Campusutra: Organic Growth and Digital Branding for Academic Institutions

of digital branding, content creation for primarily for academic institutions. Couple of our uh clients which we are

working with, partners which we are working with since the last decade or so would be VIT University, MDI, Gorga,

XLRi. While doing this, we also created a portal which started off as a blog known as campusutra.com.

Okay. Should I uh should I start my camera or something or is it okay if I'm like this?

Hello, please start the camera then we can see you.

Yeah. No, since everybody is camera off so I thought you know that's probably okay. Okay. Okay. So actually I was not

aware that you know I should be starting or I thought it would be a flow of discussion but nevertheless so where I

left was yeah at the same time when we started a blog because we were working with lot of institutions lot of B

schools lot of top B schools across the country lot of universities we were kind of a bridge between the institutes and

the students we were doing uh a lot of content creation and also disseminating that content in various platforms. So

when we were disseminating these platforms, I thought that you know that uh we should have a probably a platform

where we can we can keep everything. We can kind of make a uh ma make a library sort of where we dump all the content

which would be useful to many other students and that is how campus utra was born

which started off as a blog and over the last decade or so it has grown organically.

We are not uh it's like bootstrapped and self-funded. So we do not have uh the kind of funding which is required to

promote campus.com to take it to the level which it is right now is one of the most popular uh portal for higher

education aspirants primarily for MBA aspirants. So people started noticing us and uh we

have been kind of labeled uh you know one of the uh newcomer which is kind of in the same same platform of MBA

universe or a career 360 or a shika.com but we thought we we we were different in in many sense in the sense that we

were not just writing about the private institutions or the institutions who are working with us. We were writing of any

institutions about any institutions. We are generating content about any institutions which adds value to

education as a whole and also students uh you know who which are not much popular or not much in the visibility in

the digital platforms or in any other platforms per se. So for example uh the time when we

started I am Ahmedabad uh used to the fees of IM Ahmedabad was around 14 lakhs and the average CTC of

Ahmedabad was somewhere around 16 lakhs whereas Delhi which is uh very popular but not so across the country which was

popular probably in Delhi NCR we started writing about that also and we started giving options to students

that okay if you are going for Amhabad you might as well explore a college like FMS Delhi which offers the same CTC

average CTC but the cost of your MBA is peanuts when I say peanuts it's like the uh canteen fee or probably the host fee

of Ahmedabad is equal to the entire college fees of FMS Delhi so what happens is when you are leaving

campus after your two years of MBA and you're passing out

the the student from Ayawad probably would be having a EMI load and which he has to pay every month whereas a student

which is who is passing out of FMS Delhi would be uh absolutely free with no AMI and probably he would just you know get

a job which is at par with Immawad and also probably might as well go and buy a apartment in sugar locality. So that is

how campus utra has grown and evolved and become popular because of the simple reason that we thought it is a basic uh

right of every student to to get hold of two news primarily. One is the admissions notices

the options which he may have or she may have. The other is the placement details the the details of uh the pl students to

faculty ratio and of course a little bit about the overall learning experience. So while we also said that a student who

is going into FMS Delhi he or she may not be able to get the kind of learning experience which I am probably would be

offering but at the same time you know the other things probably the quality of faculty and the quality of recruiters

would be at par. This is how campus sutra has grown over the last decade. And in 2024,

uh, three faculty from down south, two from IFMR, GSB, KA University and one from LEA, they did a research study on

the data which they have taken from campus utra for almost a year. They did a lot of analysis and they

wrote a case study. The case study was first published by IV publication

and few months back it has been listed in Harvard Business case studies. The organic growth of campus sudra

and of course it is now available for you know downloading to all top B schools across maybe 200

countries. Now this is this all happened as I said organically as I said it was

bootstrapped as I said it is like full selfunded why it happened primarily was we thought that the authenticity of the

data the com easy to comparative compare do a compare an analysis for any B schools for any institutions a evolution

kind of a easy evaluation just short list select evaluate apply in one single

platform platform on one single window. That's how it became popular. This is what you know all about campus

sutra. At the same time we if you are if you want to know you know was telling me about the struggles what we have faced.

Yes, we definitely have faced a lot of struggles. As I said, we do not have the uh the kind of funding which is required

to uh you know have a proper campaign strategy which is which are to a great

extent would be a paid strategy. Neither I I was very intent to do a paid strategy. I thought rather than going

for eyeballs or going for a high number of traffic, it should be reachable to genuine students, students who are

looking for information. And in fact in one of those studies that three faculty who has done and studied all the data

during 2024 it also came out that

the top segment of CAT zad Z XGMAD or whatever you say the top

segment the top percentile of students they the average stay time of their is much much higher in campus.com compared

to a average student for a student who is probably not targeting XLR or I am a B, C, L or K or probably not a XLR.

