Edtech companies are dime a dozen. From focusing on competitive exams to building skills at younger age, digital learning platforms are now available for almost all categories. For learning design, however, such digital options are quite slim. Some key names in this space are Masterclass and Udemy.
Hyderabad-based The Designer’s Class (TDC) wants to carve a niche in the cluttered edtech space with an exclusive focus on design. Founded in 2020 by Samarth Bajaj, Preetam Saikia, Vishal Bajaj and Adeesh Nahar, TDC is banking on its expert-curated courses, which cover a wide range, including fashion, interior, jewellery, and photography.
As mentioned above, there are a few designer-focused digital learning platforms. But TDC’s USP is the mentors-club. It includes popular names such as Masaba Gupta, Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, Gauri Khan, Joseph Radhik and many more.
“The Designer’s Class provides certification, live class, doubt solving sessions and an opportunity to intern with the designers to the students. We believe in providing holistic education and opportunity to students,” Saikia told Entrackr.
The objective is to help children learn design skills at a relatively early age. Saikia added that the startup aspires to fill this gap besides giving adults who missed the bus access to formalise their latent design talents. Its offerings include certification, internship opportunities, live classes, doubt solving sessions, and more.
To date, the company has raised $1 million in funding. But, it has no plans to raise more external funding until it has hit break-even, the co-founder added.
On plans for further product diversification, Saikia disclosed that the startup will start offering more courses, live classes, and also build a marketplace for designers. The marketplace will allow students to showcase their unique ideas and further monetize.
TDC will soon start offering test preparation classes. This will feature faculty from prominent design institutions such as NIFT and NID will provide workshops/sessions for students that will be targeted towards helping the students to get into their desired colleges.
Saikia explains the TDC has primarily two types of competition. The bigger competition is from the popular edtech platforms, such as Unacademy and Byju’s. Since it’s design education focused, TDC also competes with Masterclass, Udemy, and others.
