Tag: byju’s

  • Lido Learning – Democratizing Education For Children, Or Not?

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Lido Learning.

    These days conventional on-campus, in-person education is being replaced by online education.  According to some research done in 2019, it was shown that the online education industry will surpass $230 billion by 2025, and considering the significant influence of the COVID-19 outbreak, online programmes are expected to experience much more growth by 2025.

    In reality, the pandemic has proved how effective and long-lasting e-learning can be. It ensures that education is available in the event of a public health emergency, natural calamity, or another event that prevents students and instructors from travelling. It may serve students from all around one country and beyond, bringing in perspectives from all over the world. In addition, it has also been observed that the e-learning atmosphere promotes a better work-life balance.

    Lido Learning is an ed-tech business that uses an engaging online platform to transform education for every kid in India. So, there are several other online platforms for Indian students to engage with. What is Lido Learning doing differently?

    In Lido Learning’s online platform, students benefit from cutting-edge content such as interactive games and animated videos as well as a personalised platform for homework, quizzes, tasks, and motivating professors, thanks to their fascinating and enjoyable live online lessons. Despite all such perks, Lido Learning surprisingly shut down its operations in February 2022.

    Read this article further to know more about Lido Learning’s founder, business model, revenue model, funding, downfall, and more.

    Lido Learning – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Lido Learning
    Also Known As Lido
    Legal Name Quality Tutorials Pvt Ltd.
    Industry Ed-tech
    Headquarter Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
    Founders Sahil Sheth
    Founded 2019
    Areas Served India
    Website www.lidolearning.com

    About Lido Learning and How it Works?
    Lido Learning – Industry
    Lido Learning – Name, Logo and Tagline
    Lido Learning – Founders
    Lido Learning – Startup Story
    Lido Learning – Vision and Mission
    Lido Learning – Business Model
    Lido Learning – Funding and Investors
    Lido Learning – Competitors
    Lido Learning – Downfall

    About Lido Learning and How it Works?

    Lido is India’s top Small Group Tuitions platform, offering sessions in Math, Science, English, and Coding to children from Kindergarten to children in 10th standard. Cutting-edge interactive animated video material and gamified learning taught by India’s top 5% of teachers are part of the Lido experience. Each class has a maximum teacher-to-student ratio of 1:6 to ensure that the students get ample mentoring, feedback, and clarification.

    A student requires a face-to-face connection in a group of no more than 6 students with an instructor to educate them, interactive content to keep them interested, and tailored technology to boost results for optimal student learning. These three elements have been integrated at Lido to create a 21st-century classroom that is entertaining for children, trustworthy for parents, and empowering for its instructors.

    Lido Learning’s exclusive Roblox game development platform is for kids to take their first leap in a game development environment.

    Roblox teaches youngsters how to:

    • Basic understanding of the Lua code language for Roblox studio scripting.
    • Roblox game development fundamentals such as model creation, terrain editing, cutting through portions, and adjusting game lighting.
    • How to use Roblox to publish and share functional games so that others could benefit from their new game production abilities.

    Lido is the finest option for kids because it outperforms all other digital learning applications and tutors.

    • Individual Attention: Every Lido lesson is engaging and interactive with just 6 students, ensuring that each child receives personal attention, continuous feedback, and the chance to clear up any doubts right away.
    • Interesting Content: Each lesson includes interactive games, HD animated films,  and live quiz contests in class, all designed by Stanford, Harvard, and IIT alumni to ensure that the kids learn ideas and enjoy learning.
    • Real-world Qualities: Lido addresses both school and non-school abilities such as teamwork, leadership, and imagination, preparing children to be job creators rather than job seekers.

    Smartail – AI solutions for Learning | Founder | Products
    Smartail provides an AI-Powered Tool – Deepgrade to make learning effective. Know about smartail, Deepgrade, its founders & business model.


    Lido Learning – Industry

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, the education sector in India has been the most impacted. Today’s learning is no longer restricted to specific conventional classrooms. The government’s limits and tight safety measures have prepared the way for the new approaches.

    The government, public and private schools, coaches, coaching institutions, students, and instructors have all been inclined towards embracing the digital style of the learning experience, which is a result of COVID disruptions, resulting in the EdTech revolution we are experiencing today.

    The Indian EdTech business is reported to have garnered $16.1 billion in venture capital financing, up from $500 million in 2010. The K-12 segment, higher education, and upskilling sectors are driving this industry’s expansion.

    India’s EdTech business is expected to reach $30 billion in the next ten years, thanks to the increasing popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and distance education.

    The widespread usage of mobile phones, on the other hand, is thought to improve students’ connectivity and learning capacities. Nevertheless, even as accessibility improves, pricing remains an issue for specialised EdTech devices, particularly for lower and lower-middle-income families, restricting their reach.

    EdTech startups in India are looking forward to focusing on improving educational objectives, results, and student engagement through improved technical and innovative solutions.

    Lido Learning – Name, Logo and Tagline

    Lido Logo
    Lido Logo

    The tagline of Lido Learning says, “#MakeSuccessAHabit”

    Lido Learning – Founders

    Founder of Lido Learning - Sahil Sheth
    Founder of Lido Learning – Sahil Sheth

    Lido Learning was founded by Sahil Sheth in 2019.

    Sahil Sheth

    Lido’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer is Sahil Sheth’s purpose is to use technology to aid students to realise their maximum potential by making learning engaging and exciting. Sahil has been involved in India’s EdTech movement since its inception, about a decade ago. He sold his first firm, Infinite Student, to Byjus and served as the business’s vice president until 2018.

    During his time at Byjus, Sahil discovered that, while children enjoyed viewing self-paced videos, they favoured the real-time engagement and flow of opinions with friends and peers which can only be achieved during face-to-face, small group, live tuition lessons. Sahil completed his bachelor’s in science, mathematics, and economics from Duke University, America.


    BYJU’S Success Story – Latest News | Story | Funding
    This is the story of how Byju Raveendran started Byju’s and revolutionized the Indian education industry. Also check the Byju’s funding, news, and more.


    Lido Learning – Startup Story

    Sahil has been involved in India’s EdTech movement since its inception, about a decade ago. He sold his first firm, Infinite Student, to Byjus and served as the business’s vice president until 2018. During his time at Byjus, Sahil discovered that, while children enjoyed viewing self-paced videos, they favoured the real-time engagement and flow of opinions with friends and peers which can only be achieved during face-to-face, small group, live tuition lessons.

    After figuring out all the prevailing shortcomings of conventional tuition classes, Sahil created Lido learning to compensate for the same. Lido Learning was founded with one clear aim, which is, to revolutionize the conventional local group tuition class sector by providing tech-enabled learning tools to tutors and world-class learning to all children, allowing them to achieve their maximum capabilities in the classroom and even beyond.

    In 73 days, Sahil Sheth and his team built the platform. The platform’s testing began with kids in Delhi and Mumbai, followed by Chandigarh and Lucknow.
    Moreover, the creators discovered that their concept was more interesting and engaging than traditional tuitions throughout the testing.

    During the trials, they discovered that parents in smaller cities were delighted that their children were receiving the same high-quality education as children in larger cities.

    Sahil Sheth commented on this, saying, “Students in smaller towns were thrilled to be getting the same product and the same quality of teachers that students in the bigger cities were getting. That is when Lido’s vision changed. It was not just about making tuition classes convenient anymore, it was about democratizing education for all.”

    The student-to-teacher ratio at LIDO is 1:6. LIDO is also giving their kids a “Rockstar teacher” who will educate them with “interactive content” to keep them engaged. They also have a customised platform to help them enhance their outcomes.

    Lido Learning – Vision and Mission

    Lido’s mission is to inspire and empower every child for the future.

    Lido Learning – Business Model

    Lido’s business model is B2C Education Solutions – companies that provide online courses, tutoring, educational materials, interactive toys, learning games, and so on.  

    Lido is a platform enabling students to take live online lessons. Math, English, and science are among the disciplines taught online. It offers self-paced lessons, discussion-based lectures, individualised practice, performance monitoring, and other features for smaller groups of students.

    Its income strategy is subscription-based. Lido Learning now offers materials and tutorials for classes V through X, however, for the firm to stay afloat, customers must pay a price to have yearly access to the tutoring.

    Lido Learning – Funding, and Investors

    Some of the most well-known angel investors sponsored the EdTech firm, Lido Learning. Mukesh Bansal, founder of Myntra, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Paytm, Anupam Mittal, founder of Shaadi.com and a Shark Tank India judge, Ronnie Screwvala, founder of UpGrad, and Ananth Narayanan, founder of MedLife.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Sep 10, 2021 Series C $10M Unilazer Ventures
    Nov 25, 2020 Seed Round
    Mar 29, 2020 Series B $7.5M BAce Capital
    Nov 11, 2019 Series A $3M Ronnie Screwvala

    Lido Learning – Competitors

    Lido Learning’s top competitors include Vretta, Cuemath, WhiteHat Jr., Vedantu, BYJU’s, ENpower, Lawpilots and Uvaro.

    Lido Learning – Downfall

    Lido Learning is an EdTech firm, based in India, whose demise came as a huge surprise to the market. Lido Learning abruptly pulled the plug on February 4, 2022, leaving 150 employees with serious doubts about the future of the company.

    Inability to Pay the Workforce Their Salaries

    Employees are a firm’s foundation; without them, the firm would not be able to run properly. Now, a corporation must adequately care for its employees to achieve this. When the teachers and personnel of Lido Learning were not paid, a red flag was raised. Teachers and employees resorted to social media to express their dissatisfaction with the firm when their salaries were not paid. They still haven’t paid pending salaries for the people they fired back in January 2022.

    Inability for Collecting Funding

    Even though Lido Learning has raised $24 million in funding to date from well-known investors such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Anupam Mittal, several organisations who intended to participate in the startup backed out at the last minute owing to the epidemic. Several investment arrangements with firms like CureFit and ByteDance were cancelled. As a result, the company’s reserves were depleted, causing financial troubles.

    No Refunds for Customers

    Another major cause for this EdTech’s collapse is that the company’s consumers were not effectively treated, their needs were not satisfied, and the service was poor.  Some expectations were not met when clients requested to end the trial period, and refunds were not issued. The termination of their memberships resulted in poor word of mouth and negative comments from consumers, and the company’s image suffered as a result.


    Top Startups That Got Rejected in Shark Tank India
    Shark Tank India business reality show gave great deals to some startups and refused many. Here are top startups rejected in Shark Tank India.


    Lido Learning – FAQs

    What does Lido Learning do?

    Lido Learning is an ed-tech business that uses an engaging online platform to transform education for every kid in India.

    When was Lido Learning founded?

    Lido Learning was founded by Sahil Sheth in 2019.

    Who founded Lido Learning?

    Sahil Sheth founded Lido Learning in 2019.

    Has Lido Learning shut its operations?

    Yes, Lido Learning abruptly pulled the plug on February 4, 2022.

  • Best Startups of the Decade 2010-2020

    The mindset of the people has changed from, over the decade, as now people want to be the boss of their own and don’t want to restrict themselves in the walls of 9-to-5 jobs. This decade brought a hit of entrepreneurs and their startups with amazing ideas and execution, that has helped people and has changed the ways, for people living their lives.

    15 Best Startups of the Decade (2010-2020)

    Here are the 15 best startups in 2010s which have changed the market of the Indian entrepreneurship-

    1. Swiggy
    2. Paytm
    3. Oyo Rooms
    4. Redbus
    5. Ola
    6. Zivame
    7. BigBasket
    8. Byju’s
    9. Firstcry
    10. Freshdesk
    11. Limeroad
    12. Shopclues
    13. Pepperfry
    14. Snapdeal
    15. Hike

    Successful startups of the decade

    Swiggy

    Founded: 2014

    Swiggy Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Swiggy Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    The idea of ordering food online at the start of the decade was an idea that most of the people didn’t think upon but soon the thought changed with the arrival of food-delivering apps like Swiggy.

    Launched in 2014, Swiggy is known as the largest and most valuable food ordering and delivering the platform in India, currently operating in more than 100 cities across India. Online food delivery platform, Swiggy, has launched its third series of television commercials and digital campaign, that are reflective of new-age India and its changing culinary culture. Swiggy tagline is “Swiggy karo, phir jo chahe Karo!”

