Byju Raveendran Answers All Controversies, Layoffs, Acquisitions & More | FO 61 - Raj Shamani

Like recently there was a lot of noise about the financials the the reports or like auditing all that are things that bad as people talk about or like what's the scene like why is there so much noise the first is you're talking about the audit delay everybody's talking about hey why why there was a delay is there something going on why was Akash not paid or I don't know like 10 000 things which people are talking about But everything is related to that so what's the scene a lot of people say that use funded you

to fund this you were not capitalized you had such a large burn rate because of your Acquisitions and stuff now you need a lot of funds and you're not being able to raise and that's why you self-funded it for us those who are closest to the action for us and investors these are two uh big positives but it gets represented as negatives in the media It's it's the same thing it's been playing out it's that's the nature of the media that's the nature of social media like nothing is as good as what you read so

it's like I can't complain it's the same media talks all the good things right so it's the rags to richer story they only celebrate yeah so nothing is as good as what media writes and nothing is as bad as it's something in the middle from having his name on the Indian Jersey to now becoming the Official sponsor for FIFA in the world this journey has been amazing this is not only a motivational episode where you actually learn about a journey from zero to now being the best in the world but is also filled with so

many lessons about education about on entrepreneurship about building the right team about how to talk to people so that you and the people together build the most valuable thing in the world by juice is the most valuable Startup in the country but there are so many rumors about it there are so many controversies about it everybody's been talking about it so we thought why not we ask the man himself baiju ravindran about what's going on are these rumors true are they false are these controversies do they make sense or they're just false accusations how forget

all of this how this man actually started from a small village to now go on to build the biggest startup in the World and there are so many investors around the world and himself that still believe in the potential of the startup and after this conversation I'm sure you will have a very different perspective as well so make sure that you watch this episode till the end also everybody asked me about Raj how do you reach out to these people these are such big entrepreneurs around the world how do you get them to speak to

you there are so many things which I've done in my Life to build this social capital and I've written about all of them all the strategies tricks and tips which I used to get to talk to these people and all the things which I've learned from them about building a startup about building a profitable company about investing about making money I've written about all of these things in my new book called build don't talk which is available for pre-order right now the link is in the description as of Now please go order right now because

we have only limited number of books which won't be available later on so make sure that you check out the book right now and I've written about every little thing which I've used to go from zero to the position where I have reached a day so it's there was a time where like for many years like almost three years I didn't take a single day break and this includes not just taking classes and in large auditoriums and in Some cases stadiums but traveling every day and covering nine cities every week and that I did that

for years there was no question of you're not feeling well and not taking class because from a student's point of view they were getting only one class per week so I didn't take a single break for like almost three years at a stretch so it's like small classrooms yeah so there is a lot of There is no there is no shortcut to success yeah yeah no and of course perception is also created by media right because people think that being in the billionaire list and Rich like nothing has changed for me because I make sure

that people who uh people who've been with me they don't change because for them uh like for my cousin who's here yeah I am still the same guy who played Cricket with him so they don't care whether I whether I'm a Billionaire or an entrepreneur and it's the same thing so I don't that's why I don't change people around me like even if they want to live I make sure that they don't leave so whether it's my driver who's been there for 18 years or people who are at home and so every everyone like people

aren't you I always stayed in the house of 18 20 people for them I am baiju the cricketer not byju the entrepreneur you said you played three games for the University level Which were the three games football that will turn this and Cricket University level yeah all three which one do you still love the most uh like with games it's very difficult for me to pick it's like if I see a t table and right now play that if I get uh 11 people to play I'll play football or Cricket if I have time I'll

play cricket if it's only short time then I'll play football so it's not uh uh like very much into love with all three Uh football is where I got uh maximum number of injuries I've gone through like many surgeries because of football but I still uh close to me because that's the out of everything else that's the real Team game right it's like yeah there is like yeah as an individual you can do up to a certain amount but it's it's all about that's out of the three that's the that's where you need to play

as a team the most yeah that that's in fact one of the more toughest as well Because of the coordination of because you're like 11 Minds trying to play at the same time yeah it's a different ball game altogether but so funny question did your parents never tell you that per day like you know you should study and not play sports what was it like like did your parents support sports or studies what is my it's it's my parents they've always given me I'm an entrepreneur because of them because how do you uh become an

Entrepreneur from that kind of a background coming from a small village from a very lower middle class background where it's whatever I am I'll attribute to the kind of freedom and the blind trust which they have when someone is trusting you this much you normally won't exploit that freedom and that's so my parents have given me the freedom though both of them were teachers now both retired uh the kind of Freedom which they have given to an extent where They have used to look at my report card maybe you can say I never gave them

a chance to look at that and never in my life they've told me do this do that like even after being uh teachers uh I like they've given me the freedom to Bunk like 60 70 percentage of my classes I used to spend most of my time outside not wasting time I was playing games and and uh very seriously and having fun but uh that freedom is uh the reason why I was able to pursue Everything which I loved whether it's and like you create entrepreneurs entrepreneurship is not a skill it's a mindset how do

you get into that mindset that is yeah I was privileged to have parents who gave me that level of that kind of freedom and and and that's this that's what I try replicating when for with people who work with me as colleagues I give them the freedom and hope that they don't exploit that so it's that's that's the thing you blindly Trust someone you give them the freedom normally you like nine out of ten people won't exploit that if someone is trusting you blindly you you won't you normally won't exploit the freedom yeah that's that's

applicable as a leader that's applicable as a parent so I'm trying trying to be if I can be half as good as my dad I'm sure I'll be a good father okay that's a fine balance between uh what do you think as monitoring and mentoring so where you Can if you can go more towards mentoring and guidance and rather than monitoring then go deeper on this go deeper on it monitoring and mentoring the difference between uh like what good teachers do and what good leaders do is they uh it's it's a thin line between what

you think of as mentoring and monitoring right monitoring and continuously kind of uh like uh making sure that uh how do you make sure that you give them the freedom or like The better word to use here will be uh uh what you think as interference and support if you can be in a role where you support but not interfering and and they will come to you when they need support that's how like uh this is applicable not just as a leader but like as a parent as a leader as a friend like if you

can play that right role of supporting and not interfering it it works well it works well with people it works with well with companies you Acquire it works well with your kids uh yeah like if you start interfering too much then then you are not giving them the freedom and you are not helping them Reach achieve their actual potential that's so nice and so so you mean to say like correct me if I'm wrong that monitoring and mentoring there's a there's a very thin line between them so monitoring is when you tell people to be

in certain lines and you guide them to okay this is the line this is gonna be This is what you need to follow and mentoring is when you're facilitating them to make sure that they make their own lines and they do go beyond this that's what good teachers to good teachers they play the role of a mentor and not necessarily a teacher right they they teach them how to learn and not rather than spoon feeding that's that's a difference when it comes to in the context of teaching and learning uh good teachers they make sure

that they they Facilitate learning and or they make sure that students learn how to learn instead of spoon feeding now unfortunately most of the students or we our education system is in such a way that you uh like it's learning driven by fear of exams and not love for learning is to teach math in stadiums like it's difficult to believe but if you like you should take a look at some of those videos we're gonna put out these videos while you're Talking about it 25 000 students like simultaneously you can't teach math if you are

teaching math in a stadium you have to do a math concert so and it's again it's similar to like by meaning but what I mean by math concert is you have to make it engaging to an extent where you can hold on to their attention and then teach in the so it's it's not a math class you need to do a math concert that's what I think of it you like like when uh and now if You if and as a teacher if you are not able to make them understand you lose them yeah now

to make them understand you need to make it engaging now whether it's by storytelling or like younger kids you need to kind of put a rap like you need to give a story and through that story you need to teach them maybe older kids you just need to give them the context on why they learn what they learn right that context can be uh make them make it Relatable to something which they like whether it can be Cricket it can be so and it's it's at the end of the day it's all about using common

sense so it's like yes and which is unfortunately not so common so it's it's it's figuring out and that's that's a good thing of being a teacher so and I want to know you okay let's start your journey like when how all of this like like tell me about your childhood like what do you remember from where were you born like Which which Village which city which state wherever you want like when it start just to dramatize the story I I say I come from a small village which is a fact it's called arigoda uh

North uh record I'll record it's difficult for non-carelets to pronounce can you try a record a record a record a record a record [Laughter] it's a village called I record in nam in the kandur district which is north of Kerala and though I had dramatized by telling I come from a small village I don't tell that as a and I tell this to everyone it's not a it's not to get some sympathy it's I feel it's a big Advantage the growing up in a village like that is many advantages I'll just if you want I

can the one is see in a village whatever you have is for everyone and that you learn uh one you learn how to trust people blindly right you like Anything you want like 100 people will come running for you that's how there might be just one TV that's where the whole village will go and watch that's how I used to watch World Cup and that's how we got attracted to football when I so when I was like very young like six six and a half years old I saw my first World Cup when Maradona helped

Argentina win so just but it was like there's one TV where all of us used to go and watch right so growing up in a village the Biggest advantage and the one thing if you ask me is like you learn how to treat all others as equals which is such a big advantage that and if you can make sure that success is not getting to your head and you learn that it's an unfair advance to you in like in future right because you learn like that simple thing that no one is inferior but no one

is superior yes if if that is if you truly believe in that it's like nothing can stop you it's like when I go And meet let's say Mark Zuckerberg if I go into that meeting think then I have only 15 minutes and meeting one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world I'll put myself under so much pressure if I am giving uh like if if I can find that balance that everyone all are equals like different people are privileged to have create different level of impact and then that 15 minutes is like any Other

