Is Stoa shutting down? What really happened
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions
The original mafia is a lot bigger. You cant beat traditional MBAs.
True! the ads are haunting me still!
Loved their newsletters tbh. Very articulate
content agency becoming mba school.
They push down a 2yr intensive course within 12 weeks and call themselves alt MBA - don’t think that really went well with students . Their only differentiator was cost which actually makes very less sense . Also , there was hardly any data shared on placements and alumni network of STOA
I think the positioning was also kind of off. "Alt-MBA" itself anchors it to the term MBA and the comparison is something that just doesn't go away.
Or perhaps it was just a ZIRP era phenomenon that many overfunded companies recruited from such places (as well as the open job market) in numbers and reality hit soon enough.
Core positioning was built around quashing MBAs - which can work in bull run, but when it comes to real world hiring & network building - your alma mater is the king.
They could have gotten actual veterans & legacy companies associated to build long term trust - like Masters Union.
What happened? Isn’t stoa a money making business from day 1?
People should take admissions and pay first for it be able to thrive. Top of the funnel for them dried up. They performed well in 2020-21 when every Tom Dick and Harry had 3 offer letters with 100% hike.
The essence of any true business program is in the opportunities it lead to - whether in terms of placement, alumni network or whatever. Stoa (and Mesa) fail here. If business ‘education’ was the problem they’re solving for, there are many many FREE resources available online to learn which they can’t compete against. Even established schools like ISB and budding schools like MU are struggling with this aspect. Without a strong network, industry connect and community support, Stoa is nothing but a glorified, over-priced Study Group, IMHO.
At the end of the day, these are the same people that will come out and say “you do not need a MBA to start-up”. When in reality the value of MBA lies in the experience of it, rather than its accreditation.
They're pausing for a couple of months and figuring out what to do next
the next bias thing after stoa is masters union
You need money to build a lasting pvt university. OP Jindal, ISB, Ashoka, have thousands of crores from reputed donors and are always raising. High status folks donating makes other rich folks want to donate as well. Why go the venture route is beyond me. They clearly just wanted to make a quick buck.