So in a sense maybe the content which we have is rich but at the same time it is only attracting to the top layers. That

kind that can be a feelood factor for all of us but at the same time the struggle we faced was that yes we were

not doing lot of advertisements. We were not spending in advertisements and maybe that is the reason why we were

attracting serious students. Maybe we are losing out on the average students which is like 50 percentile or 60

percentile. Thereafter we also face challenges like having a proper server whatever we could

say we have this at least thrice I don't know uh why it happened but yes there were genuine attempts to hack our

uh site and there were at least thrice we were hacked and specifically those pages

somebody whoever has done it targeted those pages which were very popular. So slowly and gradually we also

strengthen that area the technology the the kind of uh you know the the experience which we will be we will try

to give to the user for example we never wanted a portal which is in a landlord mode what I mean by landlord mode is

let's say a institute becomes a partner they want to advertise they want to display their brand in our site so we

don't just want to have a brand uh you know a 2x3 kind of a

banner in the site and that should be visible to whoever is coming or whichever traffic is coming on the site.

We wanted to give a special effect. We wanted to give a special service. We wanted to do much more than a just a

visibility of the brand to anybody and everybody whoever is coming to the site. For example,

a 90 percentile and above would target a set of colleges which probably is XLR or some of the IM or a MDI whereas a 60%

would probably target a VJ Hyderabad or a you know something like um

let's say any of the those kind of institutes which which accepts 50%. So there is no point of showing the same

brand to the 90 percentile who is not targeting this college. Similarly vice versa not showing the brand to a 60%

of our MDI gura. So this kind of algorithms we wanted to create we are still creating we are still working and

we would like to develop further on that. So the point which I'm trying to make here is it's not a landlord model

where we put up a banner and we earn but beyond that if we can add some more value to the to

the to the partner where specific targeting of his target audience of the college's target audience is addressed.

Secondly we would also like to do a lot of brand engagement. Lot of students come to us asking for I have offer from

A, B, C or D. I'm a little confused where should I go? Based on certain parameters, based on certain merits

which we ask which we have a very intelligent uh communication system over the last couple of years. We have also

developed a WhatsApp communication channel where certain questions are asked to the student.

Initially it's a bot which takes over. Then one of our team member talks to the student

and we guide him. Till date none of our names are in the site in campus.com. You would not find

our names or who the person or who the people are behind campus.com. that has been done in purpose that we

would like to grow campus sutra or find its make its own name based on its merit based on its own advantages.

So when at the airport I'm wearing a t-shirt of campus maybe you know having a coffee somebody would walk to me and

say oh you are from campus and you know you have helped me selecting my college which is again feels great like it's a

kick end of the day. So that's how we have been over the past uh you know years growth has been made. Any

questions so far or any specific questions I would be happy to take. Please

Definitely sir as I told you you know the initial idea of having a blog like campus.com

was just to you know keep the content which we are creating somewhere in a sort of a

library where you know somebody can just pick up or search or see. So the idea was never what it is today.

The main the primary business the parent company which uh is into that is branding that is my passion that is the

team's passion that is always have been and we'll continue to do it. It has happened like you know the

content which we created was appealing was meaningful and that is how we grow. Now that we

have grown over the past decade and we have reached a a position where you know in in the last uh if you see the 2023 24

we have reached 80 million and we have touched so many lives. So the challenges which here on we face is to retain the

as I said there are two segments. We do not want to lose out on the average segment. We do not want to lose out on a

student who which who is coming from a tier three city or a tier 2 city. We want deep penetration which probably we

do not or not being able to do right now because of positive fund. How to raise fund? It's not that we have not been

approached by fund uh funding managers or you know venture capitalist but the model which we want to follow probably

is as of now is not sync with the kind of you know VCs which have approached us for example

the day we get into that probably we would be trapped into having making it a more commercial kind of other this thing

like selling of applications or yes we do do that we do that but right now what we are doing is the sales happens

through the merit of the content MDI Gura has been working with us for the last 10 years

last year there has been 3,000 applications which has gone to MDI Gorga from campus.com

3,000 applications if you convert or if you translate that into commercial uh this thing probably it would be 2,000

rupees per applications Right 2,000 applications 3,000

3,000 sorry 3,000 so like you know one CR probably would be the revenue which has campus utra has

given to MDI global similarly there has been multiple cases but what we are slowly and gradually

finding is how to go into much deeper how to offer our services the platform to be make more popular for tier 2 tier

three cities people who are also looking for a for a SSIM Hyderabad or maybe you know some some remote testing I mean

some local kimbaturur based there are multiple colleges in kimbaturur so that particular city so from word of mouth or

from agency agencies like there are a lot of schools which has you know still into the agency

model which we want to address that issue also that probably they should be evaluating they should be selecting they

should be having a parameter which we offer in campus.com based on that they should select a college the

theme which we also use at times for that particular thing is select your college

by choice not by chance. So these are these are things which we have been you know facing the challenges and still we

are facing it. At the same time we would like to generate maybe more clients. But here one thing which we do not want to

do here is to have 20 ads in the homepage which many of our you know similar kind of

portals would be having where it is a cluttered environment. We would like it as I said earlier

that it has to be a value added service not the same brand to be displayed for everyone. So the same for a 60

percentile and the same to a 90%. We try to restrict the brand and to show it to the specific target audience. For that

we minimize the ads. For that we we like you know maybe we we are restricting the number of ads on a

particular page that is something which we would like to address that should we get into that kind of model which a fund

manager is asking or should we continue to create a value that's a dilemma probably which has been discussed in the

earlier case study which is now in Harvard also or should we also tie up with the edtech which also has been you

know discussed in Harvard case study. But these are things which I would like to like to throw upon

