MBASkool: An online portal that caters to students once they’re into BSchools

MBA is one of the hottest topics in India. Every other engineering student wants to get into an IIM, parents think there kids have won the world if they make it to a good BScool and most of the people in the startup space can’t stop explaining how worthless an MBA can be. Whatever it be, anything and everything related to an MBA will get eyeballs and this also means a lot of people will be in the space trying to grab a share of the pie. There are lots of sites helping students get into the IIM’s and so I thought was the case with MBASkool but their model turned out to be on the other side of the line.

MBASkool is a repository for the MBA students in Indian BSchools- a ‘management knowledge portal and a B-School community’ is how they define it. The company was founded in January 2011 by Manmeet Sabharwal and Divij S, with the team strength at 5 currently. MBASkool is a platform having business articles, management documents, brand analysis, business concepts, employer reviews, event pages, contests, etc. The startup has managed to climb up in traffic and Alexa places it at around 7000 in India currently.

MBAskool has sponsored events of prestigious B-Schools like IIMA, IIMB, XLRI, and over 30 more B-Schools with the founders becoming a popular name in the MBA circuit. They have also been invited over for seminars at colleges. The primary source of income for the company remains online ads. “In the future, we intend to have options for direct advertising for companies who want to target the users of MBASkool, i.e. having demographics of young, independent, rich management students and business professionals. Premium content, corporate tie-ups, merchandising etc are other means of revenue which MBASkool would build upon in the future,” says Manmeet.

Promotion for the site has been a mix of the online-offline world- various strategies like inter B-School contests, student internships, advertising on social media, sponsoring MBA college events, promotion through banners, pamphlets, posters, etc.

With a vision to be the most preferred online destination for management graduates and business professionals, MBASkool has a good start in a market which is rife with opportunities. They reach out to 2 lakh students a month and have 40,000 registered users on the site with 20,000 downloads for their Android App. Completely bootstrapped, the startup is also looking to raise money to scale.

In the present state, the value proposition looks good with an engaging platform for a community which is very active, both online and offline. A better polished UI with a good execution of the plans in the pipeline can certainly boost up the traffic and take the startup to the next level. Stay tuned to know more about how the company develops.

Website: MBASkool