case study on unacademy

Unacademy Business Model Explained – Case Study

Supti Nandi

Updated on: October 5, 2023

In this article, we will shed light on the “Unacademy Business Model” and will also explain its numerous revenue sources. 

“Studying in a physical classroom” is a conventional form of education. But if you are given a choice of studying in an online classroom in the comfort zone of your room. It won’t be less than a boon right?   Do you know, in remote places students have to travel long distances to other cities to prepare for competitive exams? Also, they may be unaware of the latest methods and updated scenarios of national-level exams. Unacademy caught this loophole in the conventional education of our country and utilized it as a golden opportunity. How? You may ask. By introducing online classrooms and coaching! It is one of the most successful ed-tech startups in our country. All of this has been possible due to its productive business model.

Here, the explanation begins !

Unacademy: A Brief Overview

Before exploring the Unacademy business model, let’s have a quick overview of the company.

Working Strategy: How does it work?

Unacademy operates in B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Customers) segments. Its working strategy involves the following-

Educational Content Creation

Can you guess who the target audience of Unacademy is? Students! Yes, the students or learners are the core of an ed-tech company. So what should you serve the learners to grab more attention? The answer is educational content! In order to flourish in the ed-tech market, Unacademy collaborates with qualified educators. They create top-notch educational content in the form of video lessons, live classes, quizzes, and study materials. Do you know why Unacademy puts a high focus on video lectures? Because when you learn from video lectures, you use both visual and auditory memory. As a result, it improves your cognitive function and you retain the information for a long time! Thus, Unacademy creates and offers a diverse range of educational content related to various academic subjects and national entrance exams. This strategy helps to attract students to learn through Unacademy’s platform.

Freemium Model

The next part after content creation is to make it accessible to the students. That’s why Unacadmey works on the Freemium Model. This means, Unacademy provides free access to a vast library of educational content. You can browse through different subjects, topics, and courses and access video lessons and study materials without any cost. It mostly contains pre-recorded videos. This strategy is effective to create a large user base and build deep engagement within the platform.

Subscription Model

While the basic content is free, Unacademy offers additional premium features and benefits through subscription plans. You can opt for paid subscriptions to access the following features-

• Exclusive Content (latest & updated)
• Attend live doubt-clearing sessions
• Participate in mock tests
• Receive personalized guidance

Thus, the subscription model of Unacademy allows you to select the level of engagement and access to additional resources. You can choose them according to your needs and preferences. You need to pay a monthly fee or annual fee for the premium courses.

Exam Preparation and Test Series

Unacademy offers specialized courses and test series for various competitive exams, such as-

• Engineering Entrance Exams
• Medical Entrance Exams

These exam-specific courses often come at an additional cost, providing targeted preparation to students aspiring for these exams.

Quick Note: You can get some very useful ExamSnap CompTIA certifications to boost your resume.

Corporate Partnerships

Unacademy forms partnerships with educational institutions, colleges, and universities to provide online courses and certification programs. These collaborations enhance the credibility of the courses offered by Unacademy and expand its reach to a wider audience.

This is the latest feature launched by Unacademy. The placement platform of Unacademy is called “Relevel.” It is specially designed to connect job seekers with job providers. Meaning you can find the job of your choice within 15 days of application. Not just that, but you will also get access to courses specialized for your dream job! Relevel claims a 100% placement rate with over 2.35 lakh users. 

Relevel conducts the following tests for candidates seeking jobs-

• Front-end Development
• Back-end Development
• Business Development

As of 2022, Unacademy’s Relevel crosses $10 million in Annual Recurring Revenue.

Unacademy App & YouTube Channel

As you know, Unacademy began its journey as a YouTube channel before launching its app. Why? You may ask. Because, to make an app successful, you need a large user base and a loyal audience. Therefore, Unacademy grabbed a large number of viewers on its YouTube channel after which it switched to the Unacademy app. Well, it continues to put lectures on the YouTube channel and upgrades its app simultaneously. However, in the current scenario, Unacademy runs different YouTube channels. Each channel is specialized according to the course domain. Such as-

• Unacademy JEE
• Unacademy NEET
• Unacademy Banking
• Unacademy UPSC

Unacademy store

The company has planned to launch its offline store called “Unacademy Store.” It will offer offline coaching centers. The prime objective of Unacademy stores is to develop a physical presence in the test preparation market. Some of its offline centers have begun functioning in the following cities-

Revenue Sources: How Does it Make Money?

Do you know, Unacademy earned revenue of Rs.844 crore in FY22? The primary sources of revenue are the sale of services, the sale of education materials, other incomes, etc. You can look at the details below-

Subscription Plans- Unacademy Plus

As you have read above, Unacademy uses a subscription model to offer premium courses by charging fees. You can subscribe on a monthly or annual basis to access the exclusive educational content discussed in the previous section.

Sale of Education Materials

Education Materials refer to books, notes, test papers, and tablets. Well, these are the essence of any coaching institute. Be it offline or online! Unacademy is no different. It provides complimentary access to digital study material to subscribed users. It provides physical study materials too i.e. printed books and notes. You can purchase them independently of any subscriptions. Thus, it acts as an important revenue source for the Unacademy business model.

Revenue-Sharing with Educators

If you utilize educational content on YouTube then you must be aware of the fact that Unacademy collaborates with educators. Those educators are qualified enough to have their own YouTube channel and large audience. These collaborations not only act as a marketing strategy for Unacademy but also help it to earn revenue. These educators deliver supreme quality educational content on their platforms. They receive a share of the revenue generated from the subscription fees. The revenue-sharing model incentivizes educators to create high-quality content and engage with the platform. Also, their earnings are directly linked to the popularity and effectiveness of their courses.

Advertisements and Sponsorships

Unacademy generates revenue through advertisements and sponsorships. They partner with brands and advertisers to display targeted ads on their platform or sponsor specific courses or events. Advertisers benefit from reaching a large audience of students and learners on the platform, and Unacademy earns revenue through these advertising partnerships. The advertisers also target Unacademy YouTube Channel because it has over 100k subscribers and over 3 billion views.

Marketing Strategies of Unacademy

Unacademy business model employs various marketing strategies to promote its online learning platform and attract users. Some of the key marketing strategies are-

Digital Marketing

Unacademy heavily relies on digital marketing to reach its target audience. They utilize the following online channels to create brand awareness such as-

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Display Advertising

All of these help Unacademy engage with potential users and drive traffic to their platform.

