Developer rakes in Sh3 million by taking Kenyan varsity courses online

A screen grab from gradstate.com’s home page. The site provides students and parents the opportunity to get information on the courses on offer across a variety of universities and colleges.

NAIROBI, KENYA: While doing background research for his business plan, Mr Alex Mureti found out that 33 per cent of university and college students selected their university and major based on what their parents told them.

Another 38 per cent made their choices on which courses to apply for based on what their friends were doing or said was a “good” course.

“The result is that many students, as many as seven out of 10, either change their course mid-way into their studies or end up in jobs they have zero passion for,” said Mr Mureti.

Information gap

The problem, as he saw it, lay in an information gap he believed he could easily bridge, and make money too.

And 10 months ago, the 30-year-old entrepreneur launched Gradstate.com, an online classified portal that lists universities and colleges in the country and the courses they offer.

“I figured that since a lot of the young people today have smartphones and practically live online, I could create a portal where they could access important information about higher education on demand,” he said.

“We go to schools and colleges and present them with our proposals, explaining that with gradstate.com, they have the opportunity to reach millions of prospective students because we are like the Yellow Pages of higher education.”

The portal provides users with information on the job opportunities each course would make available as well as enabling them to compare the costs, duration and scope of particular degrees, diplomas or certificate programmes across a variety of universities and colleges.

The number of public and private universities in Kenya has risen from six and eight in 1998 to more than two dozen and 39 respectively today.

The increased competition has seen the institutions adopt more aggressive marketing, but this has left parents and students more confused on career choices.

To illustrate the gap gradstate.com fills, its Facebook page has an impressive 52,000 likes and has morphed into a career counselling page.

Career advice

“We have started getting requests from students who tell us their KCSE scores and ask what options are available for them career wise, and if we could recommend an institution that would be ideal for them,” said Mureti.

To accommodate this new demand for career advice, Mureti and his team have developed an online lifestyle magazine, Gradstate Maisha.

“Through this magazine, we provide students with content about and around higher education. This includes career advice, academic profiles of celebrated Kenyans and famous commencement speeches.”

To sign up for gradstate.com services, an institution pays between Sh90,000 and Sh250,000 per year, depending on its size and the number of courses it wants to advertise.

Business plan

Institutions can pay extra to have advertisements placed on the website’s home page or have some of their courses highlighted as “hot courses”.

Institutions that have already signed up include the University of Nairobi, St Paul’s University, Zetech College and Riara University.

However, not everyone is eager to jump onto the bandwagon.

“Some institutions are sceptical or do not understand our model but prefer advertising their offerings in the traditional ways through television and newspapers; it is challenging to convince them to sign up,” said Mureti.

However, the founder of the startup, which already boasts a turnover of Sh3 million, is confident that his company has a solid business plan and will win over more institutions. He is also hoping to expand to other countries in the East African region.

“Currently, we are focused on Nairobi because our team is small. However, we are working on reaching the institutions in the counties, and eventually get to the likes of Uganda’s Makerere University.”

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