“I was my inspiration” says, Adil Meraj Founder and CEO of Gurucool
Here’s an exclusive interview of Mr.Adil Meraj, Founder and CEO of Gurucool only on Business News This Week (BNTW). He shared his insights on the prospects of Edtech sector on many more aspects with BNTW.
Let’s know more about his success story and his vision.
Tell us about Gurucool? What was the inspiration behind Gurucool?
Upon being presented with this question, Mr Adil Meraj says, ‘I was my inspiration.’ He recounts his experience as a high schooler, when he created a confession page on Facebook for his fellow Hamdardians but later realised that the page became more of a space for slanders and rumours than the intended constructive connecting platform for students. Consequently, he closed the page but his quest for doing something towards establishing a purposeful community, continued. Later, while pursuing his civil engineering, he felt out of place. Feeling very disengaged from his classroom, he realised the passion in him to initiate something that would bring actual and significant changes in society. And finally, in 2019, he had his eureka moment. Over a random discussion in a cafe with his schoolmates, he came up with the idea of Gurucool – an Educational Networking Platform for Educators and Learners, where people come together purposefully, and empathetically. The vision of this project, though, boils down to providing an academic space for learning and making quality education accessible for the underprivileged that began with ‘The Parking Kids Project’ and is currently being ensured and advocated through the ‘Padhaai’ Initiative of Gurucool.
What were the challenges faced while setting up the company?
Gurucool was set up from ground zero and up. Stepping foot into the venture, the CEO and other core members were new and naive to entrepreneurship and the start-up community. Consequently, the first challenge was to build a skilled, motivated and supportive team to execute the idea of Gurucool. This was overcome with great ease as Mr Adil’s very own friend circle took lead and paved for the Gurucool we know today.
Secondly, finance is a big aspect of starting a company. The team needed a work-place and renting one initially was quite costly. However, Gurucool now has an established centre to its name and is set to launch many more.
Being an edtech platform, Gurucool required a skilled technical team that could work closely with the interests of the core members and create a platform accessible for all. The search for technically skilled persons proved to be a great challenge initially too.
Another challenge faced by the team was fluidity in the system. For a new team that is struggling to establish a name and place in the edtech community, coming to a unanimous decision can be a struggle. But it’s all made easier by a common goal and motive. And that defines Gurucool today ~ in our own space and time.
How did the name Gurucool come about?
Gurucool, the name comes about from the past custom of guru (teacher) and shishya (student). The name emphasises the pure, unhindered relationship between a teacher and a student that highlights a transactional bond over knowledge and experience. With the name Gurucool, we hope to invoke similar intimate, and meaningful relationships between our educators and learners, but with an added pinch of coolness. Keeping this in mind, the name Gurucool was coined- a mixture of traditional integrity with some newfangled coolness.
A Coolguru, at Gurucool, aims to pass their patrimony to the CoolLearners’ facilitated by empathetic learning and evolving approach. So, this was the inspiration behind naming the company Gurucool.
What do you think is the future of Edtech?
Undeniably, education has now become a basic necessity much like food and clothing. And history bears witness to civilizations adopting new educational techniques to cater to different social requirements. With the pandemic, the pace of education has only accelerated. Education clubbed with technology may be a new norm, but is here to stay for long. From schools adopting smart teaching techniques to various skill e-courses available, edtech is facilitating accessibility and availability of quality education for all.
However, the challenge of many edtech platforms is imperative, and it is possible that the sellers outnumber consumers. In such a case, edtech platforms are furthermore challenged to evolve and improve to cater to their learning audience. This positive competition only goes on to prove how much education has progressed and will continue to progress.
Another challenge that edtech platforms face is commercialising. With investments from VCs, edtech platforms are expected to give profitable results. And this takes away from the essence of quality education for all. We, at Gurucool are working to make education digital and democratised to enhance the learning experience for all.
What are the future plans for Gurucool?
Speaking firstly about the short-term plans for Gurucool, we aim to launch 15 centres in 6 different cities pan-India. Gurucool is looking to collaborate with various state governments under the Padhaai venture, and will soon launch an improved version of Paadhai- Padhaai 2.0. The new version will include better features and improved learning resources to facilitate a healthy learning environment.
Gurucool, recently launched its first YouTube channel, and is aiming to launch a few more over the span of the next few months. The upcoming Youtube channels will include Gurucool for Coding, Gurucool for Commerce, Gurucool for Graphic Designing etc, all set for launch shortly. Additionally, Gurucool aspires to achieve one lac learners on the Padhaai platform over the coming 3 months.
As for the long-term goals, Gurucool is planning to become a unicorn venture in terms of valuations and hopes to achieve a user base of 200 million learners by 2025.
Summing up his entrepreneurship venture with Gurucool so far, Mr Adil concluded with quoting Sultanpuri,
‘ maiñ akelā hī chalā thā jānib-e-manzil magar
log saath aate ga.e aur kārvāñ bantā gayā’.
