Meet one of the hottest names in education: Chegg, a platform where students tap experts for “24/7 homework help.”
Chegg’s textbook answering service is a student staple — but just one of many tools Chegg offers to help students cheat succeed.
Chegg said it’s expecting $790m-$800m in net revenue this year.
In October 2000, a group of Iowa State students launched Cheggpost, an internet version of a campus bulletin board.
The site struggled, but 2 Iowa MBAs took over after seeing that most traffic was from searches for used textbooks. In 2005, they rebranded as Chegg and shifted focus toward becoming a “Netflix” for textbooks.
In 2010, former Yahoo COO and Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig joined. After taking the company public in 2013, the new CEO led a broader shift away from textbooks.
Rosensweig acquired more than a dozen companies to help turn Chegg into an all-you-can-eat buffet of student services, including:
Basically, things students drool over.
In Chegg’s Q1 earnings report, the company announced:
The company has been called a “superspreader” of cheating, and the problem has been exacerbated by the pandemic and at-home learning.
But Chegg is making strides. In January, it launched Honor Shield, a service where professors can pre-submit exam questions to prevent them from being answered during a test.
Sorry, students.