Teach Us App: Digitising Indian Colleges at Rs 1 Per Student

For Jaimin Shah, a former college lecturer, the classroom wasn’t just a place of instruction—it was a mirror reflecting a broken system. Over eight years of teaching, he noticed a troubling trend: more time was spent on admissions, attendance tracking, and exam logistics than on teaching itself. It wasn't just his frustration. A conversation with his college principal confirmed the widespread administrative inefficiency in Indian higher education, where manual processes choked productivity and hindered strategic planning.

A Vision Rooted in Experience

Determined to fix the very system that stifled his passion, Shah left academia and launched the Teach Us App—an academic management solution aimed at digitising and streamlining academic workflows in colleges. Joined by his college friends Chintan Vyas and Shreekant Pujari, the trio co-founded Teach Us with a clear mission: to liberate educators from administrative overload and empower decision-makers with real-time data.

Teach Us: The Name and the Mission

The name "Teach Us" is more than a title. It’s a play on words. At first glance, it sounds like a simple call to learn. But say it out loud — it sounds like “teachers.” And that’s intentional. The name represents a student’s heartfelt plea: “Please, take a break from all the paperwork and admin tasks and Teach Us!

Solving India's EdTech Paradox

Despite the rise of digital tools, over 75% of Indian colleges still operate manually, primarily due to the high cost and complexity of existing solutions. Teach Us counters this with a scalable, affordable model: digitising academic operations for as little as ₹1 per student. The app provides a unified dashboard for real-time academic insights, helping professors track performance and administrators prepare for accreditation with ease.

Unique Positioning: The College Intelligence App

Unlike conventional ERPs that centre around administrative management, Teach Us zeroes in on academic excellence. Positioned as "The College Intelligence App," it focuses on teaching, learning, and evaluation. With a sleek UI, one-click information, and intuitive workflows, the platform offers a user-first experience tailored for the education sector.

Startup Milestones and Market Footprint

Since its inception under a banyan tree on a rainy day, Teach Us has onboarded 125+ colleges, 7,000 professors, and over 200,000 students. Stanford Seed Spark South Asia named it among the Top 20 startups, and also Google selected them among top 100 Apps of the country for their App Scale Academy. Prominent angels, including Parag Rajda of Rockman Composites, also back the startup.

India's higher education landscape includes over 55,000 institutes with a market opportunity of $1.25 billion. Teach Us targets key influencers—principals, trustees, and professors—leveraging a word-of-mouth strategy to fuel growth.

Challenges and Lessons from the Ground

Building a tech-first solution with a non-tech founding team was never going to be easy. In the early days, Jaimin Shah and his co-founders faced a steep learning curve—navigating the unfamiliar terrain of the startup ecosystem while also confronting widespread misconceptions about educational technology.

Convincing college principals that ERP wasn’t the only digital solution available proved to be an uphill battle.

But passion bridged the gaps in experience. Each challenge sharpened their resolve and became a stepping stone toward resilience. Key lessons emerged: the right mentor can accelerate growth, and in entrepreneurship, a ‘no’ often just means ‘not yet.’ As Shah puts it, “Building a startup is like carving a path through the mountains. Start only if you're truly passionate.”

Impact at Scale

Teach Us isn’t just about digitisation, it’s about transformation. Colleges using the app report a 20% rise in student attendance, a twofold improvement in faculty performance, and a 10% increase in lectures conducted. Environmentally, the startup boasts over 3 crore worth of time saved by eliminating paperwork.

In the short term, Teach Us aims to onboard 500+ colleges across India's metros. Long term, the startup aspires to become the fourth essential pillar of education alongside students, professors, and management.