It has been 6 months since I first wrote about Thinkvidya and honestly I could not get time (I am lazy ) to visit that site in the meantime. When I visited Thinkvidya again today, I was impressed by many statistics presented and the milestones they have accomplished in such a short term.
About ThinkVidya
It is an online network of Parents, Teachers and Students. Truthfully, it is a network for 20000 learning providers with over 8000 regular teachers and trainers. No doubt, it is India’s largest Educational Network.
Why Should I Join it?
For those who fail to be impressed by the statistics; Thinkvidya acts as the missing link between Quality Tutors and the students. If you need a top-level Physics tutor in Bangalore, jump to Thinkvidya, make a simple search and you are done. On opposite, if you are in search of students for your tution class or in free time, there is no better alternative than Thinkvidya.Other educational Institutes can easily find bulk number of students easily. So, if you are planning to start you Teaching business, Thinkvidya has lot to offer. Presently it has a network in most of the Tier-I and Tier- II cities of India including Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune , Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Coimbatore,Goa, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow,Nagpur and Vadodara.
Who Should Join?
Honestly, it is not merely regular, curricular teaching that Thinkvidya has to boast about. A majority of tutors come from co-curricular and extra-curricular domains like, Dancing, Singing, Musical Instruments, Cooking, Martial Arts, Drawing, Swimming and Yoga. You can view the full list here. It is very difficult to find such tutors in Indian cities, unless you are willing to pay a lofty sum to brokers.
Business Model
The Business model is simple. It is FREE for all, whether it is a student, a tutor or an institute. They can browse profiles of each other, post Requirements or contact directly. You can contact 3 students each month for FREE, which is sufficient for a starter.
Teachers or Trainers can optionally subscribe to a paid Alert System,which provides them a regular and targeted list of students every month. The Paid Members are also featured on the portal giving them a high visibility.
Areas of Improvement
No matter how much we achieve, there is always a better milestone. Thinkvidya also needs to innovate its user experience regularly. The Individual user profile design looks obsolete , something like dating 10 years back. It lacks the usual feel of Web 2.0 Design and must be updated at earliest.
Lessons for Entrepreneurs
Well, it is not always that only Software Development for Clients pays off. Businesses must look for catering the existing problems with technical solutions. This is what Linkedin did, the same was done by SlideShare and of course Thinkvidya is doing the same. In fact I have no hesitation to say, Thinkvidya is India’s answer to LinkedIn. Though these two cater different segments of people, there are several similarities among them.