Saint Louis University

School of Engineering and Architecture

Department of Chemical Engineering

CHEGG (A Case Study)

Presented to the 
Faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering
School of Engineering and Architecture 
Saint Louis University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course:

TECHNO 101: TECHNOPRENEURSHIP

by: 
Domingo, Cyber
Palaroan, Precious Lara A.
August 2022
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Analysis.......................................................................................................................................................6
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References..................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Introduction
Learn With Chegg,” a new phase in its industry leading platform that offers far greater
personalization, automatically pushing relevant content to its users to create an individualized
learning experience based on their needs (Chegg 2022),

Chegg's upgraded platform builds on its substantial subscriber base, in-depth understanding of
student needs to be gathered over more than a decade, and its rich library of expert-generated
content to enable students to quickly and intuitively "discover" relevant content. These academic
services include study help, test prep, and writing and math support. It puts Chegg in a great
position to customize learning experiences to assist new and existing customers on their lifetime
learning journey to grasp the academic subject matter better.

Based on the founders' experiences after their undergraduate degrees, the name Chegg combines
the phrases chicken and egg. The "word" symbolizes the founders' difficulty after graduation:
they were unable to find employment without experience, but they were also unable to gain
experience without a job. It's a classic case of the chicken and the egg.

Chegg aimed to improve students' educational experiences in addition to saving them money.
With the introduction of Chegg Study®, students may now utilize Chegg to get detailed
assignment assistance on even the most challenging solution sets.

Chegg made the decision to do so in 2014. Chegg is now able to offer on-demand tutoring for
dozens of topics, even 15 minutes before your worst midterm, thanks to the tutoring platform
known as Chegg Tutors.

Josh Carlson, Mike Seager, and Mark Fiddleke, three Iowa State University undergraduates,
founded Chegg. In its early phases, Chegg resembled a discussion board for university students,
but in 2005 Carlson, Phumbhra, and Rashid formed Chegg as a firm. At that time, the business
assisted with college applications, textbook rentals, and searches for internships and
scholarships. (Wikimedia Foundation 2022).

In 2006, Carlson left the business, leaving Phumbhra and Rashid in charge of rebranding Chegg.
To mimic Netflix's rental-based business model, they deleted all services other than those about
purchasing and renting textbooks. Chegg and American Forests teamed up in 2009 to promise to
plant a tree for each book they leased. When Rosenseweig took over as CEO of Chegg in 2010,
he was motivated to offer more services to students. Chegg launched eTextbooks and the Music
101 competition with its new leadership (Chegg 2020).

In November 2013, Chegg started selling its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Chegg's
initial public offering brought roughly $187.5 million, and its market worth was $1.1 Billion.
Chegg made several important decisions in 2014. They at first sided with Ingram. The
distribution of Content Group's textbook rentals is planned. Chegg started. To offer online
tutoring, giving students 24/7 access to professors in a variety of subject areas. Chegg Study, a
learning tool for students with many features, was ultimately introduced by Chegg. Expert-led
Q&A sessions, comprehensive textbook solutions, exercise questions, and question walkthrough
videos exist.

Chegg introduced its iconic Chegg Internships in 2015. Students can acquire knowledge and
experience that can aid them later in their jobs. Following the introduction of the internships,
Chegg expanded its offerings in 2015 to include writing assistance. These services, which
included auto-citations, plagiarism checks, and professional writing assistance, all contributed to
the 2019 introduction of Chegg writing. Then, in 2017, Chegg began offering math tutoring to
children. They started to provide products like detailed solutions to issues and methodical
explanations.

Also, in 2017, Chegg and Pearson Education partnered to produce 50 editions of well-known
textbooks, with Chegg serving as their exclusive sale store. As a result of a data breach in 2018
involving 40 million user accounts, including usernames, passwords, emails, and shipping
addresses, Chegg encountered a problem. Chegg made many efforts to assist students and their
staff between 2018 and 2019. it includes releasing election trackers, publishing the State of the
Student Report, assisting employees with their student loan payments, and beginning work on a
plan about student debt.

Early in 2020, Chegg attracted 2.9 million customers to their service. Then, in 2021, they
unveiled Uversity, a new educational platform that allows professors and teachers to share course
content. Chegg also made many acquisitions between 2010 and 2021 to enhance its offerings.
For the first seven years following the start of Chegg's IPO, they saw highly consistent growth.
The stock price increased little between 2018 and 2020, but tremendous growth only began in
March that year.
Chegg's stock experienced significant declines at the end of 2021 and again at the start of May
2022. A lower-than-expected sales projection caused the company's stock to drop to its lowest
level in more than four years. The CEO attributed the drop in Chegg's usage to fewer students
enrolling in higher education.

