Alwar-based Englishbolega is simplifying spoken English, helping rural India master the language

Based out of Alwar, Rajasthan, the platform provides English language training to students in rural areas. Backed by intensive research, Englishbolega has developed solutions to learn English easily and efficiently.

At a glance

Startup: Base Inventor

Founders: Ravi Kumar Yadav, Sumit Kumar and Priyanka Yadav

Year it was founded: 2016

Where is it based: Alwar, Rajasthan

The problem it solves: Provides English language training in an easy and efficient manner to students in rural areas

Sector: Education

Funding raised: Bootstrapped

“There were numerous times when I was about to give up, but I could not because that’s what I have taught my students every day for the last 13 years. I kept repeating this one sentence in my mind – that I have to change the entire education system in India so that poor villagers can rise up and have a good life,” says Ravi Kumar Yadav, co-founder of Englishbolega.

A teacher and entrepreneur from the small town of Shahjahanpur in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, Ravi founded the English learning platform in 2016 despite many challenges.

Ravi says that once while surfing the internet in 2010, he came across the unbelievable fact that 94 percent of the Indian population could not speak English, and that he too had a similar situation. This led him to realise the big problem that the country, especially rural India, was faced with.

Researching and studying problems faced by rural students over six years, he developed his own English learning methods, and Ravi says he was the first person who started speaking English with the help of those methods.

He went on to design a three-month spoken English course, dividing it into three basic modules for a three-month training and practice, to make it easy to implement in classrooms. He then started using the English teaching methods at his coaching institute to see actual results, which surprised him.

“Many villagers started speaking English in just few months by our unique training method. So, we build this course for the masses in the next few years,” he adds.

Today, the platform has over 111 operating franchisees in Rajasthan, and Ravi claims that the brand is scaling at the pace of one new franchisee in every two days.

The challenges

Ravi, who runs a coaching academy in his hometown of Shahjahanpur, has over 10 years of tutoring experience. Despite his decade-long experience, when he spoke about the idea of Englishbolega, nobody quite believed in him. He, however, continued to research and never stopped believing in his vision. Witnessing his dedication and strong belief in his vision, one of his students, Priyanka Yadav, 21, joined him in 2014. A year later, Ravi’s cousin Rahul Yadav, 20, also came on board, and recently Ravi roped in Sumit Kumar to take care of sales.

The three co-founders started Base Inventor in November 2016 to provide free education to villagers, but failed. After six months, they reconsidered the model, and started charging a small fee from students, which they planned to use to launch Englishbolega.com, but they failed again.

Finally, the trio decided on an offline franchise-based revenue model, and started approaching existing coaching centres to partner with them.

“We succeeded in our third attempt and in just 90 days we were in 100 academies as franchisor. After three months (Oct-Dec 2017) of analysis and minor changes, we are now ready to go national,” adds Ravi.

How is Englishbolega helping rural students?

Students can approach a centre listed on Englishbolega.com for counselling and a free demo class. Interested students, once registered, receive three months of training from a certified trainer at the franchisee. The teaching method includes activity-based class work, homework, and daily practice sessions as per a teaching module.

“We mentor the trainers at the institutes that we partner with. Once proper training is completed, and we are satisfied with a trainer’s performance, only then do we certify him as an Englishbolega trainer to pass on our simplified methods of learning English quickly,” adds Ravi.

The differentiator

On the Englishbolega, the differentiator that help the brand stand out is that it is backed by extensive research.

“Our specific research on students from rural areas has helped us understand their mindset and learning patterns. Our competitors are focusing on only Tier 1 and Tier2 cities with a premium price point, so that’s another thing that separates us from them,” he adds.

The company not only aims to teach English, but is focused on creating a greater social impact. Through its franchise model, it empowers the youth, and is creating jobs to meet its requirement for teachers for its franchisees.

Plans for the future

Going ahead, the company plans to expand its presence in four states in north India, with 400 new franchises in the next six months. It is also looking to develop an app for students to provide practice lessons online. Currently, the company is run by a small four-member team, and is bootstrapped. Ravi says the team is in talks with two potential investors, and hopes to close one of these deals soon.

The company has a two-fold revenue model. First, it charges a royalty fee of Rs 500 per student from franchisees to provide a student kit, examinations, centralised record keeping, and certificate of completion for the student. Second, the platform charges a fee of Rs 1,999 from students opting for their online learning course.

In the six months since its inception, the platform operating from a small town in Rajasthan has generated a revenue of nearly Rs 3 lakh.

“This is very motivating revenue for us because students normally take this kind of training in summer vacations and we are waiting for our first season after starting this revenue model. We also completed our franchisees setups and standardisation just two months ago, so it is a very good revenue for us at this stage,” added Ravi.

Going ahead, the company is eyeing Rs 30 lakh in revenue over the next six months. To achieve this target, Ravi highlights it has inked agreements with each franchisee that they must enroll 60 students per year to get a free renewal the next year.