Stoa School
What is Stoa?
Stoa School’s StoaMBA is an alternative, almost 10x cheaper, 6 months MBA program to the traditional 2 year MBAs from IIMs.
StoaMBA is made for anyone who either can’t afford the IIMs or doesn’t want to spend 2 years on an MBA. It is for anyone wanting a good role at high-growth startups, essentially ambitious individuals focused on the outcome more than a degree.
For startups, Stoa School is a hub of business talent that they can’t get anywhere else.
Why Invest in Stoa?
Product
People do MBA for 3 reasons:
The business education
The network
The Career Prospects
The Business Education
StoaMBA is a 6 month cohort-based course that teaches its students about all things MBA. Their curriculum includes a wide variety of topics such as:
Strategy & Models
General Management
Brand
Economics
Analytical thinking
Their courses are taught in 3 methods:
Workshops
Self Learning
Case Studies
Workshops
Stoa conducts top workshops on productivity, no-code, storytelling, and more. There is a heavy focus on getting the StoaMBA students prepared for industry readiness as quickly as possible, given the short time frame of the program.
Self Learning
The sessions and content are always available on their course directory, ready to be viewed anytime at your own pace. Most people have different paces of studying; self-learning availability makes everyone comfortable.
Case Studies
The best way to learn is by doing. Doing is exactly what Stoa students do. Over weekends, they team up and spend 24 hours together, working through different problems startups face and making innovative solutions.
The Network
Each cohort consists of 150 students. Thus, as a student, you get to meet 149 other people with similar interests, ambitions, and very different perspectives.
You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with - Jim Rohn
The Law of Average is one of the compelling reasons IIMs and IITs are so desirable. Not because of the faculty or the courses, but the students.
Stoa aims to solve that by gathering 150 ambitious people for every cohort from around India. They look for ambitious people looking to break into the startup world.
The other side of the network is the alumni.
The Career Prospects
If your career prospects have not improved, there’s no point in an MBA. Stoa School has built a network of startups that hire from them every cohort. With the rising funding of startups, it is relatively easy to predict that talent requirements will only increase, and Stoa School is the supply.
Their Placement Report Breakdown:
Average Package: 15 LPA
Hiring Companies 130+
Placement Rate: 85%
Roles Hired:
Marketing Manager
Product Manager
Founders Office
Product Lead
Business Operations
Sales and growth
Others
Faculty:
While the norm is to get taught by traditional faculty who have completed their PHDs in their respective subjects, Stoa keeps it more practical.
Stoa’s faculty consists of many founders, heads of; product, marketing, strategy, and more from top startups. Notable names include Nithin Kamath (Zerodha Co-founder), Ankur Warikoo (Nearbuy Co-founder), Gagan Biyani (Udemy Co-founder), and more.
Stoa also has a constant influx of industry professionals who teach the students, keeping the learning as practical and relevant as possible to the current workplace scenarios.
Market
As mentioned on their website, StoaMBA is best for
Young Leaders looking for quick MBAs
Business professionals looking to join tech startups
Mid-senior managers without formal MBA education
Entrepreneurs
Their target covers a wide array of people (bar core and technical people). In India, on average, over 3.5 lakh people do an MBA every year. The 3.5 lakh people consider only those who could afford to do traditional MBAs.
Adding in the factors of MBA aspirants who could not afford the time or money for traditional MBA, the total number of MBA aspirants could increase significantly.
Looking at the job roles statistically:
According to a Glassdoor Report, 54% of all open positions at tech companies are for non-tech roles (in the UK). The significant roles being hired for are in sales and marketing since as tech companies grow, they need to transform their technology into revenue.
Thus, the demand for non-tech roles is only on the rise. The top MBA college students usually take roles in big corporates as consultants, Investment Bankers, etc. Startups still need good business people, and Stoa is there to fill the gap.
Team
Three people founded stoa School.
Aditya Kulkarni
Raj Kunkolienkar
Sharmad Kuvelkar
Aditya is ironically an IIMB graduate. Perhaps that is where the inspiration to start Stoa came from. Raj is a BITS Pilani graduate, and Sharmad is a graduate of the Government of Engineering Goa.
Aditya, Raj, and Sharmad all have entrepreneurial backgrounds before Stoa.
Raj and Sharmad worked together on Seeker Space and Nova Semita; both startups focused on education. Nova Semita helped college students break into startup tech roles, and Seeker Space was a co-learning space for teenagers.