    Paytm

    Founded: 2019

    Paytm Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Paytm Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Go cashless has been the motto of 2019 and the public is taking it quite effectively. The wave of online transactions hit India in 2010 when Paytm was launched. PAYTM is an e-commerce system, based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It is available in 11 Indian languages and offers online use-cases as mobile recharges, utility, bill, payments, travel, movies, and events booking, in-store payments at grocery stores, fruits and vegetable shops, restaurants, parking, tolls, pharmacies, etc.

    Oyo Rooms

    Founded: 2013

    OYO Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    OYO Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Whenever it comes to book rooms for a vacation, weekend or a party, the one-stop shop is OYO. Founded in 2013, by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO Rooms is an Indian hotel chain and fastest-growing hospitality chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes and living spaces at cheap prices. It is currently UAE, Nepal, China, Brazil, UK, Philippines, Arabia, Sri Lanka, etc.


    List of Top Rental Startups in India | Exhaustive Llist 2020
    Startups based on rental apps (for handheld devices and computers) provideservices to people for leasing cars, bikes, rooms, homes or heavy equipment.Rental startups are built to facilitate a way for people to experience something without the need of owning it. One can thus think of driving that…


    Redbus

    Founded: 2006

    RedBus Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    RedBus Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Finding bus seats can be quite hectic and without a good seat, going to a long ride can be hectic. So, to save the hassle, one can always go for redbus. An online app company, the user can look up to for buses and book tickets accordingly and get confirmed tickets, without struggling for tickets on the way. Redbus was founded by Phanindra Sama, Charan Padmaraju and Sudhakar Pasupunuri in 2006, however, it became famous after 2010 when Indian people were getting introduced to mobile internet.

    Ola

    Founded: 2010

    Ola Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Ola Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Traveling was made much easier and better by OLA, which was founded in 2010 by Bhavish Agarwal. Now, it’s one of the largest cab services in India, with over 250,000 cabs and rickshaws in the app running over 85 Indian cities. The company is expanding its reach everyday. As of 2020, it has expanded its services to UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

    Zivame

    Founded: 2011

    Zivame Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Zivame Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Zivame is an e-retail lingerie brand for women, founded in 2011 by Richa Kar, to empower women to buy lingerie freely without feeling embarrassed as of in normal offline shops, which is generally filled by men. Meaning of Zivame is ‘radiant me’. It has also been known for showing diversity as it has no age -limit. It sells shapewear, sleepwear, and activewear through both online and offline stores.


    Zivame Success Story – Founders, Business Model, Challenges and more
    Zivame is an online lingerie retailer with hundreds of designs for Indian women founded by Richa Kar. Know about its business model, revenue and more.


    BigBasket

    Founded: 2009

    Bigbasket Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Bigbasket Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Who would have thought in 2000s that we would be ordering groceries online? This thought also came into fruition in 2009 by Abhinav Choudhari, Hari Menon and Vipul Parekh. Now, BigBasket is an online food and grocery store that delivers personal and household needs right to customer’s doorstep. As of 2020, BigBasket is available in almost all the cities of India. Shah Rukh Khan is brand ambassador of BigBasket and bigbasket tagline is “I’m bigbasketeer, Are you?”

    Byju’s

    Founded: 2011

    Bigbasket Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Bigbasket Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    The Bangalore based educational technology platform Byju’s is an online tutoring and coaching firm that was started in the year 2011 and runs on a freemium model. The main aim of Byju’s is to provide coaching through online video lectures for students of class 1 to class 12 and also for people who prepare for competitive exams like IIT – JEE, NEET, CAT, GRE, and GMAT.

    Byjus- the Learning app was launched in the year 2015 by Byju Raveendran and since then it has been a huge success. It is used by more than 15 million students all over the world and has 900000 paid subscribers. The app helps the students to learn on their own rather than the traditional culture of spoon-feeding.

    Firstcry

    Founded: 2010

    Firstcry Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Firstcry Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    It is an overwhelming feeling for the new parents to buy all the goods for the baby or the newborn. Firstcry was started to fulfill that demand in 2010, by Supam Maheswari, when he couldn’t find quality toys for his new-born daughter. Now, firstcry sells baby products like diapers, cribs, clothes, nursery items, etc. It has become a popular website for buying baby products from online and offline stores.

    Freshdesk

    Founded: 2010

    Freshdesk Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Freshdesk Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Cloud-based software is the need of every brand to store all the data of the consumer. But back in the starting days of the decade, there were very few companies dealing with cloud-based software.

    One of the most popular company was Freshdesk ( now known as Freshworks), which was launched in 2010. It was started by former ZOHO employees Girish Mathrubootham and Shanmugam Krishnasamy, who teamed up to create better software to help enterprises do after-sales support more effectively. The founder Girish Mathrubootham, is also a mentor and a key figure in the Chennai startup ecosystem.

    Freshdesk’s customers in India include Saavn, Decathlon, Grofers, Lenskart, Oyo Rooms, Byju’s, and Goibibo.

    Limeroad

    Founded: 2012

    Limeroad Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Limeroad Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Fashion has always found its way in women’s shelf, one of India’s most popular online boutique is Limeroad. It was founded in 2012 by Suchi Mukherjee and Ankush Mehra. It is known for being specialized in clothing and accessories for men, women or kids. The online store also allows the users to create their look on a virtual scrapbook by using the brand’s products and also allows users to earn from the scrapbook they create and then, they can use the points on the purchase, at the time of checkout.

    Shopclues

    Founded: 2011

    Shopclues Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Shopclues Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Another big brand which started in 2011, was Shopclues. It was founded Sanjay Sethi, along with former wall street analyst Sandeep Agarwal. Both the founders returned from California, decided to go into a new venture. The company has over 6 lakh merchants and 2.8 crore products on its platform serving over 32,000 pin codes across the country. Although, the company didn’t do well in the market, Sandeep Agarwal did inspire many youngsters to get into entrepreneurship through his journey.

    Top Entrepreneurs in India | Successful Indian Entrepreneurs [2019 Exhaustive List]
    India is now rapidly moving towards startup culture. People are choosingentrepreneurship over 9 to 5 jobs. However, not everyone succeed in theirentrepreneurial journey. A survey has found that 11% of Indian population areengaged in “early-stage entrepreneurial activities”. However, only 5% ofpo…

    Pepperfry

    Founded: 2012

    Pepperfry Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Pepperfry Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Buying furniture online? That was a dream of people in 2000s! But that dream was completed by Ambareesh Murty in 2012. He teamed up with Ashish Shah, one of the former head of eBay Motors in India and the Philippines and launched Pepperfry. It is a dealer of the best quality furniture and delivers it at the doorstep of the buyer. It has soon gained immense popularity in the country.

    Snapdeal

    Founded: 2010

    Snapdeal Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Snapdeal Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    With the tagline of “unbox Zindagi’, Snapdeal managed to be a home favorite for varieties of goods ranging from home, fashion, electricals, sports, etc. It sells over 3 crores (30 million) products across 800+ diverse categories from over 1,25,000 regional, national and international brands and retailers and a reach of 6,000 towns and cities across the country. Although this ecommerce venture didn’t do as good as others like Flipkart or Amazon, it was still a big success in the early years of this decade.

    Hike

    Founded: 2012

    Hike Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
    Hike Logo | Best Startups of the Decade

    Once a very popular youth app for messaging, Hike messenger has left an interesting mark on the market. It was founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal. The hike is a cross-platform instant messaging, voice over IP, social media and peer to peer file sharing app, launched on 12 December 2012.

    Conclusion

    These startups are known to be change force in the world of startups in the decade and are known to inspire many other startups. 2010s is probably the most revolutionary decade in the entrepreneurship world. However, we hope this decade brings more innovation to lives.

    FAQs

    When was OYO founded?

    OYO was founded in the Year 2013.

    What companies started in 2010?

    Some of the top companies founded in 2010 are:

    • Firstcry
    • Paytm
    • Ola
    • Freshdesk/Freshworks
    • Snapdeal

    When was BigBasket founded?

    BigBasket was founded in the Year 2011.

    When was Byju’s founded?

    Byju’s was founded in the Year 2011.

    When was Swiggy founded?

    Swiggy was founded in the Year 2014.

  • Top 11 Digital Entrepreneurs in India | Youngest Digital Entrepreneurs

    With the evolving digital platforms, the world is growing as well. And so the business industries, several startups and established businesses are shifting completely to digitalization.

    Digital media is providing all kinds of features and facilities for businesses to develop enormously. In fact, many business owners have made digital their business. And these are growing with an exponential graph of success. Therefore, such entrepreneurs are termed as digitalpreneurs or digital entrepreneurs.

    You might be wondering, what exactly is a digital entrepreneur? A digital entrepreneur is a business owner, founder or manager who has an internet-based business such as OYO or Paytm.

    In India, there are a vast number of such digital entrepreneurs who have expertise in their field of interest and business with great graph success. India provides all kinds of facilities to its entrepreneurs to grow their businesses successfully.

    It also brings development for the country as India is growing towards the digital world with extensive manifestation. Digital entrepreneurs in India have developed some great online platforms that have been proven absolutely promising and convenient to use.

    Through this article, we present you with those top digital entrepreneurs who have been a great example to the young generation and are extremely successful. Let’s get started!

    List of Successful Digital Entrepreneurs in India

    1. Byju Raveendran
    2. Shradha Sharma
    3. Ritesh Agarwal
    4. Vijay Shekhar Sharma

    List of Youngest Digital Entrepreneurs in India

    1. Shravan and Sanjay Kumaran

    Top 5 Tips To Become A Successful Digital Entrepreneur

    Byju Raveendran

    Digital Entrepreneur Byju Raveendran - BYJU'S Founder
    Digital Entrepreneur Byju Raveendran – BYJU’S Founder

    Founder of BYJU’S study app, Byju Raveendran is well known for his tremendous work that is helping millions of students. He is one of the youngest billionaires in India. He launched BYJU’S app in 2015 and within 2 months, it reached millions of students who downloaded it.

    BYJU’s current value is worth $5.7 billion. Its EdTech company is established in Bengaluru and is considered as the top-notch learning and thinking platform for millions of students. In fact, it has been rated with the “Best Self-Improvement” app in 2016, on Google Play Store.

    Shradha Sharma

    Digital Entrepreneur Shradha Shrama - Yourstory Founder
    Digital Entrepreneur Shradha Sharma – Yourstory Founder

    Shradha is a very well-known digital entrepreneur of India. Shradha Sharma is the founder and Chief Editor of Yourstory.com. It is a startup media platform that brings the stories of startups, entrepreneurs, change-makers, funding analysis and resource pieces.

    Yourstory media has been an absolute success which has around 20,000 stories based on entrepreneurs and tons of several other matters. It provides the facilities to read any story in 12 different languages. Moreover, it has reached more than 10 million readers daily who find this online platform very considerate and interesting.


    7 Tips for Starting Your Business in College
    To become a successful entrepreneur, one needs to dedicate time and energy to abusiness venture. Starting working on business gives a lot of time to know thein and out of business. But it takes willpower to start a business at any age asstarting your first business while still in school is quite …


    Ritesh Agarwal

    Digital Entrepreneur Ritesh Agarwal - Founder of OYO Rooms
    Digital Entrepreneur Ritesh Agarwal – Founder of OYO Rooms

    The well-known personality, Ritesh Agarwal is the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms. OYO rooms are widely famous around India for their incredible service of booking the top branded hotels online or offline. Ritesh Agarwal is a digital entrepreneur who started his journey at just the age of 16 years and now ruling a business worth millions.

    He travelled all the fractions of the country with a budget plan settlement. This gave him the idea to build such a platform that would provide the facility to book any hotel at affordable rates. OYO Rooms is one of the fastest-growing online platforms in India.

    Vijay Shekhar Sharma

    Vijay Shekhar Sharma - Founder of Paytm
    Vijay Shekhar Sharma – Founder of Paytm

    Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of a very famous digital payment company, Paytm. Vijay Shekhar Sharma with a net worth of $2.1 billion, was included in the list of the youngest billionaires of India by Forbes.

    Paytm is considered one of the most promising and convenient digital payment platforms. Along with the Paytm app, Vijay Shekhar Sharma also developed Paytm Mall, Paytm payment bank, and e-commerce business.


    Challenges Entrepreneurs Face
    Everyone knows that being an entrepreneur is not easy. But, everyone thinks ofbecoming one with their “One in a million” idea. Everyone thinks that “this issomething no one has ever done”. Everyone has a unique business idea, but thereare very, very few people who really give it a try. It doesn’t…


    Shravan and Sanjay Kumaran

    Youngest Digital Entrepreneur Sanjay and Shravan Kumaran - Founder of GoDimensions
    Youngest Digital Entrepreneur Sanjay and Shravan Kumaran – Founder of GoDimensions

    The youngest Indian entrepreneurs, Shravan and Sanjay are siblings merely of age 17 and 15 respectively. Together they built the mind-blowing digital platform, GoDimensions. Shravan and Sanjay are the youngest digital entrepreneurs of India.

