Business
Do you remember studying for the SATs or ACTs and how mind-numbingly boring it was? Kalyan Ray-Mazumder does. He's a perfect-scoring SAT/ACT tutor who has taught over 10,000 hours of test prep while working as a professional Off-Broadway/film actor. He realized that his students learned better when they were laughing and enjoying the material - and their improved scores followed. While working on his MBA at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, he founded Prepmedians, which is at the intersection of test prep and comedian. Through SNL Weekend Update and comedy-style segments, Kalyan and his team help their students, laugh, learn, and crush the SAT/ACT. With over 220k followers on TikTok, Prepmedians is totally disrupting the staid test prep game. Kalyan and I talk about how he got here, the rewards and challenges of his business, how he markets it to students, and his advice to building a business. 00:04:13: What's Kalyan's job and where does he work? 00:08:27: What has his career trajectory looked like? Kalyan tells us how as a professional actor in NYC, he was disappointed at the stereotypical range of "brown" roles available and how Prepmedians allows him represent his identity in a positive way. 00:14:00: What does Kalyan's day-to-day look like? 00:18:50: What does he look for when building a team? 00:21:00: We talk about how remote learning has changed in the face of COVID-19. 00:26:00: What misconceptions do people have about the test prep industry? 00:29:00: What are the rewards and challenges of his job? 00:35:51: Kalyan's advice to someone building a business with or without an MBA. 00:40:00: How does Kalyan market his business? What has and hasn't worked? 00:48:12: Back to the future - what advice would Kalyan give to his younger self? 00:54:16: What advice would Kalyan give to his younger self? 00:57:18: Listener questions and our lightning round.