15 minutes which I I'll give the same importance when I'm meeting an intern who must have joined let's say a week before right this this is not an easy this has to come from within you can't do this artificially so that is something which again it's not nothing to do with me right I'm not I'm not special I learned this because I grew up in an environment where that's maybe the one like there are like there are a few good things about uh growing up in a Village like that this is this is one of

them learning how to treat all others equally and it's so difficult it's not easy it's like where like and I for me it's like you will never hear from me that I give some like for me all our equals it's so good because you know what I've noticed now the world is changing and people have learned that nobody's inferior so everybody treats everybody equally yeah but they're still not figured out a way how to make sure That no one's Superior like we put ourselves pressure by treating people then we make us gods in our head

and we all like put ourselves in such pressure that oh my God what I'm gonna say oh my God what I'm gonna say yeah I I I I wish everyone like follows even if you think that no one is inferior that's good enough that's the most important quality right that's like the moment you think that no one is inferior then you will start that that's that's Where you empathy starts right yeah oh yeah 100 I feel uh so I think this also comes from parenting because I think in my family what I've learned in my

my parents like my dad like he he like donated or does a lot of Charity he's always in treating people right and he always showed us that you know you need to make sure that you are helping everyone because somebody helped your dad that's why he's here and you are here yes so or else you would have Been no one so if somebody has made you who you are today it's your responsibility to make everyone who they are today like you need to do something so I think that that runs in a family also and

you start from beginning and then as you grow obviously your perspective changes so that's that's what I learned my family so go ahead go out about your village uh so you were born there you learned this yeah and then and there are so many other aspects Which which you learned when you grow up in such an unstructured environment it's like so when I started playing games I as a six-year-old seven-year-old I was not just playing with a six-year-old in a structured environment so there's a lot to learn by being in an unstructured environment even there

is this school of thought that even in school if you actually put six cereals to 10 year olds together and make them learn they learn so much from each other and that's not What we follow in school that's not what we follow in our coaching camps right but as a six-year-old seven-year-old if you are playing with a 10 year old 11 year old you learn you learn life right you learn how to be competitive you learn how to be there is nothing given on a plateau to you right so that learning in in an unstructured

environment and uh like by playing those multiple games that's another big Advantage which Which I like remember very well so in in my Village most people will know me as not someone who's to do well in math and studies but uh sometimes someone who plays cricket and football well so guys to play from literally from morning till midnight so when you play different games you you you don't know if anything else nine to twelve Cricket 12 to 3 football then then I play another game nice okay tell me and went to in school when to

like the nearest school in my Village um like which is a Malayalam medium school and the the average English which you hear from me is what I've learned by again they're also back to sports ill by listening to sports commentary mainly Cricket commentary on radio so I used to speak very fast because in radio commentary the difference is that they have to kind of relive the action right so they speak fast like yes if you've heard football comment your own radio so I used to think that okay English is you are supposed to speak fast

so and now I have conditioned myself to kind of speak still like slower than before uh and and I improved on that by again by using math by teaching math so I learned by listening to sports commentary and improved on English by teaching math okay I was I was researching about you I got like a lot of breeding material I have I found out that you go on extremes and when it comes specifically with the With your sports and everything right so you underwent a surgery and you were advised not to walk or run or

do play the sport for next three weeks right or three months obviously a different like I've gone through so many surgeries figure out which one but I'm someone who but like this I'm talking about a time when you started walking the next day you were advised not to walk for three weeks or three days there's also two Again either like in in all these uh rehab process there are two uh schools of thought I am someone who follows that it's like yeah like generally if you go to like uh after uh after an ACL reconstruction

which is a very complex surgery they'll say that you relax and but there's other extreme that if if you kind of can push yourself and if you're someone who can take that pain and push yourself you'll recover faster so I follow the second school and it's it's Our pain is in your mind at the end of the day so uh and that has helped me recover so the I I normally say that uh not many people because I've gone through these surgeries so many times uh one leg two times the other one reconstruction these are

like normally professional athletes will go through like this many times so um but when I say just to give you to get into my mindset is like when I get When I fall injured I know that it's broken because I've gone through this multiple times I know it's already it's gone the first thing which I I so I don't get depressed with that right because if like 50 is in your mind if if you have that mindset that you can take the pain and you know I've walked in in these surgeries I've worked on the

same day and and then then I take it as a challenge because every time I try recovering faster was just to prove a Point that yeah it's like you've elevated your uh like level of uh so these are not extremes these are things which I like because I want to play go back and play and every time I get injured I can I've come back stronger because it's an opportunity to rehab and recover faster and like let's just pause here for a moment I'll normally I'll just add one more point over it I normally say

that uh do you know the joy of walking First time working no I'm sure you won't remember as a one-year-old when you started walking you don't you don't know I know that multiple times because every time the second time when you recover that's that's a joy right first you you walk again you learn to walk so I have done that multiple times that's a positive you you killed my next question my next question was this like let's just pause for a second and I wanted to Ask like so do you think this mindset you got

it from your parents like or you developed it yourself I was never restricted so I'll say I owe to them in terms of notice giving me when you giving me that freedom to pursue whatever I wanted to the same as I told you like I went to the same school where they were teaching but they still gave me the freedom right even when other teachers were asking them what is that he's doing he's not Even attending classes they didn't they didn't uh so that that freedom is important that freedom if freedom is the most important

if you want to be an entrepreneur you need to be you need to be free so yeah was that one thing because you said like you owe it to your parents right was that one thing your mom taught you and you feel or you learned from your mom maybe she didn't teach you and you just observed and it which has happened I'll tell you what it Was for me so my mom never taught me this but I've always seen her dealing with with fights with complications with uh you know difficult situations with such ease and

empathy that I think it's amazing so I'm 26 in 26 of my life I've heard my mom shouting to me just once and her shout is like you know that's the loudest she goes right so I've seen her she's just always so calm she makes that everything is Sorted and every time she holds us together so I've learned this thing from her like is there anything you have learned from I think almost everything which we learn is not uh when because they teach right we learn by observing right like that's why it's very important that

when like if you want your kids to be in a certain way you need to be act that way right so it's they don't learn from they don't learn when because you teach them something They observe and they learn so it's like if you would want them to tell like like when people ask him people ask my son about uh ah why are people taking selfies with so I've heard him answer telling that because like uh he does good things that's exactly if I can make sure that he continues telling like that even 20 30

40 years down the line I'll be happy right because he thinks uh I've heard him I've heard people asking him on uh like what are you uh uh like what Do you feel about seeing your last name as on the Indian Jersey so I was very happy to hear the answer and he's only he's only eight I was happy to hear the answer that he didn't give an answer like he was very like cool about it he didn't tell her I am proud about it and things like that he thinks that uh at least what

and maybe it's because that's what he observes he thinks that like as much as possible we help others and like they learn by seeing right and that so I I would want to believe that I have learned all these things which I want my son to learn is by from my parents and not just parents right the advantage of uh growing up in a village is that there was always like there's always a big support system 24 I have like the always between 18 to 25 people at home so you that support system is important

right you are like on your own you can't like if somebody thinks that you can do this like so that Team is important team at home team at office it's is what is defines you you want entrepreneurs get undue credit for what they do yeah but it's all about what the team like maybe I'll say you can also say some sometimes they also get undue flag for what they do but uh it's it's all about the team team at home and team so that support system is important which I've been fortunate is there any specific

incident you remember with your mom which you feel like My mom is a maths teacher so though she never taught me math but okay what one thing which I have like which I feel the happiest about is when and that's true for both mom and dad is and that's where I realized it's such a special thing to teach others that uh it again not many like it might not be the best paying of job option as a teacher but it's one of the most satisfying jobs in the world right it's even when old students so

they would have taught 20 25 years back When they meet them somewhere when you go for a walk outside it's like their eyes lit up that is that's priceless that that feeling is that's what like nothing can beat that as a teacher right no amount of money no amount of uh Fame can be that the so that's something which like I I remember every time when an old student meets them who would have like taught them 20 25 30 years back uh like I can see I have not seen them happier than that and that's

a that's a Feeling which is difficult to express so and then something which I'm enjoying today it's like even my I might not be meeting all of them but when I get I get so many messages from those students whom I would have taught 15 20 years back that's priceless nothing can beat that so that that one thing you've observed with your parents and maybe yeah that's kind of that's what uh so I know that's what kind of made made me shift from I normally say I'm an Engineer by chance a teacher by choice but

that choice is like your choice is based on what you like again it's it's a subconscious given yeah yeah and then I also feel like at every point we all believe that we choose certain things but it's always given external forces around us has like four years they were designing themselves in a way that it made you choose certain things which you choose in your life yeah it is always if you Guys people say you need to be at the right place at the right time how's your relationship with your dad uh with Dad it's

a very special relationship it's like something which I I told you right like it's he has given me so much freedom and uh it's something which it's very special I'm sure it's it's like that for everyone but uh it's uh whatever I am is because of him and it's like I've like I make it a point to like Spend as much time with him and kovid actually has helped us to like like spend more time spend more time with the family like unlike before again where expectation of travel was less so uh that's only that's

only good thing about covet everything else is yeah unfortunate as unfortunate it's it's been for the world but the good part is that everyone all of us got more time with the family and it made us realize the the Like what you thought is important is not necessarily important and like spending time with the family and like it's it's that that those two three years it's been like life-changing for me so it's that so okay usually every time when you grow up uh like kids end up having disagreements with that right because there are certain

things which you they believe in you don't believe in is there any specific thing like with you one Thing which you always disagreed on or maybe now you agree on or like maybe your dad agrees on is there anything I to be very honest I can't think of anything where I was telling you right it's been blind support it's like oh and as far as he's concerned like his son can't go wrong when when some it's it's almost like and this I was like like last few months I've gone through a very tough time is

just he's just recovered from a cancer surgery Last week like two weeks back so uh the the only reason why I was like wherever I was traveling I was going back and staying with him is because he thinks the same he he thinks that his son can do anything so and then that is 50 confidence and and he believes that's why like that like because in those and when when you are going through that kind of uh uh a treatment it's very important to be positive yeah so so that that blind trust that his son

can do it Just to give you an end like when when it started uh like it was actually an advanced stage but uh there was not much time so I I just took him to New York maybe that's one thing of having access to money which and I'm very grateful last few months and years have taught me to be more grateful to so like for like for what uh like privileges which I have been able to get again nothing to do with me but uh I I but I'll just tell you some so I just

