Would you like to combine a slick, personalized mobile test prep app with access to individual tutoring?  Stick around!

Meet Elad Shoushan, a former pro-basketball player in Israel who attended the Technion, Israel’s MIT, got into coding big time, and worked for GE Healthcare. Just before starting at MIT Sloan he founded a little start-up that this year raised over $5 million in Series A funding and whose apps have been downloaded over half a million times. That’s what he’s here to talk about today. Welcome, Elad!

How did he get into test prep? [1:55]

He’d always wanted to study in the US – even during his basketball career, he dreamed of coming to the US to study and play division I ball. When he was working at GE Healthcare, pursuing his MBA seemed like a natural next step.

He struggled with the GMAT, and took it a few times. While he was studying, he thought that the process didn’t make a lot of sense – and he wanted a convenient way to study on the go. He thought an app would be helpful, and so he set out to create one.

Going through the test prep process helped him learn a lot about how the brain learns and how standardized tests work. [4:25]

As the company has developed, they’ve worked on studying learning methodologies. And they’re getting great feedback from users.

What was his career plan when he applied to MIT? [6:10]

He wanted to be an entrepreneur. In fact, he’d already spent a couple of months developing/coding the first version of the app (for GMAT prep), and had already left his job at GE. So he’d already launched the business by the time he started at Sloan. His courses at Sloan helped him develop the start-up.

He pursued the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Certificate at MIT Sloan [9:25]

What distinguishes his apps from other test prep options? [10:30]

The goal is to provide a full educational experience all the way to school, with the focus on being a great mobile learning experience. Other test prep companies basically plug in existing content into an app. His company focuses on the user experience – developing the experience and the content specifically for mobile. They consider what the user needs to learn, where s/he is, when s/he is using the app, to maximize learning in small bites.

Is the focus on content or strategy? [13:55]

Both. The goal is to identify what the applicant needs to focus on. It’s a comprehensive course: each app has over 1000 questions. For the MCAT course, they’ve partnered with the Princeton Review for content; for the other apps, they’ve developed their own content.

The original name is LTG (Label the GMAT)—what does that refer to? [15:40]

This goes back to the beginnings of the company, and the idea that solving questions requires two steps – identifying the type of question and knowing the content. The app parses the text so the learner can easily identify the concepts being tested. Now this feature is called “x-ray”—it allows the applicant to see the keywords in the question and quickly understand how the question is structured. It’s a way to grasp the underlying logic of the exam questions.

Where does tutoring fit in? [18:35]

Tech can help a lot, but it can’t solve everything. Some people will benefit from an explanation from a human being.