from where we were, what we have achieved, what we are right now, what we would like to go further. Another thing

which we have also noticed over the time especially post a challenge which not just in campus

utra we have probably faced it is being faced by multiple uh you know avenues in academia including

people including faculty members who are offering online courses or online programs or online teaching that is the

diminishing trend of attention span of attention the average attention span is drastically

falling now over the few next few years let's say 5

years down the line in 2030 I'm not sure whether campaud will exist as a portal will exist whether

everything would be video content whether everything would be scroll whether everything would be reals we

have already started in fact we were the first to move on to Tik Tok along with IM Aad and I am Bangalore and

we were the only portal who were which was available in Tik Tok. In fact, Tik Tok was also very smart as they

introduced something called edut a different division for education and in that segment we were the one who

were the first ones to move. Yes, we could also see one or two IM in that. But again as luck would serve us Tik Tok

was banned. Then we started getting into reals. We generate lot of videos. But the point here is are we

losing out on the target audience on the traffic which is uh reading. Is there a shift happening slowly and

gradually towards more of video content? These are the two challenges which we are right now facing.

Sir Sir, we have a open culture. If you see my name mentioned here, Hermalia, the

first letter of the name N. If you are wondering then why it is not capital, it's just symbolic. It's symbolic in the

sense that we use the same kind of pattern when we send a mail or in our business cards. The first letter of the

all our team members name would be starting in small letter. It's symbolic in a sense that we are all in a flat

structure. Every member has probably the same kind of say. Yeah. At times it know the final call would be probably mine

but yes it's not a kind of a hierarchy kind of a cultural uh organization we would like to be even

the intern would be invited for a brainstorming session and we would love to have more and more opinions even from

you know students community a lot of students apply to us for interns we work with them right now we are talking with

two three interns. One intern has just left and joined a B school in a Bangalore and the other intern has

dropped who who was a 95% CAT but he wanted to target only the five top that is ABC so he just dropped

from our Singh and he's preparing for his this year's CAT so we would like to gain a lot of things from them and

that's how you know we are into our target audience is for students community but Again here

there's a difference between a uh between a I would say a commercial platform a e venture or a e-commerce

platform whatever you call it for example any e-commerce platform for them the target audience is their customer

right there's a difference with us for us our target audience is not our

customer in a sense that our revenue is supposed to come from the institutes whereas our target audience is the

students community who are not paying us. So we have to address the students community while we have to seek the

revenue and approach probably the you know the universities the institutes for branding the value creation has to be at

both ends. Am I am I making sense? Okay. So for us the diff the difficult

proposition here is our target audience yes is a different segment is a different age group while the revenue

generation segment is different a different age group a different all all together you know segment. So this is

again a kind of a challenge or we have to you know balance this cultural shift between the Zen Xen Y Z whatever you

call them and also the doctors, the researchers, the VCs, the directors, the director of admissions, the director of

branding. So we kind of try to balance this and yes we have to cater to both of them and probably we are also you know

doing that. The second thing you asked was the team is absolutely you know a very

small team. We do not have a marketing team. Everything is as of now on word of mouth. The customers we have are

primarily for the parent parent company who has also taken the services of campus utra. There are lot of queries

which come to us from various colleges from various universities. The mailers which we send based on those mailers

people start calling us and the first question is can you get us students

can you get us applications I say yes that's our no that is something which is uh that is something which is a fallout

of what we do so if we start creating content if we do some kind of brand engagement brand advocacy for your brand

that would automatically happen but when it comes to revenue the payout from those particular institutes and

universities who are into that particular model when I said that particular model I'm coming

to it that okay the payout will be based on how many applications your portal has

sold. So the entire ball game now shifts to a different zone where we are selling

where we are asking the student buy this form buy this application which we do not want to do we want to give the

students options we want to say if you are going for a ABC option why don't you also see D and E

we want to give the student the right fitment we don't want to be a hardcore seller

for a particular brand that's not was the that was not the objective of campus.com.

So here the struggle which we are facing is we have to politely say that to that particular brand to that particular

institute or the university that sir I think you are barking the wrong tree. may not be the right brand for you but

we can assure you working with us for one year two year down the line you would not need this kind of approach.

We have seen institutes. We have been working with institutes something like our four school of management when we

started they were 180 seats now they are 700 seats. We have been working with VIT

University. Now here's a you know very interesting story.

When we started working with VIT University we were doing a lot of organic uh visibility, organic reach

out, organic growth. At the same time we we also saw that a major not just VIT universities probably that is uh

something common which other universities who have been which we have been working with. So for example their

entire revenue structure was kind of more focused on UG uh business like not business UG

applications which were coming from undergraduate the B tech or the other thing. So their focus was there. So they

used to spend a lot of money on Google ads and when we started sharing the insights

from the analytics which we you know generated we we we generally flood our clients with lot of analytics and

insights. The data points which we give them we showed that a lot of value addition a lot of scope

is there to cut down on the expense of the ads and to uh you know enhance the returns on the ads.