Took him into uh this is one of these best hospitals in New York Nora friends I went and normally it takes two weeks appointment I just went there sat outside and sat outside the doctor you wouldn't believe that sir the entrepreneurial spirit is always useful I told them I'll only go once you treat once you see once sat there from morning till evening and got that so it's it's that what do you say never taking no for an answer if you badly want something You will get it I'm someone who strongly believe that you badly

wanted you will get it were you able to focus on the work when your dad was going through such a hard journey how do you manage because I'm sure because see the treatment is is hard yes and more than the treatment mentally it just it just stops you like something I'm someone who's very strong mentally in terms of I know how to like manage Difference I might be getting into this with so much happening behind but once I get into this it's I'm I'm on it it's it's 100 100 into what I do right it's

that that uh undivided attention in things which you do so that way yeah it's been tough so there's no but it's also it's the other way around right I see it as uh after the surgery the the first five minutes when he met me whatever he has told me that's enough to do that kind of Justifies everything which I do I don't want to just tell that but it's more like that is uh then so all these hours which I put and everything is Justified like that those five minutes those that that's that precious that

like and that is what uh because at the end of the day like Beyond a certain point money doesn't mean anything right it's like yeah you need some some amount of money to like do all those things but uh like Everything which I do is Justified for for for that so everything was worthwhile yeah and then so it's not a so it's not a I don't get distracted with the I can I can focus when when once I get in so I can't do two three things that together but I'm someone who will obviously give

100 and get it done and then till I get it done I don't stop so it's like there is that's why challenges will come and go and nothing can nothing can beat and they're talking About games you were a cricketer in your village and you said that you got your last name on Indian Jersey just to make it very clear hi uh there is this misconception that okay I I love sports and that's why we do all these things there's like see I I am I I love math I decide based on people might think

I do things based on intuition but that's intuition is nothing but math done fast in your mind so the reason like that that's very simple the reason why we did That is like both cricket and Bollywood are two of the biggest religions in India yeah and we have been by being at the center of both by being on the Jersey and by using Bollywood stars for endorsement we have been able to create awareness for a segment which such a neglected sector like you won't find many large air tech companies but it's such a grossly neglected

and underinvested sector companies invest billions of dollars in Creating entertainment content I'm not telling entertainment is not important but education is a lot more integral to anyone and any country yeah but the world needs 10 more by juice not one so it's it's such a neglected sector because it's it's one of those few sectors where if it needs to be long term you can't there is no short-term success in education because in entertainment you get people and get like people say your competition is Sleep right you make people watch that content uh and then you

get engagement and you show that engagement is your result in education you need to make it engaging you also need to show outcomes right so and that takes a lot of time so like coming back to the point so we have it's important so we have invested on all these things to make sure that there is awareness for uh ah self-learning or for the learning apps you also need to understand that we are creating this Segment in a country obsessed with spoon feeding and what are we trying to do we are trying to uh like

make sure that students are taking initiative and learning and learning on their own and then we have added other formats where there is a there is teacher support there is hybrid learning all of that so it required those initial uh like big branding Investments and that is create that is created we are among the the top brands in India Today in terms of awareness and then kids love the brand so it's about 100 so I was just asking like how did you feel though I'm happy about it but it should not get your head right

it's important the the biggest challenge uh for all entrepreneurs or anyone who's creating an impact is that you need to be humble enough to know that you know only as you know only a certain things in any field the moment someone thinks oh I know everything I am this the game is over Right but you also need to like one that's one part the other other part is you also like humble enough to know that you like there's so much more to learn and so much more to do but you also need to know that

um that's that's the Other Extreme you also need to be like confident enough or bold enough to know that you can make an impact on others now these are two if you think of it this is there's a two extreme these things but how do you find the balance To be in between right how do you find the balance to be in between is the key so that's what you have been trying to do yeah you can't you can't make you can't make you need to make sure that success is not getting to anyone set

right so but you still need to be bold enough to think that you can make an impact these two are two extreme feelings right but you need to stay on the ground you need to stay on the ground humble enough to know that you Know only this much it's like yeah you you've been lucky enough to obviously once you put in that level of hard work your fortune will always uh like support you but uh it's it's the it's in the middle Do You Believe In Balance but uh like she's asking like apart from this

do you believe in work life balance it's it's difficult it's in terms of um for me both in work and in life I do things which I love so I don't have a I have not felt the Pressure to segregate the two that's such a good answer no that stands no that's a great I've been waiting somebody to say this so I'm a person who doesn't believe in work-life Balance because I feel that work in life both happens when you loved it love it yes right you know like when the people around you so so

for example oh he was like what do you want in the relationship okay in a relationship you Want to be able to share and you want to be able to listen okay yes you both want each other to grow you both want each other to have each of those back and support right doesn't matter what the conversation is at the end of these are the foundations so when you're when you're like really obsessed with your work and you love a lot you and your partner end up becoming and talking about the things which you're doing

and which she is doing and then together Just becomes like a great partnership which you're helping so it doesn't feel like that you're trying to dabble between two likes yes right it just goes flows mixes very nicely and nobody has given me an answer like this everybody's like either some people like there's no work-life balance some people are like there's extreme work-life balance you need to switch off at 5 PM you need to switch off at this pm and you said very nicely Also I don't I don't segregate in them people segregate this by uh

Monday to Friday and Saturday Sunday things like that right uh if even someone wants to do that if you want to be more efficient it's actually better to do it on a hourly basis it's like yeah this this eight to nine PM if you're spending time with your son then you can like you don't need to keep aside two days for life and five days for work that's not how it Happens so it's like you can be a lot more efficient and on both sides if you kind of like this instead of dividing into today's

this is even for people who want to segregate you can do it in terms of hours so that you can spend a couple of hours every day with with people whom you want to spend time with but uh if you are fortunate enough to be in in a place where both in work and life you are doing things which you are truly passionate About that's a brilliant place there is that's a that's the best place to be in entrepreneurship is a mindset it's not a skill so you can't teach right but key is and something

which can work for everyone is you need to have those big dreams and I just told you that thinking big has always been part of the game like it's when even when the detractors will tell you that uh like 10 years back if someone was talking about a unicorn They would have told you it cannot happen from yeah but it's it's always but important to also like listen to what detractors are telling because there is always it's it's never 100 noise there is 10 20 feedback in everything what detractors tell like if you can pick

that like you can hear everything but choose what you listen to and then if it's making an impact on others then if it's also something which makes an impact on others then it's Criminal if you are not following your passion because it's that means you are you are here for a job and you are privileged to make that impact and and because sometimes your passion might not make an impact on others then it's okay then otherwise it's criminal and then the having these Big Dreams is important but dreams are only that's only it's easy to

dream right for anyone how do you like I normally the goals are more important goals are equally important if That's 50 thinking big is 50 the other 50 is all about yeah you need to have a life goal but that's not enough right you need to have a an annual gold monthly goal weekly goal if possible of an hourly goal what's right and then that and once you break it down and taking it that step by step in business you normally say you need to think of the next five years ten years 20 years 30

years but you also need to think of the next five days so how do you find The balance right so that investing for long term is very important but executing today tomorrow is also equally important because it's it's always done in small step one step at a time like see a lot of big when the companies move from zero to one one to ten ten to hundred they struggle like unlike what people think not necessarily because of external reasons not because of competition most of the times Beyond a certain point companies don't scale or The

missions don't scale because of the founder mentality kind of drops Founders themselves lose that founder mentality in a lot of cases you lose your co-founders it's it's very rare that a company of our scale after 10 years all the sex founding partners are intact we have added at least four more Partners who came through these Acquisitions so Acquisitions were also a great way to increase the founder mentality because you are getting more Entrepreneurs if you want to scale you need more and more Founders it's not necessarily Founders right people with founder mentality that there is

a huge difference between the ownership mentality and operator mentality right owners don't take no for an answer right they won't come back to you with excuses they'll figure out a way to solve but you need to give them the freedom right it's it's again uh lot of Founders struggle with what when They get too attached to what they build that's why it's like you also need to kind of keep you can't be too emotional about it if you get too attached then you won't delegate yeah so the key is not the key is actually in

letting it go we have started this with the mission to make a difference in the way students learn and because there you are creating a long-term impact obviously we've changed how we do it because based on what is available and because we're able To make a bigger impact but what we have started out with the mission with which you've started out with we have not deviated even a single bit how we are doing might be very different because we'll be offering more and more things yeah because it's important that that existential flexibility is important if

you want to stay relevant right you need to disrupt your own model multiple times over if you want to be if your aspiration is to build something which Will last for decades and not if you are a Serial entrepreneur or create like if you are doing a business and doing this to just make money it's very easy to retire so it's like but not when you are living your dream there's an unfair advantage of being in a sector where you do good you end up doing well or you do well you will end up doing

good there are not many sectors like that so yeah that kind of that's an unfair Advantage but it's it's a it's a Very long game it's it's very very long term so of course you can't do this for two three years and make an impact what do you mean by when you say Founders mentality what is Founders mentality you don't take no for an answer that's that's fundamental everything else is you'll figure out if like now that figuring out will can be by you you have to learn new things but you won't come back with

an excuse right you will be at it till you get it how will you Check whether people have that there are people like you should be able to tell them that if it works it's because of you if it doesn't work it's because of you not many people will take that second part they don't want to take if it doesn't work it's then yeah everyone wants to take credit but the real Founders will take ownership for both when things are going good and when things are going bad how do you create more Founders around because

there's a Thing called I I 100 believe in this thing they think are found as energy yeah okay it starts with one but it spreads in a way that your 200 people 20 people or five thousand people or just two people like you know how do you increase fundamentality in in organization exactly organization because easy easy it's because how do you create Founders because I have done this now for 10 years what I've seen and it might not work every time but Founders are born or entrepreneurs are born only when you try and do new

things yeah and when you try and do things and you fail and you encourage them to be action biased so that they go and do things and figure out rather than waiting for instructions to come and then if you penalize those mistakes then you are killing okay see you you keep using a word called existential flexibility yeah go deeper on that in in simpler language Okay it's it's nothing but um you need to make sure that uh you're relevant and like the complacency cannot sit in like just because you are doing it in a certain

way and today you are successful what made you successful in the last five years you can't take it for granted right you also you always need to question the existence so and and that that flexibility to disrupt your own model multiple times that's that's a simpler explanation we have Done if you see little 2015 we were 100 offline in in services and teaching in stadiums yeah but uh the day we launched literally the month we launched the the learning app we stopped that now no half measures over there right because we move from one extreme

to The Other Extreme yeah I was going to ask you stadiums to smartphones those big screens and stadiums to smaller screens uh so that was not a tentative step now not many companies will make that shift From offline to online and still being very successful at that transition no so quick quick Runway of your Journeys because you told me that it has been almost about two decades since the time you have started teaching right and many people feel like bajus I used to teach I used to teach from my school days I used to teach

