As a teenager, discovering and following your passion is difficult in India as neither the education system offers ample time, relevant knowledge, and right motivation nor the society supports it. We are judged based on our ability to memorize content and attend classes.
This is one of the core problems in EdTech that Zeeshan and team are trying to solve through MyCaptain. MyCaptain is an online mentoring platform where, young achievers from across the globe, mentor school and college students in their fields of interest and passions. Read this article to know more about MyCaptain, products, founders, growth, wiki, challenges, achievements and future plans,
MyCaptain - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | MyCaptain |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Bengaluru, India |
| Sector | Edtech |
| Founders | Mohammed Zeeshan, Sameer Ramesh, Ruhan Naqash |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Parent Organization | Climber Knowledge and Careers pvt ltd |
| Website | mycaptain.in |
| Contact | ruhan@theclimber.in |
About MyCaptain and How it Works
MyCaptain - Target Market Size
How was MyCaptain Started?
MyCaptain - Product/Services
Founders of MyCaptain and team
MyCaptain - Name, Tagline, and Logo
MyCaptain - Startup Launch
MyCaptain - User Acquisition and Growth
MyCaptain - Business Model and Revenue Model
MyCaptain - Startup Challenges
MyCaptain - Future Plans
MyCaptain - Advisors and Mentors
MyCaptain - Recognition and Achievements
Check out this List of EdTech Startups in India | Emerging Education Startups
About MyCaptain and How it Works
MyCaptain is an online platform where you can learn what you love, live, and online with young Professionals. The team believes that students need to be able to make informed career choices and they envision to enable a societal mindset shift when it comes to different offbeat and traditional careers in the country, and eventually the World.
The Core belief of the team behind running MyCaptain is that everyone deserves to explore the magic of all the professional fields and potential careers out there.
Mentors conduct one-month-long online, live workshops for students to help them learn the basics and get an idea about career opportunities in their interest field. Apart from this, they also organize physical meet-ups, events, and conferences across India. Their mentees volunteer for such meet-ups to stay connected with them and help other mentees.
The regular online sessions are one-to-many, but separate one-to-one sessions can be scheduled in case of extra queries. Any such extra session is free, and students can discuss their questions even after the program is over.
MyCaptain - Target Market Size
The company is in the Education Industry. The Market size is almost 38 million people (10 million students from 8th to 12th standard, 12 million students enroll in undergraduate courses every year, and 18 million graduates).
The Total Market Size is US $1.6 billion currently. According to the report by KPMG on Online Education in India, the market is said to be growing by 44% year on year.
How was MyCaptain Started?
The idea of MyCaptain was born out of a hostel room discussion. Zeeshan (CEO and Co-Founder) wanted to become an Astronomer, Sameer (Co-Founder) wanted to become a Tech blogger and Ruhan (Co-Founder) wanted to become a Writer. But when they approached their parents for the same, they were met with criticism, cynicism and eventually all the three ended up studying Engineering, a subject they were never passionate about.
While in college they met amazing potential filmmakers, designers, developers, photographers, models, and whatnot, but unfortunately they all were studying subjects they had no interest in. This led the founders to believe that the problem of making uninformed career choices or not being able to follow their passions was a problem that their entire generation faced.
They launched MyCaptain only in 2015, after trying out a lot of models and learning modules. They even validated their ideas by conducting offline boot camps and workshops and slowly moved them online. This is how MyCaptain began, where students could learn whatever they loved, Live and Online with young professionals.
The initial people that they talked to about their company were their target audience i.e. college students, and their parents. And everyone they talked to, said the same thing: “I wish I had something like this right now/when I was in college”.
Also read: Codevidhya - Ed-Tech Startup Following the ‘Learn by Doing’ Approach!
MyCaptain - Product/Services
MyCaptain is an Online app (and web app), where they conduct 4-week learning journeys for students in fields right from stand up comedy to Machine learning. The 4-week learning journeys consist of International level and relatable content (both video and text), amazing projects, and exciting Live Video Classes with Young professionals and Achievers from these fields.
Each program is designed in a way that by the end of the program the student has something tangible - Like the students from the MyCaptain novel-writing program have the first chapter of their novel ready and edited by the end of the program. The students from the MyCaptain web development program have their first website ready and so on.
The problem that this solves is it gives the students a kickstart into their field of passion by not only helping them build something tangible in the field but also connecting them with the right mentors to get guided and get a real-life experience of the fields as well.
Initially, they had launched a magazine called Inking Pages back in 2013 - 2014, which was written by college students pursuing various degrees in different colleges and was meant for school students to make a more informed career choice. But they had failed to realize that online content consumption was way higher than print. But to be able to conduct online programs, the team needed experience in creating great learning experiences. So they started with offline boot camps and eventually moved to online programs.
Founders of MyCaptain and team
Mohammed Zeeshan (CEO and Co-Founder), Sameer Ramesh (CPO and Co-Founder), and Ruhan Naqash (CMO and Co-founder) co-founded MyCaptain in 2013.
Zeeshan was Sameer's school friend back from Nagpur and had shared a common interest in sports, music, and the desire to impact people around them. Zeeshan met Ruhan while in College (SRM University), while one was pursuing mechanical engineering and the other Electronics and communication. Sameer was pursuing B.E in Industrial Engineering & Diploma in Experiential Education. The trio eventually decided to come together and build MyCaptain.
