Tracking Lucrative New Niche
It all started over a couple of beers. Deland Jessop and Adam Cooper, classmates at the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business MBA program, were out at a bar one night tossing around ideas for a business of their own.
Jessop, a former Toronto police offer, mentioned how difficult it was to become an officer because there were no Canadian application and testing materials on the market, only ones designed for U.S. jurisdictions. Cooper had worked as an instructor for Kaplan, a company that provides preparation for exams such as the GMAT and LSAT, and thought his friend might be on to something. And they knew that another classmate, Kalpesh Rathod, had a background in Internet development.
The three partners began to develop the first Canadian website that would offer application and testing materials to prospective RCMP and Ontario police officers.
In the summer of 2002, Police Prep launched its first Internet program. Users pay a yearly subscription fee to gain access to practice exams, as well as behavioral tests and reasoning problems, and information about preparing resumes and acing interviews.
Photo by Dekalam Hire Learning Inc..
Jaclyn on March 19th, 2009 8:32 am
I think that is a great idea! I have heard about how hard it is even in the U.S. to become a police officer and we have preparation tests and classes, i can imagine how much more difficult it would be in canada where they don’t have such preparation services for the people.
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