Aditya previously worked on BabyOnbOard and Roundglass. BabyOnBoard was a startup that helped parents document their child’s growth and development, eventually acquired by Roundglass. In Roundglass, Aditya directed the school programs, making a socioemotional wellbeing curriculum for school kids.
All three of them have already experienced making curriculums for students for different roles and had built a strong network in the startup ecosystem well before Stoa’s launch.
Revenue Model
The StoaMBA costs 2.5 Lakhs Rupees (~3300 USD) per person per cohort.
Therefore, assuming they have a full 150 students for each cohort, they make a revenue of 3.75 crores rupees (~500k USD). They start a new cohort every three months, so over 15 months, they complete 4 cohorts.
Therefore they make 15 crores in 15 months (~2 million USD). That’s 1 crore Rupees ( 132k USD) every month.
Stoa operates completely remote, so there are no infrastructure costs. Their main cost would be the hiring of instructors. It is safe to estimate that Stoa is a reasonably profitable startup.
Unit Economics:
Unit Economics is the ratio of (Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)/customer acquisition cost (CAC)).
For Stoa, each member’s LTV is 2.5 lakhs.
While the exact figures of CAC are hard to calculate, most of their marketing is done through word of mouth, the founder’s branding, and social media advertisements.
Therefore, even with a conservative estimate, the Unit Economics of Stoa would be 3 or above comfortably.
Competitive Landscape
The more apparent competitors are the traditional MBA colleges like IIMs, ISB, XLRI.
However, their direct competitors are
Invact
Global Governance Initiative
Upgrad
Invact is Stoa’s most direct competition. The Invact MBA costs 2 lakhs and focuses on getting their students placed in high-growth startups similar to Stoa.
Upgrad is more of an online version of traditional MBAs. They give official MBA certificates from colleges abroad and don’t have a placement process.
Global Governance Initiative is more focused on consulting and public policy and is usually undertaken by students that are already doing or will be doing a traditional MBA.
For competitors, replicating Stoa is not something possible. Perhaps the courses can be replicated by competitors. Still, Stoa’s foundation lies in the network and connections it has built well before its launch and the alumni network it’s building every year.
Need
MBAs are very expensive. Many people aspire to get into managerial roles in high-growth startups or corporates. However, 20+ lakhs rupees (~26k USD) tuition fees are unaffordable for most, and 2 years is too long.
In addition, traditional MBA students are leaning toward consulting, investment banking, and prominent corporate roles. Startups also need business people. Therefore, there is a high demand from the startup side regarding business roles.
StoaMBA also opens up many opportunities that their students could never access before Stoa. Joining high-growth startups early on and growing with the startup is the dream of many but achieved by few. Stoa has changed that completely.
Plus, Stoa helps them leverage networks just as well as traditional MBAs, which could open new doors of opportunities.
With only one other direct competitor (Invact), students don’t have other alternatives also for the quick MBAs. The students and the startups need Stoa, making Stoa a very lucrative startup for all.
Risks
One risk is the fact that Stoa does not provide official MBA certificates. Therefore, doing a StoaMBA is not equivalent to having a master’s degree. There are still several roles requiring a traditional MBA, and the requirements won’t change anytime soon.
Stoa also focuses only on startups. Therefore Stoa is directly tied to the successes of the startup ecosystem in India. The more startups grow, the more they need business people; therefore, Stoa will be more in demand. However, if the startup ecosystem stagnates or declines, it may cause trouble to the placement rates of Stoa.
However, looking at the current trends, the startup ecosystem of India is on a bull run and will continue to be bullish for a long time to come.
My Take on Stoa
Stoa is an excellent alternative to a traditional MBA, without a doubt. Their network is ever-growing, especially their alumni network in startups. Thus, in a few years, I think Stoa will demand the same influence in the startup world as the IIMs, perhaps even more.
In terms of revenue, too, their monthly revenue rates are fantastic and only look to keep improving.
Would I invest in Stoa?
I would invest in Stoa, purely based on Stoa’s quality and the bullish startup trends of India. Startups always need a talent supply, and good business talent is what Stoa excellently provides.
Stoa is also financially stable, as they don’t have significant infrastructure expenditure and operate completely remote. Their Unit Economics is strong.
Therefore, Stoa School is a valuable investment opportunity from every perspective.
StoaMBA is not equivalent to a master's degree. At best, it is an unrecognized certificate which anyone can give you because there are no real regulations in India when it comes to teaching.