So what we did was we tried to convince them after two years of you know while we were working on the organic part we

were doing a lot of content creation they took that entire chunk of ads model which they used to work with Google and

they give it to us. So what happened in the process of the next two years? In the next two years what happened is we

drastically brought down their entire budget uh cutting down it by

67% at the same time giving them applications which in the

history of that university they have never ever received. Now how do we do it? It's not that you know we are better

off we have a larger team or you know the the kind of the the skill sets which we have the competency which we have is

far far better than Google may not be that but what we did and what Google lacked probably is our understanding of

the cohort psychology understanding of the students understanding of where to you know when to address it how to

address it their pain points and connect with them engaging with engaging them in a different level. So

maybe that's how we probably you know ended up in offering much much more. But coming to your initial question yes the

struggle remains whether we become a sales oriented uh platform or whether we stick to value

additions the way we are trying to do. Even now we write about many uh government colleges

who would never ever in the future would be our partners in the sense that there will be no transactional relationship or

association with them. I'm absolutely I'm enjoying please So definitely that's what I have been

telling you that yeah we that's a struggle you know that we have we have been but at the same time people who are

serious people who are doing doing a Google search or looking for a particular

college or looking for a particular program in all possibility they will find us

but the seriousness quotient of that particular student is what is actually you know today in today's generation

what we are finding now I'll tell you one difference from the last let's say five six years down the line till now

now as I said sir we do not have we do not uh kind of advertise our numbers or keep our numbers available but yes

there's a WhatsApp chat there are a lot of other portfol avenues. For example, we have small closed groups like a CAD

group, CAT 2025 group, a Z 2026 group. These are all in um closed groups, but very specific.

So around 3,000 members are there in the CAT 2025 group. They would connect with us.

They would ask us several questions. We connect with them. When I say seriousness question, these people are

really really serious. But what we are losing out is somebody probably who is not there. Somebody which who wants a

ready solution. So the difference the shift which we have seen over the last couple of years is right now it is more

of a instant you know need instant want instant ask. I do not want to do the research. I do

not want to evaluate. You tell me this is my merit, this is my academic scores, you shall suggest me four

colleges. Now this is very you know kind of challenging for us. Now we are trying to

make small small you know writeups for example where we have around now around 40 different competitive analysis where

we select four five colleges from the same bandwidth and we try to evaluate them ourselves and throw it out as a

ready to you know ready to have two minute Maggie type of thing for this generation who wants kind of that kind

of service. But yes, coming to your point, sustainability

would always be there for the serious lot. But for the other lot who would probably not do the hard work or

probably not do not want to kind of you know spend that amount of time here, somebody's friend has suggested

something. Somebody's father is known to somebody else who is you know a faculty of that particular college and that okay

beta go to this college that kind of audience we are losing out by not advertising

Oh, Jamama sir I would just you know try to add to your point

there there are there are owners of colleges there are owners of institutes universities whom I know for maybe

decade plus who treat me very well and there's a mutual respect for each other if I'm

their city and if I know if I you know happen to tell them that I'm in your city.

They would invite me for lunch, dinner. We would have a chat on everything on the industry and everything what's going

around. We would ask each other about our families but

we would not be working in a sense that we might be you know doing a small piece of

uh this thing for them a campaign maybe a small campaign or something with them but not the extent extensive kind of a

campaign which we do for a MDI gorga or a or a you know vit university or something of that sort which we have

been doing for the last decade. They have returned us and they we have been giving results and they have returned us

and they are also happy and we are working for them. But this segment which I'm talking about

is not able to work with us in that intensive manner because of the fact

that there are 70% of the seats are dependent on the agencies which you have just mentioned.

The aspiration level of the director and the owner is to reach to what we are recommending.

But that state the faith the leap of faith probably he is not able to take because

of the agents which are controlling that admissions in that particular institute. They want to create the brand but

somehow or the other they are stuck in that time warp. Last maybe in 2015 the kind of situation

which I have seen in 2025 we are we are probably looking at the same kind of situ in fact we are doing a data

analysis and we are trying to you know address this through a story which we are writing right now. A lot of inputs

are being taken by from various areas. So as you said sir there are certain institutes

who will never ever take a student from an agency for example a for school of management they have grown exponential

exponentially and we have been working with them for the last 15 years but at the same time there are institutes who

would depend primarily into you know this kind of model where this was actually during the pandemic the uh this

had this was you know drastically This has reduced but again now it is taking up.

Hello sir. Uh I'm Dr. Vikram. Can I proceed? Yeah please sir. Please.

Yes sir. So firstly thanks for know being patient enough to answer all our questions. So really appreciate all your

time and support. So I I'll start with few questions. Maybe I have a series of questions. So first and foremost

s I believe you know the way you put it right um it shows that know you are catering to different universities

across the nation right so for this right when you are mentioning that know you'll load all the institutions with

lot of lot of analytics and insights to take some decisions etc. So I believe you are a very great technology hub

because you know you cannot produce analytics just like that. So that there is a good amount of technology uh that

is leveraged in your end. So that's for sure one and secondly how is that know people look at your analytics report

because you know people are very afraid of numbers that to generated by analytics and all right so how is that

no convincing part is know working here that's second and and third thing is what is your USP because know as you

mentioned right there are other vendors who are also doing the same similar stuff they're also supporting other

institutions I also know a couple of know vendors doing the So what is your USP? How is that you

differentiate from them? Because I think that is where you're trying to sustain yourself know competing with others. So

maybe if you could show kind of share or throw some lights on that side that will helps.

