Case studyTest preparation
Catalyst
Scattered preparation,turned into a path.
Students rarely lack material. What they lack is structure, feedback and a clear sense of what to do next. Catalyst pulls syllabus, mock tests, practice and performance into one system that always answers that question.
The business
Catalyst is a preparation platform for candidates sitting India’s management entrance exams, built as a consumer product rather than an internal tool.
The problem
A candidate preparing for the CAT does not lack material. They have books, question banks, video courses and mock tests from four different sources. What they do not have is anything that tells them what to do next.
What it cost
Preparation spreads across sources that know nothing about each other. Time goes into deciding what to study rather than studying, and a weak area stays weak because nothing is counting.
What we found
The missing piece was never more content. It was one system holding the syllabus, the practice, the mock tests and the performance record together, so every session starts from what the last one revealed.
What we built
- A full exam simulator — sectional timing, the question palette and the marking scheme, as the real paper sets them
- A practice engine over the syllabus, with question history kept per topic
- Performance analysis that reads the attempt rather than only the score
- A study path that reorders itself around what the record shows
What changed
Preparation stops being a pile of resources and becomes a sequence. The student opens the app and it already knows what the next hour is best spent on.
The pattern
A field with plenty of information and no structure. The same shape turns up wherever people have more material than they can act on — the system that earns its place is the one that decides what comes next.