5 years in business!
The AcadBoost story
I have not really written much about my business life, and this post will be a brief account of that.
It all started after my JEE results and fame (~2017), when I started being active on social media and my social media became an instant hit (particularly my Instagram - feel free to say hi, I do check all my messages!) To be honest, my FB page came first but who uses FB nowadays?
Simultaneously, I started writing on Quora as well where a lot of people used to ask me study related questions. I kept answering them and grew to 1 lakh+ followers pretty fast (~2018)
A senior of mine used to run a YouTube channel and interviewed me, and taking inspiration from him I started mine as well. It became an instant hit and I climbed to 100k subs pretty fast (~2019).
I was in 2nd year, making almost a full time salary per month and knew that I am close to financial freedom (not having to sit for placements).
In December 2019, I launched a JEE prep platform and it became an instant hit - I incorporated a company and went full time, skipping placement (the business was making way more than even the highest IITB placement).
From 2020-22 I was expanded this business, making more products, hiring teachers, improving the platform, etc. I even got a lucrative acquisition offer in 2022 but I decided to not sell as I didn’t like the feedback of some founders who got acquired by that company.
In 2022, I realise that the whole JEE-YouTube-courses thing was a little too small of a vision for what I wanted, and stepped into other directions as well. I started my consulting firm where we help US/Europe based clients expand their online business, and today that’s our main revenue source.
In the meantime, we had been taking profits off everything and investing into various companies (we have 90% plus net margins, very lean team and few costs). Last 1 year we saw 100%+ returns, and have beaten the markets every financial year.
I started this newsletter in 2023 to share my business and finance learning, along with career tips for people in tech. I think this is another area where I can leave a massive impact.
My entire business model can be summed up as:
Share free value → Build an audience → Launch a paid product → Invest the profits
This is what we do in our consulting firm as well, we make content about business, clients ask us for help, and we help them out with guides, consultations, business ops services, etc.
If you want to learn all about how I built my audience, business on top of it and managed our money, you can get my startup masterclass.
That was it for today, let me know in the comments if you have any questions - happy to answer!
— Kalpit Veerwal