WINNING FORMULA

PHYSICS WALLAH SEEMS TO HAVE TURNED THE TIDE EVEN AS MANY OTHER MAJOR EDTECH PLAYERS IN INDIA ARE GRAPPLING WITH LAYOFFS, LOSSES, VALUATION CUTS AND REGULATORY SCRUTINY. HAVING SOLVED THE EDTECH RIDDLE, NOW IT'S AIMING FOR RAPID GROWTH

-  AAKANKSHA CHATURVEDI

IN 2018, ARYAN BHASKAR was preparing for IIT JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) at one of the top coaching centres in Kota, Rajasthan. His parents had shelled out around ₹3.5 lakh for two years of test prep. He was doing really well in Physics, but not because of his coaching centre. Instead, it was thanks to a YouTube channel that his dorm mate introduced him to, where a teacher had uploaded all JEE Physics lectures for free. The teacher’s style was thorough; he was responsive to doubts in the comment section; and his content was precise. That teacher was Alakh Pandey.

Cut to 2020, and the Covid-19 pandemic had forced schools, colleges, and coaching centres to shut. Students and teachers were finding it hard to adapt to digital media. Major edtech firms were booming, but their products were not widely accessible because of their hefty price tags. The Founder of PenPencil, a start-up helping edtech companies with technological solutions, realised that this was a pivotal moment and that there was a need for players who could cater to the masses at affordable prices. That Founder was Prateek Maheshwari.

Maheshwari had first offered to build Pandey an app in 2018, but the latter refused because he was focussed on growing his YouTube channel. But in June 2020, the duo revisited the idea and decided over a phone call to incorporate Physics Wallah—named after the YouTube channel Pandey ran. “We did not meet each other for the first nine months after incorporating Physics Wallah. And when we did, over 150,000 students had already been studying with us,” Maheshwari tells Business Today.