    GoDimensions are aimed to achieve the simplest and most convenient technical antidotes for digital media. Once in an interview, Shravan and Sanjay were asked about the reasons behind their success, they respond, “Reading a huge number of books and solving the problems that come on the way.”

    This sibling developed the mind-blowing application for both Android and iOS.

    Conclusion

    There are plenty of entrepreneurs who have been brilliant and successful on digital platforms. Before you decide to initiate your startup, take a step hold and look for the business models of such successful entrepreneurs mentioned above.

    They have contributed majorly to the successful growth of digital media. The digital platform has taken over almost all our essentials from traditional media to stores. It has given digital a new outlook which is tremendously popular. These experts would provide you with the best business idea for your startup to make it a success.

    FAQs

    Who is an entrepreneur?

    An entrepreneur is an individual who sets up a new business by taking a risk in order to make money.

    Who is a digital entrepreneur?

    A digital entrepreneur is one who works in the digital media space and makes his living by selling digital media or downloads. In other words, a digital entrepreneur is anyone who works online in the digital environment.

    What is the job of digital entrepreneur?

    A digital entrepreneur job is to utilise the reach and power of the internet to offer products or services for profit.

    How do you become a digital entrepreneur?

    • Learn digital marketing skills – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media Marketing (SMM).
    • Once you learn these skills, you can freelance in these fields.
    • You can start a digital marketing service or build products.
    • You can also become a social media influencer.
    • Start any services or products that you can offer virtually.

    What are the 4 types of entrepreneurs?

    The four types of entrepreneurs:

    • Coasting, opportunity comes to them (or it doesn’t)
    • Conservative (very moderate use of resources, protecting existing resources)
    • Aggressive (proactive, all-in, actively seeks opportunity)
    • Innovator/Revolutionary (attains growth through innovation)

    Who is the youngest digital entrepreneur?

    Jeevan Tiwari is India’s youngest digital entrepreneur and is also the youngest millionaire in India.

    Who are most successful businessman in India?

    Some of the most successful businessmen in India are:

    • Mukesh Ambani
    • Gautam Adani
    • Azim Premji
    • Ratan Tata
    • Lakshmi Niwas Mittal

    Who is the richest entrepreneur in world?

    Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon is one of the richest entrepreneurs in the world with an estimated net worth of $131 Billion.

  • Gradeup – India’s Largest Online Preparation Platform for Competitive Exams

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Gradeup.

    With exponential growth in the number of internet and smartphone users in India, online learning has become popular irrespective of the age group. Think about it this way – you have notes, recorded lectures and other reference material piling up. The million-dollar question is – where do you start? When do you think you’ll finish? How do you plan out your study schedule and ensure that you’re actually making progress, rather than just convincing yourself of it? These are some of the challenges that Gradeup, with its online Live Courses, is successfully addressing.

    With a vision to be India’s largest and most comprehensive online preparation destination for competitive exams, Gradeup was established in 2015 to help students prepare actively for various exams & score better. They have established & nurtured highly engaging exam-specific communities of students and mentors for SSC, Banking, Railways, Teaching, JEE, GATE, NEET, UPSC, Defense, and State level exams.

    Gradeup was co-founded by Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, and Sanjeev Kumar. Gradeup was acquired by the Edtech giant, Byju’s on September 7, 2021. The Noida-based online exam preparation platform currently serves as Byju’s Exam Prep, as rebranded by Byju’s. Read on to know more about the Gradeup success story, Revenue, Business model, Funding, Growth and more.

    Gradeup – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Gradeup
    Headquarter Noida, India
    Sector EdTech
    Founders Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, Sanjeev Kumar
    Founded 2015
    Revenue/Turnover $3.17 million (INR 60 Crore in FY21)
    Total Funding $10 million
    Parent Organization GradeStack Learning Pvt. Ltd
    Website gradeup.co
    Contact support@gradeup.co

    Gradeup – About and How it Works
    Gradeup – Target Market Size
    Gradeup – Founders and Team
    How was Gradeup Started?
    Gradeup – Products/Services
    Gradeup – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Gradeup – Growth and Revenue
    Gradeup – Name, Tagline and Logo
    Gradeup – Startup Challenges
    Gradeup – Funding and Investors
    Gradeup – Recognition and Achievements
    Gradeup – Future Plans

    Gradeup – Latest News

    September 8 2021 – Byju’s acquired Gradeup in its 8th acquisition in 2021.

    October 12, 2021 – Byju Raveendran of Byju’s feat and his brother join the Gradeup board as Directors.  

    Gradeup – About and How it Works

    Gradeup is India’s largest online preparation platform for competitive exams with a strong user base of more than 20 million exam aspirants. Through Live classes and emphasizing a structured methodology i.e. a daily study plan, they’ve made exam preparation highly effective; while optimizing the process by connecting students with peers pursuing similar objectives to facilitate the exchange of notes, clear doubts, and take better preparatory decisions.

    Development of a Community – With the core belief that ‘people prepare better when they prepare together‘, Gradeup focuses on developing exam-specific communities, which are driven by, and focused towards, aspirants. It is the first & only Indian online platform to build a highly engaging community of expert mentors and students; where an aspirant can ask doubts, share updates, and interact with mentors and peers to develop a 360-degree perspective on every topic in the most engaging manner.

    Gradeup – Target Market Size

    The EdTech industry can be divided into segments such as the K12 segment, which can be further classified into two categories i.e. KG to 7th class & 8th to 12th; followed by the Test preparation segment and upscaling (vocational training). Within these segments, Gradeup caters to the Test preparation segment of the market. The approximate market size of Test prep is 35 Million students. And Gradeup is one of the biggest players in the market with more than 20 Million registered students.

    More students are now gravitating toward online education. More than anything, this short term situation is increasing the trust of students and their parents in EdTech. The impact of the current situation on EdTech, in the long run, will be its increased acceptance as an alternative to current offline options.

    Gradeup – Founders and Team

    Gradeup was co-founded by Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, and Sanjeev Kumar in 2015.

    Gradeup founders - Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar
    Gradeup founders – Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar

    Shobhit, Vibhu, and Sanjeev collaborated and established Gradestack Learning Pvt. Ltd. All three of them are self-made and left their jobs to start their entrepreneurial journey. They started without any external support.

    Shobhit Bhatnagar

    Shobhit Bhatnagar, CEO of Gradeup, takes care of Marketing and Community Development. He is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a B.E in I.T from Punjab Engineering College. He has over 9 years of experience. Before Gradeup, he worked as a consultant with Ernst & Young and Opera Solutions. Shobhit has been a quizzer in his college days, likes travelling, and is an avid reader.

    Vibhu Bhushan

    Vibhu Bhushan, CPO/COO of Gradeup, takes care of the Product and Operations. He completed his B.E in I.T from the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. He has over 13 years of experience. Before Gradeup, he worked with Yahoo, Infoedge, and was a founder of Floost; an interest-based network and a product of Nogle Technologies. He has been a marathon runner and has a keen interest in athletics. Vibhu has more than 7.5 years of experience in mobile and backend technologies.

    Sanjeev Kumar

    Sanjeev Kumar is CTO at Gradeup. An engineer by profession, Sanjeev secured his B.Tech degree from MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur. Before Gradeup, he was associated with Infosys as System Engineer. In his free time, he likes to play sports.

    Hiring is the most critical part of an organization when it is scaling at a pace. The following three things play a very important role in the company’s hiring process:

    • Culture fit
    • Passion for work and the right attitude
    • Depth in the area of expertise

    Current Company Size: The total number of employees in the organization is 330+.

    How was Gradeup Started?

    Gradeup forayed into the Edtech and test preparation space in 2013. At that time, it worked with publishers and large institutes to mobilize their content and deliver it in an online, mobile-friendly manner for students preparing for competitive examinations.

    While this focused on utilizing content in the online space, it was clearly not enough. The learning process lacked the right level of engagement and was, thus, ineffective in improving learning outcomes. It required better direction and planning to help the aspirants.

    The team realized that by focusing on learning outcomes, they can contribute significantly to this space and to a student’s preparation journey. And this inspired the founders to solve this problem and fulfill the existing gaps to make online preparation more effective than ever.

    “We did tons of student interviews to understand the problems that they face. While doing it we became more and more confident that these issues can be solved easily with the help of Technology. And that’s when we decided to launch Gradeup.”, recalls Vibhu Bhushan, Co-founder of Gradeup.

    Shobhit, Vibhu, and Sanjeev, co-founders of Gradeup, had conversations with all major VCs before they got funded. Their pitch was based on the fact that EdTech as an industry has huge potential. Access to high-quality education across all segments of the country is an area of growth and has huge market potential, especially in tier 2, 3, and 4 cities. The question they addressed was “how we can come up with a unique approach that differentiates us in the market and helps us scale faster”.

    “During that period, we were in conversation with various investors who all agreed to the fact that sooner or later technology will act as an agent of change in the education sector. And it was just a matter of right time and product that could initiate the disruption process for the offline education model. Our goal was to revolutionize online live learning and emerge as a pioneer in this segment.”, said Vibhu Bhushan.


    upGrad – Founders | Competitors | Funding | Revenue | Business Model
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has beenapproved by the organization it is based on. With an exponential growth in the number of internet and smartphone users inIndia, turning online…


    Gradeup – Products/Services

    Gradeup offers two main programs – Gradeup Classroom and Test Series.

    Gradeup Classroom is a one-of its kind integrated program, with its online live courses providing a comprehensive learning experience from start to finish. It uses a number of tools and teaching techniques to enhance preparation including:

    • Live quizzes and analysis
    • Weekly discussions, mock tests,
    • 24×7 mentor support
    • Mind maps
    • A day-wise study plan for each course is designed and delivered by the best teachers in the country.
    Gradeup Classroom
    Gradeup Classroom

    Taking this a notch above is Test Series, which gives students access to mock tests based on the latest exam patterns along with previous years’ question papers and fresh questions regularly created by expert faculty. Students get provided with-

    • Detailed solutions
    • An in-depth analysis of their performance
    • They’re all India Rank and Scorecard so that they know where they stand.

    It also has an education news portal – NewsEd by Gradeup, which is aimed to help the community to stay updated with all the latest news in the sector.

    Gradeup classroom has the following features:

    The Learning Process:

    The course begins with a Live class on the relevant topics. This is followed by the students accessing ‘Mind Maps’, a unique concept through which students get to recap what they have gone through in digestible nuggets of information, resulting in complete revision in the least amount of time possible. Students are then given chapter-wise quizzes to test how much they have retained, and the answers to these quizzes are discussed along with expert faculty for greater conceptual clarity.

    Systematic Study Plan:

    Offered to the students, the team focuses on creating a plan not just for completing the syllabus, but finishing it in a convenient way while remaining motivated throughout– something that they will get hooked onto and can follow within and outside of class hours.

    Unique and Evolving Framework:

    Strengthening the collective model through the contribution of each participant is a mantra Gradeup follows dearly.

    Verified Peer-to-Peer Learning:

    Gradeup has managed to build a learner’s community of sorts, which is now at the heart of the learning process. Students interact with other students and mentors to solve doubts and ask questions to enrich their learning experience. As much as 95 percent of doubt-solving happens peer-to-peer!

    Validation Mechanism:

    What sets them apart is that the company has multiple fact-checking processes in place on its platform to filter answers based on their quality. In this way, students are only consuming material that is fact-checked and relevant, so that they do not end up misguiding each other unintentionally.

    Building Confidence:

    A constant knowledge-focused engagement also builds a sense of camaraderie, confidence, and healthy competition, which is extremely important for comprehensive personality development especially if they are aiming to crack prestigious competitive examinations.

    Mentor:

    When students enroll for a course on Gradeup Classroom, a personal mentor is assigned to them who is available 24×7 to instantly resolve any doubts that they may have.

    Also, Gradeup has a dedicated cross-function Student Success Team that-

    • Manages core elements of quality content, the comprehensive study plan, constant feedback, and updates, amongst others.
    • Evaluates every piece of this data puzzle and link together the major internal and external stakeholders – aspirants, faculty, and parents – to establish a transparent communication system.
    • Keeps the parents informed, the teachers cognizant and the students motivated. Every stakeholder is kept abreast of the progress through virtual Report Cards.
    • It addresses students’ challenges, either academic or technical, sends reminders for daily academic activity, monitors students’ performance, and organizes live online parent-teacher meetings twice a month.
    • Lastly, for faculty, the team manages the interface that they can view to check overall batch performance, student-level information, and activity-level information.

