First YouTuber To Form a Unicorn Company ‘Physics Wallah’
A resider of Prayagraj from the city of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh took an oath to do something bigger that the majority isn’t doing. Though his massive growth isn’t thoroughly from Physics Wallah YouTube Channel; the app which was organically promoted on YouTube drove huge traffic, enrollments, and sales. AustralianStreet Stories has got the whole story of this personality the way it was depicted by himself.
Alakh Pandey is a Physics expert who teaches and prepares Indian students for challenging exams in IIT, Engineering, and Medical education. His formation is named ‘Physics Wallah’ which means ‘The Physics Guy’. This had a great impact on encouraging new students to visit his channel. But do you think he did it all through YouTube?
In 2022, the giant raised $100M as Venture Capital valuing the PW at $1 Billion USD.
Alakh Pandey Bio & Data Coverage
| Tutoring Initiation Year | 2006 |
| Family Downfall Occurance | 1999-2000 (When Alakh was in 3rd Grade) |
| Year Started Teaching On YouTube Channel | 2016 (Whereas joined on 28th Jan 2014) |
| How Many Years Did PW Take To Become Unicorn? | 6 Years |
| How Long Does The Immense Rise Of Physics Wallah Took? | 18 Months |
| Alakh Pandey’s Mother’s Name | Rajat Pandey |
| Alakh Pandey’s Sister Name | Aditi Pandey |
| Father | Satish Pandey |
| University | Harcourt Butler Technical Institute |
Early Struggle & Financial Crises
When in the 3rd grade, Alakh’s family had a financial crisis that led them to sell out half the section of their house. His father being a contractor couldn’t do much for his family and his kid’s education. Alakh was expecting to buy a bicycle through the considerable amount of the house, as promised by his dad. By grade 6, the whole house was sold which did let the family move to the slum area.
In 2006, as the family was residing in a slum that wasn’t acceptable to Alakh, so he decided to bring his skills into action. Tutoring from school life itself gave him hope to continue teaching in college as well.
Alakh’s sensible method of teaching made him a favorite of students. The word of mouth was gradually growing his small entrepreneurship which was being operated offline. Struggle in livelihood and transportation hardship always pushed him to do more and more for the family and students as well.
Somewhere, he wasn’t thoroughly satisfied with sharing knowledge with limited students due to the traditional offline method of teaching. Though he was providing value to the students, he still wanted to reach more students by offering tremendously lower fees in India. At the time he still resided in the rented house thinking of what strategies could be applied to reach more students.
Alakh’s Father’s Hardship
Mr.Satish P. had a sense of insecurity about Alakh’s career. This unsteady mindset was built due to past failures of damped into debt and selling out the house, Further, unable to successfully operate tiny initiation of selling oil, confectionary, and cosmetics.
Gradually, Mr.Pandey built hope in Alakh when he started coaching offline. On the other hand mother, Mrs.Pandey strongly supported her son financially by raising loans from relatives; tutoring slum kids at the age of 50.
In the year 2016, Alakh Pandey started publishing educational videos on his YouTube Channel in order to expand the scope of knowledge.
For the first 2 years 2016 & 2017, the videos barely got any views. Back then, the new creators were literally getting famous with the virality of videos. Alakh kept on uploading FREE VALUABLE CONTENT videos consistently; expecting someday, at least 1 video would get viral.
Rise Of Physics Wallah: This Is What Made Him Teach Differently
Carrying 7k-8k in his wallet, Alakh went to Kota (Rajasthan) to acquire some notes and study materials made by known scholar-teachers/professors. Walked all the way back home as he invested all of his cash in his hand in educational material.
Till now, he never regretted this decision, as his wordings were “This literally worked”.
For sure, he did follow the methods of several scholars and amalgamated his own method with their making it more logical yet simple.
He knew students would understand the concept on a temporary basis, but forget everything thought in the near future; when again asked the same question.
So Alakh decided on creating an uncomplicated technique that the student would never forget in a lifetime.
And this gave his Youtube channel a boost.
Meanwhile, his Channel became 1 of the biggest educational channels ‘Physics Wallah’ on YouTube.
Physics Wallah’s Success Formula
People always wondered, what’s the formula for Physics Wallah’s success? Is there something Alakh is hiding from the rest? What could be his secret recipe for making a small coaching class for a giant EdTech company?
There has to be something.
Here are the 7 unique factors that led Physics Wallah to become successful:
- He planned the set-up from the student’s perspective, not a business perspective
- A simplified method of teaching that can be easily digested by the students (then actually explaining the complicated ones)
- Turning a weak student into a scholar by the end of the year through consistent focus and value addition.
- Inclusive of fun, entertainment, and acting while demonstrating practically the logic behind physics and other subjects.
- 1 on 1 connection with students through online chat and video conferencing.
- A team built by Alakh Pandey and co-founder brought easiness in reaching and teaching multiple batches.
- 1/5th Lowest fees across the country which led poor students to enroll (and some were welcomed with no fees as well)
Physics Wallah Is Backed By Co-Founder & The Loyal Team
Prateek Maheshwari the mastermind behind PW Application was the biggest turning point.
He came up with:
- Setting up the App and Course Material
- Structure of Course & Syllabus
- Automation Process
- Improvement of Quality
- Understanding the ‘Quality Analysis’ on Multiple Level
Whereas, Alakh kept going with his effective teaching skills; and hiring solid educators for the dedicated batches.
These all made a SUPER-VALUABLE PRODUCT.
It helped students a lot in NEET, IIT, and other crucial Exams.
PW Team Mates
Alakh is genuinely thankful to his team and teachers for their hard work and loyalty toward the organization. Many of the PW teachers rejected attractive offers from competitors to join them. They decided to stick to Physics Wallah as they were attached to the students and the founder. And addicted to the love, respect and trust gained. That is all they wanted.
Alakh Pandey himself interviewed teachers across India based on their EXPERTISE and not their followers or influencers. This was a great opportunity for PW to strengthen the foundation of their organization.
Inclusive of all educators and employees, in the year 2022 2k human pillars joined the PW.
PW Business Strategy (Brief)
Alakh Pandey was quite clear about his strategies, these include:
- Worked on Product and Quality Delivery first. Whereas others were buckling down to sell products and courses first, then creating them as per the demand.
- YouTube Magic – The 1st batch ‘Lakshya Batch’ got PW an enrollment of 63k students
- PW Application’s Magic – Wave of enrollments of around 300K downloads in the first 7 days of launching. This led the organization to become the 101 unicorn company in India. And this wasn’t possible without YouTube announcements and mastermind Prateek’s tech strategy.
Offline KOTA Plans Of Prateek Maheshwari and Alakh Pandey
On 19th July 2022, Prateek Maheshwari and Alakh Pandey decided to provide extremely valuable education to the offline center students in Kota, Rajasthan. And these students were around 10k in numbers. They dropped the concept of a growing number of offline students at this point. As they wanted to focus on value provision to these 10,000 enrolled students. And further, these students will bring in business for them through ‘Word of Mouth.
A similar strategy is still growing their business from X to 2X each year.
Alakh and Prateek are termed as ‘Yin Yang’ meaning interconnected or interdependent in a way that supports them to rise more.
For online teachings, PW does a hand-holding task which is significantly helping the students.
What Has Alakh Pandey’s Physics Wallah Achieved So Far?
a. Profitable in EdTech
b. Became a Unicorn
c. Lowest Fees Ever (learning opportunity for poor students)
d. Students-Oriented Teaching Atmosphere with Pure Intent – This accumulated more love & admiration
e. Never got Sold – Saying “There was no price for me – No one can buy me”.
Alakh himself refused the partnership proposals just because the majority of students couldn’t afford the high fees.
on the 6th of May, 2018, he had nothing in hand, but 50k subscribers on YouTube; making an announcement saying ‘I’ll make my own platform with low fees, and bring revolution to an educational industry of India’.
The amazing fact is that seeing their AdTech industrial growth, other competitors dropped their fees from 40k & 60k (INR) to ₹3,500 & ₹4k only; which is quite surprising.
Every 3rd student in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan is a PW student, and they are Hindi speakers. Basically, 35% of Engineering and Medical students are gaining knowledge from Physics Wallah. And now it has grown even more.
Alakh is expecting to reach students from South India, North India, and other states where the majority of students are English speakers.
6 Suggestions To All EdTech Companies – By Alakh Pandey
- For any EdTech business, 1 partner or co-founder has to be a qualified professor or teacher. This would help understand the depth of education and requirements of students at the core.
- Have a Pure Intent of supporting students
- Not to hire a film star or sports person to promote the App or Course (as they have got ‘zero’ knowledge about it; and are unsuitable for educational products).
- Don’t rush out to recruit people as you may end up getting rid of them due to wrong or over/unnecessary hirings.
- Do not bet too much on future products (you may fail in fulfillment)
- Let one of your partners look into Financial and daily meetings matter; as one with the teaching skill may get distracted.
Revenue Of Physics Wallah
With the reasonable fees, PW made around –
- 350 Crore (INR) of Revenue in the Financial Year 2022; & expecting to be doubled over 650 to 700 Crore in FY23.
- PW’s Profit is around: 100 crores (INR); again anticipated to double down to over 200 crores in 2023.
Alakh Pandey’s Aspiration
AP literally has a big dream that he wants to fulfill not for himself but for his students. These are:
- Helping students acquire jobs. (as qualified students in India are still finding it difficult to find one).
- Create jobs in several fields
- Train students for a job application and interviews
- Set potential students’ minds that money is not an obstacle in India to getting an education; especially in the presence of PW.
Wrapping Up
Alakh Pandey’s Physics Wallah became UNICORN with 6 years of endeavors journey; where people still presume it took just 18 months which is wrong.
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