With the economy facing a turbulent time, everyone is talking about how sales are slowing, how this is affecting the stock markets and hence how one should go about their investments. If you are someone with little or no financial knowledge, most headlines may not make sense to you. But what if you could learn and become financially literate. And what if you could be taught by a billion-dollar fund manager, or the CEO of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)?
Through his entrepreneurial journey, one thing serial entrepreneur Prateek Singh realised was that entrepreneurs need the best advice from senior people in the industry. And not just entrepreneurs, this applies to anyone who wants to learn about the financial world.
Prateek then went on to start his fifth startup LearnApp, which features industry leaders teaching various subjects from capital markets to business management.
“I realised entrepreneurs need the best advice from senior people in the industry, and launched LearnApp to bring global business leaders to the doorstep of the entrepreneur. LearnApp features industry veterans like the Bombay Stock Exchange CEO who teaches how capital markets work, CEO of Aditya Birla teaching how mutual funds work or the ED of Tata Sons teaching management,” he says.
LearnApp is an online portal, which focuses on financial literacy. Pratik says that the courses are designed to make people better at managing their money.
Currently, LearnApp has courses such as ‘Learn how capital markets work’ taught by the CEO of BSE; ‘introduction to value investing’ taught by the CIO of ICICI Prudential Mutual Funds; ‘Beyond Balance Sheets’ by Nilesh Shah, MD of Kotak Asset Management, a well-known and respected name in the financial markets industry.
The courses cover a wide range of topics to help understand the financial markets better.
“A new segment we have launched now are business courses where the ED of Tata Sons teaches management, brand director of Pepsi India teaches marketing and Goibibo's founder teaches how to retain users on a platform,” Pratik adds.
Each LearnApp course is created by the industry veteran and involves a video lesson, text and a quiz as well. Students can ask questions in the comments section of a video lesson, which will then be answered. LearnApp also conducts online live classes through mobile or laptop where the instructor teaches an advanced subject and students can get their questions answered in the live classes. These classes are currently available in English and Hindi.
The courses are shot like movies. This includes real examples, anecdotes from the ones teaching and even a trailer to help you get an idea of what the course will entail. This, Pratik believes, keeps students engaged.
Pratik calls his startup the Netflix for education. LearnApp runs on a subscription-based model where users pay a fee starting from Rs 500 a month to access all courses and shows. The industry veterans do not charge for the courses.
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Prateek Singh, founder of LearnApp
LearnApp is now looking to add more features to its courses, while also adding more courses in finance and bringing on more business leaders to teach on its platform.
Pratik’s long-term vision is for LearnApp to be offering courses in all areas from arts to technology, across multiple languages to over 100 million students from across the world.