Summers are chaotic, especially in India. Children try to jump off the boundaries during their holidays, while parents or guardians still have to think about giving them an upbringing in the best possible way apart from the draining demands of today’s work culture. One hot day in Bhubaneswar amid such chaos, Mr. Sujeet Kumar was struggling to find a good enough summer camp for his 7 year old son, when the idea of MrClass.in blossomed.
Totally convinced with the potential of this idea, he assembled a team, put in the seed capital and MrClass got wings. In today’s fast paced world where time is a luxury, MrClass has set out to ease people’s lives in its own small way. And being proud Odias, mrclass.in started off from the twin-city of Bhubaneswar & Cuttack, with plans of going pan-India in the future.
MrClass.in is an online listing platform providing exhaustive information about tuitions, group tuition classes, training, coaching, hobbies & extra-curricular activities in your neighbourhood; connecting tutors, trainers, teachers, lecturers, coaching institutions or extra-curricular activity centers with people seeking information about any service of their choice. It aims to leverage the wisdom of the people, their reviews/ratings/feedbacks and help others having similar interests in taking the best possible decision.
The startup is also giving equal importance to the Business/Service providers, helping them increase their visibility & reach, expanding their customer base and generation of more business leads. It already has around 500 Businesses listed & adding more every day. To begin with, it lists businesses in the following 14 categories:
There’s a special focus on Home tutors. In India, many youth from rural area move to the cities, and have excellent skills in some subject areas. But since they are not known in the city, their competence goes un-noticed. On the other hand, there are parents and students looking for a good tutor in that particular subject. Our portal connects the home tutor with the pupil/tutee.
MrClass is focussed on addressing the same market demand/need in tier 2 cities of India, having a population between half a million to 3 million. It is easier to scale in these cities and the cost of operations are also reasonable. There are no players addressing the need in smaller cities; hence it has a distinct advantage over its competitors.
The customers are all the service providers of educational and extra-curricular services and products, as also the seekers and users of such services and products. It is reaching out to them through a massive marketing campaign, and targeted social media marketing.
As per the 2011 census, around 41 percent of India’s population is below the age of 20 years, typically the age group which will use services such as offered by mrclass.in Furthermore, with growing living standards, disposable income and the massive focus on education and hobbies amongst parents and students in small cities of India, the customer base is only exploding.
MrClass has already established proof of concept (POC) in 2 cities, with modest revenues, and are looking for grant support to take the venture forward. Some of its strengths which merit funding of its idea are:
- Strong, experienced management team
- Business developed beyond the concept stage
- Clearly differentiated value proposition
- Potential for improving the lives of at least 100,000 low-income families
