Chegg

Chegg, Inc., is a publicly traded American education technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It provides digital and physical textbook rentals, online tutoring, and other student services.[3]

Chegg, Inc.
Type of businessPublic
Traded asNYSE: CHGG
Russell 2000 Component
FoundedJuly 2005 (2005-07)
HeadquartersSanta Clara, California, U.S.
Founder(s)Aayush Phumbhra
Osman Rashid
Josh Carlson
Key peopleDan Rosensweig,
Chairman, president and CEO
IndustryEducation
Online retailing
ProductsOnline textbook rental
eTextbooks
Online learning
Online tutoring
Networking
Revenue US$ 321.08 million (2018)
Operating income US$ -6.22 million (2018)
Net income US$ -14.89 million (2018)
Total assets US$ 760.94 million (2018)
Total equity US$ 410.63 million (2018)
Employees1,087 (2019)
SubsidiariesChegg Tutors
Zinch scholarship database
StudyBlue online flash cards
Notehall
Cramster
URLChegg.com
Alexa rank 463 (July 2020)[1]
[2]

The company was launched in 2005, and began trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2013. As of March 2020 the company reported having 2.9 million subscribers to Chegg Services.[4]

History

In October 2000, Iowa State University students Josh Carlson, Mike Seager, and Mark Fiddleke launched Chegg's forerunner, Cheggpost, a Craigslist-style message board for Iowa State students.[5][6] Chegg is a portmanteau of the words chicken and egg, and references the founders’ catch-22 feeling of being unable to obtain a job without experience, while being unable to acquire experience without a job.[7]

Carlson then teamed with Iowa State MBA Osman Rashid, an avid user of the site who recognized its potential to disrupt the textbook market, which had "drastically outpaced the rate of inflation".[8] The company was incorporated in 2005 by Carlson, Rashid, and Aayush Phumbhra.[6] At that time, it offered scholarship searches, internship matching, and college application advice.[3] Some initial start-up funding was provided by Rashid.[9]

In February 2006, Carlson left the company.[9] Phumbhra and Rashid rebranded, launching Chegg, Inc. in December 2007, with Rashid as CEO. After ending services unrelated to renting and purchasing textbooks,[6] the company adjusted its business model to reflect that of Netflix's then rental-based model, concentrating on renting textbooks to students,[7][10] and Chegg expanded to a national market.[11] It later added goods and student services through corporate acquisitions.[11]

In 2008, revenues were about $10 million; in 2009, revenues for the month of January were reported as $10 million.[12]

Following a brief tenure by former Ask.com and Match.com CEO Jim Safka in 2009,[13] former Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig was appointed CEO in 2010.[14]

Chegg began trading shares publicly on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2013.[15] Its IPO was reported to have raised $187.5 million, with an initial market capitalization of about $1.1 billion.[16]

In 2014, Chegg entered a partnership with book distributor Ingram Content Group to distribute all of Chegg's physical textbook rentals.[17][18]

In April 2017, Chegg and Pearson Education began a textbook rental partnership;[19] In the pilot program, the publisher Pearson made 50 editions of high-volume textbooks (both digital and print) available only to rent. Chegg served as the exclusive rental outlet.[19]

In September 2018, Chegg announced a data breach had occurred in April 2018 that may have involved 40 million active and inactive registered users. The breach may have included data such as user names, Chegg passwords, email addresses, and shipping addresses. The company reported that social security numbers and bank account information were not affected by the breach.[20]

As of March 2020 the company reported having 2.9 million subscribers to Chegg Services.[4]

Acquisitions

In 2010, Chegg made its first acquisition, purchasing CourseRank (later disabling the platform, in 2014).[21][22] That year, Chegg also acquired Cramster, a provider of online homework help,[23] and Notehall, an online marketplace for class notes.[24]

In 2011, Chegg acquired Zinch, a scholarship search and networking service for high school students and college recruiters, and continues to offer the service, under the Chegg brand name.[25] Chegg acquired software company 3D3R in late 2011 to develop its digital textbook product, kickstart its mobile product group, and open an engineering office in Rehovot, Israel.[26]. In June 2014 Chegg acquired online tutoring platform InstaEDU, for a reported $30 million,[27] renaming the division Chegg Tutors,[22][28] and in October 2014 it acquired Internships.com.[29]

