We are publishing an interview of Mr. Raghu Madaan, Co-founder, Stumania.
About the founders
There are two founders of Stumania:
- Raghu Madaan (Co-founder) – A vivacious individual, Raghu started his career as a portfolio manager with a stock broking company after completing his PGDM. A visionary and a strategist, he co-founded StuMania with Sahil and overlooks the company’s operations from Ludhiana. His marketing acumen and strategic thinking is instrumental to company’s growth. He is extremely passionate and fearless with an incredible energy to take his venture to newer heights.
- Sahil Sharma (Co-founder) – With a vision to make education more accessible, Sahil joined hands and co-founded StuMania. He started his career as a financial analyst after completing PGDM and now supervises company’s operations from Delhi. He is aggressive, committed with high risk taking ability. His deep interest in developing and implementing financial strategies and processes provide support to company’s growth and business objectives. Innovative and determined he envisions, the company’s offering will change the way students communicate and learn.
What is the problem you are trying to solve? Can you share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
Learning is a relentless process, and we believe in open cultivation for all without confining to four walls. A 24×7 educational assistance portal, StuMania is a student-centric venture to un-complicate this process. It is for them to discover a new dimension to education where the learning material and content is more accessible and affordable. Gauging the hassles a student has to bear today, we provide them with an array of services to move ahead steadily without any barriers. The company aims to assist high school and college students with their daily requirements on books, study material and assignments. Additionally, we provide a comprehensive list of colleges for the student to browse through and get information on. In all, it is an integrated platform encouraging nexus and collaboration for cohesive learning.
Great ideas are triggered by trivia. And so was this. Looking at the constant shortfall in the supply of course books, the founders felt a need for an online exchange platform to help students with their course and reduce their dependency on the physical markets for material. Hence, came up this idea, leveraging on the Internet revolution in the country. Backed by a team of academic experts and career tutors, we are able to touch base every student seeking guidance and help.
Realizing our responsibility towards society, we encourage our users to donate used books at our forum which is connected with NGO’s and entities working selflessly in making education accessible to the destitute. This arrangement also stimulates reuse, thereby reducing wastage and unnecessary duplication in the market. We’re committed in making the Internet a better place to augment the lives of students as they grow in their careers. It is our continual effort to be a worthy partner in their pursuit for excellence.
What is the uniqueness about your Startup?
We are a total solutions platform for the students, where all sorts of services are provided for academic growth. We also plan to do a lot of outsourcing work for students abroad. We will use the human resources available locally in India and plan to cater to clients abroad.
What is the revenue model? Explain your thought process.
Since we are a new venture, our primary focus as on date is to make the venture popular and to increase our reach and user base. Currently the only revenue stream is from providing assistance with assignments. Most of the services currently are free but eventually we will be able to create revenue from all types of services that we offer. But one thing is for sure, that our prices are extremely low and will always remain very competitive. We are aware that our target segment is students, thus we will make the services affordable for them.
Who are the consumers that you are targeting? How is this going to affect them?
We are mainly targeting undergraduate, graduate and doctorate students. This will revolutionize there learning process as we provide with some valuable services like peer to peer book exchange, e-docs which includes pdf, ppt, doc, xls files which anybody can download and upload for references. We also have an expert team to take headache for the assignments and project needs of the students and we assure them with A+ grades. We also have colleges listed with us with their full fledge details where student can explore the colleges in details for deciding their future course of education effectively and efficiently.
The other important target segment are the parents, who can use our website to find information about the colleges that are under their consideration to send their wards.
What is the big picture of your startup? Will it lead to something bigger? If so, how?
We believe that this start up can emerge as a life changing venture for students. Earlier students use to rush to books markets for book barter and shopkeepers use to exploit them but now this power is in their own hands. They can simply post the book they want to sell and anybody interested for that book will contact the seller directly. Same goes for buyer as well. We are also keeping in mind the society contribution due to which our venture is also involved in donation of books to the needy. We bridge the gap between the surplus and needy.
What is the success story of your startup in your own words?
We are a very new startup and just two months old. We are still in the process of making a mark in the industry. Currently we are working to streamline things operationally. Since my partner and me are not from the IT background, we spend a lot of time learning what we require in terms of technology. Finding the correct set of people having a similar mindset has also been a challenge. But now, I am proud of the fact that we have a very competent team at place.
Thanks Raghu. Best of luck!