an academic straight line, which kept me largely tucked in my shell. Although I have tremendous respect for my mates at IIT M, I clearly had unlimited fun at IIM B! I was more like a irritating student who got away with murder, the bad cousin of an extended family who lived life on his own terms and yet found his way to the goal post. I was very comfortable with accounts and economics, which was unusual for an engineer. In fact, I dreamt of doing a PhD in Economics at some point in time.
It’s become more of a cliché these days to say (at times rather perfunctorily) that a MBA degree help expand your horizon and broaden your thinking but in my case, it actually did that! I mostly did finance and operations courses at IIM but my internship happened at Hindustan Unilever, post which I went hammer and tongs with the job exploration process chasing all the top names of Banking and Financial Services. After having messed up around 20 interviews in a row, I finally landed up at ITC.
How was the transition from the classroom to the workplace and the experience across stints?
I always saw myself as a numbers guy focused on finance and ops, but my debut in the employment market happened in sales and marketing. That was mighty disappointing but the strong brand name of ITC was a great solace that kept me motivated. After undergoing a training programme at Kolkata, I was posted in the Hindi heartland of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. I was based out of Lucknow but mostly travelled east to places like Sahjanpur, Hardoi, Sitapur, Basti and the like. I am surprised myself how I recollect the names given the short stint of six months. I stayed at crappy hotels and did six and a half day weeks meeting random wholesalers and travelled to distant, godforsaken towns and villages trying to distribute cigarettes to far-flung shops. It was a wonderful first hand experience of last mile reach, given ITC’s phenomenal distribution network. In hindsight, I can’t even imagine myself doing what I did then, going from shop to shop on a bicycle, or riding pillion on bikes doing 10 hour shifts and surviving on dal chawal at suspect dhabas.
Of course, I was never an aggressive sales person, and I can’t sell for nuts even today, but it was great to experience the drill (and the thrill) of the ‘real’ sales process, which is diametrically opposite to the poetic notion of sales that a MBA kid would imagine, that of a suit clad, airconditioned, cushy desk job of more number crunching than people interaction. ITC undoubtedly trains you really well. To begin with, you accompany a sales guy for days on end, which is followed by your training as a sales supervisor, then as a wholesale dealer, then as an area executive, and finally as an area sales manager. They also train you left, right and centre on every key aspect including operations, logistics, and branding. I thoroughly relished my time at ITC. Post my training, I was posted at Orissa. Quite a few times, HR had pinged me to ask how I was doing, and I replied unequivocally that I was having a blast! My branch manager was happy with me, and my team mates liked me (I am still in touch with them), there was no reason for complaints. Now, HR has this weird matrix of measuring the capability of employees, how happy they are, and how likely are they to leave, while deciding the postings. When they heard I was having a blast, they posted me to another weird place. I thought I had done my time with one already and was expecting a more juicier posting as a fair reward, ideally in a metro where I would learn more. HR confided in me saying that since a couple of guys seem on the verge of calling it quits, and to keep them happy, they need to post them to some metro. Consequently, the place I was allotted was Vizag. I was really peeved with that submission and took a decision then and there.
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So that was the end of the ITC saga?
Yes! KPOs had just emerged on the scene and a few among them were keen to have me on the rolls. Till that point, I had no intention of making a switch but now it seems a foregone conclusion. So, I joined Irevna, a Financial Research & Analytics KPO based out of Chennai, which was into investment banking, back office and quasi front office (sitting remote). I was working with a team based out of London into European software and services. I later realized why I was chosen for the role; Irevna was not just offering services but rolls too, and they needed good CVs to make a lasting impression, and my profile kind of ticked all the boxes, IIT, IIM, finance and ops et al.