The current company size is 170 people, and the average age of all the team members is 23. The founders are the oldest (26, 25, 25). The company's culture is that of ambition, perseverance, and celebrating achievements.
They also believe in being the most caring when it comes to their customers (mentees). The startup hires young people because they believe that the problems of the young generation can only be solved by young people. More recently, to further scale, they have been recruiting more experienced people who have the vigor for education and want to make a change.
Relevant read: Internshala - Grab That Internship You Are Passionate About!
MyCaptain - Name, Tagline, and Logo
On a train journey for a B Plan competition back in 2014, when the founders were still in college, they decided to watch this movie called “Dead Poets’ Society”. The movie in their head changed the role of a teacher and how it should evolve with time and also featured the famous poem “O Captain My Captain” by Walt Whitman. This was a turning point for them as they understood how Education and learning were not just about textbooks, videos, or lectures and had a deeper reliance on human relationships, and mentoring as well!
The tagline for MyCaptain is “Learn what you love”. It clearly talks about their culture and vision as an organisation.
"We want to facilitate your learning and professional development in the field that you truly love! The logo has a hand in it, which is a symbol of being offbeat, and breaking the norms for us. We are perceived by our stakeholders, and mentees as a revolution.", said Ruhan Naqash, co-founder of MyCaptain.
MyCaptain - Startup Launch
In February 2015, just a month after the founders formally launched MyCaptain, there was a Fest at SRM University (Zeeshan and Ruhan’s College). The team put up a stall there, with only 4 programs under their belt at that time - Entrepreneurship, Creative writing, Ethical Hacking, and Astronomy. They saw a whopping 192 people pay upfront for these programs on the very first day of the Fest. This led to them having a strong belief that this product was something people wanted and it solved a real solution.
They started mentoring by delivering live online sessions on the free version of WizIQ (E-learning delivery platform) and used WhatsApp groups to communicate and interact with the mentees. They used to share videos and other such learning materials via google drive.
MyCaptain has evolved over two years, and now they use their platform with a lot more added features and customization that suits the needs of mentees for the live sessions.
Must read: How Byju's is Making Millions of Students Fall in Love With Learning
MyCaptain - User Acquisition and Growth
MyCaptain has a very strong presence in colleges and runs arguably India’s largest Campus Ambassador Program with more than 600-800 active campus ambassadors every month. Their marketing campaigns inside colleges, where their tone has been brash (for example “has your professor ever built an app? Our mentors have! Learn App development with us”) have gone viral within campuses.
This has led to conversion rates of 20-25% on the potential leads that they generate from these campuses. The startup has scaled to more than 80,000 paid mentees so far through their Campus Ambassador Model, and a strong online advertising strategy.
MyCaptain runs operations all across India and have their headquarters in Bangalore. Their revenue in the last financial year was south of 1 Million dollars and have had a paid user base of 80,000+ which is equivalent to highly funded companies like Unacademy and Vedantu from the Education sector. All of this completely bootstrapped without raising a single penny. Their NPS is above 50+ which is one of the highest for Education products all across the World.
MyCaptain - Business Model and Revenue Model
MyCaptain has been generating revenue and is profitable right from the first day. Students pay them 1,000 rupees for a month-long workshop. Mentors get a part of this amount, and the company get the rest.
Rest of compensation for mentors happen by helping them get mentors for their research or work. They are also given LORs, and the startup even help them get funds for their research or startup. The team also organize physical meet-ups regularly for which participants pay between Rs. 200 to Rs. 1000.
An example of one such event is the engineering conclave which consists of sessions that help students in gaining useful insights into their field of interest. The event spans over a couple of days and covers topics from various domains.
Relevant read: upGrad - Send Your Career Soaring With Online Courses from Reputed Institutes
MyCaptain - Startup Challenges
One major challenge was faced when the founders went bankrupt and were in heavy debt before starting MyCaptain as their magazine didn’t take off.
At the end of 2014, they had subscribers for their magazine but did not have the resources to cater to them. They were liable to print 12 more issues of the magazine, but the founders didn’t have the funds to do so and were in debt of around 2.5L.
The idea of MyCaptain was born during this phase. The revenue from the first few months of starting the company helped them clear the debt.
Another challenge MyCaptain faced in the very initial days (5 years ago) was acquiring mentors when their credibility was low. This was overcome at the time, after the IIM Bangalore incubation, that the founders got right after college. They also used a strong network effect of vetting and referral from their then mentor pool. Right now MyCaptain has a pool of 250+ mentors.
MyCaptain - Future Plans
They want to expand their offerings to 50+ programs, expand into professional levels for each program and also get into vernacular languages so that they democratize the notion of being able to make an informed career decision for the entirety of India.
MyCaptain - Advisors and Mentors
The company's chief advisor has been Mr. Naga Raja Prakasham who is an investor and also a startup mentor at IIM Bangalore. His advice has been very precious for them.
MyCaptain - Recognition and Achievements
- MyCaptain was incubated at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore in 2016.
- They have been recognized by the United Nations SDSN as one of the Top 50 Youth Led solutions in the World for their Work in Quality Education and Decent Economic growth and work.
Link : https://startuptalky.com/mycaptain-success-story/
Author :- Rishabh Rathi
June 10, 2020 at 12:32PM
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