in my class I used to teach my Village I used to teach in my college so that's from literally from my school days I used to teach but formerly I Started teaching in a classroom like that's yeah almost 18 years 18 years since 18 years you're doing this right and let's say the stadiums and all of this happened 11 years ago no even from more than that almost like 15 years 11 years ago 11 years ago we started teaching 11 years before is when the company was started seven years before is where we became a

net tech company okay where we started using technology Too there was a buy juice become like a buzzword recently but you've been trying to do this since last 17 18 years now and since 15 years is when the actual seeds started happening of becoming by juice right so that's a quick so give me quick quick snapshot of everything like the first it was just you and classroom it was almost like uh I I always used to teach in my school college and then uh I worked outside India as a service Engineer with a ship management

firm during one of my Vacations so that's how it all started one of my vacation when I was in Bangalore because all my friends were in Bangalore and they were trying to raise their next exam because in India we keep on running behind ourselves so they were trying to raise the next exam so they came to me for help something which started like that during weekends just took off took off to an extent Where like first formal session was for 30 plus of my friends and their friends seconds then it started growing like a geometric

progression so from 30 to 1200 in in a matter of weeks and uh I told my dad that I'll try doing this for uh because I extended my vacation I told I'll try doing this for six months um if it works I'll continue I'll I won't go back and you also need to understand for like a uh for a middle Class uh parent that's a that's a big risk but it was never raw it I was never pressurized on why you are doing this right that's that's exactly an extension of the freedom which was always

given because that didn't question you no I was like that and so he wanted me to do things which I love so that's how I would want to believe so and then uh then never looked back so it just scaled from uh Bangalore to like students started Coming from other cities so very soon it reached a stage where it used to be like Saturday morning Bangalore and instead of them all like once large numbers started coming I thought like rather I'll go there so it used to be like Saturday morning Bangalore Saturday evening Chennai Sunday

morning Bombay Sunday so I started traveling to nine different cities every week wow now why I'm telling this is not to like boast if Anything it's to tell something very important right because it's a lot of people think oh these guys raised money from somewhere and suddenly became big and got like but uh something which you cannot underestimate is is a simple say one-liner that hard work works but what that created is it created a large student following so which has played a big role in what where we are today is uh because I almost

all the first 300 employees came from the Student base six founding Partners all of them are students so that created a very strong core team who believed in the mission who joined not because we were a brand or we were VC funded but because of the mission of course so you you started with 30 people then it went off cities and cities and then the cities turned out to be big stadiums with 20 000 people 25 000 people attending your math class then those 25 000 people gave you an Opportunity to find out your set

of founding team members your team members in the beginning right your partners your your leaders everybody what do you think according to you not according to data it's like what's a gut feeling what do you think is a growth hack that worked for you what within you that it just scaled I mean you worked extremely hard for three years okay and you were teaching for three years now many years for me like I'm just saying like say the journey let's for many years you worked very hard right what was that did you work harder because

as I mentioned there is no that it's like if you if that complacency starts setting in if you think that you are successful you like your game is over right it's there is no there's no question of as long as you are passionate about what you do and you are able to make an impact you should not slow down but the the I Don't think there is any single event or instance which has got us up to this place it has always been about how do we make it bigger how do we make it better

most importantly right it's and then figuring out and most importantly as teachers like those who started this none of us were conventional teachers as teachers you'll always think of what students want now if you are creating Solutions based on what students want in this case they are The consumers ah and then like your product Market fit is solved right and after that it's about at the right time taking those big decisions right it's it's not a it's it's thinking out of the box and take it's now you can say that maybe instead of stopping at

a classroom I went and booked an auditorium without worrying will it get filled because like the classroom was of capacity of 70 A.D when the next class when more people came and Started standing outside that's not a those are decisions taken like on the go right like there was an auditorium in the same College which we went and booked those initial sessions were free in fact okay when I was teaching my friends right because I was not doing it for money I was just doing it as a hobby which ended up becoming business so and

uh then we went and booked the auditorium there was a huge cost associated with it if you were not able To fill 60 70 of the auditorium which is 600 700 students and there was no precedence of me taking a class even for 100 students yeah but at the confidence to like go and book The Stadium but go and book the auditorium uh and then that got filled in six seven weeks so that see fear of failure is what stops most of the people from achieving their actual potential entrepreneurs as well as individuals right so

in that's that's not in my dictionary It's it's always about yeah because a lot of things are uncertain right when you are in a segment where there is no playbook for Success how do you learn by doing things right by doing things but make sure that like do one step at a time don't make big mistakes course correct and then when we see a path go big and make it so okay so what was your marketing at that time I mean it takes guts to fill like 600 people Right like how are you marketing yourself

so it was word of mouth so it was like I used to do everything like if you get the first hundred students in an auditorium then uh like by next class they will bring all their friends so I used to just simply tell at the end of the class that you like it you bring your friends so very simple like first class free so free May model like what we follow even even today right it's a freemium like we ask them to bring their Friends see the it's as much as what I used to teach

in those sessions what students like they always have told me is like they learn a lot in terms of it's It's not that I never used to teach them that's what I was telling you like I kind of enabled them to learn better by giving them the the the right term uh by making sure that they understand Concepts and kind of downplaying the fear of exams in their mind and so 50 was about Enabling them and maybe like to a large extent they also got motivated too so a good teachers will do mentoring well like

will enable them to learn well and will also motivate right and so that there's a lot of students who told like yeah I didn't do well and I didn't get into the Iams or this thing but I learned how to be the best version of myself that's the that's a very uh I I use math to motivate and common sense to motivate so like it was a big Surprise for a lot of them when I simplified those math concepts to an extent with it became I I normally tell all of them that it's this is

below your level you tell that five times people will start thinking oh it's below my level that's it's just see where people like accept failure most of the times is even before doing it right it's it's that there are so many other great teachers better teachers right but many won't think of booking a stadium and Taking because that fear of failure is that inhibits from even doing things like now if you're not scared of failure then who will learn and interesting interesting so just Word of Mouth initially all of all word of mouth and it

also as I mentioned this was done in a way which is there are enough talking points so and and they will also learn so many things that they would want to go back and show off so the the reason Was going from offline to online with this see at that point of time smartphones were taking off there was an app for everything else but there was no learning app yeah so we knew it will become better once we start doing personalizing personalizing it with because of interactions and also we made the content better by creating

it in a studio with like so we have we we might have the largest movie studio and game studio in the country much bigger than Entertainment houses thousands of people when you come to Bangalore you should just visit that how it it's done at a scale which you can't even think of there's the differences we create math movies and science games uh and like like trying to change the way students learn in India as well as in many other countries and we strongly believe that uh this is uh one segment which where we have such

a competitive Advantage India and Indians so like the global Champions Has to come out of India see you need three things right you need the uh ambition you need skill and you need access to Capital this Trifecta is is there now obviously you can say in the current macro environment access to Capital is not that easy but this is all these are all Cycles these are all if you're thinking of next 10 20 years you won't worry about the next six months or next 12 months of Cycles will come and go right these this this

challenging Macro environments but otherwise people have always been bullish about Indians today they are also bullish about India yeah so there is I've heard this many times that people are bullish about Indians right because that aspirational young young country average age of 28 29 and such a large young population very aspirational very hungry hungry to prove hungry so that's our biggest strength right they've always Been like investors or like people have been very bullish on Indians today they are also bullish on India and so that's so it's the right time to like if there's never

been a better time to start yeah you can say maybe the current if you're only thinking of six 12 months but that's not how you think of your mission right like the real missions are where you don't keep a timeline you have to be like literally that's when your best sense of your biggest competitive Advantage can be if you are thinking the longest if you're trying to do something for 10 20 30 years and that's you can do it only if you are passionate about it otherwise if you're just running a business black multiple roadblocks

along the way at some point of time you'll you'll you'll give it so you you technically you want to Brand yourself that hey I'm Disney but I give better results than I am like How do you do that it's so difficult but we have taken sir we have taken a conscious this thing on focusing on students because they are the you want students to uh use the product because that's the most challenging part and you want them to love the product so we have talked about in a country like India we have created we have

talked about love for learning early on right that's so we don't want parents to force this upon Them because that is when like if it's then it's not organic so if students are talking about and good thing about students and kids they like something they talk about it so that's becomes a big plus point so that student-centric approach while creating the product as well as while creating the go to market strategy I've played a big role and that's a that was a very refreshingly different approach talking about love for learning in India where Everyone else

was talking about results and marks and grades because it's our approach is organic if you create that love for learning results will come and that's that has worked out very well so we were able to stand out in that create a huge brand brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan as a brand ambassador right like that's he's again what was the thing thought process like why him someone who's appealing to that age group and someone who's self-made Someone who's very articulate all of that played but and and it has worked out very well for us it's in terms

of that has increased uh with initially even we onboarded Shahrukh Khan as a brand ambassador our brand awareness in in especially in Northern many other like went up and then we had to we when we became a bigger brand in North and then we added many Regional brand ambassadors to kind of match that so it has worked out very well so those Investments in terms of the brand ambassadors as well as the visibility campaigns which we did with Jersey deal and many others have helped us in creating because that brand awareness important because for students

to even try out something new and then also build that trust among parents it's important I was reading like I don't know where I read it I think it was some blog or something it's written that Shahrukh Khan says that one of my Biggest mistakes was not trusting if I use too soon like something like that Eve is offered uh I don't know Equity plus cash deal or something and he rejected something like that is that true I I was I have not seen this yeah that is true but I don't know where you saw

the comment here yeah like he said it like it's one of the biggest mistakes of my life that I didn't take all Equity because that would have given me much more like that would have helped me Maximize wealth and impact away more than anything else so you're talking about like you know people haven't started investing we were always bullish about Indians and now they're bullish about India as well why do you feel so like what what are the key indicators why people are bullish on India as of now uh like a few bright spots in

the world right now with the kind of growth which We are seeing very aspirational our young population is our biggest strength right and and the and with the kind of changes which we are seeing in which we have seen in the last two three years with pandemic and remote working uh and today like previously only what was available to a privileged few where those who got an opportunity to go to U.S has very small percentage today you can be in a small village small town in India access to Internet you can do Anything on your