Chegg acquired Imagine Easy Solutions, a provider of online bibliography and research tools, for a reported $42 million, in 2016.[30] In 2017, the company acquired Cogeon GmbH, a German math education provider, for $15 million cash;[31] Cogeon's app, Math 42, uses artificial intelligence to assess individual students' weaknesses in math, and to inform targeted training.[32]

In 2018, Chegg acquired WriteLab, which uses AI to analyze text and suggest improvements,[33][34] and online flash card tool StudyBlue.[35][36][37]

During late 2019, Chegg acquired online coding school Thinkful,[38] for $80 million cash.[39]

Chegg Services and textbook rentals

By 2016, textbook rentals and student services were about even in company revenues;[40] by 2018, Chegg Services reported 3.1 million subscribers,[41] with services accounting for 79% of revenue. Students may search for both scholarships and internships on the website, and typically pay to access Chegg Services, such as Study, Advanced Writing, Tutors, and Math Solver, on a monthly basis.[40]

Music 101

Chegg sponsors music instruction contests for colleges in a program named Music 101. These conclude with live classroom instruction by noted music artists, and a $10,000 grant from its David B. Goldberg Music Scholarship fund for the winning school music department. In 2019, the company launched its ninth annual Chegg Music 101 campaign featuring YUNGBLUD. Previous events have featured U2, Imagine Dragons, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Steve Aoki, and Liam Payne.[42][43]

Leadership
Chegg headquarters in Santa Clara

As of July 29, 2019, Chegg's board of directors consists of:

Criticism and controversies

In February 2019, Chegg formed a partnership with Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL), to make online educational writing tools more accessible to its students.[46] The affiliation was met by some faculty criticism, alluding to Chegg helping students cheat;[47] OWL director Harry Denny reported that he did not expect Purdue's reputation to suffer as a result, citing that “My experience has been that the company is committed to partnering with faculty and administration to address their concerns."

A report published by Citron Research in July 2019 claims that "Chegg has created forums to circumvent Turnitin, proving that Chegg is helping users continue institutionalized cheating".[48]

In April 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia Tech alerted students in a physics class that certain students in the class had cheated on their online final exam by using answers posted on Chegg,[49] certain students in a chemistry class at Boston University were found to have similarly cheated on an online exam,[50] and solutions to a physics exam at Washington University in St. Louis were posted on Chegg during the exam period.[51] Chegg is cooperating with the investigations.[49][50][51]

