Byju's Is Not an Ed-Tech Company. It Is Weird, Right?
One 18-Billion-Dollar company, called the biggest ed-tech company globally, Is not an ed-tech company. And this question arises, What is the reality of Byju's? Is Byju's a scam?
That our parents give all their savings to these companies. So, this story started in 2009 when Byju Raveendran began taking online classes for the CAT exam. In 2011, he registered his business as "Think and learn." And after four years, that is august 2015, Byju's launched its learning app. After the Byju's online learning app launch, they had more than 20 lakh children in three months. Well, after listening to this, you also must have that they did a wonderful thing. So, they got such significant growth in less time. Well, it is not like that. Reality is something else. In 2018, Byju's became a Unicorn. This means they crossed their valuation to 1 Billion dollars. But now, this company's valuation is 18 Billion dollars. Now the question is that, what did this company do in 3 years? That increased its valuation by 18%.
Wolf Gupta, who is nine years old, claims that by taking online coding classes on "Whitehat Jr," He cracked the package of 1.2 crore rupees. Interestingly, Wolf Gupta is 9,12 or 13 years old; sometimes, his package is 1.2 crore, sometimes 150 crores.
It is simple; This is a story created by Whitehat Jr for the marketing camp, which Byju's acquired in 300 million dollars. Interestingly, this all incident happened after the Byju's acquisition. But the sad thing is that after watching this advertisement, more than 20000 people enrolled in Whitehat Jr's Courses. Now, understand this calculation carefully. Whitehat Jr's introductory entry-level course price is 7200. 7200 X 20000 Do you know how much this number is? 14 Crore 40 Lakh Rupees.
We can now understand that even after knowing how some child can be named Wolf Gupta. Why did people buy courses worth 14 crores? Well, the answer is hidden in BYJU'S Darkside.
So, What Is Byju's Dark Side?
Byju's is not an ed-tech company. Byju's is a marketing company. So, to understand this, we have to understand Byju's very profoundly. So, in the year 2019, Byju's did an Rs.1306 crore operating profit, which in 2020 increased to Rs.2381 crore.
Now Let's See About BYJU'S Marketing Spend. In 2019, Byju's marketing spend was Rs.457 crore, which in 2020 increased to Rs.1175 crore.
But do you know Byju's significant revenue does not come from this marketing? This marketing is to increase their brand value.
So now the question is, where does Byju's revenue come from?
So, the answer is "BDA'S." BDA Means Business Development Associates.
In simple words, salesman. Byju's hire BDA on a salary of 10-12 lakh per annum. Their base salary is 7 lakhs, and the remaining is an incentive. But still, spend 10-12 lakh rupees on every Business Development Associate.
Currently, Byju's has more than 300 plus BDA's. Now you must be thinking about how 300 employees together generate 2400 crore revenue and what does Byju's do, that people are ready to spend their life savings. So, anyone comes in Byju's touch. It comes to form one of the three ways.
Number 1, "Cold Calling."
Salesman of Byju's randomly to your parents or sometimes to you itself will call you and ask your future aspirations? Where do you see yourself? What do you wish to become? How do you see studies? They will discuss all these things with you.
Number 2, "Advertising."
Either you will see Shahrukh khan doing the endorsement, or on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, you will see the Byju's advertisement and enquire about Byju's.
Number 3, "Doubt solving."
In today's date when kids have doubt, then they go on Internet and search. When you search on the Internet, there are many chances you will land upon the Byju's website. Why? Because Byju's on their website already provide answers to the kids.
Now, you may contact Byju's in any one of the ways. You will get one thing that is a 15-day free trial.
Whether it may be cold calling or whether you may come through an advertisement or doubt solving, you landed on the Byju's website. You will be offered a 15-day free trial.Now the question is that Why 15-day free trial?
As soon as any kid takes a Byju's free trial, Byju's track the kid's behavioral data, and after, that creates a strong profile. For example, there is a kid named Rohan. Rohan studies in 9th class. Rohan will get two things from Byju's in 15 days.
1. "Study material."
Which will be in the form of videos.
So, the study material. From that, Byju's will calculate the average view time of the kid on that study material? How often does he revisit? This means, how many times is reviewed the video? At what speed does he watch the video?
Apart from this, Byju's also notices his average view time on the platform? That means how much time does he spend on the forum and not only this, they also monitor the kid's consistency. This means a kid in 15 days regularly uses the Byju's app or not. That means, what is his login activity?
2. "Quizzes."
Quizzes show the kid's performance, and there are two essential things in performance.
Number 1, "Accuracy": How well he does?
Number 2, "Time is taken": How long does he take to solve the question?
Now, when Byju's learns all these things about Rohan, they create a profile of Rohan. So, after the free trial is finished, in fact, before finishing the trial, the Byju's sales executive has to contact the kid's parents.
And depending on which category the kid falls under; the Sales pitch is customized accordingly. So, Byju's divide these kids into three categories.
1. "Underacheivers"
These are those kids who are very weak in their studies. Their performance is not that much. Chances are if they are ignored, then they will fail.
