Comments
What makes a person armed with degrees to die for, especially from IIT and IIM, train schoolchildren in sports?
“If you are well educated, you create a safety net for yourself. So, why not use it to make a bigger leap,” say Saumil Majmudar, co-founder and CEO, EduSports. In 2008, he did exactly that taking a bigger leap to create a business model that allows schoolchildren to learn and play sports just as they would mathematics.
Serendipity But it was serendipity more than anything else that helped Majmudar decide the course of his venture. One of his friends lamented that his child was glued to the television and hardly played, which set Majmudar thinking. It led to the idea of starting an activity that would glean children from passive play. And thus was born EduSports. “We don’t give enough credit to serendipity, which can turn the course of your life,” says Majmudar.
He gathered a few friends and started a company that would help school students in sports. Initially, they went around looking for playgrounds and finally hit upon the idea of approaching schools to allow them to train their students in any kind of sports.
“We encountered problems here as well, as school principals assumed we were selling some sports products and wouldn’t entertain us. But a colleague of mine asked me to put my qualification on my visiting card, which helped us get a foot in the door.”
EduSports began to get noticed. The company now has about 350 schools under its belt and expects to widen the reach to about 1,000 schools and one million children. It received funding from an angel investor in 2009 and later from Seedfund. EduSports is now a profitable company and has about 500 employees, most of whom are coaches.
EduSports’ business model is simple: its coaches train students in a structured way, with workbooks and a regular curriculum. A report card is even given on how the child is faring.
Revenue model Revenue is measured on a per student basis, and is between ₹150 and ₹200 a month.
Majmudar explains that as with academics, sports, too, requires someone to teach the fundamentals.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.