eTutorWorld – Tutoring the Digital World
The world of education never stops and never stops learning, no matter the circumstances, education finds its way to reach the hearts and minds of all those who wish to learn, who wish to do some course or those who wish to boost their careers. Education not only helps in building the psyche and overall thinking and personality of a person but also helps in boosting the career and increasing the way and standard of living. So, saying no to education is saying goodbye to a sound and rational mind, not to forget the high-paying jobs and those fancy cars, houses, etc.
Education is a basic right for everyone and the pandemic not only posed a major threat to that right but also to all those who are eager to learn and cannot access the institutions, etc. stopping their learning process. This was overcome by the online mode of teaching, enabling students and those who want to learn, access to courses around the globe at the luxury of their homes. In all this euphoric innovation and technological intervention, basic education, i.e., K to 12th grade was overlooked, especially those who require additional help, such as tests, tutoring, etc.
eTutorWorld stepped in to provide these services over the internet through their bespoke, easy-to-use platform with content and teachers that are no less than experts in their particular subjects. The company has been working in this domain for well over 10 years, providing their excellence along the way, with a long list of highly satisfied students, loyal customers, and respect in the market as one of the best online education service providers.
Their methodologies and delivery of their services are changing with the latest trends, and a team of dedicated and expert professionals, giving their relentless efforts to provide the best online education experience, makes eTutorWorld and their unmatched services one of the best when looking for an online tutor or test provider for grades K-12th.
In conversation with the President and CEO of eTutorWorld, Mukul Agrawal. Let’s hear more about the company, its arsenal of educational services, and the CEO’s professional journey.
Please tell us about eTutorWorld and the initial challenges the company faced.
eTutorWorld offers world-class one-to-one online tutoring and test preparation services for students in grades K-12. Our goal is to support parents and offer what students need to be successful as an individual, in a welcoming and supportive community.
Founded in 2008 in Glen Arbor, Michigan, and Bangalore, India, we realized tutoring could be made much more affordable and convenient, that too without compromising on the quality of education provided to students. Our team has a collective experience of more than 100 years in education and technology. All eTutorWorld tutors are highly experienced and go through a rigorous selection process. We select only the best of the best!
While all our Tutors are qualified, knowledgeable, and patient, they are also mentors who provide the guidance your child needs to succeed. We’re not just here to be their educators, but to also help them be more confident and independent.
One of the most initial and I would say the biggest challenges we faced was acceptance. We started back in 2008, at that time online education was unheard of. The internet was still new to a majority of the population at the time and online learning was somewhat prevalent only at college campuses. So, convincing people that their kids can learn online was a tough task.
Tell us about the factors that led eTutorWorld to the monuments of success.
eTutorWorld saw tremendous growth after we took a conscious decision to invest in Search Engine Optimization, digital marketing, and online advertising. We also saw a tremendous surge when we expanded our sales team. Over the years, the acceptance of online learning also fuelled our growth.
When we started, we were sure of one thing, that we will always focus on creating a strong core team. I know for a fact that when you have the right people working for you, success is just about time. From Day 1 we collaborated with people who are the best at their job and have a penchant for challenging the norms. We applied this rule to everyone from top to bottom, even to the interns and freshers. As a result, now we have a team that knows our values and has in a way created the brand that we are today.
eTutorWorld saw tremendous growth after we took a conscious decision to invest in Search Engine Optimization, digital marketing, and online advertising.
After the core team, we turned to hiring expert tutors. We are not a marketplace. We do not just connect parents with tutors and get done with it. We handpick our tutors after careful consideration (several rounds of testing and interviews). The selection is followed by training where we prepare the tutors for teaching in the online classrooms and prepare them for the good and bad of working with technology and little minds. This is around two weeks of training, after which, we allow them to take classes and become a part of eTutorWorld’s winning team. The company sales have grown 100% during the financial year 2020-21 as compared to the previous FY.
Tell us about the unrivalled educational services of eTutorWorld, any new additions, and the factors that set these services apart from the competition in the market.
Our company is focused on personalized online tutoring and test prep for K-12 in the US market. At eTutorWorld, we are focused on “Structured and Personalized long-term tutoring”. Most of the larger players of the industry on the other hand “On-demand instant homework help”. So, we are different at the very basic level and intend to set our path, even going forward.
As I already mentioned, eTutorWorld is not a marketplace, instead, we have dedicated and qualified tutors (graduates and above) offering better quality tutoring at affordable pricing.
Yes, there are various new offerings this year. Virtual Learning Pods (VLPs) is one of the offerings for small groups (2 to 6). It provides personalized tutoring to every student in the group. In recent times, students have experienced severe learning loss and we believe that this kind of affordable, small group tutoring can help them tremendously. We are also coming up with many advanced products such as a new worksheet tool with adaptive testing, diagnostic reports, etc. Also, you will soon hear about our gamification and AI/ML-based offerings. We have been observing the market closely and how the education sector is at a new normal.
To adapt to the wider adoption of online learning in general, we are actively stepping up our capacity to serve a wider audience. Our goal is to provide access to all those sections of society who could not afford online tutoring earlier. We have also been working on multiple products and process innovations to achieve personalization at scale.
Tell us about your professional experience and the highlights of your professional journey.
Right now, I am working as the CEO of eTutorWorld. Before founding eTutorWorld, I was working with Unisys India’s Country Manager and Managing Director. I have lived and worked across the globe and picked up critical experience in management and business. Some other brands that I had a chance to work with are Tata Consulting, CitiBank, and Deutsche Bank.
In my entrepreneurial journey, my biggest achievement and satisfaction is to be able to help thousands of students in the USA in their studies especially during the covid period, high customer satisfaction with no customer disputes, generate employment or supplementary income for more than 50 persons in India, being able to pay them on time always without any delay or default, maintain an impeccable clean business reputation and contribute to society by paying taxes.
Tell us about the work culture and team of eTutorWorld.
The work culture at eTutorWorld can be defined with one word, ‘responsibility’. We have clubbed it with ‘freedom’ to create individuals who are strong-headed, independent, and committed to the growth of the company. At eTutorWorld, every person works with a sense of responsibility and they have all the freedom to make decisions towards the betterment of processes.
This is the reason; I have always stressed hiring capable and ready people. Individuals who are ready to dive nose-first into their jobs and get results from day one. People can be trained with best practices but they can never be taught to learn new things and to paint a picture beyond authority and definitions.
Your take on the competition in the market and its effect on you.
We believe in operating in a competitive market as it keeps us on our toes and pushes us to innovate continuously. Most of our competitors operate in a marketplace model and are focused on providing on-off ad-hoc help to students looking for help with their homework. We want to enable our students to be able to do their homework without help, based on what they have learned, what they know. We provide long-term learning through our expert tutors and prepare them for a future where they might be on their own.
Since all our tutors are based in India, we manage to offer top-quality tutoring and some of the most affordable rates in the market right now. So, I think it’s the competitors who need to think about coping with us actually, we are already one step ahead.
Of Course, competition is one of the most effective motivating factors. It makes you contemplate, ‘what you can do better than your competitor?’. It pushes you to create better products and services that are unique to your brand. So far, our competitors have made us give our best in every way and I am hoping it gets even better from here.
