BYJU’s: The Unordinary Story of an Indian Decacorn Powerhouse
By: Vinit Shah
Tags: Innovation, India, Entrepreneurship, Education Technology, Startup

“He has an uncanny ability to teach you very difficult concepts with lucid visuals that help you understand everything from a first principles perspective.” — early student and friend of Byju Raveendran

By 2010, over 1,200 aspiring MBA applicants fought their way into his popular course. He sold out arenas so he could give his famous live lectures. Let me repeat that. Byju sold-out arenas for a test-prep class. Rockstar is an understatement.

Byju delivering his insanely popular test-prep course. Packed arena. Image via Factor Daily.

He began broadcasting classes online to meet his demand.

A light bulb moment occurred for Byju when he realized that many of his pupils (college graduates) were struggling from a foundational perspective in math and science especially. Students didn’t have a core understanding of logic; their entire schooling was focused on grades, not learning.

How many resources can one give into remodeling a home before you realize the foundation was faulty and flawed in the first place?

Boom. Pain point uncovered.

“I was a teacher by choice and an entrepreneur by chance.” — Byju Raveendran

In 2011, Think and Learn (BYJU’s the learning app’s parent name) was launched. Byju knew if he could scrap together the funds, he could create, package, and deliver the best educational content for students across India.

His energy and focus shifted from exclusively serving aspiring graduate school applicants to the larger untapped market: 250 million+ K-12 students in India.

Successfully selling and retaining this specific user segment would require a product and platform that would appeal to the parents of the students, who prioritize quality education for their own children over anything else. This would mean that Byju’s would have to beat out incumbents in the tutoring space that many traditional households already pay for.

Core Competency

Most successful EdTech platforms revenue-wise have won by integrating themselves into physical classroom environments as a digital tool or platform.

BYJU’s however disrupts the outside-the-classroom digital experience and makes substantial revenue. By investing upfront in content development & curation focused in the core subjects of math, science, and English language arts, BYJU’s has developed a massively entertaining and engaging library of evergreen lessons in fundamental subjects for every student in the K-12 lifecycle and for undergraduate students aiming to attend India’s premium graduate schools.

Rather than just offering a digital version of antiquated learning methods/styles, the BYJU’s strategy is to embrace everything that makes learning fun and relatable.

For example, students learn about gravity via a neatly assembled graphic video of the earth, moon’s orbit, and an instructor walking quickly but articulately through an example of the moon’s relationship with the earth.

This creates the sought-after perfect balance of high-level concept, example, and granular solution. All explained and sandwiched by content of learning materials and practice problems.

“Why doesn’t the moon fall on earth?” is a classic, well-executed BYJU’s lesson. Image from BYJU’s YouTube feed.

Expert teachers are hired to do what they do best: simplify the complicated, make the boring fun. These teachers are paired with graphic designers and videographers who come together to create 5-15 minute videos. In a way, BYJU’s is more of a production company that happens to distribute educational content for K-12 and HigherEd.

BYJU’s has made tons of content-free, showing the value add for students and parents before they’re forced to make a purchasing decision.

Streamlined Product-Market Fit

With India having an exhaustive and complicated standardized exam structure for tenth grade, college entrance, and graduate entrance exams, their product bundles serve exactly those three categories.

All courses fall under three umbrellas — making purchase decisions straightforward in an otherwise complex testing environment. Image via BYJU’s homepage.

Let’s take the example of a middle schooler coming closer and closer to their first major exam in India — the 10th-grade ‘board’ exam determining where their remaining high school classes will be concentrated in (STEM or commerce).

BYJU’s would cater its 7th-grade materials to work on fundamental math skills in algebra, geometry, or some combination of the basics. The expansive library of video lessons usually features over 50 options of 5–15 minute videos in each specific subject.

From there, a baseline is established from the student’s ability to complete problem sets, number of video rewatches, and mini-quizzes to constantly reassess progress.

This creates a personalized learning journey as BYJU’s phrases it, which couples together a mapped syllabus catering towards building up weaknesses and rechecking of strengths periodically.

With involved examples and in-depth analysis based on three core categories of concepts, application, and memory abilities acting as the foundation, BYJU’s assigns scores for students to constantly be aware of what needs to be worked on.

