Interview with Minal Anand, Founder of GuruQ

GuruQ is a digital integrated platform connecting tutors and students. Founded by Minal Anand, an enterprising Finance major from Boston University, GuruQ aims to address the need for a single, simplified &cohesive ed-tech platform that provides online and offline tutoring.

According to GuruQ, the platform has been designed based on insights drawn from comprehensive consumer research to address the need-gap for quality tutors. It has been set up with a dual objective – it helps parents and students identify and connect with the best tutors the industry has to offer. Secondly, the platform addresses the challenges faced by the tutors and offers a robust, convenient system to simplify the tuition industry.

Students and parents have access to ‘GuruQCertified’ tutors for primary, secondary, higher secondary and undergraduate curriculums. GuruQ also helps them manage timetables and assess progress. For tutors GuruQ works as a digital integrated platform where they can be recognized for their quality of work and result oriented approach, reach and teach more students, manage time efficiently and be assured of timely payments.

GuruQ Team

To know more about GuruQ, we interviewed the founder of GuruQ, Minal Anand.

What is the USP of GuruQ given that there are many Startups already disrupting the education ecosystem in India, especially tutoring sector? 

With the main aim to help students find their right tutors, GuruQ offers many features to support the cause. Firstly, to ensure that our students get the very best, every tutor is made to undergo 5-level checks spanning their knowledge, qualifications, background & experience, and only the best are inducted into the GuruQ fold. Students are allowed different ways to reach out to these tutors as mentioned above. Students today are pressed for time and we help them save this precious commodity by taking tuition completely at their convenience. They can do actual on-demand tutoring by booking classes at short notice and even booking them by the hour for special needs such as revision. In addition to time, students can personalize their tuition with respect to the mode (offline or online), type (individual or group) and budgets (hourly or monthly). Parents can keep track of their child’s progress and seek feedback when they want to.We stand out from the pack because it is India’s first platform where one can pick quality-certified and user-rated tutors.

How does GuruQ differentiates itself from its Key Competitors?

We have entered a market where there are many established players so we understand the need to stand apart. We have made sure our differentiation is not just in the solution we provide but also the way we approach the problem. Our market research even before we began the journey from concept to commercialization revealed the many pain points that our target audiences face and we have planned 101 ways in which will not just eliminate their issues but also make learning easy, efficient and effective for them. We are starting with 21 features, advantages and benefits that we will provide and release the others in a phase-wise manner.

What about demonstrating your venture to Startup enthusiasts?Have you displayed your products in any entrepreneur summit? If yes, how was the response?

 Yes, as a matter of fact GuruQ just attended the Ed-tech Review Summit held in Dwarka. The event focused on B2B players in the edtech field. GuruQ received great traction from various other players in this area – education consusltants, investors, along with various intriguing collaboration opportunities for complimentary services and offerings. The overall response to GuruQ was overwhelmingly positive. 

What were the initial challenges that you faced as an entrepreneur? 

The journey so far has been one of exploration and experimentation. This is best exemplified by the fact that just 5 months into operations and we have already began revamping our entire digital infrastructure including the website and dashboard.  While the challenges have been across various areas such as the processes, technology, design etc. but we have overcome them all keeping only one thing in focus – the ‘Experience’ we are able to provide by integrating the various ingredients of our operations.

It has been only 5 months since its inception and GuruQ has got over 15000 tutor registrations and has certified over 1500 tutors on its platform. We just completed 100 hours of tutoring and the best is yet to come after the launch of the GuruQ Platform 2.0. Our focus is on Delhi NCR for the 1st year but we intend to eventually cater to all major cities through a phase-wise expansion. But we have begun online tuition Pan India since the medium transcends all boundaries.

GuruQ has already empanelled academicians from reputed institutes as its Advisory Board members who will also help mentor tutors.

The company recently raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from High Net Worth Individuals HNIs and has started operations in Delhi-NCR with robust plans to expand in other cities as well.

More about the Founder

MinalAnand is a young millennial entrepreneur and the founder of her first venture, GuruQ, a digital integrated platform that connects tutors and students with ease. As Founder and Chief Executive Officer, she is the innovator at GuruQ, an ed-tech platform that promises to bring high quality standards and new age methodologies to the way education is delivered in India.

Armed with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the School of Management at Boston University, Minal worked on several eclectic projects at companies like Franklin Templeton, Citigroup and HPL Additives to gain relevant experience on business planning, pitching for funding, enterprise design and structuring and talent management.

Shecompleted her degree at Boston University in three years instead of the designated four with a sparkling alacrity to join the professional world where she could apply theories to real life situations. She returned to India to joinDelhi-based HPL Additives as Assistant Manager – Corporate Development.However, the urge to do something in the field of education drove Minal to explore the ed-tech sector – one of India’s most prolific segments. She had previously taught several under privileged school students and it is this very experience that helped her with the business idea.

While studying in the US, Minal had seen a dramatic difference in the education system, its quality, the predominant use of digital platforms and innovative teaching methodologies. Back home, Minal noticed a huge disconnect between children who studied abroad and those who hadn’t.  She realized thatsuch disparity stemmed from the fact thatmost educators in India are not well-equipped or wellversed in innovative teaching methods compared to their counterparts overseas. This raises the question of the quality of educators in India and how the talented ones received their due.

Minal sees the importance of equipping tutors with the latest teaching methodologies and keeping them updated with international and national innovations. Her quest for doing something innovative made her delve deeper, understand the challenges and create a platform that would revolutionise the education system.

Hence, she conceptualized GuruQ as a single, simplified & cohesive ed-tech platform that provides online and offline tutoring and designed it based on insights drawn from comprehensive consumer research to address the need-gap for quality tutors.