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See also

References
  1. "chegg.com Competitive Analysis, Marketing Mix and Traffic - Alexa". alexa.com. Retrieved 2020-07-08.
  2. "2018 Annual Report" (PDF). Chegg. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  3. 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. "Chegg Reports First Quarter 2020 Financial Results" (press release). Business Wire. May 4, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  5. "Auction site connects buyers and sellers" by Nate Engelberth; Iowa State Daily; October 19, 2000.
  6. Pederson, Jay P., editor. (2013). International directory of company histories. St. James Press. p. 115. ISBN 9781414482224. OCLC 833188977.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. ... calculated that his bill for books that semester would have been $334 with Chegg, far less than the $657 he paid...
  8. "Fast-Growing Chegg Aims for High Marks with Students" by Lisa Girard; Entrepreneur; January 18, 2012.
  9. "How Chegg Has Turned Education Upside Down" by Nat Berman; Money Inc; November 7, 2016.
  10. Julie Schmit (2009-01-12). "Chegg CEO Rashid applies Netflix concept to textbooks". USA Today. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
  11. "Apple Creates New Wrinkle In Start-Up's Plan To Disrupt Textbook Industry" by Helen Coster; Forbes; January 25, 2012
  12. Miguel Helft (July 4, 2009). "We Rent Movies, So Why Not Textbooks?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
  13. "Rosensweig Lands at Textbook Renter Chegg.com" by MIGUEL HELFT; The New York Times; FEBRUARY 2, 2010.
  14. McNicholas, Kym. "Dan Rosensweig: His Journey From Yahoo To Guitar Hero Then Chegg". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  15. De La Merced, Michael (12 November 2013). "Chegg Prices Its I.P.O. at $12.50 a Share".
  16. "Chegg stock stumbles after IPO tops targets".
  17. 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.
  18. "Chegg Strikes Distribution Partnership With Ingram Books, Announces 15% Boost In Earnings From Digital Services".
  19. "Pearson to partner with Chegg on textbook rentals | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2017-09-26.
  20. "CURRENT REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934". Security and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  21. "TC Teardown: Chegg Is A Money Machine". June 5, 2018.
  22. Cao, Vincent (2014-11-10). "CourseRank to be taken down at the end of the month". The Stanford Daily. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  23. "Exclusive: Chegg Buys Cramster".
  24. "SEC filing cracks the egg on Chegg's Notehall purchase".
  25. "Chegg Buys Zinch in Another Move Toward a "Social Education Platform"".
  26. "Chegg Acquires Software Company Flux / 3D3R, SEC Filing Reveals". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-06-14.
  27. 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.
  28. "Chegg buys InstaEDU in transition away from book rentals", by Erin Griffith; Fortune; March 6, 2013.
  29. "Chegg"; Crunchbase
  30. Lardinois, Frederic. "Chegg acquires Imagine Easy Solutions, the company behind EasyBib, BibMe and Citation Machine". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-05-06.
  31. Sharma, Asit (2018-03-22). "Is It Time to Take a More Serious Look at Chegg, Inc.? -". The Motley Fool. Retrieved 2019-05-31.
  32. "MATH 42". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-05-31.
  33. Sternlicht, Alexandra. "His Company WriteLab Was Acquired by Chegg Before He Turned 30". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  34. "Chegg Cuts $15 Million Check to Buy AI-Feedback Tool, WriteLab - EdSurge News". EdSurge. 2018-05-16. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  35. "Chegg Enhances Content And Flash Card Tools Offering With Acquisition Of StudyBlue, To Increase Value for Students And Expand Addressable Market". investor.chegg.com. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  36. Zacks, Contributor Zacks Equity Research. "Chegg (CHGG) Acquires StudyBlue, Bolsters Content Offering". www.nasdaq.com. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  37. "Chegg Acquires StudyBlue | Vista Point Advisors". vistapointadvisors.com. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  38. "Chegg to Acquire Coding Boot Camp" by Lindsay McKenzie; Inside Higher Ed; September 5, 2019.
  39. "Chegg To Acquire Online Skills-Based Learning Platform Thinkful To Help Students Accelerate Their Path From Learning To Earning"; Reuters; September 4, 2019.
  40. "CHEGG: MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (form 10-K)"; Marketscreener; February 25, 2019.
  41. "Chegg (CHGG) Tops Q4 Earnings Estimates, Raises '19 View"; Yahoo! Finance; February 12, 2019.
  42. "Chegg Looking For A Come-Up In School Contest"; InsideRadio; September 1, 2015.
  43. "Vote to bring Chegg Music 101 with YUNGBLUD to your school"; WN.com; September 16, 2019.
  44. "Chegg appoints Melanie Whelan to Board of Directors". www.wrcbtv.com. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  45. "Chegg appoints Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc to Board of Directors". Chegg, Inc. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
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  47. Mckenzie, Lindsay (March 12, 2019). "The Wrong Partnership?". InsideHigherEd.com. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  48. "Institutionalized Cheating is No Longer OK". citronresearch.com.
  49. Downey, Maureen (May 4, 2020). "Georgia Tech warns physics students who cheated: Admit it or risk failing". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  50. Pirog, Allison (April 28, 2020). "Chemistry and physics departments looking to limit cheating". The Daily Free Press. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  51. Butler, Jayla (April 15, 2020). "Arts & Sciences investigates Physics 192 academic integrity breach". Student Life. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
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