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    Gradeup – Business Model and Revenue Model

    Gradeup is a freemium platform. Anyone who is preparing for competitive exams can download the app and visit the website to prepare for their respective exams – they can join the community – interact with fellow peers & mentors to get their doubts answered and they can access preparation material like previous years’ papers, quizzes, etc. All of this is free of cost.

    Additionally, on the platform, there are certain paid services like a) Green card– For Purchase of Test series and b) Classroom – Live classes, which aspirants can avail to add further value to their preparation.


    Aviate Success Story – Making College Students Job Ready
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    Gradeup – Growth and Revenue

    From 2019-2020, Gradeup grew 4x and closed the year at 30 Crore revenue. Some of the current metrics are:

    • 350M+ Learning Minutes per Month
    • 25M+ Student Registration
    • 2.5 Lakh+ Paid Users
    • 18M+ App downloads
    • 60,000+ Students Enrolled for Live Courses
    • 3.5M+ MAU

    The tagline of Gradeup is “Prep Smart. Score Better.

    Gradeup Logo
    Gradeup Logo

    Gradeup – Startup Challenges

    When Vibhu forayed into the Edtech and test preparation space with his business partners, in 2013, he worked with publishers and large institutes to mobilize their content and deliver it in an online, mobile-friendly manner for students preparing for competitive examinations.

    His low point at that time was that they made a business model that couldn’t scale. Also, they were quite dependent on external partners; for whom it was too early to change and evolve.

    “However, the high point in my entrepreneurial journey was having the realization that our learning processes needed to have the right engagement levels. And this could be done by upgrading our pedagogy systems and product by making them effective and interactive.”, said Vibhu Bhushan, co-founder of Gradeup.

    He also realized that students prepare better when they prepare together. Hence, the co-founders decided that moving forward they will have a community-based model where verified peer to peer learning and validation mechanisms builds trust and reliability towards the content and the platform.


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    Gradeup – Funding and Investors

    The Gradeup funding can be seen in the fact that it has raised a total of $10 million to date.

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    July 2013 Pre Seed Round $20k
    March 2014 Seed Round $3 million Times Internet
    August 2015 Funding Round
    September 2016 Funding Round
    November 2019 Series A $7 million Times Internet

    There is only one external investor – Times Internet.

    Gradeup – Recognition and Achievements

    35 under 35 Young Entrepreneur 2020 – Shobhit Bhatnagar.

    Gradeup – Future Plans

    The company is going to launch Goprep – a live online coaching app that will specifically cater to the academic needs of students from 8th to 12th; especially those preparing for JEE and NEET. Through the app, it will also offer one-year courses for students from class 8th to 10th for board exam preparation and Olympiads such as NTSE.

    Apart from that, Gradeup is planning to raise funds in the coming months. The team will continue to emphasize Live classes as they can deliver high impact outcomes on a large scale. They plan to expand faculty up to 100 and subject matter experts up to 200. The company also plans to further manifest its presence in tier 2, 3, and 4 towns across the country. Hence, the next round of funding will also be utilized to scale the product and tech capabilities.

    Gradeup’s vision is to deliver quality exam preparation across the country through the means of technology. In the next 5 years, they plan to cater to most of the exams that happen across India.

    Our superior education quality will be able to help 5 crores + Indians who prepare for different exams. We will be able to deliver the best results among our peers because of our strong focus on quality. – Vibhu Bhushan.

    Considering the traction that its live online courses have received so far, Gradeup expects the number of enrollments to touch 60,000 students by the end of FY20, and cross 150,000 by the end of FY21. However, the app was later acquired by Byju’s, after which it has turned into Byju’s Exam Prep, serving 3 crore+ students across the country.

    Gradeup – FAQs

    Who is the founder of Gradeup?

    Gradeup was founded by Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar.

    What is Gradeup?

    Gradeup is a freemium online edtech platform to preapre for competitive exams.

    How much is Gradeup Revenue 2020?

    For FY2020, Gradeup had received around INR 24 Crores worth of revenue.

    Is Gradeup Free?

    Gradeup offered a freemium platform. You can join the community – interact with fellow peers & mentors to get your doubts answered and can access preparation material like previous years’ papers, quizzes, etc – all free of cost. However their live classes and test preps, you will need to pay a subscription fee.

    Who is Sanjeev Kumar?

    Sanjeev Kumar is the Co-founder & CTO at Gradeup. An engineer by profession, Sanjeev secured his B.Tech degree from MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur.

    What is Gradeup?

    Gradeup is India’s largest online preparation platform for competitive exams with a strong user base of more than 20 million exam aspirants. It currently serves as Byju’s Exam Prep after being acquired by Byju’s in an undisclosed deal.

  • Vedantu Marketing Strategy | Promotion & Pricing Strategy

    Covid-19 has been witnessed as one of the reasons for the surge of online learning. In other words, it can be said that the Novel Coronavirus and the lockdown have boosted the growth of edtech platforms. This gave an edge to all the online learning platforms to bring their services to a broader audience.

    Likewise, Vedantu came up with a marketing campaign saying India’s Learning Won’t Stop asking users to Study from the safety of their home. The brand has come up with various learning services to cater to all school and college-going students, having a vision that no child is left behind from learning.

    About Vedantu
    Vedantu’s Pricing Strategy
    Vedantu Marketing Strategy
    Vedantu Viral Marketing Campaigns
    Vedantu’s Target Audience

    About Vedantu

    Vedantu Logo
    Vedantu Logo

    Vedantu is an edtech startup that provides a Live Online Tutoring facility to students from their homes. Vedantu provides live interactive classes with unlimited doubt solving for students from pre-school, Class 1-12, JEE, NEET and other entrance examinations.

    Vedantu provides a seamless user experience. One can avail of their services by downloading its app or by signing in to its website.

    Vedantu can handle more students in one session since it is a virtual class. There may be up to 600 students during a paying session while free lessons maybe 2,000, Krishna said, who’s a professor himself. He also runs Lakshya Institute before selling a big stake in Mumbai’s K-12-based tutoring and test-processing company MT Educare, which helps students prepare for undergraduate studies, until early 2014. It has created a proprietary method called WAVE (Whiteboard Audio Video Environment), which tests about 70 criteria, including whether the student is watching the screen, in order to ensure students are aware of and recognize their vulnerabilities.

    Vedantu’s Pricing Strategy

    Vedantu Live Class
    Vedantu Live Class

    A Bangalore-based startup, Vedantu has raised an additional $24 million as a part of the Series C funding round, which runs a learning app for students. This was in addition to the $42 million raised in August 2019.  In July 2020, Vedantu raised $100 million in funding led by a US-based Coatue. With the latest funding, Vedantu’s total fund tally stands at over $200 million.

    Vedantu offers free access to all live classes and content. However, there is a subscription model as well where students are charged based on the tenure of the courses which are categorized as long-term, short-term, micro-courses and crash courses.

    You can also select pocket-friendly plans or opt monthly subscription instead of paying all amounts together. Also, they provide free demo classes that would help you in making a vital decision for enrolling in the course or not. One can browse various courses both on its application or website.

    Vedantu Marketing Strategy

    Vedantu Live Online Classes
    Vedantu Live Online Classes

    Vedantu has appointed two senior executives, Kunal Dubey as Marketing Head and Lucky Saini as Brand Head in its marketing unit. This charismatic pair has been playing an active role in driving business growth. Their aim is to promote Vendantu’s services in such a way that it gets more students day by day. They are making efforts to place the Vedantu brand among students and parents as the most favoured and valued Edtech.

    Vedantu’s culture reflects the organization’s rock-solid foundation as well as empathetic leadership. I am humbled to take on this role and believe that a strong culture leads to great business stories. I look forward to building a passionate marketing team that lives and breathes our brand purpose every day. – Kunal Dubey, Marketing manager of Vedantu.

    Dubey worked for eBay India, Flipkart and PhonePe over a period of 15 years of his career whereas Ogilvy, Autumn Gray, Flipkart, Manipal Education and Manipal Group have managed to share Saini’s career.

    Here are some interesting features of  this e-learning firm:

    • Personalized LIVE training from home comfort. This means that a pupil receives a committed teacher’s full attention and studies at his own speed. Teacher-student relationships are powerful, bidirectional, and technologically controlled for quality improvement.
    • They have also introduced experiments such as video games which are not only fun but knowledgeable in order to make the class more interactive and student-friendly.
    • They have a feature of the feedback system where teachers frequently inform parents about the success of their child. This provides an edge over the conventional PTM meeting held twice or thrice a year at schools/colleges.

    BYJU’S Success Story – Latest News | Story | Funding
    This is the story of how Byju Raveendran started Byju’s and revolutionized the Indian education industry. Also check the Byju’s funding, news, and more.


    Vedantu Viral Marketing Campaigns

    Aamir Khan Promoting Vedantu | Vedantu Marketing Campaign

    Vedantu marketing strategy included marketing campaigns that went viral and gained good publicity to attract students and parents.

    • Vedantu markets its packages on its website, Google advertising and forum digitally.
    • It is a tuneful and captivating commercial telecast on TV & social media channels that catches the interest of children.
    • Aamir Khan being the brand ambassador of Vedantu portrays wonderfully the role of an interested father and gives the character its own charm.
    • The TV ad is very attractive and linked to a fun, jingle-filled learning experience.

    “Samajh aayega toh maza aayega, maza aayega toh samajh aayega”

    • The TV ads add credibility and allow the brand to explain its message to a broader audience. These ads help to drive the social campaign as well. There is more chance that the customer is going to visit your social or digital platform once they see your ads.
    • The Initiative underlines the need to make the children’s learning experience more exciting and successful by using LIVE streaming lessons.

    BYJU’s Success Story – Latest News | Founder | Business Model | History
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    Vedantu’s Target Audience

    Vedantu's target audience
    Vedantu’s target audience 

    Vedantu’s target audience is all school-going children and college students. As they provide free access to all live classes and content of pre-school, class 1-12, JEE, NEET, and other entrance examinations. The platform also targets teachers who teach unique subjects and who are able to devote multiple hours teaching online and to seek extra revenue. It also approaches coaching institutes that can teach online to a range of tutors. So far, the brand has covered 500+ cities Worldwide with 39,787,257+ happy students.

    Conclusion

    Here, we understood the marketing strategy of Vedantu i.e, Vedantu’s Pricing Strategy and Vedantu’s Target Audience. The sole aim of the organization is to create an educational world that is readily available to all. Individually flexible in terms of experience better than community classes and options that the online platform offers, for example, the instructor preference, time schedule and, most notably, study standard.

    FAQs

    What are the five marketing strategies?

    The 5 Ps of Marketing are:

    • Product
    • Price
    • Promotion
    • Place
    • People

    What is the business model of Vedantu?

    Vedantu operates on a B2C business model whereby the company provides services like live online tutoring to students from K-12, college students, and also the one who is preparing for various competitive exams.

    How does Vedantu make money?

    Vedantu earns money mainly by providing education support services and charging a fee for the same. They have different fee structures as per the different subscription plans.

    Who are the competitors of Vedantu?

    Some of the top competitors of Vedantu are:

    • BYJU
    • Unacademy
    • Chegg
    • Meritnation
    • Toppr
    • Wonderschool
    • Simplilearn

    Who is owner of Vedantu?

    Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Anand Prakash, and Saurabh Saxena are the founders of Vedantu.

  • Is BYJU’S Creating a Monopoly in the Edtech Sector?

    The pandemic has contributed to the growth of the technology sector and made it a necessity. The entire world has shifted from offline to online mode.

    All the office work, teaching, and learning went online. This gave rise to more and more platforms that support these services.

    With schools, colleges, and coaching being shut down, the ed-tech sector became the need of the hour. One name in this sector that gained huge popularity is BYJU’S.

    BYJU’S is one of the most popular platforms in the ed-tech sector. With its great teachers, learning material, and latest technologies, it has earned quite a big space in student’s life.

    What is BYJU’S?
    BYJU’s and the Effect on Ed-tech During Pandemic
    Is BYJU’s Creating a Monopoly in the Ed-tech Sector?
    What Makes BYJU’S So Popular Than the Others in Ed-Tech Sector?
    FAQ

    What is BYJU’S?