Collaborations

Who could be an influencer for ed-tech platforms? Those are renowned educators. Unacademy partners with famous educators of different fields to promote their platform. These influencers and educators endorse Unacademy. They create content related to the platform and encourage their followers to join and utilize Unacademy for their learning needs.

Referral Programs

Unacademy employs referral programs to encourage users to refer their friends and acquaintances to the platform. Users are incentivized with rewards, discounts, or exclusive features when they successfully refer new users. This strategy leverages the power of word-of-mouth marketing and harnesses the existing user base to expand the platform’s reach. You can look at the table below to have a detailed view of earning rewards-

Events and Webinars

Unacademy organizes and participates in events, webinars, and workshops related to education and exam preparation. They may conduct live classes, expert panels, or interactive sessions to showcase their platform’s capabilities and engage with potential users. These events serve as marketing opportunities to highlight Unacademy’s expertise and offerings.

Final Words

Unacademy business model revolves around providing free educational content, monetizing through subscription plans, revenue sharing with educators, advertising and sponsorships, specialized exam preparation, and corporate partnerships. Unacademy acquired numerous startups to expand its operations in specialized fields. It utilizes effective marketing strategies. This helps to create brand awareness, attract users and build a strong presence in the online learning space. 

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very nice article. One query: Does Unacademy have Franchisee or COCO centers?

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Unacademy Marketing Strategy and Case Study

Unacademy, an online education hub which is known for its wide variety of courses for competitive exam preparation, too has gained immensely from the situation , so much so that the platform now has more than 30 million registered users and 350,000 paying subscribers . In this case study, we will take a go od look at the journey of Unacademy, its m arketing strategies and the funding received to reach where it is today.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents:

Who founded unacademy, history of unacademy, what does unacademy offer, unacademy funding, unacademy marketing strategy, unacademy business model, unacademy acquisitions, witnessing huge growth in april 2020, when unacademy was attacked by hackers, partnership with sachin tendulkar.

Unacademy started out as a YouTube channel in the year 2010. Five years later, it was developed into an online portal for educators and new-age learners. This was achieved with the combined effort of 4 co-founders- Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, Roman Saini and Sachin Gupta.

Unacademy was started as a YouTube Channel by Gaurav Munjal just for the sake of exploring a new hobby. During those days, Munjal , who was pursuing engineering, gave co ding lessons in Java through his channel. The channel was a hit and Munjal also became one of the most followed people on question-and-answer website Quora, where he extensively wrote answers to questions on computer science.

In 2015, with the help of the other co-founders mentioned above, Munjal registered Unacademy as a brand under the parent firm Sorting Hat Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The p ortal o ffered free classes during the first 3 years of its operation and started a subscription model only in 2019.

Unacademy offers a wide variety of courses developed by more than 18,000 teachers. The course curriculum covers the syllabus of classes 10+2 and other competition exams such as JEE, NEET, UPSC, SSC, Bank PO, CAT, GATE , etc.

The platform offers the courses in the form of both live classes and pre-recorded videos. Every fourth class of the week is dedicated to addressing students’ doubts. Interestingly, Unacademy is now offering classes in pastry-making and chess as well.

Unacademy is now a part of the prestigious Unicorn club, which means that the company has surpassed the valuation of $1 billion. In fact, it was Gaurav Munjal’s dream to achieve this milestone before turning 30. Notably, the company became a unicorn club member just 6 days before his 30 th birthday .

Let’s take a look at the various funding rounds that have taken place so far:

• January 2017 : Raised $4.5 million in a funding round led by Blume Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners .
• September 2017 : Raised $11.5 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia India and SAIF Partners .
• July 2018 : Raised a combined $21 million from Sequoia India, SAIF Partners and NEXUS Investment Partners.
• February 2020 : Raised a combined $110 million from Facebook, Blume Ventures, Nexus Ventures, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, and private equity company General Atlantic.
• September 2020 : Raised $150 million through Soft B ank Group led funding which saw all existing investors participate
• November 2020 : Raised an undisclosed amount from Tiger Global and surpassed the valuation of $2 million.

As part of its aggressive marketing strategy, Unacademy makes extensive use of digital marketing (Google, Social Media and OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.), TV commercials, Radio, and out-of-home (OOH) advertising methods such as billboards.

While digital marketing and OTT platforms are the top revenue generators in tier-1 cities, TV and OOH methods of promotion bring in more leads in smaller towns. The company doesn’t like to spend much on newspaper ads.

Unacademy follows a freemium business model . In simple t erms, Unacademy offers some of its basic services for free and charges a subscription-fee for its high-quality content. The pre-recorded classes are free of cost; while, the live, interactive sess ions with top experts are paid.

Unacademy has acquired a number of startups in its journey so far. Here’s a co mplete list of its acquisitions:

Acquired WifiStudy , a YouTube-based exam preparation channel, for $10 million.

• Acquired Kreatryx to expand Gate and ESE preparation services
• Acquired Mumbai-based programming platform named CodeChef in June
• Bought Prepladder , a Gurugram based online coaching platform, for $50 million in July
• Acquired majority stake in Mastree – a K-12 Learning platform – for $5 million In July
• Bought Coursavy , an online UPSC preparation test portal, in September
• Acquired Delhi-NCR based Neostencil , a startup dedicated to government- exam preparation, in December

Acquired majority stake in technology firm TapChief in February

The first complete month of nationwide lockdown due to coronavirus turned out to be a huge success for all online learning platf orms. Unacademy too was no exception . Here are a few Unacademy stats from the month of April, 2020:

• 82% growth in revenue from the preceding month (March)
• The highest ever views on YouTube- 165 million
• 1,20,000 live classes conducted
• 2,64,000 tests were taken up by learners ( 247% higher than March)

Famous personalities Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma and Shashi Tharoor participated in live classes. These sessions were watched live by more than 50,000 learners

In May 2020 when Unacademy was riding high on its overnight gains, it also had to bear the consequences of a vicious cyber attack. As many as 11 million user accounts were compromised, the information of which was later allegedly sold on dark web. In an official statement, Unacademy confirmed the breach , while also asserting that no sensiti ve information was compromised.

Reportedly, the attackers claimed on dark web that they had access to the entire Unacademy database, but they decided to leak only the user data at the moment.

Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar signed a multi-layer deal with Unacademy in February of 2021. The former cricketer will serve as the brand ambassador for the platform and also offer interactive master classes. Notably, Sachin has also picked u p a small stake in the company.

