A decade ago, IIT Rourkee alum Sandeep Jain always faced a major problem — find worthwhile resources and guidance for interview preparation.
After working at DE Shaw and Co. as a software developer, he decided to follow his passion for teaching and began teaching as an Assistant Professor at JIIT Noida. Sandeep realised students needed to find one platform that can give them all the information they need while going to find a job.
Identifying a business opportunity, Sandeep launched GeeksforGeeks in Delhi-NCR in 2010.
GeeksforGeeks is a platform for “every geek”, offering programming content, interview experiences, practice problems, tutorials, online and offline courses, etc., to help students crack the interview of any IT company.
In short, it acts as a one-stop destination for all the placement-related concerns of students looking for a career in software development.
Sandeep tells YS, “Initially, it was started as a blogging page consisting of very limited content for Computer Science students. The overwhelming response from students across the world inspired me to leave my teaching job and focus on the portal. In the last few years, GeeksforGeeks has grown exponentially and benefited thousands and thousands of students achieve their career goals.”
Thriving in a growing market
When the startup launched, the team had only six people. Today, the bootstrapped startup has over 150 employees. Sandeep had roped in Shikhar Goel, a then computer science graduate, who is now the CTO of the company.
Despite being popular among the students, GeeksforGeeks had no income even after being operational for 2.5 years. Then, due to the integration of Google Adsense, things gradually started to accelerate and it started doing well financially as well.
The founder claims that according to Alexa Ranking, the current Global Traffic Rank of the website is 277 and in India, it has been regularly ranking around 50th position.
“Moreover, the website reaches nearly 1.5 million users each day that generates four million daily page views,” adds Sandeep.
The startup’s main sources of revenue are Google Ads and the courses. It also offers some premium content and has also launched premium features for a small fee. These features include interview experiences, online and live courses, and numerous practice problems.
How it works
GeeksforGeeks works with industry experts for its online courses, and offers multiple features like schedule flexibility, self-paced learning, recorded lectures, and more to help make the learning process more convenient and worthwhile.
Users can also practice as many programming problems without any hassle on the platform. Also, one can track their progress and view their rank among other programmers.
“You will also be provided with solutions for all the problems along with a detailed explanation, in case you need it,” says Sandeep.
Apart from accessing the content, the platform provides the ‘Write’ option where users can come to write on a topic and share it with everyone. They also get rewarded for contributing in the form of remuneration, internship opportunities, discount offers, etc.
“Whether you’re a student or a working professional — anyone can contribute to GeeksforGeeks and share their knowledge. The contribution process is also quite simple as all you’re required to do is visit the ‘Pick an Article’ section and choose a topic as per your interest from a pool of topics and submit it once you’ll be done with the writing process,” says Sandeep.
A majority of the content on the website is free of cost for the students as the idea is to make learning more accessible and affordable.
The market and future
A report by RedSeer and Omidyar Network India says the coronavirus pandemic has proved to be one of the biggest game-changers for India’s edtech sector. The report added that online education offerings for classes 1 to 12 are projected to increase 6.3 times by 2022, creating a $1.7 billion market.
There is a rising focus on skilling and making students job-ready. Startups like San-Francisco-based Lambda School, Delhi-based Pesto Tech, and the likes of Great Learning, upGrad, MountBlu Technologies, AttainU, and School of Accelerated Learning are other players in the sector.
Going forward, Sandeep says the startup is planning to organise various new campus programmes all over the nation to guide students in all possible ways.
“Also, as online learning is becoming the new normal, we’re trying to use all the latest technological advancements in the edtech domain,” he adds.