A student may watch an interactive video with in-video checkups to ensure student attention. Image from BYJU’s website.

The goal for our example of a 7th grader focusing on STEM would be to max out activities, complete all videos, and earn as close to 100% as possible in a science or math class.

Daily organic downloads of BYJU’s are nearing 70,000 according to their COO, and customer acquisition cost has lessened by 25% with improved brand awareness and consumer trust across all of their three Indian segments.

Most recent reports suggest $370M in revenue for the fiscal year 2019, with over 30M users having downloaded the app and over 2.5M paying users.

The company’s profitability allows it to reinvest its net revenue into content and increase quality control across the board in an effort to acquire more users. All BYJU’s needs is for potential new users to get logged in onto the platform, and the content will do the rest.

Aggressive Go-To-Market Sales Strategy

Intrigued by the proliferation of BYJU’s across India’s market, I learned firsthand from a few BYJU’s employees how their sales strategy operated.

Quite the game plan. Sales at BYJU’s means chasing massive quotas, aggressive door-to-door knocking, and making customer meetings personal to every household.

India’s constitution officially only recognizes 22 languages, and another 6 languages are regarded as ‘classical’ languages. But as there are many conflicting truths in India, over 780 languages are loosely recognized within state boundaries and regions.

This leads to a truly diverse, complicated, and heterogeneously cut up consumer market.

BYJU’s smartly attacks this problem head-on by creating localized sales team in each region who can speak to parents and students alike in their native tongue — leading to more trusting relationships.

Sales managers are tasked with inspiring sales reps to customize conversations based on economic outcomes for children if they don’t receive proper educational resources.

With rural parts of India (60% of the population) mostly consisting of uneducated parents, every rupee matters. Sales rep’s of BYJU’s come in and play their hand by emotionally cornering in parents into purchasing BYJU’s premium app plans.

A friend told me how a BYJU’s sales representative hounded his parent and guilt-tripped his younger sister into thinking BYJU’s paid app was the only way for her to be educated.

There’s been a few startling internal reports and whistle-blowers calling out ethically questioning practices on the business side. Consumers have also voiced their displeasures on sites like these.

Thus far, it hasn’t caused a crazy stir. Worth keeping an eye for as BYJU’s grows linearly in its workforce and customer markets.

Funded with cash, cash, and more cash

Much like the fastest-growing Silicon Valley startups, BYJU’s has caught the eyes of elite venture capital investors across the globe.

Funding rounds have come from:

Tencent Holdings — the premier Chinese investing conglomerate w/ $137B in asset & notable stakes in WeChat, Riot Games, Snap, and Tesla.

— the premier Chinese investing conglomerate w/ $137B in asset & notable stakes in WeChat, Riot Games, Snap, and Tesla. Sequoia Capital — Silicon Valley’s biggest brand name w/ investments in Apple, PayPal, WhatsApp. Combined public stock market value of $1.4T or 22% of Nasdaq.

— Silicon Valley’s biggest brand name w/ investments in Apple, PayPal, WhatsApp. Combined public stock market value of $1.4T or 22% of Nasdaq. Qatar Investment Authority — Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund w/ over $335B assets under management.

— Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund w/ over $335B assets under management. Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative — A fund led by Zuckerberg and his wife Chan dedicating resources into education, justice, and science companies.

— A fund led by Zuckerberg and his wife Chan dedicating resources into education, justice, and science companies. Owl Ventures — The world’s biggest and exclusively focused EdTech funds w/ investments in Quizlet, Remind, and SV Academy.

These are just the flashiest names and biggest firms from America, China, and the Middle East. This is the type of explosive firepower behind BYJU’s. Earlier this year, legendary American investor Mary Meeker led another round of $130M for BYJU’s, driving the valuation to $10.5B.

Undoubtedly, every single one of these firms is chasing the first true EdTech company that’s successfully reached such great product-market traction. With the backing and strategic reach of these powerful firms, BYJU’s is formidable in its quest to gain international access.