The war among major Indian online learning platforms is getting intense with each passing day. Most of this is because of the fact that students are restricted to their homes and can’t step out safely owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

Other similar players such as BYJU’s and Vedantu are moving ahead with an aggressive marketing strategy too. If you look closely, you will see how these brands  

invest a lot on their digital marketing campaigns to just get leads, which they are sure to convert into long-term customers – thanks to their highly trained sales executives .

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Unacademy Case Study – Making Learning Effortless and Enjoyable

Unacademy is an e-learning platform that aims to be an online knowledge repository that is both comprehensive and multi-lingual. It is part of the edutech sphere, and is headquartered in Bangalore. At first, Unacademy was a YouTube channel that commenced in 2010 with Gaurav Munjal at the helm. 

In 2015, he was joined by his current partners, Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini. Roman Saini was once part of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS).  Unacademy has around 10,000 well-qualified educators on its rolls, and over 13 million users have signed up for its services. In addition to its portfolio of academically inclined courses, it also offers skill-building classes such as computer programming, photography, etc. 

This Unacademy case study will attempt to decode its business model and the reasons behind its success.

Unacademy Business Model:

Unacademy manages six different YouTube channels for various disciplines, such as for coaching JEE and UPSC aspirants. They have 8 million subscribers and over 250 million views for their content.

A significant portion of Unacademy’s revenue comes from the ‘freemium business model’ that it follows. In a freemium business model, a company will offer some of its services for free. While all the classes it hosts are free of charge, those paying the subscription fee will have access to an ad-free experience and live classes exclusive to its paying members. 

You can also check this out The Face Of Ed-Tech – Byju’s Case Study

Services Offered by Unacademy:

Unacademy has many offerings under its belt. Some of these are:

• Exam preparations for Staff Selection Commission (SSC) and banks.
• Exam preparations for the Indian Railways.
• Exam preparations for the Defense Forces
• NEET and JEE Entrance exam preparations.
• Chartered Accountancy and Company Secretary exams.

How Do the Numbers Stack Up?

According to entrackr , Unacademy’s revenue increased to 380 crores in FY 202-21 from 62 crores in FY 2019-20, subscription revenue. The most considerable expense for the EdTech firm in 2021 was employee benefits – accounting for 38% of its annual costs. Unacademy had to spend 5 rupees to earn 1 rupee. Thus Unacademy was burning through a lot of its cash reserves then. 

But the outlook isn’t all gloomy for the EdTech industry. It is experiencing an annual growth of 16.3% and will grow two and a half times by 2025, with expenses on EdTech expected to touch $404 billion. 

Conclusion:

As observed in the Unacademy case study, its journey has seen it come a long way from being just another EdTech firm on the horizon. Its expectations have been greatly surpassed in terms of overall growth and finances. The credit for it must go to the willingness of the founders to adapt to the changing times and market dynamics. 

Unacademy must hold steadfast in the face of the current headwinds and focus on developing the business well. They do have the ability to pull it off, and Unacademy has the potential to remain a strong contender in the EdTech industry and continue to guide the many students who have placed their hope on it.

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Case Study: Unacademy

Team thecodework.

Unacademy is an online educational platform that is revolutionizing the EduTech sector. The platform signifies their desire to alter the style of education in India. They aim to provide the best content for the kids when it comes to education. Unacademy has evolved to be one of the largest e-learning podiums in the country.

With the huge success of the platform, Unacademy is further motivated to get better with every passing day. Presently, it provides the best content through the finest educators to the students via the digital platform.

Unacademy is the only EduTech giant in India that provides free education to theusers. Like, actually free. However, you do have to sign up and pay for extra classes or the other premium features like tests, study materials etc.

Unacademy helps the students search for the content and educators as per their requirements. The best part is that you can go through the concepts of the same topic with multiple educators on the platform and then choose what suits you the best. At present, there are more than 14 thousand educators and 20 million subscribers on the platform.

Popular Goals Covered by Unacademy

It covers the major exams of the nation including the high school syllabus and that’s a major advantage to the business model of the platform. Unacademy has the Freemium Business model strategy. It means that one may access their core features and YouTube videos for free but have to pay if they want to avail the premium features.

The highlight of this is that one can even sign up with their favorite educators and take lessons from him/her. The educators also hold doubt clearing sessions which is a necessity when it comes to education, especially exams. Students are hugely satisfied with the platform resulting in its consistent growth.

Check out their case study and explore more about them!

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Success Story of Unacademy - A Learning Platform Designed for Competitive Examinations

Himaya Presthitha , Manisha Mishra

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

Classroom learning is seen as a hindrance by many to discovering new things. Besides, a lot of students also go unnoticed this way and eventually fail to explore the world around them with the lack of attention and opportunity they get in a physical class. Furthermore, when it comes to competitive examinations, many students in remote places are even unaware of the best teachers and updated methods to crack these exams. Unacademy unscrambles these problems with its online learning platform with the top educators in the country. The company offers courses and lectures for several competitive examinations such as CAT, JEE, NEET, CLAT, UPSC CSE/IAS, IBPS/SBI, RRB, and video classes on various subjects, thus empowering the students to excel in this competitive world. Unacademy is an Edtech company established in 2015 . The company had its beginnings as a Youtube channel created by Gaurav Munjal and started by Dheeraj Meena. Later on, in 2015, the company was registered in Bengaluru as an education company. The company has entered the Unicorn club in September 2020 after it raised $150 million from Softbank and other existing investors.

Here's StartupTalky bringing you all that you want to know about Unacademy , including Latest News , Founders and Team , Name , Tagline , Logo , Mission, Vision , Growth and Revenue , Funding and Investors , Acquisitions , Competitors , and more.

Unacademy - Company Highlights

Unacademy - About Unacademy - Industry Unacademy - Founders and Team Unacademy - Name, Tagline, and Logo Unacademy - Vision and Mission Unacademy - Educators Unacademy - Growth and Revenue Unacademy - Partnerships Unacademy - Campaigns Unacademy - Funding and Investors Unacademy - Acquisitions Unacademy - ESOPs Unacademy - Business and Revenue Model Unacademy - Challenges Unacademy - Investment Unacademy - Competitors Unacademy - Future Plans

Unacademy - About

Unacademy is an online platform that makes both learning and teaching easy with its educational videos and lectures. Initially, it was founded in the year 2010 with videos streaming on YouTube, but it officially got launched in the year 2015.