    BYJU’S is a technology-based educational platform. It has various programs for students to learn between the 1st to 12thstandards. It also offers various courses for exam preparations. These include CAT, MAT, NEET, JEE.

    The company aims to develop self-learning among children. It helps the students to clear their doubts many times without any hesitation. It provides learning through the best-qualified teachers.

    Foundation

    BYJU’S was founded in the year 2011. Byju Raveendran and his wife, Divya Gokulnath collectively found the company. As the name suggests, the company is named after the founder’s name.

    The company has its headquarters located in Bengaluru.

    Where Did the Idea Come for the Startup?

    The idea came in Byju’s head while helping his friend crack the CAT exam during his vacations. He also gave the exam and cleared it with 100 percent.

    After that, he began to conduct workshops on mathematics. Later, to expand his reach, he began to record his workshops. This was the time when startup seed was sown in his head.

    BYJU’s and the Effect on Ed-tech Sector During Pandemic

    The concept of tuition has always been there. The students who didn’t understand the course at school or couldn’t score well would opt for the tuition. Sometimes the students would go to their friends or someone elder living nearby to learn. The other times, especially the older students would join coaching centres.

    BYJU’S helps the students to learn out of the four walls of the school. It clears various doubts of the students like tuition but in an online format. The concept of the company was amazing. But it didn’t get much popularity as most people didn’t want increased screen time for their children.

    However, The pandemic changed the entire scenario. The whole learning process shifted to the online mode. Even the regular school’s classes got reduced to mere a screen. With lockdowns everywhere, the local tuitions and coaching centres got closed.

    This was the time when people had to understand the need for online learning. During the pandemic, BYJU’S made its content for 1st-12thstandard free for all for a while. This helped the platform gain huge popularity and audience towards itself. Thus, the pandemic proved to be a boon for BYJU’S.

    The company was also able to raise significant funding during this time and became a deacorn (A company valued at $10 billion) with a valuation of $10.5 billion.

    Is BYJU’S Creating a Monopoly in the Ed-tech Sector?

    BYJU’S does have various competitors in the market. However, certain reasons are showing that it may be trying to create a monopoly. These are:

    Empire Building

    BYJU’s trying to establish itself not only in India but outside as well. BYJU’S didn’t see a sudden growth in the initial days. It took the company almost four years to gain a student’s audience of 40 million. During the pandemic, however, this number rose to 65 million.

    The company aims to develop a learning app for global students as well. With its acquisition of WhiteHat Jr., it aims to serve the students in New Zealand, Australia, etc. By building an empire, BYJU’S seems to create a monopoly.

    Byju’s Acquisitions Spree

    BYJU’S has indulged in 18 acquisitions and an investment, spending more than $2.88 billion. Out of these 10 acquisitions were made in 2021. These included- Scholar, HashLearn, Gradeup, Great Learning, Aakash Educational Services, GeoGebra, Tynker, Whodat, Toppr, Epic.

    Aakash Educational Services has a strong level of trust among the students and parents. It has been a tried and trusted source for Indian customers. BYJU’s acquisition of it gained a huge customer base and trust towards the company.

    Startup Name Acquisition Date Acquisition Amount
    Vidyartha January 2017 Rs 50 Crore
    TutorVista and Edurite July 2017 $5 million – $30 million
    Math Adventures July 2018 $100 million
    Osmo January 2019 $120 million
    WhiteHat Jr. August 2020 $300 million
    LabInApp September 2020
    Aakash Educational Services Ltd January 2021 $1 billion

    BYJU’s various acquisitions seem to be a reason that shows it is trying to create a monopoly in the ed-tech sector.

    Valuable Unicorn

    BYJU’S over the years has now earned a huge valuation for itself. In June 2021, BYJU’S became the most valuable unicorn in India. It even surpassed the digital payment platform, Paytm. BYJU earned this without going public.

    The company hasn’t indicated any definite plans to go public. But when it goes, it is sure to create a huge impact in the entire ed-tech market with great success.

    BYJU’S holds an important position in the ed-tech market but this position doesn’t come without competitors. It has various competitors like Unacademy, Vedantu, Toppr, and more.

    There are certain points that make BYJU’S a highlight in the ed-tech industry. These are:

    • It has courses for children in kindergarten. Also, it has courses for students preparing for competitive exams.
    • The teaching methods used by BYJU’S are super effective. They impart knowledge through videos that have a super catchy pattern.
    • The lessons offered by BYJU’S are easier to understand. They are more interactive in nature than other platforms.
    • BYJU’S also has a pool of knowledge and study material for the people preparing for government jobs.
    • Unlike various platforms, BYJU’S offers lessons in many languages. For example- Hindi, Telegu, etc. This enables the company to attract a wide range of audiences to the platform.
    • BYJU’S also conducts live classes for various courses. For example- competitive exam prep, coding, and tutoring. This develops a better sense of interest among the students.

    Udemy: E-learning Platform | online courses
    Udemy is an online learning platform for learners. Read the success story of Udemy, and know about Udemy online courses, Udemy Business Model, and more.


    Conclusion

    BYJU’S is one of the leading platforms in the ed-tech sector. The pandemic brought various competitors to the company. BYJU’S yet, with its expansion, acquisitions, and strategies, continues to stand out from the rest.

    BYJU’s acquisition of Aakash Educational Services, Gradeup, and WhiteHat Jr. are the biggest contributions towards its growth. These helped BYJU’S gain trust and a huge customer base. With all these, BYJU’S does seem to create a monopoly in the ed-tech sector.  However, only time will tell if it enjoys the status of monopoly in the future.

    FAQ

    Is BYJU’s creating a monopoly?

    BYJU’S has indulged in 18 acquisitions with these many acquisitions it looks like Byjus is trying to create a monopoly in the edtech sector.

    Did BYJU’s acquire Aakash?

    Yes, Byju’s acquired Aakash in January 2021 for $1 billion.

  • List of Brands Endorsed By Shah Rukh Khan | SRK’s Brand Ambassador List

    Brand ambassadors have become an important part, and more truly, an inseparable part of marketing and advertising for a majority of the companies in the country today. An actor/celebrity who is not only known as the Badshah of Bollywood but also stands among the most in-demand celebrities in the advertising world is Shah Rukh Khan.

    The charismatic actor is fondly known as the king of Bollywood, a name he earned as the leading face of countless romantic movies that he acted in over a period of nearly 3 decades. Along with being impressive in his films, Shah Rukh Khan has always been a friendly and philanthropic personality even outside the B-town, who has won millions of hearts throughout the years. All of these characteristics also made him the advertisers’ favorite starting from the 90s.

    Shah Rukh Khan is one of the biggest Bollywood actors, film producers, and television personalities. The actor has worked in more than 80 movies and has won numerous awards and accolades such as the Filmfare, Padma Shri by the Indian Government, Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Knight of the Legion of Honour by the government of France. The actor has fans not only in India but all across the world, making him one of the highest-paid actors in 2021.

    The actor is known for his movies such as Baazigar, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil To Pagal Hain, Swades, Devdas, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, My Name Is Khan, and Chak De! India, to name some. Despite his acting career, the actor is also the co-chairman of the motion picture production company known as Red Chillies Entertainment and its subsidiaries. Furthermore, he is also distinguished as the co-owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders – a cricket team in the Indian Premier League.

    The media has named him the “Brand SRK” because of all the endorsements and entrepreneurship ventures to the actor’s name. Shah Rukh Khan is one of the richest Indian actors with a net worth of $750 million and a brand value of $51.1 million in 2021. The iconic actor charges over Rs 3.4 to 4 crore per day for an ad shoot and has so far endorsed around 40 brands.

    Here is a List of Brands endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan:

    1. Byju’s
    2. Dubai Tourism
    3. BigBasket
    4. Hyundai
    5. Frooti
    6. D’decor
    7. Fair and Handsome
    8. FoodPanda
    9. Reliance Jio
    10. ICICI Bank
    11. Denver
    12. Kent
    13. Dish TV

    Byju’s

    BYJU’ S AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    Byju’s is an Indian multinational Ed-tech company that is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The company was founded by Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath in 2011. Byju is currently a market leader and one of the most valuable Edtech companies in the world.

    By 2018, Byju’s had over 15 million users and 900,000 paid users. Shah Rukh Khan became the brand ambassador for Byjus in 2017. In a recent campaign put out by the company, Shah Rukh Khan is seen playing the role of a talk show host for children known as Ghar Ghar Ki Kahaani, where he conducts a topical debate on whether children should learn from home.

    The children then break the age-old learning stereotypes and talk about the power and impact of tech-enabled learning platforms.

    However, after the arrest of his son Aryan, Shah Rukh’s ads have currently been halted by the Edtech giant. The Byju’s advertisements are reportedly one of the biggest deals for the actor that used to help him earn around Rs 3-4 crores as annual fees. The actor’s ads have been taken down from all the platforms soon after Byju’s started facing an enormous amount of backlash over Facebook, Twitter, and other popular social media platforms.


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    Dubai Tourism

    Dubai Tourism AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    Dubai Tourism made Shah Rukh Khan its brand ambassador in 2016. SRK has done multiple short films in Dubai since then, where the actor can be seen unraveling the secrets of Dubai, offering his fans to see the city through Shah Rukh Khan’s eyes.

    The commercials aim to appeal to SRK’s fans across the world, giving them the opportunity to explore the city and its many offerings. The actor has signed up for a year-long campaign of multiple Dubai Tourism projects in collaboration with Bollywood.

    Their major objective through the campaign is to strengthen and celebrate the bond and cultural links between Dubai and the subcontinent. This also portrays the importance of India as a key source market for inbound tourism to the emirate.

    BigBasket

    BigBasket AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    BigBasket is an Indian online grocery delivery service that was founded by Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari, and Ramesh in 2011 and has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The company delivers grocery goods found in convenience stores, home essentials, and a huge variety of food supplies to its customers.

    So far, the company offers over 18,000 products and boasts more than 100 brands in its catalog so that the customers can find whatever they want. Big Basket made SRK its brand ambassador in 2015 and the actor has since then appeared in many of its television commercials.

    In an interview, Vipul Parekh the co-founder of Big Basket said that they selected SRK because of his universal appeal which cuts across different ages, gender, and geography. Parekh also said that SRK has the ability to get into the skin of the character and embody it with a lot of believability. The company has done many campaigns with an actor that covers all channels such as print, TV, outdoor, and radio.

    Hyundai

    Hyundai AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    Hyundai is a South Korean multinational automotive company that was founded in 1967 and has its headquarters based in Seoul. The Hyundai Motor Group currently owns 33.88% of KIA Corporation and fully owns two car subsidiaries, which are Genesis Motor and Loniq.

    The company also owns the world’s largest automobile manufacturing factory with a capacity of 1.6 million units in Ulsan. The company has 75,000 employees worldwide and has so far sold over in 193 countries through 5,000 dealerships and showrooms. Shah Rukh Khan has been associated with the company for more than 20 years as its brand ambassador.

    According to a company statement, YK Koo the MD and CEO of Hyundai Motor India Ltd said that SRK is one of the first Hyundai Family members and has played a key role in the success of Santro since the company’s inception in India. The company’s association with SRK has enhanced and propagated its brand values.


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    Frooti

    Frooti AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    Frooti is a mango-flavored drink that is sold in the country. It is a flagship product and is also considered to be the most successful drink from the house of Parle Agro. The drink was first launched in 1985 in the packaging of Tetra Pak.

    Frooti is also a popular drink in the countries of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Maldives, Singapore, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Mozambique, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Japan, and Ireland. Shah Rukh Khan became the company’s brand ambassador in 2013 and has done multiple TV campaigns to promote it.

    One of the most popular frooti ads features SRK with a bunch of children. In an interview, SRK revealed that he is delighted to be the face of Frooti, the mango drink that the entire nation has always been fond of. He also added that no other brand conjures up so much joy, desire, and magic around it as Frooti does.‌

    D’decor

    D’Decor AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    D’décor is one of the most well-known manufacturers and exporters of curtain and upholstery fabrics. Their products are said to be designed in-house and are used by many interior designers and furniture makers across the US and other European countries.

    D’décor exports home fabrics to more than 15 countries such as the US, Belgium, the UK, and the Middle East. The company’s clients are usually international brands across the globe in the home space. D’décor launched its first-ever ad campaign in India featuring not only SRK but also his wife Gauri Khan in order to sell directly to consumers in India.

