Student First!

I personally prefer not to write in a magazine that I publish. It would be a travesty of justice and editorial freedom that I profess that the business head writes and takes a position. But when the editor himself (from this issue, the Editor-In-Chief) demands that I write, I meekly follow the diktat.

The thought of helping students decide better on their career choices was decided in 2007. I told my then employers of my plans to leave very soon and start my own venture with ‘education’ being the niche. There was a need. It can impact. And I had my own convictions. In my opinion, If ever there was a need to help our children, it is in the next 2 decades. After that, it will be too late. And importantly enough, it was a good opportunity to create an enterprise of scale, impact and profitability.

The plan was to establish the DNA of the brand in the first 3 years, create reach in the next phase and monetise them as we move forward. As it goes with my expertise, we started with the magazine. When we started, not many people gave us more than 3 years while the Venture Capitalists reached out to invest in the enterprise. I resisted the temptation to raise outside money so that we can create the DNA of CAREERS 360 the way I envisioned it – independent, fierce and keeping the student at the Center of the business model. Come what may, we will not do anything to misinform the student knowingly, we told ourselves. And we stuck to it despite all odds.

As we publish the 100th issue, I have an immense sense of satisfaction that I proved the naysayers wrong. The icing on the cake is of course the fact that this is the biggest issue that we ever published – 448 pages.

The journey hasn’t been easy. We had detractors. We faced vindictive managements. We were immense pressure. The big advertisers boycotted us. The small ones couldn’t support as needed. Some even tried to bully us into submission. We have seen it all, faced them all and now stand at a time and place where these battles look insignificant. But when we indeed were fighting those battles, they were threatening our existence. We had to dig deep in every which way to stand tall and face the bullies. And thank god, we did.

And impact, we made.

• Our 34000+ RTIs ensured that students have more information than they ever had.
• Our coverage of 6000+ institutions meant that students started looking beyond the IIMs and IITs.
• Our stress on research, impact and citations have forced big universities to focus and incentivise academic research.
• The bad guys are shutting down or have shut down. The bad institutions aren’t getting any admissions.
• Our objective data is becoming a threat to every bad institution.
• The business of rankings has been given a death blow. And every institution has become more transparent than it ever was.
• Even NIRF took a leaf from our rankings as it devised and is strengthening its methodology.
• Most importantly, what was just an advertisement supplement for mainstream newspapers and magazines has now taken Center stage.
• Alongside, with every story we do, we started influencing policy too.

None of this would have been possible without support from friends and well wishers. While people do talk if the risks we have taken, very few understand the support that we got. In fact, the support more than made up for the drain. Institutions advertised knowing fully well that we did not have enough audiences. Experts spoke knowing fully well we did not have the clout or reach.

As I look back, I am choking for words. It tells me that there is more than enough goodness in the world. There are more than perceived good eduprenuers in India. There are more good educators than the bad ones. And each one of them stood with us as we took on the bad guys. And I look forward to the next 100 issues, I can only thank my stars that we got going in these times, with each of you around. We wouldn’t be where we are without each of you – the good and the bad.

Thank you. Let us keep the student first. And we can all succeed together