The company has achieved spectacular growth with more than 10K educators and over 13 Million users since it has been founded. Unacademy Co-founder and CTO Hemesh Singh have proudly posted that it has crossed 750,000 active paid subscribers. The active subscribers have crossed the 800K, as of April 28, 2022, which was shared again by Gaurav Munjal.

Unacademy Group has crossed 750,000 Active Paid Subscribers! 🔥🔥🔥 — hemesh singh (@hemezh) February 3, 2022

It has earlier posted of attaining the milestone of 650,000 active subscribers on its platform, as per Unacademy COO Vivek Sinha's tweet dated September 9, 2021.

Unacademy Group has crossed 650,000 Active Subscribers 🔥🔥🔥 — Vivek Sinha (@viveksinhaisb) September 9, 2021

Numerous platforms of Unacademy including Unacademy Plus, and other properties of the company like Chamomile Tea with Toppers, Wifistudy, The Solutionists, Unacademy JEE, and Unacademy Studios, with which it acquires nearly 110 Million views every month, makes it the largest distributor of educational content. The learning app is compatible with Android , iOS, and Windows and thus can be easily accessed by all.

Unacademy Products

Unacademy has launched various products:

Unacademy products include:

• Learner App
• Educator App

Unacademy offers both live and recorded classes from India's best educators via:

• Structured Syllabus
• Daily Live Classes
• Doubt-clearing sessions
• Tests and Practice Opportunities

Some of the product launch of the Year 2023 are:

Cohesive AI

Unacademy has launched an AI content editor in April, 2023 that makes it simple for users to "create, refine, edit, and publish" their work.

Unacademy Store

opened its first Unacademy store in Odisha's Bhubaneswar on May, 17, 2023. In accordance with the platform's goal of democratizing access to high-quality education, Unacademy Stores are physical locations where learners may peruse brand offerings and get assistance from knowledgeable staff.

Unacademy UNSAT

The third iteration of Unacademy National Scholarship Admission Test (UNSAT), the largest scholarship test supporting the expanding aspirations of IIT JEE and NEET UG Learners, was announced by Unacademy, on September, 29, 2023.

Unacademy - Industry

The market for kindergarten to 12th grade was valued at $1.16 billion whereas the skill development market was estimated to be worth less than $500 million. As a whole, the edtech market in India was worth $2.8 billion in 2020. However, this is set to drastically change by 2025, when the market of Edtech is estimated to be valued at $10.4 billion.

Unacademy - Founders and Team

Unacademy was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Dr. Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh. Though it was started under the same name by Gaurav Munjal and Dheeraj Meena as an educational channel on Youtube in 2010, the company was officially registered as an education company, Unacademy in 2015 in Bengaluru.

Gaurav Munjal

Gaurav Munjal , the CEO of Unacademy , sold his first company FlatChat, to CommonFloor in 2014, and is currently developing Unacademy. A St. Xavier's Jaipur student, Munjal has a Btech in Computer Engineering from NMIMS, Mumbai. After a brief internship at Directi, Munjal founded Unacademy, as a Youtube channel providing easy, study-related videos for the students. However, he left the same and joined Directi as a Software Developer, where he remained for a little more than a year before founding FlatChat. He served as the FlatChat Founder and CEO but after the same had been acquired by CommonFloor. Munjal started revamping Unacademy from the scratch and developed it into the company we see now.

Dr. Roman Saini

Roman Saini , who is a doctor from AIIMS, cleared the Civil Service Exam (IAS) in 2013. He quit his administrative roles and is now the Co-founder and Chief Educator of Unacademy.

Hemesh Singh

Hemesh Singh is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Co-founder of Unacademy , who was also the CTO of FlatChat formerly.

Unacademy CMO, Karan Shroff has been promoted to the position of a partner with the help of the company's internal 'Partner' program for the employees, as of September 7, 2021. This program is decided upon by the company to recognize the key leaders of the organization. The partner position , as mentioned by Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal, is similar to being a co-founder of the company .

Karan Shroff is currently serving as a Partner and the Chief Marketing Officer of Unacademy. Shroff forwarded an email on April 6, 2022, that came from Elon Musk, which said what the managers of Musk's company must do if he sends an email. Forwarding the mail, Karan Shroff lauded the work culture that is followed by companies like Tesla and mentioned that working on similar lines, focusing on ownership, accountability, modesty, clarity, clear directions and actionable information, can lead to rapid, sustainable growth. Here goes Karan Shroff's LinkedIn forward:

The company now operates with 5001 - 10,000 employees and yields a valuation $3.44 Billion as of 2022, building a strong community of technology-driven self-learners.

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Unacademy Shareholding

• Sequoia Capial 13.1%
• ESOP Pool 14.4%
• Softbank 11.5
• General Atlantic 10.1%
• Steadview Capital 4.7%
• Blume Venture 4.8%
• Temasek 4.5%
• Ocean View Investments 3.6%
• Tiger Global 3.9%
• Gaurav Munjal 3.5%
• Hemesh Singh 2.3%
• Others 7.2%

Unacademy - Name, Tagline, and Logo

The name Unacademy [Un (Not) - Academy] states that this learning platform differs from the conventional methods of education, unlike an institution or academy which is accessible to everyone. “India’s largest learning platform” is the tagline of the company.

Unacademy - Vision and Mission

Unacademy’s vision is to build numerous courses in multiple languages for students all over the world. Expanding its educators along with the students, Unacademy aims to collaborate with the brightest minds and empower India’s youth population which accounts for 19% of the world’s youth, to bring oneself into this contemporary world. 70% of its learners come from Tier 3 cities, where there is a lack of top educators, thus, the startup focuses on enlarging its teachers, and languages, and adding more exams to the existing mixture.

“By leveraging technology and high-quality educators, we aim to move closer to our mission of democratising education at all levels, starting with test prep,”

“We are seeing unprecedented growth and engagement from learners in smaller towns and cities, and are also very humbled to see that top-quality educators are choosing Unacademy as their primary platform to reach out to students.”, says Gaurav Munjal, CEO of Unacademy.

Unacademy - Educators

Unacademy imposes life lessons and motivational talks with top educators in its exclusive “Legends on Unacademy” initiative. The first edition included famous cricketers Brian Lara, Brett Lee, and Jonty Rhodes as educators, talking about their challenges and achievements. The second edition of “Legends on Unacademy” involved Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, India’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi, and the star couple Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma . Apart from this, the educators for all the sectors are highly accomplished with prior proficiency and in-depth erudition.