own you can start on your own right that's such a big think of other than a few hundred thousand Indians getting that opportunity being in an environment to make an impact today that's open to everyone so there's the next 10 20 30 years it's like will become like so many opportunities are available to us and I mean we are hard working without any doubt and you our CEOs have made like proven that so everybody kind of talks about negative About what is there and there are a lot of good things about our education which the

intensity uh taken in its right Spirit can be a good thing that competitiveness which you get and and that work ethics which you learn in and all of them are good things so it's important to what was the biggest challenge before is uh entrepreneurship was uh like not a celebrated thing now that that part is slowly getting done but it's again we also need to uh make Sure that in in terms of if you want to create Global Champions coming out of India we need to make sure that we need to make people believe that

and that's why it's our responsibility like like what what we do and over the next five ten years can also Inspire many more people to become entrepreneurs and start something on their own so access to Internet and in a world which is like uh though there are like uh there are certain short-term challenges but long Term uh today you can be anywhere and like start something right which was not possible even five years ten years back so it like when we like in 2014 15 like for us there were three big challenges we had to

convince people on India we have to convince people on education which is a segment where a lot of investors have lost money and also convince them on a new business model which is like was initially built around Self-learning so it was a big challenge in the early years but not anymore today uh is easy now people are seeing the signs they're very bullish on in the end the ecosystem is maturing and there is yeah it is there you know like I also believe like there's though we all are like celebrating entrepreneurship there's one more thing

which needs to get celebrated Lord that's collaboration because I feel Like people though they look at just one entrepreneur like they only look at the one person and just feel like he this is the guy who's running the show but technically they're like a collaboration of 20 different entrepreneurs coming together and running the show and they all are owning one one thing right so I feel we need to celebrate that angle as well that it's not you who's gonna win it's you with 20 others who's gonna make sure that you make 20 000 more of

you And that's gonna win yeah so that collaborative effort if we start celebrating more than just individualism I think it's gonna do very well and the good part about uh if you make something successful in India it's like first of all if you're building something for India itself you're building for one sixth of the world yeah and and it's such a diverse Like A diversity and if you can make sure that like you create something which is appealing to Like our diverse Indians in population then you are also learning how to actually localize for different

markets because like in it's it's not one India right yeah it's so diverse it's a it's you won't find this kind of diversity you won't find this in many in not many large countries right so if you can bill for India you can bill for the world provided you again you need to have ambition skill and access to Capital that if you can find all three then and Then enough people like there is no limit to what you can achieve in India we have McDonald's that's American culture we talk about Starbucks that's American culture we

talk about apple right we don't have any Indian brand around the world which goes out and be like this is it and you're putting that you're solving that slowly so does it ever scare you we have learned a lot from them so this is one segment where I think we can teach and We can also create something which can make an impact around the world because as I mentioned uh every country needs the the all of them they need to buy juice now unfortunately there are not many so which is when I say unfortunately unfortunately

for the world but yeah it's an opportunity because that means the competition risk is very minimal now it's not easy it's not easy to do this even if it can be successful in two or three big markets That itself will be an achievement aspiration is the like aspiration is there too because a lot of these things in in the way students learn like in certain age groups it's or the skill set required is global skill set coding for that matter it's like it's the same thing it's a it's it's Universe one universal curriculum like you

need to keep on upgrading based on uh what like all the new technologies but the biggest Advantage what we have is This is one of those sectors where like previously you can see many Industries where like we used to find the cost Arbitrage but I strongly feel in some of these new sectors like edtech we have both cost Arbitrage and quality Arbitrage finding these many people those who are passionate about education we care about education finding hundreds of thousands of people and teachers those who are inherently passionate about education because For all of us that's

the only way to make it big right this is the only way people move up the social status it's not just about solving for accessibility right like uh our education systems around the world needs an overhaul right like now can you build more schools and get more teachers into classrooms that's impossible because and compared to even 10 or 20 years back where a lot of these graduates used to stay back in small towns and Villages today They are like with with the kind of urbanization which we have seen they're all moving to cities so we

don't have teachers in our small towns and billions have been invested in now by creating more infrastructure getting more teachers into classroom you can't solve these challenges at scale challenges around access to good quality teachers or education personalization is impossible and uh that's where technology as an enabler can play a big Role so there is an opportunity for uh something like this anywhere in the world so it's it's up for taking so and as I mentioned it's not about us alone like anyone who is willing to passionately do this for 5 10 15 years can

make it big you build an organization because building an organization is difficult they're delegating those skills like you know how how this needs to done get done right you have a mission you don't do it But now there are 50 000 people who also need to do the same thing in order to reach there so you make systems you mix processes like what do you do it's it's uh it's important to again I I don't know everything of which I do that's why it's like uh it's important to have uh like important to hire right

people and it's it's not about uh and I always tell that it's not about hiring best people it's about firing the right people for You are playing a game you have like let's say 11 positions you find the right player for the right position right and then when we initially hire them it's important to find out that they have the right mindset exactly right mindset flexibility put them in a position see how they are playing if they're not playing in that you can always move them around see all Mission or the companies are defined by

its culture so that You can't make you have to play the game you have to play your game and you need to find players who can play your game right and and and but the good part is there are so many different positions right like so it's not that so it's important to hire the right people who will culturally fit in and that's why you need to over and like I over index on people I'm someone who believes that because anyway it's a new segment I can't hire an expert and a tech expert Right yeah

and in segments which are in like your sector it's just getting defined so in in segments which are just getting defined it's best to hire the right people uh and make sure that they believe in your long-term Mission it's important to make them believe long term someone who's coming with a short-term mindset will go for Optics yeah and there is no scope for short-term Optics in a in a long in finite game so hiring the right people and Helping them find the right position is is the is the key to continue winning the games now

how do you I'll give you an example a lot of companies make a mistake of forgetting the the key initial people uh all of them have a very important role to play because they Define the culture of the company so if you even even if they can play a big role in hiring the right people because they know what works in in your mission The the biggest mistakes which some of the companies make is when they move from zero one to ten or ten to one they forget about the zero to one people yeah now

they might like their original role might not be relevant but they can still play a very important role in keeping the team together this is why a lot of football clubs make sure that their players become managers um what is again underrated is the compounding effect of continuity in Relationships is I can have an unbelievable impact in your mission so like you need to value that uh some that tribal knowledge which they'll get by spending years in the system you can't discount that that compounding effect of because the advantage of five people who've been working

for five years is that they know that okay person a is good in this and weak in this so it's almost like I can start a sentence and someone else will complete uh if if There is lot of churn at the top you you change your CPU every two months two years product will run in five different directions so like something which is very it's not easy it's not easy to keep a team together like that because he goes I say like you need to build a team where people can have ego but ask them

to keep that outside and what do you feel how do you keep them together what's the one one thing which you genuinely believe in I think giving them the most important thing is giving them their space people want they want a good people they want accountability right they want the freedom they want guidance so they want accountability but they want guidance so they want mentoring so it's so you play the role of a coach I play the it should be almost to such an extent that you you should feel that you're not Doing anything but

you need to be there when they need support right they need to know that when they need support you need to be available it's just like literally leading from the friend when there is uh it's it's easy to do it in a in a peace time but during what time when like the real leaders like if you can keep your calm if you are not putting the blame on others if you are like in crisis you need to be upfront and and helping them Solve so they need to know that you are available when they

need it's not not the reverse so access to Capital is how do you solve that problem of access to Capital like how do you design like when you think of funding what do you think just like uh it's very just like how you select C uh if people say if you take care of your customers and employees they'll take care of everything else right or take Care of employees like in some cases they take in Services they take care of the customers uh but it's equally important to select the investors if as and when it's

possible so now some of the simple things which people overlay because you need to raise money when you don't need it because if you start raising money when you need it you won't have this luxury of selecting the right because at the end of the day Investors are also Partners you want them to be uh the same way you want them to be there when you need the support and I told you from the beginning that it's only a thin line between what you can think of as interference and support but you need to know

that they are there when you need support right so so selecting in so it's important to educate them about your mission and get them on board rather than them just jump Sometimes when the sector is hot or when the market is hot then you will get investors who will just jumping in you don't want them because like then just like they come in they'll also go out yeah so you want them to be you want them to understand your like how you will select your you want your employees to join you not because you are

paying them more you want them to join you because they believe in your mission like in like if you can also get your Core investors like that that's critical right because they are Partners investors because Beyond uh as long as you have more skin in the game than all of them and you are thinking long term investors like they're they don't want to run the business they want Founders to run the business right and and that's an ideal scenario for them now so selecting investors On right terms it's important in that a lot of times

if you uh because I've heard like many of them so ideally you should raise money when you don't need it and then you should obviously you should allocate the capital well as much as possible again it's it changes if you think of last three years everyone wanted us to go for growth growth growth right now because it was all based on Revenue multiples now the because of the current macro everyone Wants us to focus on profit and that's rightly so I'm not this is not a complaint like the on profitability now companies which are thinking

long term will be able to make these ships from one environment to another environment peace time to avoid time right today you need to do it like a wartime CEO like and like because capital is very like Capital raise fundraising is very challenging yeah it's going to be and it's expensive uh but the uh in times Like this is where you can stand out if uh crisis like this challenges like this uh can differentiate foundationally strong companies and missions from the ones which are just thinking short term or the weaker ones so so from a

fundraising or selecting investors point of view the key is raise money when you don't need that's that's the one key initial like the first two Three is going to be it's not going to be that easy it's all about but once you the advantage of getting the right Partners is that attracts more right Partners right so the key is it's also see you want in investors you should think of investors as partners yeah because you want them to be there when you need support and they also want because that disadvantage of having a lot of

interference from investors is that there is nothing wrong with it it Can be like I normally say anyone can have control but whoever is thinking long term should have control an investor can have control and Founders can run it but but the key is whoever is thinking long term ah should have control yeah that's fair so in in in our case because I want to run this for 20 30 years more so it's important to have long-term Partners yeah so for a company like yourself for especially an Entrepreneur who's very Mission driven do things get

very important impact maximization and wealth maximization in both the things you need to create value right because if you're not maximizing the wealth of your investors the reason why they believed in it was the wealth maximization and if you're not creating an impact the wealth's not going to get maximized right so tell me one one point each where do you feel is The what is the biggest for you uh like the biggest component for you to let's say get the maximum revenue and what is the biggest component for you to create the maximum value so

these two are kind of related I don't think uh like you create impact and long-term impact everything else will follow yeah now the impact is not just about uh creating Revenue growth impact is the real impact is if the students and parents are seeing Value and that results in Revenue growth and that results in like wealth creation for investors a wealth creation for everyone who's involved right so I don't think these two you can do it independently there is no way you can have long term again short term you might be able to do uh

