BYJU’S Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran’s success story

From humble village boy to billionaire: Byju’s success mantra.

Thirty-nine-year-old teacher-turned-entrepreneur Byju Raveendran’s fabled journey starts from the small coastal village of Azhikode in Kerala. The Founder and CEO of India’s largest online learning startup Byju’s, studied in a Malayalam-medium government school in the South Indian village in Kannur district, where both his parents were teachers. He went on to study mechanical engineering in his home state of Kerala before becoming a globe-trotting engineer based in Singapore at a shipping company in 2001.

During his trips back home to India he would help his friends from the IT industry prepare for the Common Admission Test (CAT) — the gateway to India’s best business schools. He himself took the entrance test twice, just to see how he does and ended up getting interview calls from the prestigious IIMs (Indian Institute of Management), having scored 100 percentile (the top one percent) on both occasions. But he didn’t want to pursue an MBA (Master of Business Administration), his passion lay in teaching.

In 2005, he quit his job and moved back to India to teach MBA-aspirants. His popularity as a teacher soared as did his student count. In 2011, he formally launched his startup Think & Learn, the parent company of Byju’s.

“I do business for fun… been very fortunate enough [sic] to have my passion intersect with the real need, and obviously, I had the guts to pursue it, and I’ll pursue it till I get it and there is nothing like (actually ever getting it). The day I think it is successful, the game is over,” Byju says during a chat with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma. Byju used to take live classes for his students in Stadiums all over india, due to the huge crowd attending his classes.

In 2015, the Bengaluru startup launched its popular online offering ‘The Learning App,’ and went on to become the leader in offering personalised learning programmes for students. In the financial year that ended in March 2020 (FY20), Byju’s doubled its revenue to Rs 2,800 crore. India happens to be the second-largest edtech market in the world after the US, and the industry here is estimated to be worth $750 million.

The report estimates that by 2022, online education offerings across Classes 1 to 12 are projected to increase 6.3 times to create a $1.7 billion market, while the post-K-12 (from kindergarten to Class 12) market is set to grow 3.7 times to create a $1.8 billion market. “This is going to create a meaningful opportunity for incumbent players, as well as space for multiple new startups,” it stated.

Byju’s, which provides online learning classes for kindergarten to Class 12 students, along with training for entrance tests to engineering colleges, medical colleges, and the civil services, finds itself at just the right place at the right time.

Since its formal launch almost a decade back, Byju’s has come a long way to become India’s second-most valuable startup after payments firm Paytm, which is valued at $16 billion. During its last fundraise in June, Byju’s was valued at $10.5 billion, making it a decacorn (startups valued over $10 billion).

Speaking on his recipe for success, Byju says it’s important to stay away from the rat race, something the Indian school system, unfortunately, seems to encourage.

“We get into a wrong game and I am not just talking about entrepreneurs, maybe that’s what our school system encourages — we end up in a game of ‘you versus others.’

“Just stay in the game and be in the game of ‘you versus you.’ The moment you chase that game then there is no failure because every failure is something which you will learn from; and when you are losing to yourself, nobody knows, and there is no pressure. Every time you will create better benchmarks, so raise your bar (each time),” he says.

Byju’s is one of the most-funded education startups in the world, having raised around $1.6 billion through 16 funding rounds. Its marquee investors include Facebook Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, China’s Tencent, South African private equity firm Naspers, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital.

Byju advises people to back themselves more and keep challenging themselves.

“I always say that all of us are far better than we think we are, all of us can do a lot more than what we think we can. So just raise the bar of what you want to do, and when you are about to reach that (point) raise the bar again. Then you’ll have fun. You’ll actually have fun. Just ‘you versus you,'” he says.

How Byju’s 6-yr-old son played a role in a $300 million deal that was closed in 6 weeks

Byju’s, last week announced that it had acquired WhiteHat Jr., a Mumbai-based startup that provides an online platform where school children (aged six to fourteen years) can learn coding and build commercial-ready games, animations, and apps. The Bengaluru-based unicorn acquired the two-year-old startup for $300 million, in an all-cash deal.

The deal was struck over a span of six weeks through WhatsApp messages and Zoom calls between Byju’s Founder and CEO, Byju Raveendran, and WhiteHar Jr. Founder and CEO, Karan Bajaj, who will continue to lead the company post the acquisition.

What is interesting is Byju’s six-year-old son Nish too played a part in the deal, which now gives the Bengaluru unicorn a foot inside the promising new segment of coding for school children, which is still a niche but fast-growing area.

During a chat with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma, Byju revealed that he got his son on the WhiteHat Jr. platform around the time he started conversations with the Mumbai startup, in a bid to evaluate the platform.

“My son is on the platform. I introduced him to this platform only six weeks back, also as an evaluation thing. I was really impressed with not just how he got excited about this, (but also the fact that) the paid user NPS (Net Promoter Score) is very high, similar to what we have for Byju’s,” he said. NPS measures customer experience and predicts business growth. Simply put, it is a tool used to gauge customers’ overall satisfaction with a company’s product or service and the customers’ loyalty to the brand.

Six weeks to success

WhiteHat Jr. is Byju’s fifth and largest acquisition till date. It all started with a simple WhatsApp message, Byju said.

“For me it was easy in a way. I met Karan only six weeks back. A simple WhatsApp message, nice simple WhatsApp message, (and) we got into a Zoom call and when I saw the vision of what they were actually building, we immediately connected.”

In January 2019, Byju’s acquired US-based educational games maker Osmo for $120 million. The latest acquisition will help Byju’s strengthen its presence in the US market since WhiteHat Jr. has over 20,000 paid American subscribers, as on June 2020, which accounts for nearly 60 percent of its revenues, with the rest coming from India. “When we met them, they were around $75 million (annual revenue) run rate, now they are at $150 million run rate,” Byju said.

Byju’s earlier acquisitions include Math Adventures, TutorVista, and Vidyarth.

Coming back to the WhiteHat Jr. acquisition, Byju said the decision to go through with the deal was taken rather swiftly, thanks to online meetings, which are now part of a new world order amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

“We closed the deal in six weeks, the decision was much faster because now it’s a lot more efficient, as all of us are realising how good meetings are online, just like students are realising how good this (online) thing can be,” he said.

After experiencing the benefits and the general convenience of doing things online, people are expected to continue to prefer digital formats even in a post-pandemic world, Byju said. “Those who are experiencing the benefits of doing things this (online) way, you can expect them to continue doing it this way on the other side of the crisis. I am sure you’ll do a lot more online meetings even on the other side of the crisis; just like those students who will continue learning online, it’s complementing what happens in school,” he said.

Conviction is key

According to Byju, conviction is the key when it comes to closing acquisitions. “So we don’t waste a lot of time thinking about these acquisitions. Once we build conviction, we make our moves really fast.”

“Now, having access to capital, in a way, helps, because you can decide these things fast and close them. A lot of times, the pace of execution is critical, and sometimes even winning the deals,” he said.

On the WhiteHat Jr. deal, Byju said, the Bengaluru startup was able to build conviction “really fast” around two things. “One, it’s adding a subject like coding, which is an important future skill, and the growing percentage of parents and students who realise it. The second one is that it’s also giving us an opportunity to accelerate our international expansion, to begin with, the US.”

Comments

comments