“These interactive classes will not only equip our learners with academic knowledge, but also empower them with extraordinary life skills, and help them hone their ability to overcome various challenges”, said Karan Shroff, Vice President, Marketing at Unacademy.

Celebrity educators would join in soon with Unacademy, who will teach the students extracurricular courses via "Unacademy Icons", which was all set to be launched in 2022. Though this new venture sounds almost like FrontRow, Celebrity School, Artium Academy, and Mento, in the first impression, the working model is still not clear and would only be clear after the official confirmation from the company.

Unacademy - Growth and Revenue

Unacademy has emerged as one of the largest companies in the Edtech space in 2021, which has successfully raised quite a sum via the funding rounds and has acquired around 12 companies including CodeChef, Coursavy, and more. The company is currently hailed as the second most valued ed-tech startup.

Unacademy states that the greatest success of them relies on the students who crack the toughest of examinations. Catering to 32+ competitive exams as of now, the company focuses on its growth by including more tests and exams, to append subscribers. This Edtech startup has raised $110 Million from General Atlantic and Facebook and received a post-money valuation of $510 Million, which was an added boost for the company that has already seen big names, such as Sequoia Capital India , Steadview Capital at the start of its career. The company has also received funds from SoftBank Vision Fund, Dragoneer Investment Group, Tiger Global Management, and Temasek Holdings in the last couple of years.

“We started to monetise around a year ago, and in the first month, we made around Rs 2 crore in revenue, and last month we did around Rs 18 crore. So, we’ve grown 9X in 12 months and we plan to continue growing from here,” said Gaurav Munjal.

Unacademy has signed former skipper of the Indian cricket team, MS Dhoni , and the contract is for 2 years, as the report goes.

Unacademy has achieved numerous growth milestones throughout the years. Here are some of the prominent growth highlights of Unacademy:

• Unacademy offers preparation for over 60 categories of exams.
• It has over 5,00,000 registered educators on its platform.
• The company boasts of having 1 million+ video lessons.
• The Edtech unicorn has 315+ million total views for its YouTube videos.
• Unacademy has opened its first physical store in New Delhi, as per reports dated March 12, 2022, and will open similar stores in Kota, Jaipur, and Lucknow.

Unacademy has disclosed its plans of conducting an IPO in the next 2 years, according to the reports dated July 11, 2022 . However, for that to happen, the startup must first turn cashflow positive. Besides, its expenses need to be reduced , for which the founders and the top managers of the company are likely to receive pay cuts .

Unacademy Revenue Breakdown

Unacademy expenses breakdown.

Unacademy total expenses has rises from Rs 2,030 crore in FY21 to Rs 3,703 crore in FY22.

EBITDA margin increased slightly from -320.57% in FY21  to -324.46% in FY22 due to an increase in operating losses. From Rs 5.10 in FY21 to Rs 5.15 in FY22, the Expense/Rs of Op income stayed relatively unchanged, demonstrating consistent cost control actions. On the other hand, the Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) decreased marginally from -80.38%  in FY21 to -81.38% in FY22, indicating a diminished capacity to provide returns on capital that has been invested.

Unacademy - Partnerships

Unacademy has seen numerous successful partnerships throughout time. Some of the prominent ones are as follows:

• Unacademy has signed an MoU with the Backward Classes Welfare Department (BCWD) of the Govt. of Telangana, which will identify and empower meritorious students from the state and provide them with scholarships. As per the collaboration, Unacademy is ready to conduct a series of aptitude tests for the meritorious students of Telangana in 3 phases, which will cater to the college entrance and government job exams. Around 4,500 aspirants will receive the benefits of the scholarship program, which is the Unacademy Plus subscription, as announced by Unacademy on April 6, 2022. The ed-tech unicorn had already signed an MoU for a similar scholarship program with the Odisha Govt. towards the end of 2021.
• The Gaurav Munjal-led ed-tech company has been declared the official partner of IPL for 3 seasons of the cricketing carnival, as reported in August 2020.
• Unacademy has partnered with TapChief on January 24, 2017, to help the students land their first jobs.
• Company partnershiped with The Viral Fever one of the most well-known digital content producers in India, for the fascinating new web series "Sandeep Bhaiya." on July, 1, 2023.

Unacademy - Campaigns

Unacademy launched its "Meri Pehli Academy" campaign on May 5, 2022, which celebrates womanhood prior to Mother's Day.

Unacademy partnered with MS Dhoni on August 11, 2021, and has unveiled an 85-second brand film featuring its brand ambassador, the former Indian cricket team skipper.

Unacademy has earlier partnered with the Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar . The Gaurav Munjal-led came out with an advertising campaign featuring the master blaster, his failures, and his eventual success on March 2, 2021.  

Unacademy is well-known for its IPL campaigns, which the company features amidst the commentary box talks. Campaigns like "Mauke pe Chauka", "Kya Hum Live Hai", "What a Wonderful Advert"  and more.

It previously launched the "Let's Crack it" campaign in November 2019, which was its first ATL campaign.

Unacademy - Funding and Investors

Unacademy is now valued at $3.44 Billion , after the recent fundraising round, Series H, led by Temasek, Softbank, Tiger Global , and others on August 1, 2021, where the company has raised $440 million .

Initially, Unacademy raised a seed funding of $500K from Blume Ventures in May 2016. The latest funding was raised on August 1, 2021.

“We were thrilled with how rapidly Gaurav (Munjal) and the team converted some of our collective product brainstorming sessions into an amazing live-streaming product and a subscription business for the test prep market,” said Shailendra Singh, Managing Director of Sequoia Capital.

The total funding amount raised by Unacademy is $838.5 Million over 12 funding rounds.

Unacademy raised some iconic rounds from the biggies in the investment and corporate world including General Atlantic, Facebook, Sequoia Capital, Flipkart, Softbank, Nexus, Blume, Tiger Global, Dragoneer, Temasek, and more. One such round came in February 2020, when funding close to $110 mn came from the likes of General Atlantic, Facebook, Flipkart, and others. Though the money infused by Facebook was undisclosed, the social media giant reportedly poured in around $20 mn in the round. The same round elicited some amazing responses both from Unacademy and Facebook.

"We thank General Atlantic and Facebook who have joined us in this journey and our existing investors who continue to be a part of the journey by supporting us. Our goal is to democratise education and become not just the largest educational organisation but the largest consumer Internet story out of India," Gaurav Munjal, Co-Founder and CEO, Unacademy, said in a statement.

"Facebook is an ally for India's economic growth and social development, and we are excited about India and its rapidly rising Internet ecosystem," said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.