Sir, I will start with your last uh question. Yes.

And in a reverse chronology I will try to address each of them and if I miss out something please uh you know feel

free to again interrupt me. So the USP probably lies in the fact that the authenticity of the data the the user

friendliness of the comparative analysis exactly pinpointing those kind of data which the user would

like love to have for example you know the admission fees the particular institute particular brand

known for what so for example uh I would just again give you an uh example

uh there was a time you know it's still acceler is known for is known in the sense perceived

as a place for those who would like to go for HR as a specialization. So few years down the line when we

started doing some analysis and research we you know came out with a report where definitely acceler is a place to go but

at the same time there are other institutes for example MBI Gorg or plenty of them which are equally good

but are not getting highlighted because the data has not been analyzed even the institute is not aware. So for example

when we did that analysis we found the number of recruiters in acceler which is into consulting

is much lower than the number of recruiters which is into consulting in MBI gura or FMRSP.

So here when it is how I mean does it really matter? Yeah, it matters because the

consulting organizations eny or a price water house or you know of that category

the salary is higher. A b they would take the cream layer. So that is how students came to know

okay this is also an option. The second thing is as I said the brand should be in that we do a lot of

sentiment analysis. I'm not sure sir if I can share a screen and show you something. Uh do I have a second to test

try? Yes sir you can share your screen. Yes sir. Yes sir.

Yes sir. Sir, I hope this is not getting recorded right

because I'm going to show something which is live data. It's not recorded sir for sure.

Oh, thank you so much. Uh sir, hi this is Yesh. Yeah.

Uh sir, uh the education sector like you know whatever we've so far you have mentioned it to us it is rapidly

changing with the change in case of the Gen Z. You talk about you know the attention span is changing up there are

challenges in case of you know the hookah world but the basic challenge when we are you know catering to the

education sector per se the overall you know it's changing with AI coming up hybrid learning you already mentioned it

up there are a lot of at platforms you know so has it really impacted your business in terms of like whatever you

know you've mentioned that today to stay relevant into the market we talk about you know uh the revenue model you you

mentioned it up that you know the revenue model needs to get changed probably there's a lot of dilemma. So

has it impacted up your business? Not really. Yes ma'am. In fact we have been we have addressed that for couple

of our partners. So uh to answer the you know the one of the query of Vikram sir like

the one of the other USB apart from the data analytics and other thing which I'm just trying to share with you. I'll I'll

come to that for a moment. Let me park it. There are other uh areas for example you

know if I'm going if I'm meeting a somewhere in a conference where you know somebody we are gathering in the over

the cup of tea during the breaks so a director would come come you know introduce me to his fellow team members

that he is a guy of analytics and his analytics are like you know too good in the sense that lot of insights you would

uh you would get from that. Now when I say that it it sounds very subjective and cliche maybe you know something but

we get invites from institutes who may or may not be our business partner for inputs on a

newly launched program like you know they have a framework. So they say that okay this is our framework we have

decided and your role now is to just to you know go through the framework and also let us know if there is anything

which we are missing out which is in demand in the market or which is there is a you know the recruiters are

probably would be having more uh giving more weightage to that and how we do should we pace it out how when should be

the launching date and what how should be the campaign be designed. So that is how we are you know valued

from the analytics. The other thing not many people people who do not understand analytics or do not want to understand

analytics the renewal of our contract or our MOU may not happen after 2 years 3 years

down the line but people who are serious about it it's not that everybody understands ma'am analytics I would give

you again one or two case study or maybe example so Dr. Shangita, she was the chairperson

of admissions in MBI Gura and then she was also the director of MBI Gura prior to the the current director

and she would the moment she receives a report she would call me up or one of us and ask take a pen and paper and ask

okay this is this data you have mentioned this can you elaborate so it's not that you know everybody

should know be knowing I may not know a lot of things right today also I'm learning. So she would be asking us, she

would be keen to learn deeper and then she would ask I am Kolkata director ex director I mean former director he said

you have sent me a report why don't you take a flight and come down and explain me the so I had to take a flight and

went there just because of his keenness to understand the data the analytics and once we were we went through the reports

he was just like you know can you classes for our students because what we teach is more of from the book from the

theory what you are saying is hands-on and ma'am that's how we have learned when we started in 2009 10 there were no

digital marketing program course or even a book when we stuck up when we were stuck up with something and we called up

Google customer care there were at times they did not have the answer to it so we tried we failed we learned

And that's how we are still doing it. If something is not working, we would try a you know plan B and then we see how it

is going on. So there are clients, there are partners who would

take this kind of value additions, this kind of you know that is one of our biggest up USP. And now let me just show

you something. Um ma'am um you asked me something else also, right? What was the other one? This is one.

Did I miss something? So it was just that you know how is it impacted up your you know business

relations. No it really did not impact us because you know it we were able to help others.