Analysis

Chegg's upgraded platform builds on its substantial subscriber base, in-depth understanding of
student needs to be gathered over more than a decade, and its rich library of expert-generated
content to enable students to quickly and intuitively "discover" relevant content. These academic
services include study help, test prep, and writing and math support. It puts Chegg in a great
position to customize learning experiences to assist new and existing customers on their lifetime
learning journey to grasp the academic subject matter better.

Even though the company has been able to increase, Chegg still faces difficulties such as a lack
of customer retention as a result of seasonality gaps and fierce competition. Understanding
revenue seasonality during academic semesters is crucial as the company works to close the gap
between service use and share price decline. However, the current gap in Chegg's product
selection might provide rivals a chance to enter the market and steal clients. Hence the
requirement to constantly look for approaches to keep up with contemporary trends and customer
behavior to lower the entry bar for rivals.

Platforms that offer study materials and online education programs like Course Hero, Quizlet,
Khan Academy, and Bartleby are competitors of Chegg. Since they share and compete for the
same customer base, seeking Chegg's comparable resources and capabilities, these private
businesses are fierce rivals.

Recommendations

The first proposal concerns Chegg Internship and how they can keep improving the industry.
Chegg offers advice on how to perform well in interviews, develop leadership abilities, apply for
jobs and pursue various career options. With this in mind, Chegg may use its platform to create
educational and learning films on numerous subjects, offering a course or quick learning tool. A
business that excels in this is LinkedIn, which offers LinkedIn Learning. Khan Academy is a
rival of Chegg and accomplishes the same thing. Chegg could offer courses and learning videos
that aid in educating kids on subjects not covered in the classroom, such as leadership, job
searching, and many other topics, if they were to use their brand and learning potential.
Additionally, clients that buy different Chegg packets will get even more value. They can include
Chegg's appraisal of their course learning in their cover letters, resumes, and LinkedIn profiles.
Chegg's well-established reputation and the value they deliver across various areas enable them
to offer this service. This service also gives students a reason to use Chegg outside the regular
academic year so they can take classes or tests in the summer or during breaks. This benefits the
clients by giving them more alternatives, but it also enables Chegg to collect more information
about the learning areas that students and their customers want to concentrate on.

Hiring experts who have previous experience with digital publishing is a better idea. Inevitably,
the company's rating will rise if it can combine some of the most essential services for students,
such as the ability to rent textbooks, access course material, and the chance to design the best
possible schedules. Therefore, collaborating with digital publishers and expanding the selection
of services that benefit students in their daily lives seem like good options. If the business makes
the required service upgrades and innovations, it can maintain its position as a market leader.
Conclusion

Since the publication of the original study, innovation persistence has gained prominence in
applied industrial organization. As the youngest and most innovative segment of Web users,
students are most likely to be among the first users willing to switch from their accustomed
method of utilizing textbooks to one that offers fresh prospects and positive changes.

Chegg wanted to save students money while also enhancing their educational experiences.
Students can now use Chegg to gain thorough assignment assistance on even the most difficult
solution sets thanks to the launch of Chegg Study®.

The main issue facing the business is the potential decline in popularity of the services that
Chegg provides following the market for digital textbooks' inevitable expansion. Since a result,
the growth of the digital book market seems inevitable, as a shift from expensive printing
technologies to effective, convenient, and user-friendly digital printing is a logical result of the
worldwide internet's penetration of all aspects of people's daily lives.

Chegg is an online tool better for the environment and has been helping the environment that has
a program that plants a tree for every textbook rented through them. Chegg is a first mover in the
market supporting academic services, therefore, it needs to hire specialist who have experience
working with digital and this will have an additional cost for training staff.

References

 “Chegg Announces ‘Learn With Chegg’: Its Enhanced Platform to Deliver on the
Promise of Personalized Learning.” Chegg Announces “Learn With Chegg”: Its
Enhanced Platform to Deliver on the Promise of Personalized Learning, 12 Jan. 2022,
 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220111005471/en/Chegg-Announces-
%E2%80%9CLearn-With-Chegg%E2%80%9D-Its-Enhanced-Platform-to-Deliver-on-
the-Promise-of-Personalized-Learning.
 “Strategy Patterns.” How We Helped Chegg Money Provide Expert Answers to Struggling
Students, https://crstrategypartners.com/case-study-chegg/.
 “IvyPanda.” Chegg Company’s Major Issues Case Study, https://ivypanda.com/essays/chegg-
companys-problems/.

 “Chegg.” Chegg, https://www.chegg.com/study?

c_id=sem&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=hwh--brand--Google--
PH_Chegg_Exact_Alpha&c_id=sem&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=
hwh--brand--Google--.