Unacademy - Acquisitions

Facebook-based Unacademy has acquired 12 startups to date to strengthen its position in the Edtech Sector. The last of the acquisitions was Swiflearn, which was acquired by Unacademy on November 3, 2021 . The company previously acquired the Edtech Saas platform Spayee, which was acquired by Unacademy-backed Graphy on October 11, 2021.

Unacademy was in talks since October 18, 2021, to acquire Swiflearn, a Gurugram-based full-stack online platform for academic courses that aims to provide a personalized learning experience for the students. Founded by Abhinav Agarwal and Anand Bakode, Swiflearn currently focuses on the K-10 segment and extends free and subscription-based classes for the students. The acquisition deal was then in its latter stages and was estimated to be worth around $15-20 million. Finally, the acquisition happened on 3rd November and is in line with the company's strategies to cement its position in the K-12 category. However, the deal amount is still undisclosed. The acquisition of CodeChef was one of the major acquisitions of Unacademy, which delighted both Gaurav Munjal and Bhavin Turakhia.    

The list of Acquisitions is as follows:

Unacademy - ESOPs

Unacademy has announced the expansion of its ESOP pool by 19.8%. The Unacademy ESOP pool will now consist of 286 mn options from the earlier announced 238.7 mn options. As per reports dated July 9, 2022, each option of Unacademy is priced at Rs 109, meaning that the total size of the ESOP pool would be worth around Rs 3,118 crore ($393 mn) as of November, 2022.

The edtech giant had earlier expanded its ESOP size from 99K to 238 mn, which is a 2401X jump on April 20, 2022.

Unacademy had already announced its ESOP buyback plan on September 4, 2021, the company further reassured that it would be the company's largest employee stock ownership plan for the team members and educators of the platform.

Happy to announce Unacademy's largest ESOPs buyback till date worth $10.5M for our team members and educators. This is our third buyback till date. Extremely thankful to all our team members and educators for believing in our vision of democratising education. Let’s crack it! — Roman Saini (@RomanSaini) September 4, 2021

Co-founder Roman Saini mentioned that this ESOPs buyback will be the third and largest by the online learning platform. Furthermore, he also thanked the employees of Unacademy because of their belief in the company's “vision of democratizing education”. He also added that Unacademy is also announcing the Teacher Stock Options (TSOPs) for its educators, who will be eligible for fully vested Stock Grants after they complete 3, 4, and 5 years with Unacademy.

Munjal further disclosed that the company currently has 50,000+  registered educators as of August, 2023, who are eligible for the grant, which they will get immediately.

"We are who we are because of our Educators and we want our Educators to grow and create wealth as Unacademy grows!” added Munjal.

Unacademy - Business and Revenue Model

Unacademy operates on B2B and B2C business models, where the main income of the company lies in paid memberships that they offer!

Unacademy's basic revenue model is of a Freemium type. Here the company offers a range of services for free, which the audiences can continue. However, if they want more high-quality content, then they need to pay a small fee for the same.

Unacademy Plus - Unacademy offers numerous classes along with pre-recorded video lectures furnished with ample information for free for all the students. However, the company also offers paid live classes to help the student clear their doubts with one-on-one doubt clearance sessions and proper lectures. This can be availed through a premium subscription called 'Unacademy Plus.' The Unacademy Plus subscription was launched at Rs 299 to celebrate the Unacademy Learning Festival. This offer was valid from April 23 to April 30, 2022, for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET UG), and students from Class 8 to 12. Relevel - Unacademy has launched another platform called Relevel in May 2021. This new platform is designed to help job seekers find their jobs within 15 days of application. Relevel claims of having more than 2.35 lakh users and boasts of a 100% placement rate, as of October 1, 2021. The people who have secured jobs are mostly from Tier II and Tier III cities in the country. Besides, the experienced job seekers claimed to have attained up to a 150% salary hike through Unacademy's job portal.

Relevel has witnessed 64+ companies to date on its platform across sectors, which have interviewed the candidates on the basis of the tests. Frontend Development, Backend Development, and Business Development are the 3 tests that Relevel conducts for job seekers as of now. These 3 tests are diverse in nature ranging from MCQs, algorithmic tests, and case studies and are conducted within a day. Sometimes, the Relevel tests include the building of a mini-app followed by a final round of interviews with an industry expert. Shashank Murali, the founder of the recruitment platform, currently heads it, as the CEO of Relevel. The platform successfully raised $20 mn from Unacademy on October 1, 2021. In terms of revenue, Relevel crossed $10 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in June 2022.

Graphy - The Unacademy Group boasts of Graphy, which serves as a platform that is designed to help the creators of the country grow their audiences. Furthermore, it also helps them monetize their skills, host live cohort-based courses, and more. The all-new Graphy that acts as a Saas platform welcomes influencers, educators, and domain experts from across the country.

On June 22, 2021, Unacademy's Graphy announced its Graphy Creator Grant , which is deemed to help the applicants start with their online school.

Youtube channels - We all know that Unacademy first started as a Youtube channel . Though the business has grown far and wide since 2010, the company still runs its Youtube channel. The only difference is that the company now runs different Youtube channels instead of one, under names like Unacademy JEE, Unacademy UPSC, and others for the school students between 6th and 8th standards.

Content marketing - Unacademy is excellent in its marketing strategies , be it for the brand or its contents. It markets its contents using numerous cutting-edge techniques. Furthermore, it uses social media marketing, email marketing, advertisements on its website as well as on other websites to generate leads, and more.

In-app purchases - Unacademy also earns significantly through their in-app purchases. The company lists offers and discounts regularly on its app covering live classes, study materials, live mock tests, quizzes, other premium content, and more.

‘Unacademy Plus’ has nearly 100,000 subscribers as of 2021, and offers paid educational services. These paid subscriptions are the main source of revenue for Unacademy.

Learning Resources - Unacademy offers a wide range of learning resources for the students to go about their learning processes. These are mainly of two types:

• Pre-recorded videos
• LIVE sessions

Though most of the pre-recorded videos are viewable for free, the Live sessions are chargeable. Unacademy decided to shut down Mastree, an online platform for kids to master communication, on September 2, 2021, almost one year after the company has acquired the firm.

Unacademy - Challenges

Unacademy has faced numerous challenges since its existence as an ed-tech company in India. The most prominent challenge that it faces is tough competition from the other edtech companies thriving in India.

