How Alakh Pandey Bootstrapped Physics Wallah to a Unicorn Company.

The buzz around Alakh Panday has created quite a stir in the EdTech space as well as the business world! But what really drove Alakh to make him the 7th EdTech unicorn and the 101st unicorn of India?

Alakh's journey has been nothing short of astounding.

Alakh grew up in dire straits. But in all these hardships, 💪 he pushed through and started to coach students to provide for his family.

📖 Coaching students became his passion, and he loved the idea of becoming a Math professor.

😲 To carry forward his passion, Alakh quit college and joined a coaching institute in Kanpur to teach Physics, and his students were in awe of his teaching style.

💻 This pushed Alakh to start a YouTube channel focusing on competitive exams in 2016 with an initial fund of ₹30,000.

📈 Without charging any fee, the YouTube channel grew to 10K in a year.

🏆 In 2018 he crossed the 500K mark on YouTube and launched his website to share notes, study materials and assignments.

📈 With the pandemic hitting in 2020 and online learning catching on, their audience grew, and they developed the PW app.

With tough competition throwing obstacles his way, Alakh did not deter his belief. Today, the business stands at 5.2M Play Store downloads, 6.9M subscribers on their channel, 1500 employees and ₹350 Cr. in revenue.

So here's a question: What would you do to replicate Physics Wallah's journey? We've identified some major takeaways from this phenomenal journey.

5 major takeaways from Alakh and PW's whole journey :

🪢 Build your community before you scale. PW started as a YouTube channel, where a community was built, trust was earned, and passion was driven. It was the community that stood as a solid backbone through PW’s journey to becoming a unicorn in less than 6 years.

✅ Be true to your journey. PW did not change or mend their goals when the competition was trying to take away their staff, teachers or take over the company. Alakh stood his ground and let his work and goals do the talking the entire time.

👂 Listen to your audience and pivot. PW was not shaped solely on Alakh and his partner’s ideologies. It combined the founder’s ideas and their audience’s needs. What the students asked, they delivered. What the students needed, they provided.

📑 Content is always king. When content is delivered, the business always grows. That’s precisely how PW did it; their course fees are minimal (approximately 90% less) compared to competitors, and today they stand as a unicorn company. Alakh let his content build his business.

✅ Invest in educating yourself. Alakh spent his time delivering the best content for learners. Be it tricks, concepts, doubts, notes, assignments, videos, lectures or any type of content, Alakh invested his time in educating himself to educate every student by helping them understand and learn through different formats.

Creating a business in the EdTech space can be challenging, but creating a unicorn is commendable. Alakh's six year struggle was focused on providing and empowering his learners and not building his business. Alakh's wise investment in himself and his learners helped him achieve major milestones in his journey.