The dizzying success of the online tutoring firm Byju’s was a result of the company’s quality learning content, aggressive sales tactics, and tech-savvy coaching amenities. Founded by Byju Raveendran in 2011, the Edtech giant was funded by Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Byju’s managed to raise more than $1bn since March 2020 after merging with more than a dozen competitors and becoming one of the largest umbrella holding companies for online tutoring.
However, the Edtech giant faced a lot of backlash and criticism when unhappy parents and children complained about not receiving the services they were promised. Pouring her heart out on her LinkedIn platform, the co-founder Divya Gokulnath reflected on her husband, Byju Raveendran’s personal struggles in the past six months.
Byju has revealed in an interview how the last six months were the toughest in his life in the past ten years. Divya said in her LinkedIn post that Byju never acknowledged the word ‘tough’ for any challenge and if he did say so, things must have been really tough for him.
Byju’s father was fighting late-stage cancer and Byju was constantly by his father’s side. His father underwent critical surgery last week that went well. Gokulnath quipped that Raveendran has hardly slept in the past six months.
She reminisced that the techpreneur normally does not sleep a lot and has maintained the same routine for the past ten years. He cares deeply for his family and works hard every day. Gokulnath admired her husband in her post saying that he sees good in everyone and everything.
She said that Raveendran is courage and conviction personified. Born to teacher parents in a village, he gave up a high-paying job offer to follow in his parents’ footsteps and create ‘learners for life.’
She recalls that they still pay the rent for their first small and cozy office in Koramangala. She said that it took them a lot of hard work to reach where they belong today. She feels that they are still a passionate 6-member founding team with a good purpose in their souls and stars in their eyes aiming to make learning effective and engaging.
They don’t really care about their standing on the Forbes rich list. They do not much care about the money they make. They only care about the growth of Byju’s. She said, ‘What matters to us is to add some value every day to the lives we touch. Valuations can vary, but values are forever’. She affirms that her husband is the most beautiful person she has known.
Back in 2020–2021, media stories about the toxic sales culture in the edtech industry were frequently circulated. These stories detailed how Byju’s salespeople bullied unwary parents into purchasing coaching and courses while frequently falling short of their promises. In fact, the BBC reported on how Indian courts instructed Byju’s to pay penalties to customers in three separate cases involving disputes over refunds and subpar services. Byju’s informed the BBC that the legal disputes had been resolved.