What is impacting today is yes as I told you one is a large level you know larger

level scaling up to the next level. The other is the reducing uh

level of attention. Just a moment. Sir, when you say scaling up, so you saying that uh you know you are finding

it difficulty between scaling uh with technology versus ensuring the good content and the credibility of that

content, right sir? Uh no ma'am what we are saying is uh sorry just a moment ma'am actually

There are a lot of uh firewalls and Sorry ma'am. In fact, Vikram sir said that we must be a highly techdriven

organization more of techdriven organization. We are something we are we are probably taking

steps to start something which is catching up at a very early stage. We are early movers. So for example we are

the only one we are the only education portal in India right now using the WhatsApp as a communication tool as a

OTP somebody who's coming to our site to take a mock test earlier we used to send a SMS we now engage that particular

person or a student through WhatsApp we are promoting a program let's say you know uh we are promoting a online

program for a particular university so we do not barge in or We do not like you know like flood him with kind of a

spams. What we do is a very interactive this thing. If he's interested we give him options. Are you interested in this

program? Yes. No. Says yes. Then would you like to know more about it? Say yes. Then would you like to download? Say

yes. Then he gets a downloaded uh format of the PDF. Then uh would you like somebody to call you? If he says yes,

what is your preference of time? We would give them slot 10 a.m. to 12 a.m. you know 1 to 3 p.m. something of this

sort. So we are taking a lot of his intent collecting the intent before we actually you know addressing the system

and end of the day we would give him a thank you. We would say okay for more of information you can do this. So that has

not been a a problem for us technology in the sense we are not a highly invested company in tech technology

rather we would love to do that I would like to have a team of around 10 people you know coding sitting with me probably

doing a lot of things for us yes that's that's the aspiration which we have but right now what we are trying to do is in

our own level whatever resources we are having try to capitalize and and cash on that particular thing. That is how we we

probably are doing uh the analytics which we are gathering and also presenting. This is

my again one more attempt to share the screen. Why is it saying that Google wants to

record this computer screen and audio? So I guess that's okay. What you can do is you can send us you know the pics or

you can send it later on also to us or in case if you don't want to share it up.

Ma'am I will just try from this uh MacBook often gives me a lot of problems. So I'll just try to share with

you from other listening. Let me just see if I can do it one just one more minute and then if it doesn't happen

we'll this would actually clarify you know the kind of questions which vikrams are

asked me so just for that I'm trying desperately sir it's okay sir if you it's not

feasible not a problem just describe us and that would help Can you uh see the screen?

Hello. No sir, not not it. But now the sharing is happening.

No sir, we are not seeing the screen. It's okay sir if it's not possible it's okay to know you just throw your points

or or know give us the inputs that that will help okay okay let's drop this yeah so

I logged in from there also I I think now it is visible. Yes sir. Yes sir. Now it is visible.

Great. Great. I was about to quit. Give up. So anyway so this is the kind of sentiment analysis which we do here. You

can see on the left hand side of the pie. Mhm. people who are taking a particular

you know buying on an average a student would probably buy seven to eight applications

so 4% would be also buying BIM techch 8% would be SIBM 10% would be NM IMS 13% would be IMI

Delhi and this is how we you know we come to know okay these are the

your competitors who are gaining from you. These are the computers where your dropouts are happening

and these are the computers where you are actually getting you know uh students from.

So this kind of sentiment analysis which we do based on the data which we collect again probably we are the first one to

do. Got it. So this was victims are sorry for the

apologies for this entire mess. Not is I'll just uh close this. I wanted to show you this and this is how you

know we have made a niche for ourselves. This is how we whatever we ask our partners to do based on certain data

based on certain analysis. It's not just a very subjective thing that okay we feel that this would work

and this wouldn't. And at the same time what has probably worked with a particular set of B schools may not work

for the particular set of B schools. It's not a thing which is like a flat we have a formula to to tell you that no it

it happens on a very customized uh way. So so because you

told that you're doing these reports for specific customers and specific request. So do you also charge for this? Is this

also coming the cost or it's just an uh normal report that you publish to all customers?

Without any s this is something which is which is inbuilt in our services. We have two two different types of model

for revenue. One is the year-long retainership where we take care of the

entire organic visibility. When I say organic visibility, the others would probably term it as SEO. We

don't call it SEO because SEO is just a tool for us. It's more of a organic branding which stays which is long-term

and most importantly it is something which is trustworthy one of our USB campus is trustworthy.

Whatever data we have it is either published by that particular institute or is vetted by one you know some some

body. It is not just random somebody sends us even IMs even I would I would not name

them but I would say let's say a baby I am we received a mail one of my team member uh received a mail that you know

you should change uh the placement data and you should put up this so we had to tell them that we have kept a PDF we

have kept a screenshot of what we have published in campus ultra uh if you want to change kindly send our official email

id if not your update your website at least send a data from the official email id so that we can update our RN we

would love to do that so authenticity trustworthiness this is something the other revenue model is

hello hello yes sir bro

the other revenue model is a small term campaign so for example let's say a particular b school has opened a

applications So for 3 months they won't run they would run us to do some kind of

campaign. So we would list out what all activities we would do in in that one of the key activities

also remarketing or retargeting. So for example in my top of the mind top of the awareness to we call it I may not be

thinking about the particular brand A. I may be thinking of B C D E which falls under the same category of A.

So our responsibility our duty is to also show him a since you are looking for BCDE E these are the parameters for

which you might as well consider A as one of your you know go to place.