Optics but if long term it's if you don't create impact it anything which you do is not sustainable so that or in other words Valuation growth if you don't consistently match with value creation you can't even do it this long so so it's important to so it's at any point of time it's all about if you have access to Capital the decision is what more you can do to now priorities can change there will be times when you will prioritize growth over profitability and there will be times where you will that making that shift is

for a foundationally like if You're thinking long term and most of our businesses are built over many years we were very profitable in the early years right it's like you will find there are two types of entrepreneurs also have never seen that profitability and those are always so we were bootstrapped for the first many years right and then just before scaling and launching the learning app is where we started raising money so it's in our DNA to uh so these are foundationally strong Business models we don't do anything just for the Top Line there are

times when we prioritize Top Line growth so and and uh these Acquisitions which we have made in India and in us will help us to like add more value to our users so we have been very selective in terms of deciding what to add they've been very complimentary apart from uh in in most of these Integrations those Founders also become Partners after they join so we have used the right structure In most cases I'm not telling we have done it right every time nobody gets it right four out of five times three out of five

times itself is considered a very high success ratio when it comes to because I've heard people telling Acquisitions are designed to fail but we have made most of them work Akash is growing 100 year on year uh or more than 100 in just in the last great learning is growing like that we have scaled osmo Forex this is a tough to integrate Cross-border acquisition in US Forex in just two and a half years so we have a challenge only in Whitehead Junior like since we are talking about specific things here so and this we have

been able to achieve this by integrating those entrepreneurs and uh like taking the best of what they have and using the best of what we have and not having that lot of times when a large company acquires a small company yeah you try changing everything and you kill the Culture you change people you change culture and you change culture you kill the company that's something which we have been very uh uh like careful in terms of what we have done with most wherever we it's been possible like we have like just to be fair here

if we have not made uh Acquisitions to neutralize a competition unlike what people think because people always talk about okay we buy juice is making these Acquisitions to kill the competition but Not a single one of them so we have not made because that's another way people why people so to neutralize the competition you can make Acquisitions but all our lucky Acquisitions all of them are in segments which are very complementary Akash so that test prep segment they were the they were segment leaders yeah so osmo epic Tinker these are all very complementary in terms

of subject and Market osmo Tinker epic all of them are in U.S where we there we Have like that's also an opportunity for us to get distribution yeah in India we are giving distribution we are getting distribution and not just distribution right there we are also getting these exceptional Founders who we think that can help us so because it's that founder mentality and Founders is critical to scaling businesses or launching businesses in some markets so fair but we will get a lot of things They're misconcepted about a lot of these things right now that we

hear from you it's a different thing because none of these companies were our competition big ones like Akash was not our competition no why it has Junior was not our competition yeah we were doing coding osmo epic Tinker they were not at all our competition because that's in a very different market so it's all it's it's all complementary we have so that wave By doing this we are also creating new markets and new segments and helping them grow and these are uh Integrations where we are also bringing in the India Advantage us Acquisitions the biggest

Advantage com the complementary Advantage which we bring in is what I mentioned already the cost and the quality Arbitrage of uh like using like building some of those products in India and these are pioneering products so building some of those products in India And second India as a revenue Center where we have also a potential to launch some of them in India so it's both India is a revenue Center and India as a cost center because it's both cost and quality Arbitrage so so there is a lot of people might think it's all done with

some intuition but there's a lot of thought which is gone yeah we have done uh we have gone aggressive in terms of you know Acquisitions during a time where we Realized that the online learning is like we'll skip a few years in the next 10-year plan and and none of them are short-term in terms of plans and most of them have worked out well so no regrets so I mean you know forget what people think tell me what do you think what do people misunderstood about you or Miss and like they don't get I don't

about you or buy shoes like anyone yeah I don't think see to be very honest I don't think um Uh it's that's the nature of the media that's the nature of social media like nothing is as good as what you read so it's like I can't complain it's the same media talks all the good things right so it's the rags to reach a story they only celebrate yeah so nothing is as good as what media writes and nothing is as bad as it's something in the middle right nothing is as bad as what they write

so now if if a question on Am I getting uh like like if the question is is has it been a challenge with some of this perception answer is uh to some extent it's been tough but it's not something which I know that there is no like anyone who actually gets one level deeper either in understanding the business or understanding us they have nothing against us in fact the media is nothing but there's no personal grits because we Have we don't have anything against anyone it's more about uh there is feedback in what some of

them write which we take it well and as I told you it's the keys yeah you need to see you can't no one is above criticism yeah of course nobody is about Fair criticism so ah but like longer term all these things people like anyone who takes some effort in understanding what we do and the Intent so no one can question the intent so it's like like when you run a large business can like will you make mistakes you will make a lot of mistakes but if you are not willing to correct then that deserves

a lot more criticism but that's never been the that's not been the that will do we hear everything but you need to choose what you listen to and that's exactly what I was like phrasing it in a different way that there's a lot of noise but there's also Feedback now it is not that our real user students they are not on they are not on any of this medium they love so our biggest indicator is so students are very happy hour NPS have improved significantly it's like most of our products have NPS in the 65

to 70 range and and this is done by the investors also come on board and they've been we have been able to get interest from investors even during times like this we've just closed another round They do deep research they don't just take an outside interview right they do deep research consumer research every other research and they get satisfaction in terms of what is misunderstood if you ask me about us is because it's a new segment education is a very sensitive topic if I what I can tell you is that every product which we kind

of try to make popular to the whole world or is something which we use at home so It's not something my son he doesn't learn from baiju the teacher he learns from by juice products so that's a level of conviction so there is no question of in fact that's something which we have always that's what gives us the conviction right we are we truly believe in what we do to an extent where this is the only way my son will learn so you will never find uh because you'll find like sometimes you'll also you'll be

in a segment where you will make some of These products like popular and addicted to people but will ban that for your own kids yeah so that so the level of conviction is to an extent this is how I have learned this is how our kids will learn that is and that's true for not just for me that's true for all the leaders and if you don't have conviction and the the products which we buy is only when we have the conviction that this is what this is how I how we would want our kids

to learn from now there is Nothing more than that so there's no that's why my request is that anyone my first question is when someone like meets and writes is that have you tried the product have you used it because if a lot of people don't because this products are for kids right they don't use it for but someone else use the products someone who has met so they will never question the intent I'll say heart is in the right place yeah yeah no that's that's given I was just asking What I'm really mad like

what do you think people get wrong your your intent is right you you what you're doing is great I I I don't think there is there is anything right or wrong to be very honest like it's an opinion and why and you feel like the the opinion in recent time for some people turned out to be negative because they didn't go one level deep or what was the reason like why is a See uh they're a lot when you do anything at the scale there will be detractors and normally The detractors Voice gets Amplified right

in any media because that's what never says yeah that's that's how that's what sells that's what travels faster but I I am not like I am I'm not telling like there are like there are things which is out of misconception or uh they are not like deep enough to understand or not close To the action now those who are closest to the action as I mentioned none of the even with all the noise none of the top mid-level employees have left in the last 12 months not a single investor has exited the company we have

70 plus investors those who are sitting on handsome returns now these are objective indicators now the misconceptions are around there is there is misconception we want sales now at the end of the day sales is Only 20 percentage of our Workforce Now in in sales there is always there will be little more aggression than most of other functions right because that's how that's how sales is done now we are continuously improving how we curb Miss selling and aggressive selling which is seen in all the objective reports see there will be anecdotal things where like there

will be one-off incidents where people would have gone overboard right but if you when you have 50 000 people and 10 000 sales people there will be there will be one of incidents right but that gets Amplified yeah now we have con like that's one if you are asking about what are the uh like misunder what were the things which people misunderstand is the one is around sales the second one is around financing now financing is such an important part of uh the creating that impact it's it's a Win-win for um uh customers because they

get to pay over 12 months that makes it accessible to a much larger percentage of the population those who they need this more than the the affluent Metro counterparts right so having in small town that's how people are used to paying it's it's it's such a strong tool for us to make it more affordable and more accessible yeah so that's that's another thing these two are like if you ask me how we have built The sales team and how we have created financing options for customers are like for us those who are closest to the

action for us and investors these are two uh big positives but it gets represented as negatives in the media it's it's the same thing which has been playing out but again I have no complaints I'm anyone who takes like willing to spend that an hour extra in understanding they know that of course That's that so these are the two things which people get missed I'm not telling they're wrong it's because there are more clarity on how things are yeah and why we are doing those so and usually it also like this what happens most of

the times you pick up see when you when you're trying to do things at large there are gonna be supporters they're gonna be haters They're gonna be lovers they're gonna there'll be people who love your company and love their culture love everything what you do and there'll be people who'll come and in two months they live in like I don't like this at all right because in sales that's always uh in in terms of uh the way we have scaled the sales team see one one thing is we are like among the startups we might

be the largest employer like we have 50 000 plus people and families Depending on us right so and in that uh they're in in sales especially because it's a very different type of a say here those who sell here they also need to understand the subjects math science or whatever a lot of people try this out and they are not so they try it out for first three months and then figure out some some of them figure out it's not for them because it's not for everyone and the reverse sometimes you also figure Out they

are not able to do it right so there is now we have not done Optics by hiring them and keeping them in a third party company and things like that we hire them inside by just a lot of big companies they do that yeah so again it's not as bad as what people think this is scope for improvement like 100 because in any anything which when you start something you will make mistakes you will improve and uh but uh there is strong intent to improve everything Fair because like there is no we are not here

to just make some quick money and get out of it I want that's not why we started the company and that's not why we run this company so does that ever affect you because as things go bigger right and you are running the largest company in India largest startup in the world for Education right is that so you're you're always going to be the center of the topic for the for The longest time yeah right it's always going to happen this happens with a lot of large-scale entrepreneurs right yeah does this ever affect you because