    Ajay Arora, the managing director of  D’décor in an interview disclosed that the brand chose the couple because, they perceived a match between SRK’s qualities and what the brand stands for, such as leadership, innovation, and ethics.

    He also added that SRK and Gauri Khan, together, are an ideal image of homemakers and imply family. Having the power couple endorse the brand will help strike a chord with Indian families.


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    Fair and Handsome

    Fair and Handsome AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    Fair and Handsome is a men’s fairness product created by the Emami Group. The company got into the fairness category for men in 2005, which made it the first FMCG Company in India with products for men at that time. Currently, the company is the largest brand in the category of men’s fairness in India.

    Fair and handsome was launched on the basis of research that found that the texture of a man’s skin is different from that of a woman and needs a product designed exclusively for them. The actor has become the company’s brand ambassador and appeared in numerous television commercials over the years.

    Shah Rukh Khan also endorses other brands of Emami such as Himani Navratna Oil and Himani Sona Chandi Chyawanprash. He has also been in controversy for endorsing fairness creams like Fair and Handsome.‌

    FoodPanda

    FoodPanda AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    Foodpanda is an online food and grocery delivery platform brand owned by Delivery Hero since 2016 and has its headquarters in Berlin, Germany. The company currently operates 20 brands in more than 50 countries across four continents.

    The company was launched in 2012 in India and claimed to have over 12,000 restaurant partners across 100 cities in the country. In India, Foodpanda used to compete with companies like Swiggy and Zomato in the food delivery market before it was acquired by OLA for an all-share deal on December 11, 2017. The star became its brand ambassador in 2017. One of the commercials featuring SRK showcases the various offerings of the company, including early morning and late-night delivery, express guarantee, and the best offers on restaurants.

    The campaign was first released on television followed by successive releases in other forms of media like in print, radio, and in the traditional form. SRK helped the company reach the masses and gave it a platform immense reach.


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    Reliance Jio

    Reliance Jio AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    Reliance Jio is one of the biggest telecommunications companies in India that has its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company operates a national LTE network with coverage across 22 telecom circles and offers only 4G networks.

    Jio is known to be the largest mobile network operator in the country, along with being the second-largest mobile network operator in the world as it has over 431.23 million subscribers, as of July 2021. As of 2020, Reliance Industries has raised $23 billion by selling over a 33% equity stake in Jio Platforms.

    Shah Rukh Khan became the company brand ambassador in 2015 and has promoted the brand on different platforms.

    In an interview, Khan said, “We have only seen the tip of the iceberg. It will lead to a lot of innovations. This will increase speed, information, and knowledge. It will be used at various places, I think, from education to production to manufacturing. I am talking very futuristic.”

    ICICI Bank

    ICICI Bank AD – Shah Rukh Khan Brand Endorsements

    ICICI Bank is one of the most well-known privately owned Indian development finance institutions with offices in Vadodara and Mumbai. It is considered to be one of the Big Four banks of India. The company offers a variety of banking products and financial services for corporate clients and retail customers through different delivery channels.

    It is a leader in providing services in the areas of investment banking, life insurance, venture capital, and asset management. The bank has a network of over 5,275 branches and 15,589+ ATMs across India and has a presence in 17 other countries such as the UK, Canada, USA, Singapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Qatar, Oman, Dubai, China, South Africa, UAE, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, etc.

    Shah Rukh Khan has been previously announced as the global ambassador of the ICICI Bank and had appeared in many of its ads after the brand took a break from Amitabh Bachchan in August 2019. Soon after, KV Kamath, the MD, and CEO of ICICI Bank said, “We are proud to have Shah Rukh Khan as our global brand ambassador. Having established our leadership in the retail business over the last five years, the bank is now poised to scale new heights in the global arena.”

    Denver

    Denver is one of the leading brands in the cosmetic/grooming industry that produces some outstandingly popular deodorants for men. Cradled under the manufacturing hub, Vanesa Care, Denver roped in Shah Rukh Khan on August 22, 2017, and the actor had since been seen in numerous marketing and promotional campaigns as the face of the brand.

    Kent

    Headquartered in Noida, UP, Kent is a prominent healthcare product manufacturing multinational company in India that manufactures modern kitchen appliances, disinfectants, air and water purifiers, vacuum cleaners, and more. Kent RO Systems is popular for its water purifiers, which used the process of purification by reverse osmosis. Shah Rukh Khan had been appointed as the brand ambassador of Kent in February 2019 for its upcoming automotive security products range.

    Dish TV

    Owned and operated by ZEE Group, Dish TV was founded in 2004 as an Indian direct broadcast satellite service provider. Dish TV is a household name for the services it has provided. A part of its credit also goes to the unique advertisement campaigns launched by the company featuring Shah Rukh Khan. #WishKaroDishKaro, voiced by Khan, still strikes a chord among the millennials. The actor, who had already represented the brand for more than 8 years back in 2016, extended his collaboration for 2 more years in the month of March of the same year.

    Conclusion

    Over the years, SRK has worked with various brands ranging from Pepsi to pan masala. Furthermore, he has also been a prominent face for many brands, including various resorts, sports leagues, both Indian and foreign states, cities, and more, which helped him gain a prime spot among the most in-demand celebrities for endorsements in India.

    According to the TAM report, SRK adds over 3% share of volume on TV with an average visibility of 4 hours per day across all Television channels. This shows that the Badshah of Bollywood is here to stay in the endorsement world for a very long time.

    In recent years, the actor’s brand value has been significantly going down. This has received yet another push with the recent arrest of his son. Following this incident, many advertisers, big companies, and popular institutions have either pulled the plug on Khan’s advertisements or put a halt to any new plans of ads/collaboration of the actor.

    Shah Rukh Khan is known for his strong, dynamic personality, leadership qualities, determination, empathy, power, and most importantly, his modest journey toward becoming the biggest star in the Bollywood Industry. However, it is clear that times are rough for Shah Rukh now and the emergence of a silver lining is not yet in sight still.

    FAQs

    Who is Shah Rukh Khan?

    Shah Rukh Khan is one of the biggest Bollywood actors who has acted in more than 8o movies.

    What is the brand value of Shah Rukh Khan?

    The brand value of Shah Rukh Khan is estimated to be $51.1 million as of 2021.

    What are the main brands endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan?

    The main brands endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan are Dubai Tourism, Reliance Jio, Foodpanda, ICICI Bank, Fair and Handsome, D’décor, Frooti, Hyundai, Big Basket, and Byjus.

    What are the other brands endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan?

    The other brands endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan are Pepsi, Whirlpool, Nokia, Tag Heuer, Dish TV, LUX, Denver, Airtel, Royal Stag, Sunfeast, Pan Vilas, Nokia, Kent, Mitsubishi Air Conditioners, Goibibo, LML, Cinthol, Videocon, PharmEasy, Nerolac, DHFL, Pepsodent, Jet Airways, Gitanjali Jewels, Colgate Palmolive, Signature, Sprite, Tata Tea, Streak, Omega, Hewlett Packard, Hero Punch Power and many more.

    How much does Shah Rukh Khan charge for a brand endorsement?

    Shah Rukh Khan charges over Rs 3.4 to 4 crore per day for an ad shoot.

    What is the net worth of Shah Rukh Khan?

    The net worth of Shah Rukh Khan is estimated to be $750 million in 2021.

  • Why do Companies Acquire Other Startups and Companies?

    “Survival of the fittest” is a phrase the biologist Charles Darwin popularised. This denotes in biology the fact that, for an organism to live and survive in extreme nature, it has to be the fittest. So, the laymen implication is that the fittest are mostly entitled to survive. This is a widely used term in biology, whenever someone studies a species. In fact, every species that you see today is the fittest left out of past versions of species. The process of evolution leaves the fittest and curbs the rest of all.

    While “survival of the fittest” is the truth for the biological world, it seems that the same phrase cannot be used for the trade world. Businesses all over the world need not follow the trend. However a little tweak in that phrase will perfectly fit how the business world behaves. We can say that the business world follows the thumb rule of “Survival of the biggest”. Big corporations with deep pockets run the show. Everywhere you see, its valuations, employees magnitude, and scaling demographics are the prime factors that businesses run after.

    This is not as simple as it sounds. The reason being that every corporation in the world was at a time, nothing but small and fringe. The rough path that these small businesses go through makes them tough and with the flow of time they become fatter and bigger. The traditional path is to go bootstrapped, that is to use its own revenue for growth. Some follow raising capital techniques to go and scale.

    One of the most famous (now) and new trends that the businesses follow to go big is something other than these. It is through the way of acquisitions. So what does it mean ? How does it work ? and why do businesses resort to acquiring other businesses ? These are some questions which we will try to figure out in this article. Read on to discover otherwise unnoticed details.

    What do you mean by an Acquisition?
    Why do Companies Acquire other Companies?
    Types of Acquisitions
    Few Famous Examples for Understanding Acquistion
    FAQ

    What do you mean by an Acquisition?

    Acquisition means buying other corporations. Businesses all over the world follow this method to grow and scale either business. Not to mention that this is probably the fastest way to scale. So, acquisition occurs when one company obtains a majority stake in the other (target) firm, which retains its name and its legal structure.

    This can be done to foster your own growth or it can be also done to revive a dying business. For example, in the year 2002, PayPal was having a rough time and eBay stepped in as a hero to save its life. There are case studies or examples in later of this article but first let us know some basics.

    There are many ways a company can acquire some other company. We will discuss them in detail now. However there can be many types but there are always some prime types of acquisitions. Before jumping into the types of acquisitions, we need to learn why companies do that in the first place.


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    Why do Companies Acquire other Companies?

    There are many benefits to acquiring. That is why big businesses are always looking for good businesses to acquire. They kind of prey on them. The benefits can turn into  disadvantages too if the acquired business is not good. So, the acquirer has to be choosy in this matter. Here we are discussing some of the best known benefits of acquiring other businesses. Read on to find out the reason for which businesses acquire,

    Synergy

    The word synergy means to combine two organisations or substances in order to make the resultant substance more effective than the individual power of every combined corporation. This is one of the biggest reasons why big companies like to acquire other small corporations.

    The resulting organisation after the acquiring process turns out to be more effective and efficient than the previous two individual organisations. This helps in achieving more power and thus to get more market share in whatever product the companies are dealing in. This also ensures that both the companies get bigger market share than they were getting before the acquisition. This is a win-win situation for both the parties, which becomes now a single unit.

    Reducing Competition

    When a company acquires some other company, the resultant company faces less competition. Simply stated, earlier both the companies were competing for the same market share and with similar products.

    With the inception of acquiring, both the companies join hands to eliminate the competition and run towards the same goal of owning more market share. This however requires both the acquirer and the acquiree to be bound by a contract.

    The acquiree may agree to the acquiring terms only after some handsome paycheck. This makes it a little more complex than it looks on the outside. Moreover, for this transaction to happen we need to calculate the exact value of the acquired company which is a time consuming process. Anyhow, once it happens, eliminates the competition.

    Growth and Performance

    Another reason for acquiring a business is growth. This point can be said as a subpoint of the first mentioned reason. A company can grow and scale significantly without doing much hard work by itself.

    Acquiring can do the work for the organisation. It gets the opportunity of growth while achieving the goal of efficiency. You get to use the goodwill of the acquired company and the reach of that company to make your own organisation touch the sky. However, choosing which corporation to acquire is a challenge in itself. If done correctly, it can be a recipe for success and if done wrongly, can make you the architect of your own downfall.

    The Advantage on Cost Savings

    When a business acquires another business, it happens mostly in between businesses of the same product. When two same organisations of supply chain assimilates then this results in cost savings for the resulting company. Thus, by buying out a distributor or supplier of a product, businesses can lower their cost up to a large extent. This helps in achieving efficiency in manufacturing products and thus getting a much larger share of the product market.


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    Types of Acquisitions

    There can be many forms and types of acquisitions. They can differ from one to another with a change in organisation to organisation. There are however, four basic and most widely accepted types. Those four types we are going to list here.

    Horizontal Acquisition

    If you’re a math fan, Horizontal means a flat two dimensional line on a plane. In a market, each organisation has to deliver some sort of value in order to survive. Not only this, they have to strive to be better than everybody else in that segment of product. This competition can be easily eliminated by acquiring the other standing organisation. So horizontal acquisitions are those acquisitions in which a firm acquires another similar firm (in a horizontal direction) to eliminate competition.