Irevna was a super enlightening experience in terms of learning. I learnt how to do company valuations, model financial statements, and write research reports. In short, I learnt how to play the game. The motto at Irevna was very unambiguous: ‘Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die!’ which is of course Tennyson’s famous portrayal of a humble British soldier unconditionally marching to war. We had no position to arrive at a value or endorse a buy or sell, we were only supposed to write a general report (typically 90 percent of the report), and the analyst would add the view, whether positive or negative. So, the role was limited in terms of recognition but vast in terms of the sheer effort put in, and I must say I learnt the rudiments of writing as also things like cash flow and balance sheet analysis in that stint, which kept me in good stead later in life. I worked with a team from Credit Suisse and at some point of time, they were looking for a resource and knew me well as I had actually gone there to undergo quasi internship stint. Irevna got a sweet deal and I moved to Credit Suisse after a stint of a year and a half with Irevna.
Describe your Chennai-London-Chennai voyage…
Credit Suisse found in me the prefect, zero nuisance value resource to suit their exact needs: intellectually competent, fun to work with, moderately ambitious, not keen on customer facing, and not even tangentially interested in getting into the buy side and investing in stocks, in short a guy who was very happy doing the unglamourous work. I reported to two bosses who were almost at the same level and soon after, the top boss put in his papers and the replacement was looking for a resource who was non-threatening but proactively helpful, in other words another Rajesh. And he found one, who happened to be my classmate from school. So, it was fun time. Both of us were happy doing the modelling and the boss was happy traveling and meeting clients. As luck would have it, my boss quit in due course to start his private practice. This time, there was hiring freeze in the company, and since I was doing a fairly ok job and had seen what it takes to be a lead analyst, I was conferred the crown this time round.
I moved up the value chain of more and more client facing and less and less time spent on number crunching and maintaining the model. By that time, I had excelled at financial modelling and that impressed the higher ups to trust me for the value-added jobs. At Irevna, I knew I was kind of punching below my weight but here I relished my job. The financial meltdown of 2008 left me rather disillusioned. We were doing absolutely fine advising clients on portfolios and all of a sudden, a random subprime debacle in another part of the globe suddenly pulls our recommended stocks down 30 percent.
To be honest, I simply didn’t take to banking as I found the massaging of egos and numbers far from challenging, forget fulfilling. I was not lured by the prospects of staying put and making it happen to earn the big bucks. I had not seen big money anyways, so there was no reference point to mull over. My disillusionment was organic given that there was nothing about the job definition that I was not comfortable with. I was excellent at number crunching, I was good at writing reports and financial modelling. I was the numero uno analyst advising marquee clients and some of my investment calls had come right which gave me the halo of the hall of fame that smartly hid the calls I didn’t get right. So, in many ways, I was tailored to make a thriving career in investment banking.
I eventually sensed the whole industry is a jargon-rich rigged game of sorts, played on alarmingly elusive terms not known to most, and we are but hapless players playing our parts though priding on our intellectual and mathematical competence for no good reason on the face of it. With the challenge of the role fading, I saw no point in pursuing the journey, although I was delighted to gain deep knowledge and experience of many crucial elements of the industry that come in handy to this day. Without second thought, I quit my Credit Suisse job as a front end equity analyst and came back to India initially on the pretext of spending time with family.
My team felt I was throwing it all away too soon, and in hindsight I do feel I should have weighed all options before arriving at the drastic step, especially at a juncture when my family was growing. My son had been born just around that time, and my communication with my wife about my sudden exit was very poor. I do sense I let her down, and let me down, in the process.
Having burnt the bridge to a thriving career, did you spend time in deep introspection?
Not at all! Deep introspection and I both have maintained a safe distance all along. My wife cautions me on this front, though not very frequently now, maybe she has given up on me on that front. I do sense the need to sit back and reflect at times but I have never done it till date.
Coming back to my story, once back home, I was contemplating the journey ahead. To start with, I didn’t want to be away from the family as the baby was pretty small. So the plan was find a job in my city and if it went well, I would think of something else to do on the side-lines. If I turn about a career in finance, I would head to Bombay or to London or New York depending on the opportunities. Who knows, a third option would open up by then.
