Zishaan Hayath and Hemanth Goteti, IIT Bombay graduates started Toppr.com in 2013 with one aim. Their startup offers online practice packages for students preparing for entrance exams like the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and the Pre-Medical Test (PMT) and for Science students in Class VIII, IX and X. “Having been through the rigours of JEE preparation and seeing the vagaries that come with it, we identified the need for students to optimise the hours they spend on mock entrance tests. Given the size of the gap, we worked on a viable solution using technology, which could be taken online,” says Zishaan about the thought process behind Toppr.com.
Zishaan and Hemanth previously started Chaupaati.com in 2008, an IVR based mobile commerce site where customers could purchase products over the phone. After selling it to Future Group in 2010, they continued there for a few more years, before starting Toppr.com.
They commenced work on the project in 2011 and officially launched operations in April 2013. Toppr.com was launched in July 2013 with JEE and PMT packages for Class XI and XII students. The Android application for mobiles and tablets was launched in September 2013 and the foundation course for VIII, IX and X students was launched in May 2014.
Toppr aims to make exam preparation easier, with a focus on content, design and technology. The adaptive platform helps students save about 50 per cent of their practice time, by straightaway going to tougher questions once their mastery of basic concepts is established. Students of Class XI and XII can enrol into the one- or two-year programme for JEE or PMT, and students of Class VIII, IX and X can enrol into one-, two- or three-year foundation programmes.
All the programmes are delivered online. The first nine chapters for the JEE and PMT are provided free of cost. Students can purchase the remaining 81 chapters for each course, for which they also get a question bank of more than 1,00,000 questions, and a goal-based approach for each chapter, along with an All India Test series that takes place online every fortnight. The JEE and PMT courses are priced at `3,900 and `4,900 respectively for the first and the second year. Students may purchase only the test series package for `900.
“Once we created a database of students, we stopped everything we were doing and started calling these students. We spoke to their parents about the Toppr value proposition. With more follow up calls we gained our first set of clients. Till today, this has been the most memorable experience of my Toppr journey”, recalls Zishaan.
In less than two years, Toppr has enrolled more than 70,000 students, a number that is growing at 30 per cent every month. More than five lakh questions have been attempted on the platform till the end of 2014. With more than 12 lakh students preparing for the JEE and eight lakh students for PMT this year, Toppr is targeting 1 million registered students by 2016.
The team has grown exponentially, from five in 2013, to 60 today. Toppr also engages more than 600 current IIT students, who contribute to the content of the platform. Zishaan says, “The big lesson I learnt from the earlier ventures is that people matter. I always keep scouting for great people to join the team.”
Zishaan recently won the ‘Young achiever of the Year’ award from IIT Bombay.
For details, visit www.Toppr.com.
— rohit@learnbizsimulations.com