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Chegg, Inc. is an American education technology company based in Santa Clara, California, that offers online textbook rentals (both in physical and digital formats), as well as homework help, online tutoring, scholarships and internship matching. chegg

Students can make schedules for their classes, share class notes with other students and search for instructors.[1] Tutors can assist students in almost 2,500 subjects through chat as well as video call.[2] Chegg has 35,000 experts in different subjects who are available for students' help and to answer their questions.[3] It is intended to help students in high school and college.chegg Students can buy any costly textbook and send it back at the end of the semester at no cost; all they have to do is just printing the label for shipping from their Chegg account. Chegg also accepts old books if students want to sell them.[4]

History

[edit]

Originally called CheggPost, Chegg was founded by Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra in 2003.[5] Rashid and Phumbhra initially believed the site would operate similar to Craigslist for college campuses, but it didn't gain significant traction outside of textbook sales.[5] In 2007, the company was restructured to focus on textbook sales only.[5] It gathered books from sellers at the end of the semester and then rented or sold them to other students at the start of a new semester.[5]chegg

The CheggPost site was introduced in 2001 by Josh Carlson; it was used by scholars to post about furniture, sport material and books.[6] In 2003, Aayush Phumbra wanted to make the company national and he discussed the idea with his friend Osman Rashid, who became chief executive officer; shortly they had funding of $50,000.[6] In 2007, Phumbra and Rashid bought 2,000 textbooks and initiated a service called "textbookflix.com" for renting textbooks, based on the concept of Netflix. In 2007, the name was changed from Textbookflix.com to Chegg.com.[6] The Chegg company had difficulties to find capital, so it started financing the activities with credit. One of the strategies used by the employees was searching a copy of the book online, pay it with Rashid's American Express card and ship the textbook to the student.[6]

In December 2008, Chegg raised $25 million in venture capital.[7]chegg

In 2008, Jim Safka became the new CEO of Chegg; previous chief executive of Match.com. In 2008 and 2009, Chegg had 40 full-time and 40 part-time employees.[6] During this period, it had almost one million books for rent. The textbooks were rented during quarter or semester; the price was based on different aspects such as popularity and age. The shipping fees was between $4 and $7. Students had to pay extra if they returned the textbook late. Safka left her CEO position in 2009 and Dan Rosenweig became the new CEO the following year.[6]

In 2011, Chegg improved the Web site with more than 4 million textbooks for renting. The goal was to make students spend more time on the site for other activities and not only use it for purchasing the textbooks.[6] At that time, Chegg was just spending money for making the Web site as a platform for renting textbooks. Most of the earning was based on textbooks, only 7% of the revenue came from other activities while 3% from e-textbooks.[6]

Growth and acquisitions

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In 2010, Chegg acquired CourseRank, a service that allows students to review courses and plan their courses for upcoming semesters.[8][citation needed] chegg CourseRank is used for revisions about professors and courses; class schedules and the textbooks required; students can check the courses chosen by their friends.[9]

That same year the company acquired Cramster, a provider of online homework help;[10] and Notehall, an online marketplace for purchasing or selling class notes.[11]chegg

Cramster is a community where students can work in groups and assist each other in various subjects; the goal of investing in CourseRank and Cramster is to help students save money and consume less time.[9] The company made several additional acquisitions in 2011, including, Zinch, a service that matches high school students to college recruiters.[12]chegg

Despite the fact that the sales increased regularly from 2008 to 2012, there was an increment in the loses as well. Revenue in 2008, was $7.6 million compared to $213 million in 2012; but the net loss in 2008 was only $2.9 million whereas it rose to $49 million in the most recent year. There were 3.7 million transactions in 2012; almost 320,000 students used the Homework Helper service during the same year. Around 80% of the earning was made by the rental of print textbooks. CEO, Dan Rosensweig's income was $490,000.[13]

Chegg had earnings of $64.5 million in the second quarter of 2013, however, the net loss increased to $8.2 million. [14] Major acquisitions and partnerships in 2014 included InstaEDU Inc.,in June 2014, a website that connects students with tutors.[15]chegg Chegg invested $30 million in order to get InstaEDU Inc.[14] August 2014, Chegg entered into a partnership with Ingram Content Group to handle storage and shipping of its textbooks. The partnership was meant to reduce Chegg's overhead costs.[16][17]chegg