Cash is the lifeblood of any startup. BYJU’s has a rich supply and then some at their disposal. By creating a FOMO effect for every reputable venture capital fund in the globe, they’ve created a trusting & mutual relationship of showing revenue growth, roping in more cash to expand their ambitions.

Marketing and Advertising Spend

With tons of cash on hand, BYJU’s has left no card unturned in constantly keeping the brand top of mind for its core massive Indian market.

Superstar Bollywood actor and global icon Shah Rukh Khan has become the company’s recognizable face broadcasted to homes across India. Image via Econ Time India.

Shah Rukh Khan is a household name not just for 1.4 B Indians, but for the estimated 28 million Indians outside of the country across the globe. His mere association with BYJU’s has done the company wonders by validating the extent of its prowess as a brand. In a country like India where entertainment, religion, and cricket rule, BYJU’s has secured the support of one of the country’s largest entertainment names.

India’s star cricketer, touting the prominent BYJU’s logo at their national jersey unveil in 2019. Image via Cricket Times.

Virat Kohli, the LeBron James/Lionel Messi of Indian Sports, sports the BYJU’s jersey in every Indian national match which conservatively reaches 400M viewers across the globe. Again, BYJU’s is willing and able thanks to strong cash reserves to create prominent brand awareness.

This is something most startups have never been able to do: have mainstream name recognition while possessing limited years on the open market as a consumer product. So far, the results have been fantastic.

Advertising wise, BYJU’s is constantly pushing its name via banners ads on YouTube. Marketing spend has reached mammoth proportions of $25M+, massively outpacing other EdTech firms and digital-first companies period.

For a country enamored by celebrities, BYJU’s has done everything possible to remain top of mind and recognizable.

Acquisitions Galore

This is an unconventional company when considering the steady pace of massive acquisitions BYJU’s has made domestically and abroad. The signaling from BYJU’s end is simple: if your company does something better than we do, there’s a big, fat target on your back.

As competition or as becoming part of us.

So far, there have been 5 acquisitions on BYJU’s end, totaling over $650M alone. BYJU’s recently closed the acquisition of WhiteHat Jr. for $300M. WhiteHat Jr. is an online EdTech firm in Mumbai that specializes in offering coding lessons, activities, and certificates to the under 22 age market.

Last winter, Osmo was bought out for $120M by BYJU’s to expand it’s global footprint and tap into the niche physical + digital education market for pre-schoolers.

From entrance exam students to pre-schoolers, BYJU’s has an end to end view into how student behavior and deeply understanding what the market wants.

Market penetration strategy 101: start niche, build vertically, expand across different demographics as the product value proposition is proven.

Global Expansion

With the purchase of Osmo’s, BYJU’s initiated the first crucial step in stepping into the U.S. market and getting an on the ground view into what digital education customers are like in America. Beyond that, BYJU’s made waves in June of 2019 for announcing a partnership with Disney to build learning content integrating Disney’s most iconic characters to form a stronger footprint in India for younger audiences.

Prediction: this is BYJU’s chance to prove to Disney that digital education packaged in entertaining methods is the future. Securing Disney’s hand as the first EdTech investment to date is a sure-fire way to create goodwill and trust; creating a roadmap for pivoting towards western markets where Disney already captivates younger audiences at a reliable clip.

BYJU’s has set out for U.S., U.K., Indonesia, and Nepal as targets for their next market expansion opportunities. Again, hedging their bets — the safer consumer side but higher investment in places like America or Great Britain vs. the less capitally intensive investment but potentially higher ROI if market traction is gained in an Indonesia or Nepal. Risk mitigation is key.

Popular favorites like Cars and Toy Story will be targeted towards the 1–3 grade students in India. Image from BYJU’s promotional ad.

Will anything stop BYJU’s?

The trajectory of BYJU’s success has surprised everyone but its visionary founder and core team. To them, improving learning outcomes and religiously focusing on concept mastery vs. black and white problem-solving drives all their product iteration.

Byju Raveendran's relentless motivation to improve education across India and the globe gives him the ideological jet fuel to transcend all EdTech companies in their quest to change education.

Becoming an iconic company for him is a product of changing the lives of a billion learners.

Carrying out and embodying this strong ‘why’ will be the key for BYJU’s.