when you get celebrated you're gonna get celebrated at Large uh when you get hated you're gonna get hated at large so there's you will always be balancing a lot of love a lot of fear a lot of Shame a lot of uh you know fandom like these many emotions does that affect you because there are So many things no I don't like again it's it's uh if a question is this kind of negativity whether it has no and no negativity negativity possibility yeah you know but that is that's true to what I was if you

ask me yeah we need to like like learn and take some of this as feedback but a lot of this is noise right so it's not a something that affected you no no it has Taken like there are some some of this kind of what we have gone through in the last six months is not just the last six months were the toughest not because of reasons which you know that's mostly because I had to like also like make my dad all right yeah like he thinks I made him all right I didn't but it's

like just by spending time but uh otherwise no it's uh to be very honest it's uh there's no place for uh like again for Both right you can't be like you can't get too excited because someone is praising you or you can't get too disturbed because someone is uh I I would say like people have no reason to hate me personally or it's like yeah they can have they will have their opinion it's it's uh and their uh they should have their opinion it's like it's up to them to uh but someone who's like if

they start spending more time slowly but surely the opinions will Change and like the best answer to all of that is get down put more hard work and yeah prove them wrong so 20 years 30 years down the line world will know that it's it's it's again it's it's very fortunate to be in a segment where uh you can't discount uh the millions of students whom we are where we are making an impact nobody can deny that so and it's like beyond anything else uh if things like this if if it starts getting into your

head both right Success cannot get to your head and like even challenges cannot get to your head you know you have to approach this with a very calm you won't find me it's like in like because in anything it's like I'm always calm so always always there right that's what maybe Sports learning comes yeah yeah it's it's more of uh uh unlike people think that I'm very passionate and sometimes people think it's aggressive it's not I am not like I I what I've learned is that there is no place for uh uh when I make

a mistake I'm I'm very very happy to accept the mistake because if you don't accept the mistake if you're not willing to acknowledge how will you learn yeah your learning starts when you know that you made a mistake or you don't know you have to ex like that's why I was telling that it's about humble enough to know your limitations and what you need to learn and still confident enough bold Enough to also believe that you can make an impact because otherwise how do you make the next move you know what I feel maybe I'm

wrong it's I think like you have a very human side of you it just doesn't get reflected when people don't get to know you I mean it's just like spending that day the hour on a call today and just going getting to know you more from your people researching more now talking to You there's there's a human side of you which like from the outside world till the time I started like fun you sound like a machine it looks like like someone is like okay there's a machine which is 24 7 working to make sure

that this this large thing which you have created it just goes on and it keeps getting bigger and bigger like that's that voice looks like see I think again I am someone who are like objectively if you take a look at It if that is a case people won't stay with you so long out of the first 300 plus employees like almost 250 plus are still there it's 10 years out of the founding Partners all of the mother right so it's it's happening like those who are close to me it's all about so if you

ask me the most important thing is like empathy and compassion now that is that I won't take any credit it's like that's so that's how we are all wired it's like by growing up in that Environment so there is no don't think that it's like it's you know I am not special that's you are wired like that so it's it's an unfair Advantage because people expect uh when they see that there is such a difference between perception and reality or see it's not just for me right it's a lot of people think that once you

start people adding the tag of a billionaire and a unicorn and a deck account and role people expect uh oh now this founder is Supposed to act in a certain way and things all that but it's such a unfair Advantage when if you can be yourself when and if these tags and names and fancy names is not changing you it's it's a big Advantage because uh people expect you to act in a certain way and when you know that see if you have met me 10 years back 20 years back you won't like you won't

find any change you absolutely won't find any change other Than things which made me happy 20 years back 10 years back is like nothing has changed yeah having access to some more money is I'm able to make a bigger impact but otherwise the same because mission is the same it's if it's anything it's been uh more like it's it's more hard work because you put in more effort it's not because not because it's challenging or you don't have people when you know that your mission is working You have to put in more effort yeah not

that you need to become complacent right that all those things you will do if you are uh if you are thinking oh you are you got money enough money and if you are doing this for money not when you are doing this to make an impact yeah you look at all those metrics and all that to show that you are moving in the right direction it's important like looking at all those boring numbers but um That's not the that's not why we started this in the first place so that's but it's it's an unfair Advantage

I've heard people telling that and this is important for everyone to keep in mind when you are successful or if you think if people are thinking you are successful you have no reason to be uh like uh there is no reason for you not to be nice you need to be like extra nice when The world has given you everything there is no like like unfortunately some people are not like that but you tell me like why should I not be nice to people when I why should I not be nice to everyone in this

world it's it's like when people like us if we act crazy it's criminal yeah like some people will have excuse and the circumstances for them not to be nice but if you can be uh what got you up to this if you can be the same 10 years 20 Years down the line oh but you know it's an unfair advantage it is and for the larger societies there but what I saw like the little things which I noticed in you you have a very apart from the world what is given to you apart from the

things that you got to be there's a very little things which you don't have to be but you are like that's if the one little example is like hey you know what do you want like a local Kerala Biryani right now there was No reason for you to ask me this like it would have been there's a lunch prepared for you you can have it in good like you're not even supposed to do that right you're not even asked to do that there's a timeline to it there's a there's a specific hours to it right

so it can start a time and end at a time you can be nice at the time and then you can do your work and just like those little like elements I think that that makes a lot of Difference for a lot of things just making sure that you know asking me for the first thing which I was like hey do you think I should also wear a jacket so that you don't feel alone you didn't you were comfortable in yourself yeah but because I was wearing you said are you comfortable and you know that's

these are the little things which you're not supposed I guess it makes you more I think people just overrate these things It's it's it's this is this should be the norm what do you feel is the most important thing uh as a Founder for you to focus on the at least in the initial stage of the company that is it The Branding is it the operations like what do you feel like I think you got the first part right in terms of you are doing something which you are passionate about now it's about finding the

right team Finding the right product now and and getting the product Market fit before you invest in marketing and branding so first is pmf and then you get into like more marketing we did that for like many years before we actually unlike what people we did we we're finding product Market fit for many years before we actually launched in a big way and once we got convinced about the product we went then you should not waste time because you should like faster you do it You are making it you're creating a very high entry barrier

for potential competition Fair no so okay but it's all about see the key is the team right it's it's about the team it's it's a it's very yeah it's never about the founders and the co-founders it's about how do you identify the right 10 people that that if you invest and find the people who who will commit say they should not though they should come in the next five years to you And you should commit the next five years the same right it's not it's not what like it's not them it's about it's a mutual

commitment to each other you're a teacher and you've built like now a large company as an entrepreneur you know something about consumers right because obviously that it all that the thinking derives from how do you please your customer in a way where you are not only giving them the right satisfaction but also pushing them to learn and get Better right so what do you what do you think is the key like what so how do we get to customers it's see that's again you making sure that uh see I come from that kind of a

background someone who's experienced all these challenges firsthand right so uh we know what ticks on the ground yeah on what works for India like I want to know that like what do you think what works for India like how do you convince its consumers your Customers here it's again it's very different for different segments it's people are very emotional so if you take very high expectation in in a segment like education but if you get the trust then uh you will build something which will last because if the in education and Healthcare and all that

if you build the right product and the right brand you'll find that some of the brands which people still remember they Don't they they don't even offer their products and services today that's advantage of right brand building or building the right brand and and after getting the right product or services so uh close to I think what is important is like the the best part is like in in today in almost all the business models right you can like initially you can launch something based on what you think is right get it to 70 80

percentage and Then learn continuously from users right that's easier than ever before today right you know what they want like when you are launching a new segment you can't ask users what they want because they won't know because it's a new segment but you in in our case we launched something based on what teachers thought again taking continuous feedback from students in our stadiums and auditoriums and then after that it's all data driven Like last five years six years today we don't ask anyone right it's just based on asking someone what they want they might

not know but looking at what they do is and in all tech tech enabled products it's it's easier than ever before consumer research when there is no like for for uh is helpful but not exactly when you are launching a new segment so I think I want you to go deeper on trust because It's user so I feel brand distrust how do you build trust what are the key components by long term it's that trust comes from uh parents and like or consumers getting what they want from your offering right and if like if they

see that uh it's it's a real value for their time and money like in some cases it's time in some cases it's money right that's when uh and if the if there are tangible positive outcomes You you build the brand and the and and the trust along with it right you build the trust and then that imp that improves the brand it's it's very difficult to build and easy to lose so it's it's not easy there is no there is no shortcuts but uh normally my answer to that is if you are trying to do

something for 20 years your approach will be very different from if you are trying to just do something for three years create an outcome for Investors do an IPO and get take an exit then your approach will be different and I am not blaming that's one strategy right but otherwise if your idea is to okay you will build a long lasting brand you look at all the you look at the top 10 brands in India all of them are multiple decades old yeah so brands are not built over years they built over decades so we're

just going through like where we just get entered the top 20 brand in in a very uh Established research we are the English brand in that segment all others are like so it's built over decades and it's like over years you can't build a brand sometimes there are let's say bad negative press or idea or let's say it's a like recently there was a lot of noise about the financials the the reports or like auditing all that this gets hard so does it happen like your team has like a Little mistrust and do people come

to you and be like no I think the biggest Advantage is that that's advantage of having a such a core closely knit team it's uh other than the the challenge in the media we didn't people closest to the action both from the because employees the founders co-founders they are closest to the action they know that was a line out of 10 things is exaggerated like again I'm not telling That it's there is some other than audit delay everything else was was just Amplified and exaggerated so they know that it's such a there's a huge difference

between perception and reality so we didn't face to be very honest we didn't have that internal challenge because and that's where having a large team or such a large team of co-founders helps because everybody each of us can focus on so the business grew significantly even and these are Still again I'm not downplaying we we uh in in growing fast we have also overlooked we were playing uh so upfront that we have to strengthen the defense now which we have started I think it's that bad as people talk about or like what's the scene like

why is there so much noise you want to address that no it's it's in terms of I think that's uh the worst is over to be like uh in terms of because we gotta after like a delay in order we got a Clean report at the end of the day it's like like 20 000 plus man hours of work which Deloitte did the fact that we got a clean report so there are no real issues on the ground obviously there are systems to be improved uh like Finance functions to be improved we have to uh

