+

WE ONLY CHARGE STUDENTS ONCE THEY GET INTO THE INDUSTRY: SIDDHARTH MAHESHWARI

In an exclusive conversation, Siddharth Maheshwari, co-founder, Newton School, talked about his start-up journey and also highlighted how Newton School is bridging the gap between the industry and students.

Newton School aspires to provide affordable education that is in line with industry standards so that its students can be quickly absorbed into the system and contribute to an organisation’s success from the start. Speaking about the inception of Newton School, Siddharth Maheshwari said, “We started Newton school around October 2019. Me and our co-founder Nishan, are friends from our IIT Roorkee days. We have been passionate about education since then. Nishan is so passionate about education, that he left his very lucrative consulting job after doing MBA from IIM Calcutta to join Unacademy as an intern. Just because it was in the education space. We did a startup together before Newton School, where we got a chance to talk to hundreds of students across India. During this time, we realised that while the students are motivated, they lacked the skills which are required by the industry. On one side, there are millions of students who want to get into the industry and have high paying jobs and, on the other side, there are hundreds and thousands of jobs that are like lying vacant on the industry side. There is a very big gap. ”

When asked about how Newton School is bridging the gap between the industry and students, he responded, “We talk to hundreds of people in the industry, from software developers, CTOs, to founders. We have designed a curriculum that suits the industry completely and is designed in such a way that a student, who joins an industry, is able to contribute from Day 1. That is how we have been able to design a curriculum that is completely geared towards the industry.”

Talking about the competition in the education space, Siddharth said, “Education is such a big market in India and it is completely underserved so there is a supply constraint. There are not enough companies in this space. On the other side, we have a very strong USP, in the sense that we do not charge our students anything upfront. We are so sure about our curriculum and education that we only charge students once they get into the industry at a job of at least five lakh per annum and that makes us stand out in the industry. No one else in the industry is following a model like that. This has allowed us to keep our marketing costs to zero and has also enabled us to get you the best and most motivated students to study and become the best developers.”

He further emphasised that the students are working with over 175 companies including top MNCs. “Our students are contributing to pretty much every sector. Our students recently also got into the top media organisations in the tech roles. Our students today are contributing in every sector of the economy,” said Siddharth.

Underlining the courses offered at Newton School, he said, “We have primarily three courses. One such course is designed for those who are in the final years of their undergraduate. It can be any kind of undergraduate course. We offer a minimum guarantee of five lakhs per annum, that is, you pick up a course that is completely online. It will range from four months to eight months. This particular course that I have mentioned above is six months long where we teach students to be full-stack developers.”

Siddharth highlighted the company’s vision and future plans, “Most of the top leaders, especially in the tech sector, are from colleges like IITs. Our vision is to ensure that people from tier two, tier three colleges also get into the industry and, in some years, become the industry leaders, founders, and CTOs. So, as an entrepreneur, it’s crucial to understand your users better and know them inside out, to be able to think like them and empathise with them. If you understand your users really well then you understand their problems. You understand how to solve it for them and every small detail about it. For every company, it is very important to be obsessed with your users.”

Tags: