The future of learning is finding the best of both online and offline, says the founder of the $22 billion edtech empire Byju's
Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, Byju’s
Image: Nishant Ratnakar
When you are talking to Byju Raveendran, you need to keep in mind that you are not talking to one person. At the core, he is a plain-speaking teacher. “Intentionally, no teacher will ever make any mistake,” contends the founder of Byju’s, India’s most-valued startup. “Whatever we are doing today, we can do it better tomorrow. We just need to have that hunger,” says the man who learnt English by listening to cricket commentary on radio, started Byju’s as an offline venture and, over the years, built his edtech empire which was last valued at $22 billion. “I know I speak too fast, which most of the times people struggle to catch up. I know what I know and I know what I don’t know,” comes another candid admission by a teacher who has lived a transparent life. “With me, you are not going to get anything scripted. You get as it is,” he underlines.
Now, when the teacher dons the hat of a founder, Raveendran talks like an astute businessman who hunts for silver linings. “On a good summer day, you can overtake too many cars,” says the chief executive officer. “But when it’s raining, when it’s difficult on a racing track, you can actually overtake 10 cars if you know how to navigate,” adds Raveendran, alluding to an impending funding winter. While conceding that funding is going to become rational, he underlines that businesses taking a long-term approach will have an opportunity to come out stronger. “Market leaders significantly strengthen their position during times like this,” he avers.
If Byju’s made the most of the pandemic tailwinds that helped edtech soar during the pandemic, then Raveendran knows how to navigate the headwinds. “How do you make the shift from a peacetime CEO to a wartime CEO, if you’re assuming that this is wartime?” he asks. “Literally, it’s wartime. But it’s not a challenge,” he adds. There were times when the company focussed on over-indexing more on the growth side and less on the profitability side. “But making a shift is easy because the company’s foundation is built as a profitable company,” he says.
As a businessman, he also knows how much of criticism should be taken seriously and how much should fall on deaf ears. “There is always noise. In all the criticism, 80 percent is meaningless, and 20 percent is real feedback,” he says in an interview to Forbes India. From controversies around WhiteHat Jr’s alleged misselling and hyper aggressive sales push to the loud chatter on social media around Byju’s association with Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to the impending IPO and the move behind going hybrid, Raveendran answers all questions with a smile on his face. The replies, though, are neither an equivocal “yes” nor an emphatic “no”. “Life is in the middle. It’s not about extremes,” he reckons. “I love Messi, but I respect Ronaldo. I love Federer, but my respect for Nadal is very similar,” he says. Edited excerpts:
Everybody makes mistakes. I don’t look at them as mistakes. It’s almost like my last class will be the best class. [With] every class, you learn, you improve. Intentionally, no teacher will ever make any mistake.
(This story appears in the 01 July, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)