    Vertical Acquisition

    As horizontal is a flat line, Vertical is a perpendicular, that is a standing line from ground. In horizontal acquiring we saw firms acquire firms which are in almost the same shoulder as the acquirer. In vertical, we don’t look at some flat line, we just acquire forward or backward of the supply chain. For example, a wholesaler who is a big wholesaler in a market can acquire the manufacturer of the product in order to supply the product at cheap rates. This is known as backward vertical acquisition. In the same manner, if that wholesaler acquires a retailer, then it will be called a forward vertical acquisition. In this case he/she will be able to be more consumer facing and consumer centric.

    Congeneric Acquisition

    This acquisition is a little bit different than types mentioned before. So, in this modern world when time is really a luxury, we tend to go to shopping malls to get everything at one place. This helps us to save time travelling. This concept inspired the mode of Congeneric acquisition, which says to acquire businesses to provide a one-stop destination for your clients. For example, a bank whose big customers require more frequent travel around the world may need travel insurance.

    After identifying this opportunity, that bank can buy or acquire an insurance company in order to help get its customers a travel insurance plan. This makes them more profitable and provides the customers with a one stop market. This reduces hassle for both the parties.

    Conglomerate Acquisition

    This type takes the acquisition models to a whole new level. It is an acquisition between companies that are totally different. They have different products or services, different demographics, different business and revenue models. Even with all these disparities, they go on and initiate the acquiring process.

    The reason for such an acquisition happening is that the company is trying to go on unexplored territories. They want to expand to new places and to a different product market. This type of diversification strategy helps both the firms in diversification of their businesses, Synergy benefits, increasing customers magnitude, and to achieve better economies in scale.

    One famous example of this type of acquisition can be the merger between PayPal and eBay, both the companies are totally different and PayPal in 2002 was struggling to play in the payments markets.

    eBay acquired it by paying a sum like a billion dollars and kept PayPal going. Since then PayPal is able to revolutionise payments in the whole of the world. This is what a good acquisition can do to companies and it is still considered a benchmark in silicon valley.

    Few Famous Examples for Understanding Acquistion

    We all are fans of big and flashy organisations but most often we don’t get to see the BTS (Behind the scenes). Almost every big organisation has acquired some other businesses to foster growth. They were small too at some point in time, but now stand at a paramount position. Here are some examples of a few famous behemoths.

    Apple bought Siri (the automatic personal assistant) in 2010 to enhance its then newly launched iPhones. It became an instant hit and iPhone users loved it. So, In 2014, Apple purchased Novauris Technologies, which was a company specialised in speech-recognition-technology, in order to further enhance Siri’s capabilities. In 2014, Apple also purchased Beats Electronics, which had recently launched a music-streaming service. Both the companies now enjoy the biggest market share in their product segments.

    Speaking at India level, we are not too far off the list. We have seen many acquisitions in our business world as well. Startups do it, established companies have done it.

    Say for example Zomato in the year 2020 acquired Uber eats. In January 2020, Zomato had acquired Uber Eats’ India operations in a non-cash deal for ₹1,376 crore, excluding an amount of Rs 248 crore payable towards GST. As part of the deal, Zomato issued 76,376 compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares (CCPS), each valued at ₹180,153, to Uber India. This acquisition was done to make Zomato scale and touch new heights, which it did. Zomato went on to even get listed in Indian stock exchange on July 27, 2021. Its story has been repeatedly referred to as a great success story in our startup ecosystem.

    Another big acquisition which the Indian startup ecosystem recently saw was BYJU’s acquiring Akash Institute for a whopping billion dollars. Byju’s is an educational and technology faced startup, referred to as an Ed-tech company. On the other hand Akash institutions are one of India’s biggest coaching institutes for competitive exams. This acquisition made Byju’s spread its wings as the company prepares to take a flight that will cover the whole of India. IPO-Bound BYJU’s Spent More Than $2.4 Bn On Acquisitions In 2021

    Top Acquisitions of Byju's
    Top Acquisitions of Byju’s

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    Conclusion

    So we read what acquisition is and why companies acquire other companies. They can be a great way to scale in a country like India. Not to mention that the second most populous country is still in its development phase. Despite being hard to perform, acquiring businesses has become famous among not just big companies but new age startups too. New age startups like Zomato or BYJUs are open to buy corporations to scale new heights.

    There is however, indeed no magic formula for a successful acquisition. All we can do and hope and research for, is just better probabilities. Each deal has its own research and its own personal strategies at the back. But an acquisition is mostly seen as a neat method to scale, if done correctly. India has seen multiple acquisitions and it has seen economics of startups at scale too.

    This is a new world where leverage is at its probable peak. Anyone from anywhere can use it, but the thing that differs is how the person uses it. Use it well and you will fly, use it badly and you may become the architect of your own downfall. Some people may want to quote that “there are no losses, only learnings” and I agree with that.

    FAQ

    Why do companies buy out other companies?

    The major reasons companies acquire other companies to seek economies of scale, diversification, greater market share, increased synergy, cost reductions, or new niche offerings.

    Why companies merge or acquire?

    The most common factor companies acquire other companies are to grow its market share and reduce the costs of developing business activities.

    How do company acquisitions work?

    An acquisition is when a company acquires the target company’s shares to make decisions about the newly acquired assets.

  • CareerLabs: Building a Road Map of Success for College Graduates

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by CareerLabs.

    Bangalore-based CareerLabs is an EdTech platform helping young professionals and college graduates build a concrete road map for their careers. It is India’s first Profile-Building Platform to help students prepare for their professional life beyond college. The startup has conducted more than 150 Recruitment drives and partnered with various other industry leaders like DR. Reddy’s, HelloIntern for exclusive programs that bring students closer to the industry and provide direct Job Opportunities.

    StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Santosh P N (Co-founder & CEO, CareerLabs) to get insights into the startup story and the roadmap of the organization. In this article, you’ll know how Byju’s ex-team founded CareerLabs, its business model, future plans, and more.

    CareerLabs – Company Highlights

    Startup Name CareerLabs
    Founders Santosh P N (CEO), Krithika Srinivasan (Director, Service delivery)
    Headquarters Bangalore
    Founded 2019
    Industry Edtech
    Website thecareerlabs.com

    CareerLabs – About and Vision
    CareerLabs – Market Opportunity
    CareerLabs – Inspiration and Idea
    CareerLabs – Product/Service & USP
    CareerLabs – Founders and Team
    CareerLabs – Name, Tagline and Logo
    CareerLabs – Business Model & Revenue Model
    CareerLabs – Startup Launch
    CareerLabs – Challenges Faced
    CareerLabs – Funding & Investors
    CareerLabs – Competitors
    CareerLabs – Tools used to run the startup
    CareerLabs – Awards and Achievements
    CareerLabs – Future Plans
    CareerLabs – FAQs

    CareerLabs – About and Vision

    CareerLabs is on a mission to enable 1 million students to learn and earn better with the necessary guidance. Most students in college aspire to land their dream job, but due to the lack of industry-relevant skills, they end up in the wrong placements. Students in their initial careers need hand-holding; at CareerLabs, the team offers students more than six courses that fit their interests and strengths with its career recommendations track. It is a year-long journey that students take up with CareerLabs and with real-time projects and hands-on experience at the end of the courses. These projects and experiences help students kick start their careers.

    CareerLabs Growth
    CareerLabs Statistics

    CareerLabs – Market Opportunity

    CareerLabs services undergrad college students to pursue up-skilling towards higher studies and placements. This is enabled through courses, test preparation classes, consulting services, and self-learning modules. It caters to all graduate students across India. The opportunity size for this market in India is $2.51 Billion that covers skilling, certification, and higher education.

    In the next five years, the market opportunity of Career Labs is –

    CareerLabs Industry Details
    CareerLabs Market Opportunity

    CareerLabs – Inspiration and Idea

    PN Santosh (Co-Founder/CEO,) Krithika Srinivasan (Co-Founder/Director service delivery), and Prasanna (VP, People & Process) have been part of leadership roles at Byju’s. Santosh was one of the founding members of Byju’s from 2008 to 2019. He was also the first student of Byju’s in 2007 and first employee in 2009. The relationship with Byju’s goes long. Santosh was looking after the entire test preparation domain in Byju’s where he was helping students with GRE, GMAT, MBA admission in India & abroad, and anything related to college students going for a master’s program.

    Krithika, now Co-Founder and Director of Service Delivery at CareerLabs, joined Byjus where she used to take care of Admission Consulting services. Krithika is a double master’s from the University of Michigan and also India’s only Harvard-certified admission consultant. Prasanna who later joined the team at Byju’s is an IIM Bangalore graduate and was looking after the B2B marketing initiatives.

    Clocking $4 million in revenue and on the way to hitting $10 million, the trio had already built a massive connection with colleges and was actively servicing around 15,000 students for Byju’s. In 2019, this college segment became smaller and smaller as Byju’s started focusing on school students. Whereas, the current founding team of CareerLabs was always determined to serve the college segment. Thus, the decision to start CareerLabs was marked upon in August 2019.

    The idea here was to have a solid focus on college, their students, and help them in their career path, whether it’s a master’s program or getting into a perfect job. They started with a hundred-member team and now have close to 200 members with base offices across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Mumbai.

    Santosh PN (Co-founder & CEO) added – “The inspiration was, if you go to any college today, not more than 20% of students want to think about a master’s as their primary choice after graduation. Majority of the students are looking for jobs, and it’s understandable. Many of them would have taken a bank loan to do a master’s for graduation, a family situation, or might be looking for a break. All of this pushes them towards taking up a job. So many college TPO, Principals, Chairman, and students came to us and asked, why don’t you help our students in terms of getting a good job, because that is a primary requirement”

    CareerLabs – Product/Service & USP

    CareerLabs predominantly works with pre-final engineering college students where the students join its flagship one-year-long profile builder program.

    CareerLabs - Service/Product
    CareerLabs Profile Builder Platform
    1. Career Discovery & CareerWizard: When students sign up for the program, the team at CareerLabs first moves them from confusion to clarity. They help students understand the best-suited platform. They call this step Career Discovery. What happens in the space is, students take a bunch of diagnostic tests, the data is fed into the recommendation engine called CareerWizard. This helps the team to map the data to the right career track. It’s an AI-based recommendation engine. Krithika (Co-founder) is the brain behind the design and modeling of this engine.
    2. CareerLabs has successfully built some attractive models, where the moment a student enters the platform, the model can map the student to a cohort of students in the last few years. Based on this data, it recommends the top six career options, which are the students’ best fit.  
    3. This journey is mostly completed in the 3rd year of college; now, when students enter their 4th year, they have to decide whether they want to go for a job or go for a master’s program. Depending on their decision of a job or a master’s program, CareerLabs prepare them accordingly.
    4. For instance, in the case of employment, CareerLabs does the finishing school aspect where the team focuses on actual soft skill training, technical interviews, and prepare for the recruitment drive they conduct on their platform.
    5. In a master’s program, the startup prepares the students for entry-level exams like GRE, GMAT, etc., and helps them get into a good and best-fit master’s college.

    USP of CareerLabs: It has 55+ career tracks on its platform and the team works with the industry with relevant industry-related content on the platform. The recommendation engine has been a huge hit amongst the students, one of the major reasons why they sign up for programs with CareerLabs. It is the only platform in India that is focused on providing end-to-end solutions to help students build their Profile for various goals in Higher Studies and Placements.


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    CareerLabs – Founders and Team

    PN Santosh (CEO) and Krithika Srinivasan (Director service delivery) are the founders of CareerLabs.

    • Santosh drives Revenue and growth
    • Krithika drives Service Delivery and Operations
    • Prasanna drives People and Platform Product
    • Current team size: 200+ Employees
    Founders of CareerLabs
    CareerLabs – Founders and Team

    Commenting on the work culture and hiring nature of CareerLabs, Santosh said –

    As a team who has been inside BYJU’S and seen growth, we knew from day 1 that the right culture and right values with aggressive growth are the foundational DNA of CareerLabs. When we are working directly with students and hand-holding them to craft their careers we cannot afford mistakes. Hence the culture is highly individual ownership driven that enables us to scale holding the right values.

    When it comes to career options, students need to explore, experiment, and then decide the right path. What better way to do it than in a Lab, that lets them experiment and explore their Career options before deciding, with proper guidance. Thus ‘CareerLabs’ – the go-to place for all your career needs.

    #Discover #Explore  

    CareerLabs – Logo

    CareerLabs – Business Model & Revenue Model

    CareerLab’s Products, Services, and Courses are the revenue-generating units of the business. Customers subscribe for the use of its platform and services on an annual basis. It generates revenue through subscription fees.