I soon joined a local boutique firm called Spark Capital in Chennai as an financial analyst. The place was homely with congenial folks as colleagues and I made many friends. Deep down however, my ambition urged me to look out by instinct, certainly not out of compulsion. Either I had to get serious about banking again or switch to some other sector. The choice of that sector was a no brainer for me – it had to be education. So, I joined the previous avatar of Wizako which was 4GMAT. Even here, I had no clue about the business plan or target numbers or focus areas or Go To Strategy which are part and parcel of start up anthems for entrepreneurs as they should be. My plan was as plain as it could get – I love teaching, so I will start teaching and figure out the rest along the way. Luckily, my wife was managing family finances very prudently and we had enough savings, thanks to our modest lifestyles. Otherwise, things would have been trickier, especially given the pathos of a IIT IIM guy, who had been the youngest Indian investment banking kid in Europe, and now teaching GMAT fundas to a few students in a startup devoid of a business plan. All I had was a wonderful colleague called Bhaskar, ten years my senior, a graduate from Anna University and IIM Calcutta. His clear instruction to me when I joined Wizako was: “Don’t do this!” But I being the pig head I was, I continued to do it – teaching for CAT, AIEEE, GMAT, GRE, AMSAT, English, Tamil – taking insane number of classes which built up my teaching hours from the ground up. I developed intuitive, PowerPoint based courses even though our classrooms were equipped with traditional whiteboards and markers, and there was hardly a number before us to call it target audience. 2012 and 2013 fetched us our largest numbers, but even if one were to double them, it would still be a stupid business to be in, such was the legendary ‘low’ at which we caught our ‘peak’. Bhaskar was at his candid best in advising me to find my own way if things stayed the same, and there was no hard feelings in his mind as a partner. All his told me was “Just try to make CAT work in 12 months and if doesn’t work, just drop it.”
Is it right to say that online was perfectly in line with your ambitious plans?
Absolutely! Sometime in 2014, online happened in a big way, and I took to it like fish to water. In three months, I developed an end-to-end online course for CAT. I would begin my day at 4 am and end it at 11 pm and lo and behold, we saw sales happening in August 2014 and this time, we were way ahead of the curve – in terms of tech, pedigree, and frameworks. I was manically building videos at such a frenetic pace that numbers though growing were secondary to me, content building was all that mattered. We went berserk for 18 months straight. The second product iteration that followed was even better. Our tech provider, I learnt later, found in us his first buyers, as he had diligently built the piece but had no takers. He travelled to Chennai from Bangalore to pitch his product to us and we became his first paying client. Now of course, he is a name to reckon with who has outsmarted all the biggies of his space and doing exceedingly well. I simply loved the product core and the UI and built tons of content, making the most of the platform. 2015 to 2017 was our content building phase and we soon found our niche, a sweet spot in marketing terms.
All our mechanisms came alive: Our YouTube channel got going, SEOs were working fine, our referrals started kicking in. We came to be known as reliable provider of knowledge resources revered for our transparency and integrity. Our word was taken at face value, trusted without the need for verification or further validation. Our buzz had not translated into great sales, but we surely became profitable and sustainable, which was a mega achievement given the history that preceded it. We had built a classroom business and an online business. The classroom business was doing all right, the online business was doing better all through 2018, 2019 and 2020 but then came the pandemic and the classroom venture was completely decimated in no time. Online kept us afloat during this trying time but of course the overall numbers were flat.
2022 onwards, both businesses took off and we certainly have a bigger brand presence now and a steady model. Several of our competitors who built giant unsustainable messes, which far from value-accretive, were counter productive and even reputation-destroying. This damage had an adverse effect on the market and made cost of doing business exponentially high for the few of us who were committed to the larger cause. And yet, we stayed afloat, which was a big achievement in itself.
I presume you would have found your mojo at Wizako – did that stint lay the foundation for Piverb and 2IIM?