Ingram would be responsible for activities like shipping, returning and improving the service.[14]

In 2007, Chegg started providing assistance in Math by paying $15 million in cash to Cogeon GmbH, German math education provider. He uses artificial intelligence technology to solve students' weaknesses in math through an app called Math 42. Chegg also started support in nursing and chemical engineering.[3]

The company had an innovation, the new E-reader, in 2018. This service allows students to highlight text, add notes and get any other kind of assistance for free. Chegg's reader is accessible from every device as it is created in HTML5.[18] The same year, the company acquired WriteLab from Matthew Ramirez for $15 million. WriteLab is designed to improve writing skills.[19][20]

2018 data breach

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In September 2018, Chegg discovered a data breach that occurred the previous April. The breach included the loss of user names, hashed passwords, addresses and e-mails but not financial data.[21]chegg Fortunately, social security numbers and any kind of bank account information weren't stolen. The database was hacked almost six months earlier and it included 40 million users, some of these were inactive. This incident created some concerns about Chegg shares. Firstly, it leaded doubts about the revenues. Second, Chegg growth might be affected by the loss of users who can lose trust and stop renting textbooks from Chegg. When people discovered about the data breach, shares dropped to 12%.[22]

Officers and other members

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As of June 5, 2019

  • Andrew Brown
  • Nathan Schultz
  • Michael Osier
  • Esther Lem
  • Jenny Brandemuehl[23]




  1. ^ "Infobase Learning - Login". online.infobaselearning.com. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  2. ^ "Infobase Learning - Login". online.infobaselearning.com. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
  3. ^ a b Sharma, Asit (2018-03-22). "Is It Time to Take a More Serious Look at Chegg, Inc.? -". The Motley Fool. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  4. ^ Lucas, Kelly (2012-07-23). "The best sites for buying, renting textbooks". msnbc.com. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  5. ^ a b c d Miguel Helft (July 4, 2009). "We Rent Movies, So Why Not Textbooks?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-01-26. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Pederson, Jay P., editor. (2013). International directory of company histories. St. James Press. p. 115. ISBN 9781414482224. OCLC 833188977. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Miguel Helft (July 4, 2009). "We Rent Movies, So Why Not Textbooks?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-01-26. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ "Chegg's First Acquisition: CourseRank".
  9. ^ a b Helft, Miguel (2011-03-24). "Textbook Renter Chegg Becomes More Social". Bits Blog. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  10. ^ "Exclusive: Chegg Buys Cramster".
  11. ^ "SEC filing cracks the egg on Chegg's Notehall purchase".
  12. ^ "Chegg Buys Zinch in Another Move Toward a "Social Education Platform"".
  13. ^ "Chegg by the Numbers". Publishers Weekly. 260 (33): 6. 2013-08-19.
  14. ^ a b c "Gale - Product Login". galeapps.galegroup.com. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  15. ^ Kolodny, Lora (2014-06-04). "Chegg Acquires Tutoring-On-Demand Site InstaEDU in $30M Cash Deal". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  16. ^ Merced, Michael J. de la (2014-08-04). "Chegg Finds Partner to Handle Its Textbooks". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  17. ^ "Chegg Strikes Distribution Partnership With Ingram Books, Announces 15% Boost In Earnings From Digital Services".
  18. ^ "Chegg's new e-book reader is practical, comfortable, boring". VentureBeat. 2012-01-18. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  19. ^ Sternlicht, Alexandra. "His Company WriteLab Was Acquired by Chegg Before He Turned 30". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  20. ^ "Chegg Cuts $15 Million Check to Buy AI-Feedback Tool, WriteLab - EdSurge News". EdSurge. 2018-05-16. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  21. ^ "CURRENT REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934". Security and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  22. ^ Sharma, Asit (2018-09-27). "What Chegg's Database Breach Means for Its Stock -". The Motley Fool. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  23. ^ "Chegg, Inc. - Sec Filings". investor.chegg.com. Retrieved 2019-05-03.