ELI - 358 | Gaurav Goel (Founder of Toprankers - EdTech Platform)

About the spokesperson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurav-goel6/ Gaurav Goel is the founder of Toprankers, India's largest platform for careers beyond medical and engineering. He started his entrepreneurial journey while in college with a company related to IT certifications. Gaurav's first successful business was based on time arbitrage, buying and selling exam vouchers for certification exams. He later transitioned to building e-learning products and sold his previous businesses before starting Toprankers. Toprankers evolved into a platform that helps students explore careers beyond engineering and medicine, with over 5 million users. The company shifted from a marketplace model to offering its own content and services. Gaurav's inspiration for entrepreneurship came from his experience helping his father in his wholesale medicine shop and his talent for counting and folding note bundles. In 2015-16, Gaurav recognized the need for a platform to help students from small towns and backgrounds find the right career paths beyond traditional fields. Toprankers underwent a revamp and transformed into the largest platform for careers in law, management, arts, humanities, design, architecture, and more. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Toprankers faced the challenge of transitioning students from online to offline classrooms but managed to adapt and maintain revenue growth. The company has experienced significant growth, with 14x increase in events and revenue. Gaurav emphasizes the importance of being open to pivots and making changes in the path to achieve the vision of the company. He believes that taking pivots does not always require a completely new team and that communication and honesty with team members are crucial during such transitions.