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Interview with John Green of Savvica

jumbotests I had an opportunity to catch up recently with John Green, cofounder of Savvica, and over an early morning breakfast got schooled on what’s new at LearnHub and JumboTests.

StartupNorth: What is JumboTests.com? What’s the relationship to LearnHub.com?

John Green: JumboTests is an extraction of core test preparation technology and content from LearnHub, and factored for a different audience and user acquisition model. Both sites are run by the same content, engineering, and community management teams here at Savvica Inc.

SN: So what is the change in target audience with JumboTests?

JG: LearnHub, although useful to English speakers everywhere, is targeted at the Indian student market. More than half of Savvica’s employees are in fact in our marketing team, which is based in Delhi, India.

JumboTests, on the other hand, is not focused on any particularly geography; it is equally useful to anyone studying for the standardized tests covered on the site (including GMAT, GRE, SAT, TOEFL, and others). This makes JumboTests especially relevant in the US and other Western countries which have the majority of the test takers every year.

SN: How are the user acquisition models different?

JG: Visitors to LearnHub mostly come through search engines. LearnHub has several hundred thousand pages indexed by Google and other search engines, and we rank at the top for hundreds of popular search terms. The site has a mix of user generated content and content made by our expert staff. For instance, LearnHub has the world’s largest free GMAT question bank, which has thousands of questions developed by us and our community. It is very popular.

Search engine traffic is less of a factor for JumboTests. Instead we are growing through strategic partnerships. Sites with existing, large, and relevant user bases (such as job sites, education sites, or portals) essentially embed JumboTests into their site using our partner platform. Our partners get hundreds of high quality practice tests that drive engagement, page views, and a split of the revenue.

Since the JumboTests launch 3 months ago, we have entered into long term relationships with 3 partners, all top in their categories: TalentEgg, India.com, and The Globe & Mail. All of these integrations are already deployed and online.

SN: So what’s next?

JG: We feel both properties have a bright future. Between the 2 sites, we help over 350,000 students a month with test prep, university applications, and career advice. That’s a lot, but there are many more students that aren’t on our sites but should be.

LearnHub is the largest education website in India, excluding reference sites like Wikipedia. But India has a long way to go in terms of Internet penetration. It has about 2x the Internet users as Canada, but it also has over 1 billion people. The number of Internet users in India doubled last year to 50-60 million. We are pegging our growth to outpace the Indian Internet penetration rate over the next 5 years.

JumboTests is tackling a more mature market. That is why we are growing it primarily through partnerships. There are a lot of established online channels whose audiences would benefit from our unique content and delivery technology.