So this is again one of the USBA and one of our key uh this thing where where we are trying to make a differentiation

between the so many other mushrooming education portals which is coming up. Now there are plenty. When we started

there were probably four five now there are plenty. Every now and then you would see

somebody coming up. In fact, somebody has uh copied our name, put an extra s in that and they have launched one

apparel garments company. They have also come out with a education portal which is campus sutra

uh sutras. Ah yes I have seen this uh when I I was searching for campus sutra. So first

website was a campus sutra and that is uh for clothes clothes they do not have anything to do with

campus like what we what we can wear in campus something like this

something of that sort and and uh ours is like you know one of the oldest uh registered but this all

happened they they came later on till now you've you know mentioning up that services are free to students you

know so they are there are no monetization charges do you feel that you should now go for the subscription

based or some partnerships you know do you feel that the students it's the need of the do you want to do that or you

wantus or you want focus on the entire business but started

ma'am uh Ideally I would never love to charge anything from students. But you know few

years down the line we what we did was we thought of uh checking out you know uh you know trying to do a some kind of

testing that if if you know if the students are what is the kind of likeness or we know that they like the

data and whatever we provide but we still thought can we have something that donate if you want to. So we opened a

donate tab and the students would donate 10 rupees, 50 rupees, 100 rupees. The highest donation which

we received was 1,000 rupees. But yes, we got donations. It was just a testing thing. We do not want to charge

the students but yes we received some kind of not testing. Our revenue model should come should be like such that

students are getting it free while the you know institutes or anybody any anybody why just institutes today we are

only sticking to institutes tomorrow we might be you know uh somebody who who wants to target students for example a

SR laptop or a watch you know they would they might love to target students So they might as well

come and you know run a campaign in our platform. That is a the B is uh yeah you asked something else also

right? This is the monetization you know for the subscriptions or probably the

partnerships. Yeah coming to that. So the other thing which we are also started is again we

were the first one to start this that we were helping it companies scale up. So for example, let's say IT company

which wants to go to 300 B techch colleges and ramp up their team. They want to recruit

uh B tech students of IT uh B students of CS computer science meet students of EC

but their recruitment in the HR team cannot go to 300 colleges. So what

an HR consulting? Yeah. Uh recruitment consulting, you know, kind of. So what we did was we created a

platform where there were 5,000 Java questions, 5,000 CC C++ questions, a tech aptitude test, and a normal

aptitude test and a psychometric test. Three levels of tests, all online tests. And this I'm talking about is 201213

when when covid did not impact anyone and nobody knew what is a remote proctoring

what is a remote proctoring we started it then my tech team was in that time in Hyderabad and remember when I asked them

to disable the keyboard they said how is it possible you ask them to take the cable off from the computer I said no

that's not what I'm referring to I want the moment the test starts the lap The keyboard of the laptop or the computer

should be disabled. They should only be operating through the mouse. One click here and there which is not which is

beyond the test. They should get a warning. Second click they should be thrown out of the test.

So we were approaching colleges. We were we were tying up with partners. There was a Japanese tech company NEC who who

also helped you know one of our initial clients. We were never charging the students. We were charging the college.

We were saying okay if 300 students are sitting on your on that particular uh placement audit test you pay us 150

rupees per student. But soon after after four five years of this continued you know 2011 12 to 2015

2015 15 noy.com came out with the same kind of thing

they they they named it I think first first no or first campus something of and we were wiped out because they are a

they were that time 200 score company so we started this we we dropped this and we started this entire tool which be

created as a mock test. Free mock test. The mock test is still now free. You don't want to capitalize on that

sir. At least now we really want it that time. So now

also yeah we would love to do it now but since No has a you know they have a they already are into each and every

recruitment team. They already every HR guy knows them. Yeah. Sure.

Okay. So the another question was uh you know when we say that uh how do you ensure you know so we are talking about

technology we are talking about the Gen Z but then somewhere or the other uh you would you are still catering to those uh

smaller cities or you you know catering to those students the ones who might not be that tax heavy so you know how do you

ensure that when you talk about these tech upgrades they don't elenate uh you know the non- tax heavy students do you

take care of that do you feel that this is something which we would want to also focus on because entire entire

generation is not or entire population has not gone that ticky. Ma'am I while I do not agree with you on

the last part uh they they average the average target audience of ours that is this generation they spend five and a

half hours the screen time is five and a half hours on an average daily definitely

we we do also connect with them at a different level. So for example, let's say we have something called life

connect which we also offer to our partners. Life connect is something which is which is kind of a ground

connect where we uh tie up with a particular event or we create a event. It can be a

business simulation competition. It can be a case study competition. It can be a debate competition. In fact like you

know two weeks back I was a judge in a debate competition where organized by one of our partner and there university

across the across the Delhi you know around 200 people they participated and one of the MP had come the the final

event was held on the prime minister's office. Uh he says and at the same time their their social

media platforms, their Instagram their Facebook would also you know have our uh link our logo.

So that is how we are also trying to do not that because they are not uh smart and they are not tax heavy but because

that's also a good way to reach out that this brand is supporting their initiatives.

So what excites you most when we talk about technology in education? That's a very difficult question ma'am.

