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Since this is going to be a long post, kindly bear with us. This is our moment to cherish and we couldn’t control our emotions of which you all are an inherent part of! This is just not the story of IASbaba, but the idea you are living with, at the moment.
Read till the end for the surprises in the offing 🙂
Tryst with Destiny – 1st year Anniversary at IASbaba
Today, exactly one year ago, on 18th June 2015, a seed of trust was sown between IASbaba and you. That seed has transformed into a huge tree today, nurtured by a solid foundation—‘The IASbaba family’.
Here we are, at a milestone, with no sound! Only a plain stone is visible, erected by opportunities, challenges, success, failures and love; your love! We are here to write the miles we wish to cover in our journey that started a year back.
Yes, my dear friends, IASbaba has completed one year of its journey! We are elated, overjoyed and in the mood to celebrate. It doesn’t feel long enough though—our journey; as if, it began a few days back only!
Be it the birth of a child, a marriage or a relationship, the first anniversary is always special. The first-hand experience of togetherness, joy, pain, excitement and love makes the first one year a really special one.
It is the same with IASbaba and you!
If we were to compare IASbaba with a human being, it would just be a toddler (even Baba was a toddler once!). Yet it learnt to deliver what it was meant to, and the learning continues. The comparison must be looking odd to you but believe us, it was a similar experience. We can’t put the range of emotions, and the ups and downs we were subjected to from different quarters, in mere words.
While you showered love and faith on us, a few doubted our intentions and even existence. While we strived hard for quality and excellence, we also braved the onslaught of false allegations. While we succeeded in delivering the best we could, we also learnt our lessons and gained valuable experience from your comments, feedback and grievances.
‘How others see you hold no importance; but how you see yourself means everything’
And today we feel obliged to share the story with you and thank you for the success we have all achieved.
Friends, when we took off, our minds were chaotic with a lot many questions
- Why should we even begin a website, aren’t there enough good players out there, catering to the civil service community?
- What should be our core offering?
- How do we stand apart from the regular run-off-the-mill atmosphere, and create a niche for ourselves?
- What should be our ideals while initiating a completely different ecosystem of learning?
Questions were plenty, and answers were exhibiting a long drawn-out dim light.
First Step:
The genesis of IASbaba, as has been articulated in our vision, “Enabling a person located at the most remote destination— a chance at cracking AIR 1 in IAS”
But behind the first step, there lies a series of crawling as well as the getting-hurt sessions—
UPSC is a strange game with even stranger actors. The moment you get into the list, people start making Greek heroes out of Billu barbers 😛
You get all sorts of queries asking what to read, which website to refer? We referred a few websites to them.
But then they came back with the feedback like:
- Are you serious? That guy has nothing to offer on his own. He has just consolidated material from others.
- How do we even trust those guys?
- In parts it is okay but for GS, I will refer another website.
- Just dumping of material, there is neither focus nor perspective.
- In many cases the feedback went ahead to exclaim: are they fooling students?
This formed the core of our ideation—and, the fight to walk; even if alone—
Why don’t we create a website IASbaba – which will serve as one stop destination to all the requirements of aspirant community?
This platform should be focused and based on outcome based quality learning and not be a random dumping of material on students’ kind of place. Friends, information asymmetry is the biggest dot to be connected for success in UPSC. Playing on this, many have created markets to ensure that the fear factor remains.
We at IASbaba had a simple mission: Removing the fear & keeping things simple.
If random dumping of materials, posting current affairs, writing strategies and stories were to be done, IASbaba would never have achieved any place in your heart. When we sit back and recall the moments we shared with you through emails, calls, comments and workshops, it clearly relates to our core principles. And that is—
‘IASbaba is not an individual/entity but an idea that breathes with you’
We wanted to connect our principles and morals to each one of you and one day, witness the growth of this idea transitioning into your being.
We value relationships. They make us richer!
Spending few minutes in the starting, to few hours as of today, our emotional involvements have changed the perspective of many, including us. We knew that the gap is not of resource or materials/guidance but ‘the expensive connect’—removal of the dread, the fear, letting you realize your hidden potential.
We still remember our first day and our first post on 60 day program 2015 (unique to IASbaba)—there were 50 users and in total we had 150 page views. Today as we sit back, we have grown nearly 400 times on users and 500 times on page views.
By the end of our first 60 day plan, IASbaba was the talk of the country due to its success and hit ratio.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-website-IASBaba-really-worth-the-hype-it-is-getting
Pulkit Garg, Rank 490,CSE 2014. IIT Delhi 2014 grad
That chap went onto secure Rank 27, CSE 2015. God bless him for his belief in us!
But there are steps, difficult steps emerging out unknowingly—to force us down. And life can never be more interesting; without thorns!
The blame games and the constant hurl of allegations—these were bound to happen. And so we did, what we do best 😛
The jealousy of the incompetent
Oh how can they come up with this, while we can’t? Let’s defame them. How can they grow so rapidly? How can they come up with such a strategy?