Wizako and 2IIM happened around the same time. Both shaped my ideas about how math should be taught in the living waters of a commercial enterprise. PiVerb on the other hand was the proverbial start point of the whole story, a life long labour of love, a pet project from the word go, of building content to teach math differently to school kids. There is this quote from celebrated American John Steinbeck, author of works like Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden: “We have only one story.”
PiVerb has been that story for me, that one idea that I as a founder have been eternally working on it in a “let me take this to the end of eternity” kind of way! And there is a such powerful synergy between 2IIM and PiVerb, that I need both going at their natural velocities. When 2IIM was going nowhere, PiVerb kept me gainfully occupied with my larger cause, and when 2IIM picked up pace, I consciously kept PiVerb on the backburner, but it continues to be the long term story for me, a lifework which epitomizes my ethos, vision, mission and values.
I always liked teaching since I was a ten year old, teaching math to school kids. I simply loved the idea of breaking down a concept into digestible chunks to help students grasp the essence without rote learning. It was an easy decision in terms of what I aspired to do. I jumped headlong into teaching purely powered by my passion without any idea whatsoever of any revenue model which is integral to any entrepreneurial venture. I also didn’t have a metaphorical stop loss point in mind beyond which I could give up on the venture lest it failed and get back to my financial analyst profile.
In hindsight, If I had that stop loss point in mind, I would have quit long back without traveling this far, spending significant time in wilderness. But I continued teaching relentlessly across the board for different courses and creating tons of content in the process, constantly thinking about ways and means to make the learning interesting on a daily basis.
Thankfully, I was naturally good at this, at breaking down intricate stuff in a refreshingly intuitive way, and it would sit pretty in the minds of my listeners exactly as I had envisaged it. I was uncompromising and unyielding about my teaching methods and principles, but I maintained a judicious balance between rigorous learning and intuitive understanding which are often opposed to each other. You can end up oversimplify ideas without adding the mandatory layers to it. I could simplify ideas and yet add enough layers to accommodate the rigour.
What is the PiVerb backstory?
In 2010, I remember telling my wife I want to do something in the school math space. Thus began my journey to find, nay create, an addressable market, build a niche along with a sustainable revenue generating machine to keep it going. For PiVerb, I wanted to build content from scratch and make intuitive learning the corner piece of the entire math course, and make it interesting and challenging way beyond what the syllabus prescribed, all this to help shape student’ minds for critical thinking while being agnostic to ideas and notions of schools, exams marks, and grades. This approach was against the trend as in India, the education market is wedded to the grand promise of helping the target audience fulfil well defined, tangible objectives. It’s like you do these eleven things and success – whether in terms of marks, ranks or seats – is guaranteed.
The pitch for PiVerb was outrageous by market standards: We’ll teach you some hazy ways to think about different things. We’ll make you sharper, intellectually rigorous; we’ll teach you how to have fun learning ideas and concepts, and push you hard to fetch 4 out of 10 on a week on week basis with an outcome which certainly won’t make you geared to crack the toughest exam overnight but will make you a better learner for sure.
Given the unconventional pitch, I wanted to get the product ready in my head before I tested waters. A lot of my CAT material was built on what I had been thinking all along, ways to teach math to school kids. PiVerb content building took serious shape during 2016-2018 and I had to rebuild the base midway to remove the jargon and teach fundamentals and concepts in line with the sensibilities of a 12 year old.
I took PiVerb online soon after and the feedback was more than positive. I had my son try it out and therefore reviewed the material like a parent as well. Though the product stood out for it USP, there was no commercial proposition in sight. We did not classrooms large enough to accommodate a sizeable number of students, we did not have a product that could run on auto pilot mode. I continue to reshape and remodel PiVerb even to this day as my core strength is in designing pedigree which will help any good teacher know what to convey and how to convey to strike immediate resonance with students. So, PiVerb continues to be a work in progress.
How would you describe the 2IIM value prop?
