Karan Goel's PrepMe not your usual teen dream

By: Anne Moore June 06, 2011

Karan Goel's PrepMe claims to be the biggest test-preparation company online.

Photo by: Erik Unger

An indifferent high-school student, Karan Goel was a phenomenal test-taker. A friend offered Mr. Goel $100 to help him prepare for the SAT, a fortune for a teenager who worked retail on weekends. Mr. Goel figured out his friend's weaknesses and then tutored him. Higher scores got his friend into the college of his choice. At age 17, the entrepreneur in Mr. Goel was born.

It would take five years and a boatload of brains, however, to build Chicago-based PrepMe into a real business. When he began his online service in 2001, no one was offering test assistance on the Internet. For good reason, he says wryly. “The software is really complex,” says Mr. Goel, a self- described “gigantic geek.” “I was completely naive.”

Today, PrepMe claims its do-it-yourself instruction and tutors have helped 70,000 students from every U.S. state and 30 countries, making it the biggest online test-prep outfit. (Princeton Review Inc. of Scranton, Pa., and Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan unit are bigger overall thanks to their classroom and one-to-one, in-person training.)

“Our mission has always been to reach the students who don't live in a big city or college town, who need this knowledge but can't get it face to face,” says Mr. Goel, 27. “We help them connect.”

Now he's opening PrepMe's platform to textbook publishers, professors, standardized- test makers and others who want to create personalized online courses. The product is called Coursification. Using PrepMe's adaptive learning technology, students receive instruction over the web, while teachers, administrators and publishers receive real-time test data, enabling them to aid students as they move along or to adjust the coursework. Barron's Educational Series Inc. was the first to sign up.

“That's a great example of having an innovative mindset,” says Thomas Kuczmarski, president of Kuczmarski & Associates Inc., a Chicago innovation consultancy, and a lecturer at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. “Sadly, most companies stop with their first great product.”

PrepMe, which charges $299 to $499 for four months of assistance with SATs, ACTs or PSATs, says that from a small base, revenue surged 150% last year. (Mr. Goel declines to give figures but says the company is profitable.) On average, he says, scores rise 305 points on the SAT and five points on the ACT.

' I was completely naive,' Mr. Goel says.

The only child of physicians, Mr. Goel was born in New Delhi. The family lived for a time in England before settling first in Columbia, Mo., and then Cincinnati. He's been in Chicago for 10 years, the longest he's lived anywhere. Mr. Goel earned an economics degree from the University of Chicago in three years, graduating from the Booth School of Business at age 22.

A newlywed, he walks to his Streeterville office, a functional space decorated with school banners. He works 16-hour days, starting at home over breakfast and continuing after dinner with his wife. Most of Saturday and a few hours Sunday are devoted to work, too.

Sound like a grind? Colleagues say otherwise. Mr. Goel is affable, boyish and easy- going. He credits his parents for his low-key, steely resolve. After disappointing them with a first-year GPA of 3.7, he returned home the second year with a 4.0 average. Were there hoots and hollers? A celebratory dinner? Nope. His father simply shook his hand.

© 2011 by Crain Communications Inc.