Autar Nehru (Delhi)
Sandeep Jain is the Noida-based founder-CEO of geeksforgeeks.org, a website popular with computer science students and IT (information technology) professionals. Launched in 2015, it offers aid and advice to engineering students preparing for job interviews, and useful content and solutions for IT problems and glitches.
Newspeg. Recently, the website — awarded a global Internet engagement ranking of 285 by Alexa — expanded its menu to provide online study courses in computer science/IT.
History. A computer sciences graduate of the BSA College of Engineering and Technology, Mathura (UP), Jain was “forced to enroll” for a Masters at IIT-Roorkee because he didn’t have a job offer. However it was a totally different experience at IIT-Roorkee. After graduating with a Masters in computer science, Jain had a multiplicity of job offers and chose to sign up with the Hyderabad-based DE Shaw & Co, a portfolio and quantitative investment firm with sophisticated software development and research capabilities.
“As I started my first job, I also began blogging about my experience as a student and in particular about my intense preparation and strategies for the campus interview. Gradually several other students and IT professionals began blogging on my website geeksforgeeks.org, sharing their own institutional admission and job interview experiences,” recalls Jain. After two years in DE Shaw, Jain forayed into academia and served as an assistant professor at JIIT (Jaypee Institute of Information Technology), Noida. Meanwhile, geeksforgeeks.org traffic was growing exponentially and generating substantial ad revenue. In 2015, when the revenue from his website exceeded his salary, he quit the academy to promote the Noida-based Sanchhaya Education Pvt. Ltd, the parent company of geeksforgeeks.org.
Direct talk. “There is a huge gap between what is taught in engineering colleges and industry requirements, and the prospect of job interview gives nightmares to students. Moreover with a rising number of working professionals anxious to upgrade and grasp new IT and software knowledge, we provide courses to upskill them,” says Jain. Currently Sanchhaya Education has a headcount of 150.
Until 2019, the company’s primary revenue source was advertising, but last year after the company introduced its online study programmes, a new revenue stream has started. “Our first online course had a capacity of 50 persons. But we were surprised that within two minutes of opening for admission, 122 working professionals had registered on our payment gateway. Since then, the number of executive education courses has increased to 40 and with the pandemic situation, we expect demand to grow further,” says Jain.
Future plans. With geeksforgeeks online courses becoming increasingly popular, the demand for its graduates is also rising. “We are getting a lot of traffic from IT companies interested in hiring our students. This is likely to become another big revenue source. These developments have encouraged us to research the K-12 space and start a YouTube channel providing IT content and coding lessons,” says Jain.
Unstoppable!
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