There are I changed the question sir if you feel so I can

no no no no no no no no it's all that but but there are plenty of things which are happening right now many of us are

still chasing the AI host not actually aware what to expect from that many of us have already doing something in fact

to be honest with you I have couple of paid AI subscriptions but there are certain free AI AI tools which gives me

much much more oriented, resultoriented you know this thing rather than those paid ones. So yes there are a lot of

things there are there are a lot of things happening across what I fear is uh you know that the

the way the change scenario is changing will AI absolutely take over or whether as I also earlier

going to be an assistant yes earlier told you that will there be people still be interested in reading?

Do we have traffic? Do we have will we have traffic in 2030?

In 2030, will everybody move to something which is like scrollable and only video content

where a AI bot is reading. In fact, we also did that just before the pandemic. We started

something called read this reading time. You know we say that reading time if if a reading time of a story in campus

sutra we mentioned that 3 minute or 5 minute or 2 minute whatever we also used to have a button there audio file so

let's say you know a student is jogging in the campus or running around or you know taking a walk in the after dinner

he or she would listen to that content but when we analyzed we found that it's not very you know popular somebody who

serious she would be reading. She is not listening. It's not a podcast which she

would you know kind of a interesting podcast you know which which talks about a murder story.

It's about admissions data end of the day. It's our placement data end of the day. So rather you know she would read

it. So we we stopped it. There was some automatic tool which we created where every content on that particular on our

site was converted into audio file and that also came out on the top. If you want to hear it, click on it.

Nobody else tried it but we thought let me let us just do some experiment. So one last question from my side like

when we say so in case if you have unlimited resources what kind of tech enabled solutions

would you build you know for today's students because when we talk about you know so I was just going through your

page and then we are talking about you know the mock tests we are talking about uh you know the choice and then we

talking about that how student is supposed to prepare for his you know CAT preparations and all that stuff so all

these things are very much there sir but Then anything which you feel that this is the need of the art this is exactly

where my students or this is exactly where you know the universities would love such type of data you know so what

is that particular thing something is in something is cooking up something is in our mind but I'm not very sure whether I

should share it right now uh or maybe I would just give you a little idea

that show some yeah not exactly you know not in details pardon me for that but yeah something

which you Huh? Today what is happening is let's say a student who wants to apply he would

have to first of all short list he would have to go through each of the applications path

name copy it paste it in a excel sheet follow it what is the last date and then whether to apply or not because each of

these applications form would be somewhere anything between 1,000 rupees to 3,000 rupees. So end of the day major

chunk of his pocket money is going into a pocket money or whatever father's money is going into that application

also. So what we would love to do here is like okay one single window one single platform where the short listing

is being done the way you buy something from a e-commerce portal. Let's say you are looking for a running shoe Nike blue

colored and you want to save it. So similarly you can save this and we give them alerts on their WhatsApp or or on

their whatever communication they want to they have selected and everything is done on that particular window on one

click instead of multiple platforms. So that's how you know that's something which we would love to have if we have

the funding and the technology. Thank you so much sir. Thank you so much. that that's that's a pain area for

every student and we would love to address that. Yeah.

Uh sir u uh

one major thing is like you know a technology shift which we have done which we shouldn't have done that is

something which uh which we are that has pushed back us by couple of years and that was

done because of certain you know uh certain updates in Google and certain things like we we thought that okay this

platform we should change to this platform because of this the uh future is this and that never happened. So that

is that is a regret which we I always have that probably you know I shouldn't have jumped into that or two schooner I

have probably you know taken a hurried call that is one but that's that's purely from the technical technology

perspective the other thing is maybe you know we should be more aggressive which I'm Not

aggressive in the sense you know calling up people you know what we I you know do generally is we

talk about ourselves to somebody and if there is not much of response from that end I I feel a little this thing to

further push that particular no I feel you know that maybe I am kind of you know being too salesy which I don't if

they if they understood us or if they really want our services maybe they would take it but that's probably not

how it works it like you know our competition some of our competitions who are nowhere near to the rich content

which we have and this is quote unquote not mine it is quote unquote various uh directors of various top B schools

and universities but they have this agents in every every cities where these foot soldiers would

go sit on the in the Porsche or on the lobby wait for hours then they approach typical sales format.

Now we do not have that funding to have it but we feel that yeah the kind of uh respect and the kind of position which

niche area the the portal has already made maybe it should you know un understood

and maybe it should be accepted by people who would love to follow this trend who would not love to who would

who would come out of that agency model and create a value addition model create something which is like you know What's

a student's journey in his in his career? I don't know if I'm making sense but

again I'll leave the class Absolutely sir. Absolutely. It is there in the entire

IP publications. It is there in the Howard. I can send you the link also. uh um it's there the my name is there you

know the discussion which I had with one of my uh friend uh while coming from a from a particular event and he's he's a

he used to be a CEO of a global uh bank once upon a time we were school school mets classmates and while coming we had

this discussion on on campus utra and that discussion has been also there in that Harvard case study so you are

absolutely free now that I'm more a private person which I I would love to have you'll be

but uh it's okay absolute a couple of questions from my side Dr. Sir, I think no this what you completely

pages on mute please. the other side. What do you think you

know on a leadership style or what do you think you know you took some of your leadership u know decisions or know uh

control of you know running this empire how to bring it you know organically know bring good revenue etc. So so what

what do you think from a leadership side or or from a financial side how do you think you know you can add value to some

of the people who can read your case? Uh sorry sir if you can just a little bit more uh leadership and