Post on Medial

India's favourite sport is writing exams, and there are 60 million test takers every year, who write one or more exams. These test takers cumulatively spend $100 million on registration fees. There are 70+ government/entrance exam categories, and as far as I can remember, at PW, we are solving for 20+ exam categories. There are a few mega exams in India where the maximum test takers show up, which are JEE/NEET, UPSC, railway and CA exams." This entire exam market feels like a tournament business, the aspirant is preparing for a tournament - since it’s a zero-sum game, the biggest beneficiaries of this entire play are people who arrange the tournament and people who coach the aspirant, if you don’t know the top 1% of teachers who teach in JEE / NEET category are today paid north of $ 1 million in salary every year. Many individuals take part in state-wide group examinations, such as the Telangana State Public Service Exam, which is a typical exam to secure a government job. In Group 3, for instance, 5,36,477 candidates applied for only 1,375 vacancies. Railways exams also draw a large number of applicants, with nearly 1.15 crore people appearing for these exams. For this particular demographic, these exams are seen as hope, as these jobs provide them with stability, access to a better lifestyle, and better mating opportunities. I have an interesting theory that states that have higher per capita income have fewer students participating in entrance or public exams, there’s actual data to back this up. In states like AP, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala - there has been a steep decline in entrance exam participation, it’s an 8 to 10% decline year on year At a personal level, I believe it is a great market to be in, tho from a tech and product first lense it is a low retention and low LTV business, your customer churns out in one year or more and the only way you can sell them anything is by counselling method :(