The entire CAT exam market is driven by the promise of the final exam success. Almost all players use the pitch ‘We’ll help you get the coveted MBA degree’ and back the claim based on results, track record and testimonials. We have done that in the last two years although for a long time, we were reluctant participants of this race. I came from the school of thought that we will provide you with a learning framework, build your intellectual muscle, expand your bandwidth, and become your mentors and then things are likely to fall in place. The 2-hour CAT exam is discernibly stressful that comes at the end of a 10-moth preparation cycle. There are three subsections of 40 minutes each. Make one error in some puzzle and you go from a potential 99.7 to 98.4 which means your chances of getting into the top ten institutions is adversely affected although the score is still above average and you stand to do well on four other variables that ultimately get you an interview call. India is a country of smart ambitious people in exceedingly large numbers.
As the whole jamboree is built and shaped on such high stakes, I am reluctant to value our worth in terms of results and end outcomes. We always say that we’ll teach you from the first principles and build your fundamentals devoid of shortcuts and gimmicks and you are likely to do better than you imagine.
We want our students to give the preparation their best shot with our proactive and purposeful help, and not seek illusionary tips and tricks that only end in disillusionment. They should be willing to make the most of our conducive environment to become more numerate, more articulate and more knowledgeable which will make them comfortable and confident about giving the CAT exam. The target audience is slowly but surely realising that the CAT exam itself is not template-driven, the paper setters are highly intelligent folks who ask off-template challenging and tricky questions, year after year.
All along, we were the perfect antidote for the perplexment and distress that a template-driven coaching environment causes with a formulaic approach that never teaches how the formula came about, except that the bulk of the market still insisted on knowing the templates. Our stance was a hard sell at the start, it still is to a large extent, but now people are crystal clear in their minds what to expect when they approach us and hence more receptive to the idea. Our legacy, brand visibility and track record of achievers have also played a key role in creating the right buzz.
The whole ‘high risk, elusive reward’ idea of sharing tons of free content upfront has finally paid off. It is helping many a discernible student appreciate the conviction of our venture and make an informed decision of getting aboard for relishing the unadulterated fun of leaning while also preparing for the exam. I believe there is a sizeable minority that wants to be in a place like 2IIM. That is probably enough for us to seek fulfilment ahead of success! We have a lot of freely available questions and actual CAT papers available on our website and YouTube channel. Given the originality of content, we are the mother ship repository for students and teachers. There is not a single CAT coaching company in India that wouldn’t have accessed our website to check out questions and solutions. Many of these teachers express their gratitude letting us know how they found some questions very helpful. In turn, this staple feature of our value prop has also helped us in branding and recruiting. Notwithstanding our modest numbers, we are in a thriving space that echoes back a resounding message: come, learn with us, have loads of fun, and let’s see where it goes!
What’s next?
Our commercial stability had always been a vague idea in our minds. I can’t say we are on a fantastic wicket on the revenue front now, but yes, we are way better than what we were during the early years.
I have struggled to divide my time and attention between 2IIM and PiVerb. In recent years, my involvement with 2IIM has been significant initially as a sales and marketing guy and later as a teacher, as we could not recruit adequate number of good teachers in good time. Consequently, Rajesh the content builder for PiVerb has had to take a back seat momentarily. In the next 5 to 6 years, the whole effort would be directed at how much we can set up 2IIM as an engine with a full fledged dedicated team such that I devote time to complete the content building for PiVerb and find a commercially sustainable point for it as well.
The next leg for us will be all about cracking the hybrid code. This is crucial especially in the context of fulfilling our teaching, content building and community building objectives that the whole team is passionate about. During the first decade of my entrepreneurial journey, I was lucky to get the support of some wonderful people who proactively expressed their desire to work with me, given the commonality of purpose and passion. These were MBAs who worked with me for a year and a half and then went on their own journeys. Now, in the last 12 months, I am trying to build a robust core team and expand the 2IIM visibility and footprint as a manager, not merely as a solo entrepreneur. This voyage should be interesting and what I tell my students applies to me as well: let’s see where it goes!