Unacademy Layoffs

The ed-tech major has reportedly laid off around 1K of its workforce in the past weeks, according to the reports dated April 7, 2022. The Unacademy employees who were asked to leave include on-roll staff and contractual educators. As far as the reports go, around 600 of these employees were asked to resign throughout the last week of March 2022. This massive downsizing initiative was most likely fuelled by the impending slowdown of the venture funding, and unstable economic conditions and further propelled by an urge to bring down the overall cash burn of the company, according to sources.

Unacademy has laid off again, where around 150 employees were asked to resign in the last 2 days, as per the reports dated June 17, 2022. The laid-off employees belong to the sales and operations verticals and are primarily from Unacademy are from Unacademy Group's core business - Unacademy and PrepLadder. The edtech unicorn justified that it laid off these employees sighting poor performance. Improving efficiency has been declared as the sole aim of the company for becoming profitable.

Unacademy Suspended Contracts of Educators

After firing over 1K employees in 2022, Unacademy has allegedly suspended the contracts of its NEET and JEE doubt-solving educators for 6 months, as per reports dated August 2, 2022. The Munjal-led company terminated the mentioned contracts on July 31, 2022, and that too with no notice period. Numerous contractors were affected by this, the numbers of which are yet not confirmed by the Moneycontrol report, which reported the same. The educators were terminated by Unacademy for a period of a minimum of 6 months, where Unacademy would neither use their services nor pay them during this period. Unacademy has allegedly stated that it is strategising something new, which would eventually reduce the requirement of doubt-solving platforms.  

Unacademy owned software as a service company Graphy has laid off employees According to several people aware of the development, Graphy has let go of 20–30% of its workers, or about 50 employees, in the last few weeks as per various news report of october, 26, 2023.

Unacademy Shutdowns

Unacademy launched USMLE in February 2022, which was designed to serve as a paid subscription program, a global test preparation platform that will help an MD (Doctor of Medicine) to clear the US medical licensing examination in the US, has been shut down. The platform was winded down because it has failed to achieve the PMF (Profitability Mass Function). The USMLE platform had somewhere between 15-20 employees, who would be likely absorbed by Unacademy.

Unacademy also disclosed that it would be closing some of its business verticals that had failed to find a product-market fit, as per reports dated July 18, 2022.  

Unacademy vs Allen Career Institute

Unacademy had set it up against Allen Career while expanding in Kota. Situations became so tense that Unacademy has to offer police protection for some of its teachers who switched from Allen Career to Unacademy, as per the reports dated June 10, 2022. The Rajesh Maheshwari-founded Allen Career was founded back in 1988, and has enjoyed quite a dominance in the coaching industry that thrives in Kota, Rajasthan.

The issue began when Unacademy started expanding its reach in the offline education space, and in this way, it turned to Allen Career and its teachers and began to hire them against huge compensations. Even the man behind the launch of Allen Career Institute’s Jaipur centre, Ashish Arora also joined Unacademy in February 2022. Gaurav Munjal had previously asked people in Unacademy to hire the best teachers and this plan seemed to have backfired. This has also enraged Allen Career Institute Chairman and Director in Academics Brajesh Maheshwari, who has posted a video warning the teachers from switching to other edtech companies. In this video, Maheshwari also referred to the teachers as 'greedy' and claimed that Allen Career has a workforce of over 11000 employees and that it would not matter much if some of them leave the company. Besides, the teachers who would prefer to join other companies would also be blacklisted from the Allen Group and its partners, and would never be able to join the same group or its partners again in the future.

As per June 14, 2022 reports, Unacademy has listed 30 educators who have joined the company and were previously aligned with Allen Career, in answer to the previous warning from the Allen Director.

The edtech battle between Unacademy and Allen has taken a whole new, dramatic turn. The Rajasthan-based coaching institute has reportedly filed a plea against 20 of its former teachers in Jaipur Commercial court under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, as per the reports dated July 7, 2022. Allen alleged that the teachers did not serve the 4-month notice period as per the service agreement, thereby not completing their service tenure and breaching the service agreement as a result. It has been reported that Allen filed around 20 pleas in the last week of June 2022, which stated that the sudden resignation of the teachers has led to students abandoning the institute in the middle of the session when crucial examinations are upcoming. The plea also revealed that Allen has also taken disciplinary action against the teachers due to their “illegal and unauthorized absence from the institute”.

Unacademy - Investment

Unacademy has invested in two companies to date.

Below are the details:

Unacademy - Competitors

The main competitors for Unacademy are:

• Bluprint Firefly
• Khan Academy

Khan Academy appears to be the top competitor because like Unacademy, they also provide quality educational content for free from which large students are being benefitted. Unacademy substantiates to be exclusive in its educational services and confronts several competitors across the nation.

Unacademy - Future Plans

The total market size of this EdTech startup is expected to reach $287 Billion by 2023, escalating from $160 billion in 2017. Having the largest distribution of free educational videos, and more than 100 Million views every month, the company is working towards creating videos in multiple languages to facilitate students globally, include worthy content and test preparation modules for all possible competitive examinations, and affiliate with great minds to build powerful student network.

Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal has reportedly disclosed Unacademy's plans for an IPO in the next 2 years, as reported on July 11, 2022. This is why Unacademy also wants to turn cash flow positive.    

For the fiscal year 2023–24 (FY24), the executive team of edtech unicorn Unacademy, which has experienced several rounds of layoffs due to the funding freeze and business slowdown, will accept compensation reductions of up to 25% as per news report of March, 2023.

What is the Unacademy learning app?

Based in Bengaluru , Unacademy is one of the largest Indian learning platforms that prepare Class 6 - Class 12 students for their board exams, and competitive exams like IIT-JEE, UPSC, SSC, Banking exams, GATE & ESE, and more.

Who are the founders of Unacademy?

Unacademy has been founded by Gaurav Munjal, Dr. Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh.

Who is the CEO of Unacademy?

Unacademy is currently headed by Founder-CEO Gaurav Munjal.

When is Unacademy founded?

Unacademy is incorporated in 2015 as an Edtech company in Bangalore.

How to become a teacher at Unacademy?

If you are willing to become an Unacademy teacher or educator, then the Unacademy app is quite self-explanatory for an Unacademy educator to apply online. You simply need to make a demo lesson where you would have to explain any concept or topic. After you do that, the review team of Unacademy will go through your lesson. Then they will either approve the demo or ask you to remake it with adequate suggestions for improvement.

How does Unacademy work?