How can they call spade and a spade? People were pissed off that we kept a timer to start our ILP program (off course they could not). And when we remember all this today, we just laugh off. Humans when they become insecure act in strange ways 😛
We can just say this to them 🙂
“We did not like how the table was set, so we turned over the table”
We do get high; but on numbers! 😉
For the first time we launched Think, Learn and Perform (TLP) – a focused 100 day answer writing program. And again not more than 3 questions day. In those 300 questions we hit around 80% questions in the mains. These are some of the numbers which get us high.
And this time when we launched our 60 day program, Day 1 had more than 1.3 Lakh page views. From 150 for entire site in June 2015 to 1.3 Lakh for just day 1 of our 60 day plan 2016, we have come a long way.
IASbaba app was launched in early February. And today we have 67,000 thousand downloads. You can check the same.
When it comes to our known competitors they are not even close to half of what numbers we have in app. Many do not even have downloads at par with the number of ratings we have.
Currently we are no 2 in website. But no 1 in app (amongst top 5 in website) (Comscore data)
So if you take Website + App.
We are hands now no 1 (Comscore + Google Analytics)
All this, in a year!
And all of it has been possible only because of your trust in us—and what could be a more better way to thank you all when surprises can make you smile! Yes, you read it right! We have planned series of surprises for you in the coming months (although we should have been getting the surprises; after it’s our anniversary: P)!
So, as a special return gift on our first anniversary, we are extremely pleased and proud to announce—
Surprise 1
Every day we get mails asking for offline mains classes. Can we say no anymore? The answer is no!
We have decided to start off with offline classes for both mains 2016 and prelims cum mains 2017.
But again it won’t be a regular mains classroom coaching like any other. True to our philosophy we will create a completely different package. For this mains 2016 classes we want to build the powerhouse for GS along with focus on optional like Public Administration, Geography, Sociology, Anthropology and Kannada literature.
We have the best resources for the above. Every second class will by a person who is in service or got top rank. For Pub ad and socio – the test series will be by top 10 ranker in that subject.
- For Geo , the best in business and presently serving in IRS
- For Kannada literature – you will the successive top ranker in Kannada literature for 3 years(presently in IRS and in bangalore)
- For anthropology , a person with UPSC rank giving exams this time.
Hands up! We are getting you the best resources. This is service level agreement we are making with you. (Our first step towards achieving ISO certification):-D
We have confirmed registrations from many aspirants who have a rank in 2015 and will be attending the 2016 Mains classes. You can mail us on iasbabailp2016@gmail.com – for 2016 classes now and immediately after prelims. There will be a cap on numbers of students we will mentor (Quality matters and not quantity)
These students (Selected in 2015) are our old followers who got into the list. They were religious followers of IASbaba from its inception and were continuously guided through out in the last attempt. Their confirmation is not to secure a great Hit Ratio but to abide by the promises made to them 🙂
Also, their presence in the Offline will boost the confidence of new comers and other old aspirants trying their best to secure a Rank.
We have a very different plan so be patient. The only criterion is “Your sincerity”. If you are? Will surely be IN 😀
Surprise 2
Our Online Program for 2017 (last was ILP 2016) will be a completely different and a new learning experience for aspirants. Valuing the importance of fluidity in one’s approach as well as staying in-sync with the latest innovation, we have decided to change the whole spectrum of planning and include new and better ones. We will announce the details as soon as Prelims 2016 gets over.
WORKING PROFESSIONALS– 2017 Plan will have a different and unique approach for all the working professionals who have taken pledge to clear this exam.
Surprise 3
We are elated to announce the association of PULKIT GARG, RANK 27, CSE 2015 into our IASbaba family. From now on, he will be a part of our dedicated Team of mentors, Workshop leads and other areas of his expertise.
He has been very regular with the website and to your surprise, he was one the active reviewers on TLP 2015 Main Answer Writing Initiative 😛 This association is a first step towards a bigger goal—a goal which you all are part of!
While the trumpeting goes on with much happiness and delight, a hard check on the other important front, and one question which constantly nags us is are we truly a one stop destination?
Thankfully, we are young enough to sustain or even push our energy to newer heights, and yet mature with every step that we take, to ignore the unwanted distractions. The challenges that we faced in the past one year has taught us the most important lesson in terms of ‘Life Skills’: Let your work and quality of work do the talking. That’s why, today, we take a resolution that we are going to be more focused from now on. We promise that the second year of our existence in your lives will be even more eventful, fun filled and rewarding.
Finally, we don’t want to give any Gyan today but still we insist or rather wish that all of you invest your energy in the right direction. You and IASbaba have an alliance. So be productive with us, achieve greater heights and stay happy!
And yes, the plain un-scribbled milestone will lie here as it is. We are not going to write the miles we wish to walk from here, neither should you. Let it be a testimony to an alliance that knows no limits to success.
“Even Achilles was only as strong as his heel.”
So don’t let your weakest point be your downfall. Whatever it may be, work at it so that you no longer remain in the list of targets— We are only as strong as our greatest weakness.
P.S- We cannot express how it feels to read through your comments. So shower your blessings 🙂
Cheers
IASbaba team