like like a hire a strong defense team over there like like which in in in in growing fast and making these Acquisitions like some of those functions we some of those functions and But it's that's easy to solve so but it was only like so there was only just about delay inside yeah there is no there is no real issue other than other than delay which is what is proven once uh the report came and now nobody's talking about it and then it's and and the and it's also the fact that from that year to

next year the business grew significantly all like five out of the six businesses are growing better than the previous year This is business challenges there's in just one and that's a that's a smaller part of the business so and again we will uh what like people will see over the next many years is that yeah everyone like all companies go through challenges but as strong as yeah it's but these are not uh these are not systemic challenges it's right the first is you're talking about the audit delay everybody's talking about hey why why there was

a delay is there something Going on why was Akash not paid or I don't know like 10 000 things which people are talking about but everything's related to that so what's the scene there was an audit delay but everything else around it is just exaggerated in terms of now that the report is out and it's a clean report after uh like a deep work by Deloitte and uh and with what is very clear is there are no real issues okay other than There is scope for improvement and which we are supposed to acknowledge that in

terms of uh improving the finance function and hiring a global CFO all of that uh there's no real issue this is a question like for the longest your your large company for the longest time you didn't have a CFOs is there a particular reason for that you know we had a CFO and during this audit he had health issues and here to retire to like take a take a break during that okay and like And we have enough people in like in the finance function though the CFO was not there but there is scope for

improvement over there and we are hiring uh a strong Finance partner who will help us scale the company from here on and on the on the second thing on on Akash on Akash Blackstone payment that's that's completely misunderstood over there it's like it was a decision between buyer and seller to follow some regulatory guidelines to and then we were just Following that and that it's that's also completely it's it was never an issue to be sorted to be very honest it was resistor because people were just creating the link that oh like maybe we don't

have cash to pay like we are well capitalized that one thing which I have told in the beginning also that we've always raised money when we don't need money so we're very well capitalized with the uh but there was a challenge in terms of we were just waiting to we were Following a pricing guideline by uh regulatory Authority and that part is done and that's closed so like a lot of people say that uh use funded you to fund this you were not capitalized you had such a large burn rate because of your Acquisitions and

stuff now you need a lot of funds and you're not being able to raise and that's why you self-funded it and you were like how do we yeah it should be a positive news it should be a positive news that actually 400 Million self-funding in a company should be a pro should be really at this stage instead of taking money out now that's also that funding is also like most of this is also done by investors those who are uh funding me so that I I and I am investing that in the company so it's

it's done through now if it is just for Optics I can just do 50 million to show my conviction in the company I don't need to do 400 million this is in line with Uh long-term thinking and increasing the ownership in the company now in terms of capital availability and burn so we are well capitalized there was never there is like we don't just to raise money looking at the burn rate and and uh like how much cash is left when for how many months that's never been that's fortunately never been the scenario you're very

well capitalized like more than a billion dollars and our like burn is significantly lower Today Jason people got it wrong that 400 million verse it was not just completely you it was people investing in you so that you could get it and then that's a in a line with your long term yeah it's it's not because I don't know it's someone else investing for me to invest in by juice so it's as Founders if I'm going all in I want to do this for next I've been doing it for almost 18 years I want to

do this for 20 30 years more so so having more skin in The game than everyone else is is very useful and you you correctly pointed out I think this should be a positive news not the negative the big positive it's like at this like you won't find many Founders putting this kind of money at this stage back in the company instead of like there's a times where people will start taking money out of the company in secondary it exits and all that so this is the time people take 400 million out not for 500

million in yeah And you give me if you have money give me 100 million I'm gonna put that back in Vegas that's that's the only that's the only thing which we've been doing that's the only thing which we'll do so there's not a question it's just like a perspective like uh what's the future of Education in India is it completely online is it offline because now they're mixing everything together what's it like yeah see for students there are things which They can learn better online and there are things which they can only do offline so

we have after starting with so we were offline till 2015 we went completely online where you created all these products and services which are pure online or digital products and then now with uh in the last few months we have started we have kind of defined and we are scaling a hybrid format where we are bringing the best of both we are giving Students an option of learning online most of the days at home and they also come to a nearby location and we have now 200 plus senders which we scaled in the last uh

literally three months we have scaled it to more than 200 centers where we offer this hybrid format where like you should walk in and try out where because that I think is going to be a very strong format in the like today and tomorrow and ideal schools also should follow a hybrid format but That's making changes with schools and schools is going to be a Herculean task yeah so we have created this parallel network of hybrid senders where students can benefit from the best of both at the end of the day it's everything is is

work is going hybrid learning is going to be hybrid or it has its because there are there are certain things which can be done way better online like giving access to the star teachers or personalized learning you can do better And self-learning you can where you do it on your own yeah it can be done way better online but the the physical interaction mentoring and support and act conducting Assessments in an actual test environment all of that can be done better offline in the in uh at the center near you so combining the best of

both so the future of learning like most of other sectors is going to be hybrid where do you feel apart from at education where do you think the next Big unicorn can be built like what is a sector or an industry where people are watching this because lots of a lot of people watch this to learn how to spot ideas how to fight businesses and all that so what is it next I think it's it's in India I won't specify any sector it's it's all these even the conventional sectors are ripe for disruption as we

are saying now whether it's fintech edtech and these are these are core sectors in an economy and with We have millions who are ready to come online so it's it's it's not even though there are a lot of unicorns in these sectors there is so much more which can be done in in still like in it's because even in net Tech if you consider we are only we are only solving uh we are making it easy for students if you ask me there can be something which can make it easy for teachers in classrooms in

schools uh there can be something which uh uh can help Enterprises do reskilling Upskilling there are many models but something which will help teachers something which will help schools uh the space is wide open so and that's just in in in at Tech itself but like that all these core sectors uh and with more and more people coming online and and having access to Digital Services there is an opportunity to destroy disrupt even even media It's like because we have we have such a large Ah high quality like Workforce today in the where you can

like tap into lot more people than five or ten years back because they have access to Internet just to give you an idea the uh we have an opportunity to create the largest pool of teachers for the world like where those who will teach from home to students anywhere in the world yeah that's the like it's like it's almost like you want to do something you can go online and start doing that yeah right You want to teach anything which you want you go online and start teaching you will find your audience true true I'm

not just talking about unicorns but there is an opportunity to create like multiple Millennial companies maybe smaller ones but there can be uh the opportunities are unlimited so yeah the next few decades are for Indians and for India you've done business in India now you're doing business in U.S what do you feel is the Major difference between two countries like what's there in U.S and which should learn India should learn and what's there in India which you guys should learn at at more at the like the difference what we still need to learn and bring

that it's not just in our business is that entrepreneurship is very very well celebrated in us right you need when like it's if you want to become an entrepreneur you need all the support yeah so we need to start Celebrating both success and failures because most of the big or very successful entrepreneurs it's their second third or fourth Venture in India it's it's we need to get into change that mindset of because if you start something new it's a very high chance that it'll fail most of the startups are like bound to fail right but

you need to get up and start again and that requires a mindset change so that's something which I see because in U.S something won't work failure you move on and start something else that has to there's still a big difference in in that mindset right we need to celebrate success and failures because if there are sixty thousand seventy thousand plus startups only a few will succeed yeah startups can fail but entrepreneurs should not fail wow because entrepreneurs that failure should be a big step towards success sometime in the next or the next to next Venture

that that requires a mindset change from all of us we have a habit of pulling down people but the we need to understand that it's that's not how you create a if you if you really want to challenge if you want to create India as a startup destination we need this mindset change so what if we would be the two things or three things a young founder who's watching this should keep in mind when they're raising funds Investors don't want to most of the investors don't want to run the businesses right because they know that

uh uh the founders and the founder mentality is intact they will be very happy playing a supporting role not necessarily a passive role there can there are investors who are actively who will actively support but it's the if you are scaling the leadership and if they know that the intent is right they Will what I have seen is that even in tough times like this they have been very supportive nice there there were times when they were anxious they will be anxious but once they know that the intent is right they will be supportive because

at the end of the day that's the whole idea is that they will make investments in multiple places and they want Fair uh like Founders or anyone with founder mentality to run the show quick quick question like what do You feel is the right business so for me that that's a simple answer like in terms of it's not that I'm investing anywhere else but uh if you want me to give a hypothetical answer I uh uh I want to invest in businesses which will create a long-term impact because something anything which creates a long-term impact

will become successful uh the question of the day is I want to have this opportunity to ask everyone how can we get better what should we Because you spend such like four hours now with us what do you think how can I improve what I'm doing right now very simple I'm gonna repeat what I have told and that's what I want everyone to take once like figure out and this is this message is to everyone right figure out what you like and what you are good at forget about others what others still and once you

figure that out and again like time is on your side whatever be your age whoever like is listening to This time is on your side don't think that like yeah you need to reflect and see like learn from the mistakes which you have made but otherwise time is on your side figure out what you like and what you are good at and once you figure that out then no looking back like go at it with uh like pursue that with uh Relentless pursue that relentlessly with all the passion which you have got and knowing very

well that all of you are far better than what you Think you are and all of you can do lot more than what you think you can it's it's if someone from a small village without any supportive can do all this uh I'm I'm just a normal guy with with Big Dreams and and a lot of discipline anyone can do anything if I can do this so can you oh thank you thanks a lot I relate to your journey a lot and I feel there's a long way you inspire me man it's it's amazing because

I come from a small place I dream big and I always call myself a dreamer that hey you know what I I just want to have the next big dream and then I want to change that and then it became to a point that now I'm satisfied with what I have and like the dream is how can I make more people just like me so that they are not afraid of dreaming how are they becoming entrepreneurs how are they doing things and you just inspired me to make sure that I Am thinking 10 times more

than what I do right now the episode till the end let me tell you the story is not ended yet we have baiju ravindras co-founder and partner in life Divya Gokul Nath on the podcast coming next week so make sure that you check out that episode as well how did these guys meet what do they do what are the future plans how are they going to make sure that they change the education system in the Country and so many more things and before you close down this episode please share this episode with at least one

person because I really believe that one idea one conversation one right role model can help you me our country grow really really fast because you never know what ideas they spark and one idea can be turned into a billion dollar opportunity which can take our country to the growth which we all want to see thank you so much until the next episode Keep figuring out [Music] thank you