In the age of start-ups, when every blink of a bulb is being converted into business modules, these two young IITians made the most of their personal experience.

India has been facing a dearth of teachers with over 5 lakh shortage in schools. Mudit Jain and Rishabh Jain found a way to address this issue. Currently functional in three cities, these two former IITians opened up in this conversation with JWB about their baby Qriyo that provides a wide range of over 400 courses in academics, co-curricular, extracurricular, and fitness activities!

Me: How was Qriyo born?

Rishabh: The idea of Qriyo came to my mind out of my personal experience. While we were in college, we used to have philosophical sessions at times. We discussed ‘What is the definition of life and what is my purpose of life? So, while answering these questions, I realised that if I can give employment to more than 500 people, I will consider myself successful. Also as an IITian you have that extra burden on your shoulder, he smirked.

Mudit: So I would say a lot of business ideas can originate from our own personal experiences. At least it did for me. My fiancé and I were looking for yoga classes in Mumbai. We basically wanted an instructor to come and teach us at home. We contacted on several phone numbers out of which some didn’t respond; some didn’t want to come over to our house and then there were those who wanted a hefty sum of money.

It then came to our mind to do something in the extracurricular domain. Of course, when things started picking up, we expanded it to academics too. This is how Qriyo was born.

Taking our conversation forward, I asked them “What courses do women opt for in Jaipur as compared to other cities you are operating in?”

Mudit & Rishabh: Women like to decorate their houses. So yes art and craft are quite liked by women. Second, on the list for us is Yoga. I feel somehow Yoga is in fashion, so a lot of women opt for yoga.

Most of the hobby classes, if you see, are meant for youth or younger ones. Blame it to the shyness of the older ones; elderly people hardly attend them. Having said that it feels great to see women as old as 60 years of age wanting to learn music or dance which they couldn’t for all these years of their lives.

So we had a lady who enrolled with us for music, and we came to know that she was extremely passionate about singing. We helped her learn harmonium, and she recently performed in front of a huge crowd on the eve of Janmashtmi. Such things when we hear about, bring us so much satisfaction and happiness.

Me: How do you choose your tutors?

Mudit & Rishabh: The tutors have to undergo four tests of evaluation. We test them on the basis of their profiles, after which they have to go through a psychometric test. Then we check their knowledge of the subject and last is the personal interview. We also make them go through a small training module.

Also, we choose the teacher on the basis of the profile of the applicant who has enrolled. We specially take care in case of kids and their academic tutions. So for example, if a kid needs more motivation than intensive teaching, we choose the teacher accordingly.

We have over 6500 teachers working with us, because of which it gets difficult to choose them manually. So we have our match-making algorithm which picks ten odd teachers for a particular tutor profile, and then we select one out of the ten.

After understanding their process, I had a slight doubt. So I asked, “What if even after all your scrutiny I am not really satisfied with the tutor?”

Hmmm, that’s something we hate. We intend to convert all our applications into bookings. And as of now over 85% of our customers are satisfied and happy with the services we provide. We hope to make soon it 100%. But in those rare cases when our student is not convinced by the tutor, we work harder.

Me: How do you see the evolution of education system in our country?

Mudit & Rishabh: Well, for all our lives we have been fed with options to become an engineer, doctor, IAS or pursue MBA when we grow up, but these days things are changing. These days the pressure to score well in Science and Maths is being multiplied by extracurricular activities too. Thanks to the advent of reality shows and increasing scope of career opportunities, people have started considering these options out of the academic syllabus a little seriously too.

Me: One of your best tutorial experiences?

Mudit & Rishabh: So there was a mother who had enrolled with her 6-year-old daughter for a dance class. Once our tuition gets over, we hear things like the class was good; the tutor was good, etc. But what really inspired us in this particular case was when that mother told us, “My bonding with my daughter is two times of what it used to be.” Now such gestures are what keeps us going.

Awww, that’s so amazing!

Me: What would you guys like to teach if given a chance to?

Mudit: Totally fulfilling the ‘stereotyped’ IITian image, when he told me, “I want to teach Math.”

Rishabh: I would like to teach flute.

Wow, now doesn’t it sound too modest? You know like I was an IITian, but I like to dance and write and play the flute!

Me: How do you ensure the safety of the students who are visited by tutors?

Mudit & Rishabh: Okay, so surprisingly, the majority of our tutors are females. So it is the other way round for us. We have to ensure the safety of our teachers more than our students. We never send a female tutor to a male student. In cases of young kids we allow, but not otherwise. Also when we get requests specifically for female tutors, we take their identity cards, address proofs and we send our on-ground team who checks if everything is fine before we send our teacher.

Me: Few interesting female tutor accounts you would like to share with us?

Mudit: There was a Yoga teacher, Manju who used to take Yoga classes in a school in Chittorgarh. Last year Chittorgarh faced heavy floods, and while returning to Jaipur, Manju’s bus met with a serious accident. She lost her hope and belief in life post that accident. Once we got in touch with her, our Yoga instructors counseled her and helped her gain that lost confidence again. She lifted herself up and has started teaching Yoga again through Qriyo.