Aditya Singhal, an education technology entrepreneur who’s hoping to fully automate tutoring in the next five years. Aditya believes in low-cost, high-quality education for all. Tune in as he and Nathan talk automated education, subscription models, and why Silicon Valley is overrated.
Famous 5
Favorite Book? – Growth Hacker Marketing
What CEO do you follow? — Elon Musk
What is your favorite online tool? — Twitter
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? —I wish I knew how to hack growth faster
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:25 – Nathan’s introduction
01:45 – Welcoming Aditya to the show
02:10 – There are 21 million college students in the states, looking for help
02:30 – Created TransTutors - an AI teaching assistant
02:50 – Subscription model: $20 each month, 30k customers
03:10 – Not a typical SaaS business model - uses humans assisted by code
04:05 – Revenue is $60-80k per month
04:20 – Business founded August 2014
04:30 – Revenue is 2015 around $1 million
04:50 – Initially self-funded; now raising investment from 500 Startups
05:00 – Hoping to raise $2.5 million by convertible note
05:30 – Making a trade-off: wants to learn from Silicon Valley
06:10 – Are tech hubs overrated?
06:30 – About 40% of customers (12k) are paying monthly
07:30 – In February 2016 had 3k active paying customers
08:05 – Users typically stay 4-6 months (one semester)
08:40 – Team of 10 people, including 8 in India
09:00 – A young engineer in India earns around $30k per year
10:00 – Aditya’s goal is to have a fully automated teaching system
10:20 – Would be happy to sell once he’s achieved his goal
10:50 – Equity split 50/50 between Aditya and his partner
11:30 – Connect with Aditya by email or twitter
14:50 – Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Create the solution your market are looking for - even if they don’t know it yet
Be clear about your business vision
Focus on finding social marketing methods to grow your business explosively
Resources Mentioned:
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives