Physics Wallah, you must have heard this name somewhere. It is India’s well known startup founded by Alakh Pandey which later turned out to be a unicorn. Physics Wallah helps aspirants prepare for the competitive exams online. Today, Physics Wallah competes head-to-head with ed-tech giants like BYJU’s, Vedanta, and Unacademy, and is considered one of the most profitable unicorns founded at the time of the pandemic.
Did you know about Alakh Pandey’s success story, the man behind the success of Physics Wallah? If not, we will walk through his journey from ordinary YouTube teacher to the founder of one of the fastest-growing Indian unicorns, Physics Wallah. So, get ready to uncover Alakh Pandey’s least-known struggle and lessons from his life journey.
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Early Life Of Alakh Pandey
In Alakh Pandey’s success story, his early life plays a crucial role. It summarises his background and willingness to step above ordinary life and revolutionise online learning. Alakh Pandey was born on October 2, 1991, in Prayagraj Uttar Pradesh in a middle-class family. From childhood, he had a passion for teaching which reflected from his early age. When Alakh was in eighth standard, he started teaching students to support his family financially.
Since childhood, he has been one of the brightest students in his school. He prepared for an IIT but failed to crack the entrance exam. However, he was admitted to the Engineering College of Kanpur in the mechanical engineering stream. One interesting turn in Alakh Pandey’s success story comes when he decided to drop out of engineering and decided to follow his passion for teaching. A young boy who is now known as Physics Wallah, Alakh Pandey started his coaching institute in his hometown and taught students at just Rs 5,000 per month. As time passes, students love the way of teaching Alakh which brings him popularity in other states.
It was the year 2016 when Alakh Pandey took a step forward and started his YouTube channel and entered the online teaching sector. At the beginning, he didn’t get a large response but his decision to upload high-quality content for free helped him gain 10 thousand YouTube subscribers soon. 2017 was the year when Alakh Pandey Physics Wallah decided to quit the offline coaching centre and focused on growing his YouTube channel which he had enormous success. In Alakh Pandey’s success story, his YouTube growth from 10K to 4 million subscribers plays a vital role.
As Alakh earned fame and success from YouTube, it became challenging for him to handle the large group of students and operations. So, Alakh Pandey of Physics Wallah decided to expand the team in 2020 by hiring Prateek Maheshwari as a co-founder. It was the time of Covid-19 which was challenging but Alakh and Prateek turned it into an opportunity and launched the Physics Wallah app which crashed on its first launch day as it got so much traffic. In 2022, Alakh Pandey’s Physics Wallah was recognized as India’s 101st Unicorn with more than 1500 employees, 300 teachers, and 16 Physics Wallah Pathshala centres.
Major Challenges Faced By Alakh Pandey “Physics Wallah”
Coming from a middle-class family, Alakh Pandey’s success story is incomplete without highlighting the challenges he faced during the journey.
- Alakh Pandey, Physics Wallah had limited resources when he started his YouTube channel. The response from the students he got in the beginning was also not positive but he didn’t lose hope and continued to focus on uploading informational videos on his YouTube channel.
- In May 2020, the Physics Wallah app collapsed due to high usage as more than 2 lakh students used the app simultaneously. It took weeks to fix these technological issues due to the limited resources. The challenge here was to assure students who already paid for the upcoming session. It was one of the major challenges in the journey of Alakh Pandey’s success story.
- In 2021, Physics Wallah, Alakh Pandey faced another challenge when its competitor Unacademy offered him Rs 75 crore which he denied to shut down the coaching business. After this, Physics Wallah’s competitors began stealing his employees by giving them high-paying salaries. However, Alakh Pandey came back stronger with the help of students and overcame it.
Alakh Pandey’s Net Worth
When it comes to the Alakh Pandey success story, the major question people ask is what is Alakh Pandey net worth. You might also have this in your mind, so let’s clear this out.
There is no exact data available to the public about the net worth of Alakh Pandey of Physics Wallah. As per the CAclubIndia, Alakh Pandey net worth is $990 million(Rs 8000 crore). He earns around Rs 15 crore per annum. However, there is no exact figure shared by the Physics Wallah or Alakh Pandey regarding his net worth.
Lessons To Learn From Alakh Pandey’s Success Story
There are various lessons we can learn from the Alakh Pandey success story and get inspired from them in real life. Like other influential personalities like Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, and Deepinder Goyal of Zomato, Alakh Pandey’s success also revolves around principles which helped him turn out to be the famous and most loved teacher of India. Here are the various lessons we can learn from the success story of Alakh Pandey.
Leverage Digital Revolution
In India, when most of the coaching institutes focus on expanding offline, Alakh Pandey leverages a digital-first approach. So lesson number one from Alakh Pandey’s success story is to do something different from competitors. It helps Physics Wallah Alakh Pandey to reach the urban as well as rural areas and establish its brand.
Focus On Profit & Cash Flow First
Unlike other startups like Zomato which burn cash in heavy marketing and discounts, Physics Wallah focused on increasing profit from the beginning. He didn’t expand his business offline until his company had consistent cash flow. The number two lesson from Alakh Pandey’s success story is to keep your profit high from the beginning and plan business expansion when you have enough capital.
Provide Free Content
The best way to build an audience is to provide high-quality content for free. This is true in the case of Physics Wallah which grew on this base. From the beginning, Alakh Pandey made free videos for those students who could not afford a premium course. With this strategy, he acquired a large user base which brings us to lesson three which always focuses on providing value for free in the early stages of startup.
Today, Alakh Pandey needs no introduction. He is the founder of unicorn Physics Wallah and relentlessly works towards the success of talented students. Alakh Pandey’s success story gives us a glimpse of his struggles, challenges, and lessons everyone can learn from his journey. You can also read success stories of other personalities by visiting TradeFlock now.
