'The more mistakes you make, the smarter you get'

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Saurabh Gupta | 13 Jun, 2016
Founder and CEO of CrackVerbal, Arun Jagannathan said that on the way to success he experimented and winged his way through hurdles.

In an interview to SME Times, he said that his motto at CrackVerbal is "The more mistakes you make, the smarter you get".

CrackVerbal is one of India's fastest growing test preparation and admissions consulting. Started out with 6 students in a coffee shop in 2006, CrackVerbal today helps over 2000 students a year get to their dream schools in India and across the globe. Crackverbal has sent students to top schools such as Harvard, Wharton, MIT, Kellogg, Duke, INSEAD, London Business School, Oxford, Cambridge, ISB, and the IIMs.

Excerpts from the interview...

When you had started CrackVerbal? In your words what CrackVerbal actual is?
Arun Jagannathan: We started CrackVerbal with the same intention as most startups – "to build a better mousetrap".

I always felt that my real calling in life was teaching. In the early 2000s, I started teaching part-time at India's largest training institutes for CAT, and later moved on to the GMAT and GRE space. I was also a popular contributor on various online forums such as Pagalguy.com and Beatthegmat.com.

However, I was frustrated at teaching preparatory courses made for Americans to an Indian audience. Finally in 2006, I started CrackVerbal to teach Indians in a unique way that made sense to them. However, It was not until 2009 that Shreekala (the other co-founder) and I started looking at this as a full-time business.

Since our inception a decade ago, we have rapidly evolved into a leading Test-Prep and Admissions Consulting company, focusing on the entire application journey – from the time students start preparing for the GMAT/GRE, to the time they get into a program of their choice. In this period, we have helped thousands of aspirants get into their dream MS and MBA programs, by guiding them at various stages of their application journey.

What makes CrackVerbal apart from others?
Arun Jagannathan: Our competitors in the test-prep space can be broadly distributed in 2 categories: (a) Test prep companies that offer online options (b) Online Forums

Among other online prep companies, not only is our course priced lower as we have the advantage of the cost arbitrage, but we are the only company that offers unlimited on-phone support during India business hours. We see a lot of students who like the fact that we are small and hungry – and it shows in the way we are more than just a bunch of training videos.

I would also include large test prep forums as competitors because there is enough and more content available on such sites, so self-preparation becomes a viable option for the serious candidates who can focus on their own. Unfortunately, most of these forums have not invested in IP – either on questions or on techniques/ strategies – so quality of the content is suspect.

We have spent many years in developing high quality proprietary content through a team of in-house experts with many decades of experience in GMAT/GRE preparation.

We ensure that our students are taught only by the finest trainers in the industry. We have a very selective process & rigorous training for instructors. Typically 1 out of 10 people who apply for a faculty position at CrackVerbal make the cut – many of whom have scored in the 99th %ile of the GMAT / GRE, or have earned their spurs from top schools such as ISB, Oxford, and Duke, to name a few.

In the admissions consulting space, what probably distinguishes us the most is the extensive network we have, both with the admission committees of various higher-education schools, and with our past students and clients, who often come back to mentor our students.

Being a start-up, what were the challenges you had gone through?
Arun Jagannathan: The biggest roadblocks we faced in the initial stages, resulted from the fact that neither the founder nor the co-founder came from a business background.

Though our corporate experience of many years came in useful in setting up systems and processes, we had to learn many aspects of running a business, such as sales and digital marketing.

Also, when one is trying out things for the first time (such as India’s first digital class for GMAT prep, and India’s first mobile game app for building your vocabulary), there are a lot of unknowns that one has to deal with. For example, the experimentation of starting remotely managed digital classrooms in Mumbai and Delhi did not take off. We swiftly replaced the digital classrooms with its virtual classroom offerings. However, each experience has only made our resolve stronger.

And how you counter those challenges?
Arun Jagannathan: We experiment and wing our way through it - A popular motto at CrackVerbal is "The more mistakes you make, the smarter you get".

Which issues are still challenges for you?
Arun Jagannathan: The challenge we are currently dealing with is scale. More precisely, how do we leverage technology to scale up, without losing the focus on high-quality content and delivery that we have maintained as a startup.

Would you like to say something to the government to facilitate this sector?
Arun Jagannathan: Though the government has done much to promote higher education within India, there is not much that has been done to encourage study abroad. While brain drain is a valid concern, I feel that there are multiple long-term benefits to having Indians study abroad. Besides the forex reserve gains, having Indians like Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai at the helm of Fortune 100 companies helps build the Indian brand. The Indian government could ease the woes of study-abroad aspirants by facilitating collateral-free student loans and student scholarships.

What kind of challenges are students facing nowadays?
Arun Jagannathan: A challenge that many GMAT and GRE aspirants from India face is that these are essentially American tests, designed for test-takers who underwent an American education. Therefore, Indian GMAT aspirants often have to scale a steep learning curve on the GMAT, especially on the Verbal section.

One more challenge is that most GMAT aspirants are working professionals with hectic work schedules that leave very little room for fitting in conventional classroom coaching.

How does CrackVerbal deal with the issues that students face?
Arun Jagannathan: At CrackVerbal, we designed our curriculum and teaching methods from the ground up to include every feature we saw as missing in traditional GMAT courses. Our techniques are tailored to benefit the Indian GMAT aspirant. We believe that this Indian approach is one of the core strengths that has contributed to our rapid growth.

To help students with very busy work-schedules, we have launched online coaching for both the GRE and the GMAT. Our students can now study anywhere, anytime, so long as they have a net connection. What’s more, we provide extensive support to our online students – email and phone support, and access to forums – so that they have an optimal learning experience.

Currently you are in Bangalore, Chennai only. What are your future plans?
Arun Jagannathan: Our short-term goal is to establish our brand beyond Bangalore and Chennai by setting up classrooms in other metros such as Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Delhi.

We also plan to increase the reach of our GMAT and GRE Online products, to access a wider audience spread across multiple geographies.

In the long-term, we want to distinguish ourselves as the predominant player in the online education vertical. The rationale behind this is the rise of mid-career professionals signing up for executive MBAs, which require the GMAT for entry. Since this section of customers might not have the bandwidth to make it to a classroom every week, we see an opportunity to make it big in the online space in the next few years.