    It also generates revenue when students take upon the online courses available on its platform. Through the platform, customers upgrade to learning and skilling courses which generate the second part of revenue. Outside of the platform customers directly enroll in its courses which generate the 3rd part of the revenue.

    CareerLabs – Startup Launch

    CareerLabs had a running channel of college partnerships which the team leveraged to engage and onboard the first 100 customers for the flagship profile builder product. Though they had the tools to automate this process, the team decided to opt for a manual approach to get first-hand feedback from each student at each step and of course, correct the workflow and services. This helped them in tweaking their product.

    “Students don’t join us for a course, they join us for a journey”, Santosh added. It’s long and it’s rewarding. This is the basic approach they take up in the platform. Students who enroll, travel this journey as a group with other peers in the program, and hence there is inbuilt community support that drives participation and completion. The user retention is anchored on the DNA of the Platform.

    As a platform for students’ skilling and growth, CareerLabs brings all stakeholders into a single place to let interactions and synergies evolve. This was strategically planned so that they had various engines of teams and platforms running for each stakeholder of this platform. It had a student engagement engine and the team kept scaling their outreach to the level that as of now CareerLabs has reached out to more than 200,000 students and engaged them actively.

    Colleges trust CareerLabs to deliver what it promises due to various strategic moves like the partnership with AICTE. CareerLabs is the official partner of the AICTE NEAT 2.0 initiative under the Ministry of Education, GOI

    There is a Corporate outreach engine that engages and brings in meaningful opportunities for students including exclusive workshops, job opportunities, internships, and industry-led training programs. The startup has conducted more than 150 Recruitment drives, partnered with various other industry leaders like DR. Reddy’s & HelloIntern, and signed an MoU with Tech Mahindra for exclusive programs that bring students closer to the industry and provide direct Job Opportunities.

    A variant of its offerings is a CareerLabs Assured Placement Program, this program was an instant hit amongst college students.


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    CareerLabs – Challenges Faced

    Just like most initiatives, CareerLabs also faced pandemic challenges. The resolve of the team was to the level that they met the Covid-19 challenge head-on. With so many uncertainties for students and colleges, added to that economic downturn that dried up the job market for freshers, the CareerLabs team worked round the clock to help students in these difficult times.

    While the startup’s revenues also took some hits at an early stage, it recovered well with full digitization of its student engagements and brought one step ahead on adjusting the evolving behaviors and learning patterns of the students. As a brand that is taking students through the journey of Profile Building, CareerLabs’ major challenge was to evangelize the concept of Profile building for students. 90% of students were unaware of this. Students were under the impression that doing a course or a certification can land them a job! This led them to sign up for run-of-the-mill services where they ended up losing money and time.

    CareerLabs started by evangelizing the concept of Profile building through workshops for more than 1.5 Lac students over 1.5 Years continuously both physically and digitally. This was building India’s 1st Profile Building Platform in the form of the ELEV8 App that provides students an experiential journey for students.

    As a startup that is ambitious and rapidly scaling, the team experiments at the frontier opportunities and technologies. One of its experiments that worked well is the recent initiative to organize placement opportunities for more than 3500 students from Engineering colleges in Telangana within a span of 3 weeks.  

    CareerLabs – Funding & Investors

    CareerLabs has raised USD 2.2 Million in its Pre Series A funding (equity funding).

    It will be spending 30% of this funding for technology development (including enhancement of the AI-based recommendation engine and completely automated servicing portal), 40% for new product development (including in house content development, an app for nurturing and servicing the students, and unique product for international markets) and 30% for recent talent acquisition (esp. in product, tech and sales roles).

    CareerLabs – Competitors

    CareerLabs, as a platform, works with students to solve multiple pain points. For each of these pain points, there will be a discrete local competition. But no one can provide a complete holistic end-to-end solution for college students at scale and at an affordable price.

    Hence at a Profile Building Platform level, there is hardly any competition for CareerLabs. Nevertheless, the competitive advantage for CareerLabs comes from a combination of excellence in product, data-driven Intellectual Property. The Profile Builder Product is solutioning at a level that other course solutions providers cannot scale too. The Recommendation engine, which personalizes the entire Profile building journey, ensures students’ right fit and stickiness.

    CareerLabs Competitors
    CareerLabs – Competitive Landscape

    CareerLabs – Tools used to run the startup

    • Leadsquared for CRM
    • CleverTap for Product Data / Marketing Analytics
    • DoveTail for Customer Research
    • Jira for Project Management
    • Exotel / Ameyo for Calling solutions
    • Gsuite for Emails, among many

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    CareerLabs – Awards and Achievements

    CareerLabs was awarded the Future of Workforce award in 2020 for the APAC region in the APAC EdTech Competition.

    CareerLabs – Future Plans

    “Sustained, aggressive Growth is our mantra as we head towards directly impacting and working with 1 Million students to help them learn and earn better” Santosh added.

    CareerLabs is expanding geographically across all regions in India with centers coming up in Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.

    It is expanding its product portfolio to help Engineering, BBA, and soon Commerce students and colleges. Apart from this, the startup also plans to expand into various higher education admissions spaces across specializations.

    The CareerLabs ELEV8 app is going to do what BYJU the learning app did in the School space. The app is providing a solid platform for students to explore, build a profile and apply to jobs and internships in a single place. The added advantage of the app is the unique Higher education options and exploration built in to cover end-to-end requirements for students.

    CareerLabs – FAQs

    What is CareerLabs?

    CareerLabs is India’s first Profile-Building Platform to help students prepare for their professional life beyond college.

    Is CareerLabs an Indian Company?

    Yes. Careerlabs is an Indian company headquartered in Bangalore, India.

    Who founded CareerLabs?

    PN Santosh (CEO) and Krithika Srinivasan (Director service delivery) are the founders of CareerLabs.

    How does CareerLabs make money?

    CareerLab’s Products, Services, and Courses are the revenue-generating units of the business. Customers subscribe for the use of its platform and services on an annual basis. It generates revenue through subscription fees and also by selling its courses online.

    How much funding has CareerLabs raised?

    CareerLabs has raised USD 2.2 Million in its Pre Series A round.

  • Why Byju’s Work Culture is all over the News

    Work culture is a basic requirement to sustain and progress in a company. Companies like Google and Tesla are known for their “Chill” work environment, where the employee’s mental health is given a priority. Many office settings are choosing an informal environment for better productivity. The results are assertive.

    While most companies are trying unconventional methods to make office hours to be less intimidating, Byju’s, India’s largest EdTech unicorn is caught up in a row for having the worst work culture. Employees who have quit have allegedly accused Byju’s for having a horrible work environment.

    Byju’s – Latest News
    Byju’s – About The Company
    Byju’s – Work Culture
    Byju’s – WhiteHatJr alleged Scam
    Byju’s – Complaints of being Revenue Oriented
    Conclusion
    FAQs

    Byju’s – Latest News

    July 13, 2021- Byju’s joins hands with Disney and launched a learning App featuring Disney-based character for the U.S. market.

    February 8, 2021- ICC announced Byju’s as a global partner until 2023. The EdTech giant will partner the forthcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in India and the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.

    Byju’s – About The Company

    The EdTech market in India has become an eye candy for Venture Capitalists. Many investors abroad since India is showing a substantial growth graph propelling upwards and gaining grounds abroad. India’s largest EdTech company turned unicorn, the brain child of Byju Ravindran, Byju’s is at lightning speed with significant takeovers and increasing on demand education material from parents all over the country.

    Byju’s is said to have plans to acquire the rival EdTech company Toppr for $150 million. The Mumbai-based Toppr provides e-learning materials to grades 5-12.

    The gigantic empire built by Founder & CEO Byju’s Ravindran is almost like a rags to riches titled tale. Passionate about revolutionizing the education system, Byju’s was brought to life in 2015. It all seems roses and rainbows as a bystander, while the company is being called out for being down right shady and unethical as an ongoing concern.

    Byju’s found itself in headlines, when various telephone recordings by their ex employees were leaked in public. Many such instances followed suit and now the company stands accused of having the worst work culture.

    Byju’s – Work Culture

    The entire scenario came to light when a telephonic conversation between a salesperson and their manager was leaked on YouTube. The conversation reveals a lot about the abusive work culture at Byju’s. The manager was furious at the salesperson for not meeting the sales target and held him at the edge for not complying to company protocols.

    Several reviews on various job portals point towards a bad and unsustainable work life at Byju’s. Employees who have quit Byju’s have shed some light over how the EdTech company is entirely focused on generating revenues.

    Byju’s offers a handsome amount of 10 lac per annum package for entry level joiners who enter the organization as Business Development Associates (BDA). However, ex employees have shown utter dismay stating that the figure quoted to them during the interview was a faux figure and the actual remuneration is below expectations. BDAs seem to be the most disappointed across all the departments in the company.

    Other reviews suggest that the company is fast paced and expects prompt delivery from its employees. People have fewer complaints as we climb higher in the organizational structure. If we were to combine all the feedback, the average answer would be that the BDAs are under harsh scrutiny and the work environment is nothing less than toxic.

    BDAs are required to put in 12 to 14 hours and have call timings of minimum 2 hours per client. The leaked conversations hint at a grueling schedule and a tight leash around the BDAs. Ex employees have accused the company of being inhuman in terms of workload and abusive in terms of interactions.

    The company lacks an ethical HR structure to cater to the issues raised by employees. With abusive managers and excess unpaid clocked time, employees have quit in a span of just two to three months of joining. Parents who were conned into buying these courses say that the salespersons were aggressive and called incessantly.


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    Byju's Valuation
    Byju’s Valuation

    Byju’s – WhiteHatJr alleged Scam

    Byju’s subsidiary, WhiteHatJr recently filed a defamation case in the Delhi High Court against Pradeep Poonia. Poonia is a software developer who was alleged to hurt the public image of the company. Let’s find out, what the case is all about.

    Pradeep Poonia has been raging a war against the EdTech giant after WhiteHatJr refused to take constructive criticism and took down Poonia’s several social media accounts. Poonia became increasingly suspicious with an advertisement which claimed that Google hired a six year old, named Wolf Gupta for 1.4 billion after he learnt coding from WhiteHatJr.

    With comprehensive searches across Google, no such person with that name was found. Poonia went on further to find that the reviews on Google Play for WhiteHatJr were forged. The app has a 5 star rating on Google Play store. He has also stated that Byju’s has been mirroring the actions of its subsidiary from several years.

    Poonia has been targeted ever since he has called out WhiteHatJr and Byju’s for their shady business. Two YouTube accounts, three articles published on LinkedIn, Two Reddit accounts and several links on Quora in the name of Poonia have been taken down so far. His other social media handles have also been suspended for calling out the EdTech giants.

    When asked, Poonia stated that these companies are nothing but a scam and have lost its primary focus than its education. He is discontented because the companies are charging a fortune for the material provided which seems pretty basic and is available for free on the internet. Every course on Byju’s and WhiteHatJr costs about $250 dollars on average.


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    Byju’s – Complaints of being Revenue Oriented

    The testimonials by parents who did not approve of the products have also been taken down. Many refund requests are still pending on Byju’s customer care portal. Byju’s recently valued at $11.1 billion after a fundraising round. The company, owned by veteran investors is now rushing to generate revenues and this reflects the behavior on managerial levels who are churning out numbers through the BDAs.

    Conclusion

    The pandemic has hoarded us towards the screen oriented culture, be it for work or education. Kids are already anxious and unsettled because of long term confinement at home. The online education system is proving to be a good option in the dearth. But EdTech is taking away the normal from a kid’s life and pushing it towards a stunted form of learning.

    EdTech companies are pushing their sales aggressively as schools are about to reopen soon. Parents are giving in to frivolous offers by these companies and paying more than what they would pay for a traditional education.

    As we discover the underlying mottos of EdTech companies, revenues seem to be the ultimate motive and passion to educate seems to drift off the horizon. In such scenarios, parents who wish to educate their kids must learn to distinguish between a genuine opportunity for their kids to gain knowledge (which could cost a lot less) and a platform with fancy fee structure providing nothing exclusive.

    FAQs

    What is the valuation of Byju’s?

    The company was valued at US$12 billion as of November 2020.

    Who is the founder of Byju’s?

    Byju Raveendran is the founder of Byju’s.

    What are the Subsidiaries of Byju’s?

    • TutorVista- Edurite from Pearson
    • Osmo
    • Whitehatjr