Ph-easy-cs Wallah

" Hello, bacchooonn…Kya Haal chaal badhiya ekdum" This line is what every student preparing for competitive exams like JEE/ NEET in recent 5 years or so has heard while he was hustling and going through the tough phase of preparation. The man who revolutionized the entire Edtech industry in India is none other than ALAKH PANDEY. Well, why does it get so important to know about a man who has been teaching novices and training them to get into their dream colleges? The question became even more prominent when the news broke out " Edtech platform physics Wallah becomes India's 101st unicorn ". This question cannot be answered in a line or two. There are substantial reasons why this bootstrapped startup was successful in raising 1 billion $ and thereby entering into the unicorns’ club of the country. From uploading video lectures on his YouTube channel Physics Wallah to accomplishing this milestone, the entire journey for this 30-year-old young man was no less than a terrific ride on Kingda Ka. Born in Allahabad, Alakh Sir had faced a lot of financial issues right since his childhood. He dropped out of Harcourt Butler Technical Institute, Kanpur in his third year of B.Tech and started teaching in an offline institute. Well, let's break this into parts to understand better about the ride.

1. THE EMERGENCE

Well, it all started when Alakh Sir began teaching in 2014. It was an era when the entire coaching industry was highly dominated by big institutes of Kota that demanded lakhs of rupees from the students who enrolled in their courses. Back then, there wasn't much craze about learning online. And this was the time when Alakh Sir began uploading video lectures on YouTube for free. The channel saw exponential growth when India witnessed a dramatic fall in data prices triggered by the September 5, 2016 launch of Mukesh Ambani's 4G mobile network, Reliance Jio. Easy and increased affordability to the Internet accompanied by his high-quality content attracted lakhs and lakhs of students. He then uploaded full-length video lectures on Physics and Chemistry covering almost the entire syllabus of IIT JEE and NEET. He gradually earned the trust of students and this was something very new in the market. A student who remained perplexed and hesitated to ask silly doubts in a class flooded with his fellow competitors could come back home and watch those online lectures with utmost ease.

2. JUNCTION (Extraordinary way of teaching and expansion)

I appeared for JEE last year and I remember in one of his lectures on electromagnetic induction, he explained the very famous Right-hand Palm Rule by performing Hritik Roshan's signature step on the song " Ek pal ka Jeena ". The lecture was so engaging and the concept is so firmly embedded that even after years, I'll never forget the rule. What I intended to reflect through this short story of mine is that along with the right time, Alakh Sir's incredible way of teaching and high-quality content which he delivered for free, all helped him grow so big today. Meanwhile, the subscribers count on his channel was hitting milestone after milestone, it wasn't that easy for him to keep uploading the content for free, he has rejected many lucrative offers worth crores made by several Tech giants as each of them wanted to have him to expand their venture. It's a well-known quote, "Change is the only constant", Alakh Sir didn't stop here and it was 2020 when he launched his first ever paid course on his own app "Physics Wallah" for just 999 covering the entire syllabus of class 12th Physics which remained valid for the entire year and the batch was named LAKSHYA. Since then, there was no way to look back. He kept on launching courses for different sets of students preparing for JEE/ NEET which cost not more than 5000 rupees. Today, students from not-so-well-to-do families can also afford these courses without compromising the quality of content being delivered. From 2020 to now, PhysicsWallah’s team has scaled to 1,600 employees and runs close to 55 to 60 batches targeting students from classes 9 to 12. A major part of his income comes from the courses and YouTube ad revenue which he further utilizes to manage the expenses and launch more courses on the platform itself. The channel today has around 7.51 million subscribers and across multiple other channels, Physics Wallah has over a crore subscribers. Since different channels have different audience bases sorted as per the content being delivered on a specific channel, (for example, Defence Wallah has students preparing for NDA, Physics Wallah – NTSE has 9th and 10th-grade students aiming to crack NTSE) big brands find it much convenient to find their target audiences and hence YouTube ads revenue generated is significantly enough. Thus, YouTube provides a good passive income to the company.

3. THE NON-TERMINATING TERMINUS

Alakh Sir has a futuristic vision. As of now, there are hybrid centers in 16 different cities based on both online plus offline learning models. From a local college dropout to the CEO of India’s 101st unicorn, from a YouTube channel to a mobile app with 5M+ downloads, Alakh Sir has not just reframed the entire industry but also served as a motivation for many such individual content creators who are starting afresh and wish to make a change in the market. Alakh Pandey is the perfect epitome of perseverance, patience, and self-belief. Many a time, we tend to deviate from our goals after encountering hurdles and lose motivation to hustle, one thing we can do about it is to always keep in mind the purpose of starting that thing, the WHY behind our goals. This is one of the most important learnings that can be taken from his journey and practised in our day-to-day lives. Finishing off in his style….” Toh padhai karte rahe, all the very best ”.