2. "Average."
These are those kids who are average in their studies. So, their parents are told that, if you don't take the Byju's course, your kid will remain an average kid. He will never be able to outshine in this world.
3. "Overachievers"
These are those kids who always top in studies. Byju's sells their premium courses to these kids. Byju's salesman talks to this kid's parents, and ask what their child wants to become? Let's assume, If the kid says "Doctor," then the Byju's salesman tells their parents that their kid needs "Neet course" very severely.
If the kid says "Engineer," he is recommended a "JEE course."
If the kid says he wants to be a "Lawyer," he is recommended the "CLAT Coaching."
And consider if the kid says he wants to do a startup, or he wants to do business or do a regular corporate job, then he is recommended the "IPMAT" or "CAT" Coaching.
Conclusion: This is planned very strategically. Executives tell the parents that competition has increased very much today. As competition is so high, then the chances of your kid getting a job is very tough if he does not go to IIT or IIM. After the executive's sales pitch, 70% of customers are converted.
Now you must be thinking, how is 70% conversion possible in any industry? Even eCommerce website has traffic of lakhs of people, even there the conversion rate is 3-5 %. So, what does Byju's do, that they can convert 70% customers. The answer to this is hidden behind one line. "Insecure people purchase convenience to feel secure." I repeat, "Insecure people purchase convenience to feel secure." Now this line consists of 3 essential elements. "Insecurity, Security and Convenience." Now understand this thing very carefully.
First Word, "Insecurity."
Many of our parents have massive insecurity in their minds, and this insecurity is because of these three factors.
Number One, "Career."
Our parents are worried about our careers that the child's career should not be spoiled in the future. They should get a promising career.
Number Two, "Competition."
How can my kid perform better than Sharma's son or daughter?
Number Three, "Society."
What will I say in my society? Which face will I show in the community? And most important,
What will I tell relatives? What does my kid do?
The Second Word, "Security."
- When will any parent feel secure?
- When their kid is scoring good marks.
- When their kid gets admission to a good college.
- And most important,
- When their kid is doing a good job or is doing anything but earning a good amount.
Look, People want to go from an insecure to a secure environment. But if you are offered convenience in the middle of this journey, wouldn't you take it? And this thing is done by Byju's. In the middle of this journey, Byju's offers you the convenience of taking Byju's Classes to learn online. Which are good when you take Byju's classes, then by taking Byju's courses, you will score well. If you get good marks, you will get admission to a good college. Which means you will do a good job. It means Byju's doesn't sell you intellect but convenience. In simple words, it sells a dream of security to secure people.
So basically, People do not buy Byju's education, but they purchase Byju's convenience. This is a psychological fact that people don't make good decisions; they make timely decisions.
Because in good decisions, "Time, Effort and Intellect," all of these three are required, and in between, if anyone offers convenience, then chances are you will choose an easy option.
By the way, by knowing this you will be shocked, those who can't afford Byju's courses, Byju's sell their course to them also. The question is, how?
The answer behind it is in Byju's strategic partnerships. Byju's has partnerships with Capital Float, Bajaj FinServ, Cash Care with all these companies. All these companies are loan companies. Through these companies, Byju's salesman, targeting people's insecurity, let people buy the Byju's course on EMI. Interestingly, many people don't even know while purchasing the Byju's course; they sign up for the loan. Because Byju's executives, don't use words like loan or instalment. But before Byju's plans their today's dark activities are nothing. See, Byju's focus is not on selling courses and getting profit. Their primary focus is to make people part of the Byju's world.
Now, what is this Byju's world?
So, see, until now, Byju's has acquired 14 educational companies. Have you ever thought about why they did it? So, understand this flowchart very carefully.
Firstly, any person buys a Byju's course and as the kid grows, consider that kid wants to be a doctor or Engineer. Byju's will recommend him to go to "Aakash institute." Learn from "Aakash institute." Which is owned by Byju's.
If the kids want to learn to code, Byju's will recommend Learn coding on "#Hashlearn" or "WhiteHat Jr." Which is owned by Byju's. And if any kid has any doubts, then Byju's will recommend using "Topper" or "Great Learning." Which is owned by Byju's. Now that kid is grown up by learning through Byju's. Now either that kid will do a job in Byju's only or will do the job in some good company. But in the coming future, that person will also have kids when he has his kids; then chances are he will tell his kid to learn from Byju's because he has done all his education through Byju's. And there will be only one result of all this, "Intellectual Bankruptcy" People will be blank Intellectually.
This is because Byju's will dominate this system and provide so much convenience to people that people will stop working hard. Ultimately only Byju's will earn money, but the loss will be of ordinary people, and there is only one solution to this is:
Continuous Self-Learning.
You keep on doing self-learning because, in the upcoming time, the whole world's economy will be skill-based. If you have a degree, then it is good. Even if you don't have then also having skills is most important because the one who doesn't have any skills, in the upcoming time, any company or any person will not entertain them.