Byju Raveendran - From Acing Maths & Science To Become The CEO & Founder of Byjus Learning App

by Lokendra Sinh - Dec 19, 2020
Byju Raveendran

Background of Byju Raveendran

Byju Raveendran is an Indian entrepreneur and the founder of Ed-tech startup Byju’s who was born in 1980 (Age:40 years; as in 2020) in Azhikode, Kerala. Byju’s CEO has got the first indication he might have a future in education as a teenager when he used to tutor 11th and 12th graders claiming for his help to pass their exams. At that time he was just an 8-year-old son of physics and mathematic teachers from Azhikode village, but today his startup byjus has grown into the world’s most successful ed-tech startups with 33 Million users and 2.2 Million paid subscribers.

The early life of byju Raveendran is quite interesting. After spending a couple of years at the shipping company, he started teaching mathematics to his friends and whoever else wanted to learn as an engineering graduate. He also used to teach and prepare students for entrance exams like the common entrance exam CAT. [Checkout more related privacy and crime news articles]

Despite not studying enough for the exam, he scored 100% in the CAT examination in 2003 and then helped others to crack CAT and took teaching as a full-time job. Raveendran journey to become the byju’s founder went from teaching few friends, to teaching hundreds of students in a large auditorium, and taking classes through satellite communication.

Education of Byju Raveendran

Byju's Founder has received his primary education from a local school of Azhikode, Kerala. He pursued and completed his graduation in Mechanical engineering from a government engineering college in Kannur, Kerala. Raveendran - the man of his word has been interested in sports since childhood. During his college and school days, he used to play cricket, football, table tennis and badminton.

Although his parents were science and physics teachers, they always emphasized and encouraged byjus Raveendran to try out different sports. After finishing 12th, he had decided to pursue his career either in the field of engineering or medical. But due to the thought that opting for the medical field, he may not get time to play sports, he decided to become an engineer.

How was Byjus Started?

Byjus - The learning app is an Indian educational technology and online app, delivering India’s top teachers with live doubt solving sessions and much more. Every startup story is worth reading - let’s hear the background story of this revolutionizing startup.

When byju completed his college studies, he got a job in a multi-national firm. He was then staying with his friends. One day he saw his friends preparing for CAT examination. Byjus Raveendran was a bright student from childhood, so his friends asked him to help and guide them. Byju helped them and he too attempted the exam. He was amazed when he scored 100 percentile in the exam. His friends too passed the exam with good marks.

From that point, the story began taking turns. His friends advised him that he should teach students aspiring for competitive exams. He agreed without second thought and the journey of becoming a billionaire started.

Initially, he started only with MBA aspirants and eventually he gave up his job and started teaching more courses. The popularity of his teaching style grew day by day. There were times when he took classes of around 20,000 students across Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, and Mumbai. The major turn then came in 2010, when IIM graduated students met byjus Ravenendran and proposed an idea of taking his classes to a new horizon.

The idea was to conduct byjus classes online and offer them to millions of students. Thus they formed “Think & Learn” and byjus founder stated the ideology, and I quote “Students should have complete concept clarity to perform well in competitive exams which can only be imparted during a person’s schooling”. The later phase of Think & Learn gained much popularity by the launch of a website and mobile application (byjus learning app) in 2011 which helped everyone gain access to the educational content that byjus had to offer.

Challenges Faced by Byjus

Perhaps the most important reason Byju's has found success is by placing Education ahead of Technology but like any other startup - there are/were some challenges that need to be overcome before making byjus a big hit.

  • As stated by byjus Raveendran - byju's founder, converting the students to a paid subscriber after the free trial end was the biggest challenge for byju’s.
  • To expand byjus to other English speaking countries and finding suitable partners to assist with this expansion was the second challenge.
  • People are rapidly moving towards digitization and adapting e-learning in their daily life. Due to this many other companies with a similar model to byjus are focusing on ed-tech and the competition has increased considerably.

Byju Raveendran Achievements:

Being called popularly as 'byjus sir' - Raveendran envisioned to change the way students are taught and achieved it through climbing the tough ladder to phenomenal success in a very short time. He succeeded in creating an education technology company worth $5.4 Billion and here are some of the biggest achievements of byju Raveendran

Quick Fact: Byjus made the content available for free during the coronavirus and saw an immediate 3x increase in the number of users.

  1. Byju Raveendran won the 'EY Entrepreneur of the year' award in startup category in 2018.
  2. Byjus acquired the rights of Indian cricket team's jerseys in July 2019.
  3. Byjus has received several awards including the Business Standard Annual Award for Corporate Excellence (2018).
  4. Byjus app has become a business case at Harvard Business School.
  5. In 2012, Think & Learn (Byju’s learning app) found a place in the ratings by Deloitte Technology Fast50 India and Deloitte Technology Fast50 Asia Pacific.
  6. By 2018, byjus app had got an overwhelming 15 Million users among whom 9,00,000 were paid users.

Conclusion

It is said that India's economic pyramid will no longer be a pyramid but a diamond, where the mid diamond consists of the middle class. it is hight time for the young entrepreneurs to be creative to exploit the upcoming opportunity. Byjus Raveendran has definitely laid a strong foundation for all the Indian youth to take inspiration from.


Add your product on TechCentred

Trending Articles

deliver management software

7 Best Delivery Management Software Companies

By Varun
Byju Raveendran

Byju Raveendran - From Acing Maths & Science To Become The CEO & Founder of Byjus Learning App

By Lokendra Sinh
digital-arketing-tools-social-media-marketing

7 Must-have chrome extensions for digital marketers - Quick view

By Sree V

Top 5 AI Drone Development Companies – 2020

By Lokendra Sinh