Unacademy is an Edtech platform that has over 50,000 registered educators who prepare lessons and course materials for the students between Classes 6-12 as well as for the students who are appearing or planning to appear for competitive examinations.    

What is an Unacademy Store?

An Unacademy Store is an experience centre of Unacademy, the first of which has been set up by Unacademy in Delhi NCR. These stores work as experience centres that house numerous devices running Unacademy content, offer people walk-in demos on how Unacademy teaches, offers counseling to students and parents, and run its marketing initiatives.      

What are Unacademy Icons?

Unacademy Icons is an Unacademy learning app initiative to bring in professionals from different fields to share their expertise.

What are the Unacademy Products?

The Unacademy products include - Learner App, Educator App and Parent App.

Who are the prominent Unacademy competitors?

Unacademy competitors include:

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Redesigning Search Experience — UI/UX Case Study

Chethan KVS

Unacademy Blog

My first design task as a product designer at Unacademy.

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So I recently joined Unacademy as a Product Designer. And in my first week, I was given the task to work on the redesigning the search experience on the web.

Before we get started let me give you a quick introduction to what Unacademy is. Unacademy is an ed-tech startup based in Bangalore, India. We are proud to be India’s largest learning platform. We bring star educators together with millions of students in need of quality education. The network of registered educators and learners has steadily grown in the last two years. Powered by a young & dynamic team, Unacademy is on its path to an education revolution.

Alright, so now let’s get into the main part of the article — Redesigning Search on Web. The first search design was designed 2 years back when the company has just launched. Since then the only focus of the company was to bring in new features and improve the mobile experience. The focus was not much on the web as a majority of our target learners use our mobile app rather than the website. And so, we thought that it was time to redesign the search experience on the web to make it much better and easier to use.

There are quite a few reasons that we decided to redesign the search on the web. The main reason would be to align it with the search on the app. As I mentioned earlier we were focusing a lot on the app and not the web. As a result, search on the web was missing out on a lot of things. Elements like filters, auto-suggest, and recent and popular search terms. Also, the search results page had an outdated visual look.

Design Process

We started off by splitting the search functionality into 2 parts.

• Before search (the part until the learner taps on the enter/return key)
• After search (the search results page)

And for those you who are wondering what design tool we use, we use FIGMA . Why Figma? Its simple, FIGMA ROCKS!

Before search

Search is primarily used in 2 situations. Either when a learner is unable to find something or when they want to find something very specific. Good UX comes into the picture when the learner is assisted while they are searching. Just having a good looking search bar won’t do the trick.

So the first thing that we decided to put in place was to show the Recent and Popular search terms. We wanted to show around 15 results to the learner when they click on the search bar but has not typed anything yet. I came up with a simple 2 column layout for this. I did not use a single column layout as 15 items in a single column would take up a lot of real estate on the screen. But what if the search suggestion is too long? Well, it is highly unlikely for it to be very long. But just to be on the safer side I gave a lot of room in both the columns. If we still did end up showing a very long suggestion, we would truncate it.

The next one on the list was to provide suggested search terms while the learner is typing, just like on google. For this, a 2 column layout would not make sense and so I went back to a single column layout. When the learner is typing the search term, they would be shown a few recommended search results. They would also be shown and a few autocomplete search terms as well. This will definitely save him the trouble of typing a lot and they can search faster. We would not be showing any courses/lessons but only be showing the goals (exams) and educators.

After search

This is where a lot of thinking, brainstorming, and iterations took place. And I must say that it was very interesting. Let me quickly show you the old and the new design before I dig deeper into the design decisions that we took.

Tab vs Non-Tab layout

Here are a few reasons we wanted to get rid of the tabs.

Every time a learner searched for something, the system would have to load up the content on the other tabs no matter what. This is an unnecessary effort by the system.

Since we decided to bring in filters, there was no need for having tabs. Learners could easily filter instead of navigating between tabs.

We also wanted to show lessons and courses in one single list. In the old design, the learner had to go to another tab to search for lessons. The Engineering team had built the algorithm to show popular courses and lessons together in one list. This algorithm was being used only on the app and not on the web. Hence, we wanted to apply this to the website as well. But, what if the learner wanted to search for only lessons? In that case, the learner would have to apply a filter. This removed the need for having a separate tab for Lessons. But what about educators?

Our data showed that a very small percentage of learners clicked on the educator’s tab. So, we decided to include a few educators profile right on the results page, removing the need for a separate tab.

Overall page layout

Things that we had to lay out on the page were the search bar, educators, topics and search results. We also had to bring in filters and related searches which were not there in the existing design

• I decided to keep the search bar right at a fixed place in the nav bar at all times and place the filters right below the search bar. It would be super easy to access the filters with the least cursor movement. And also if we had to bring in more filters in the future, it would not disrupt the layout at all. (The design shown above is a tiny bit different than the one in the Dribbble Shot. We had to make a few last minute changes to it.)
• The old design had a grid view. But we decided to switch to a list view because of one simple reason. The emphasis needs to be on the text rather than the thumbnail. The learner clicks on a search result based on the text and not the image. I also placed the Popular and Recent Filter right beside the heading and not as a separate filter.
• I now had to decide on how I would place educators, search results and topics in the screen. Which is more important? Should I remove any of them? How many items do I have to keep for each category? These were all the questions that I had to figure out. The best way was to use data. Here were the findings.

A majority of the learners clicked on courses. The least was topics. And so, I placed the topics section on the right side so that it would not compete with the more important content.

We also had data to show that the majority of the learners tapped on the first 2 educator profiles. And so, we found it sensible to have only 2 educators instead of showing a full-fledged list. If the learner wanted to see all the educators, they could click on the See All button. They would then taken to a different page.

4. And finally, do we keep the existing infinite scroll or have pagination? There was only one problem with an infinite scroll. When scrolling there would be chances that a learner could miss out on a few courses. And that may be what they would have been searching for. But that would not happen in case of pagination.

In the end, it was a good great learning experience. There were so many discussions and rounds of iterations. Learned a lot of new stuff at every stage of the process. Since this was my first project, I got a really good insight with regard to the design and review process followed at Unacademy. I also got a good understanding of working with Unacademy’s Design System as I worked on designing the UI.

I worked along with Abhinav Chhikara from the Design Team. We also collaborated with Arpit Bhayani, Abhishek Srivastava and Shreya Singh from the Engineering Team. If you have any questions feel free to contact me or Abhinav Chhikara. We would love to talk to you!

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Written by Chethan KVS

Product Designer • Ex - Apple, Unacademy

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