Analyzing the existing business strategy of BYJU’S
BYJU’S was started off by Byju Raveendran, who began teaching a few of his close friends to help
them crack the CAT examination, after he himself scored 100 percentile in the 2003 CAT exam. His
teaching style soon invited in a lot of popularity. Cognizant of the rising demand, he quit his job in
the UK and pursued tutoring as a career. The start of BYJU’S, as you may see, was purely offline. He
later videographed his lectures to make them available to a wider audience.
BYJU’S was officially founded in 2011 and currently it is the world’s most valued edtech firm, with a
valuation of $11.1 billion. The major driving force for this initiative was the lack of conceptual clarity
and proper foundation of the conventional teaching style.
The firm currently caters to students belonging to various segments as detailed in the below figure.
Also, the special modules included in the learning material for each of these segments is also
discussed in detail.
BYJU’S operates on a freemium business model with major emphasis on the B2C segment, which
essentially means that the users can avail the basic product free of charge, but will be charged a
premium for additional features and services.
BYJU’S differentiates itself from the rest of the edtech firms by providing a personalized experience
through their services. This is made possible using Knowledge graphs wherein two students
belonging to the same grade would experience different services (in terms of videos, explanations
etc) based on their individual performance throughout the chapters. In this way, the app is able to
recognize the strong and weak points of individual students and thereby providing a customized
learning for each. This is something most of the other edtech companies in the market miss out on.
One other key differentiator is the free counselling sessions provided to the students whereby the
students are well-informed on the various opportunities out there and the routes to be taken to
accomplish their goals. This helps them confidently choose the right BYJU’S offering for furthering
their studies. BYJU’S also believes that parents are key influencers in the purchase decision and
hence indirectly targets them through their children for inducing the purchase.
BYJU’S is currently available in English and Hindi only, while there are plans to include other regional
languages in the future. Also, a large number of investors have expressed interest in the app and
have heavily invested in the same.
The major cost areas for BYJU’S are app & web development, business development, marketing,
maintenance and data center. The major chunk of revenue is generated through the subscription
amount paid by the users (a feature of the freemium model). In addition to this, it also earns
revenue through offline coaching and API monetization (sharing their online services with third
parties).
Introspecting upon how BYJU’S grew to become the most valued edtech company, it is evident that
its users (primarily students) love the product. Providing the best quality education by bringing in
quality teachers, the education delivery model, the personalized experience and engaging content
provided by the platform are the key game changers for BYJU’S. This is evident from the 86%
renewal rate for subscriptions, meaning repeat usage is very prevalent. According to another data
revealed by the company, the average time spent on the app by a student per day was 71 minutes.
All these stats indicate that the students are hooked onto the presentation format and clarity of
topic offered by the app.
References:
Dokadia, Z. (2020, July 10). How BYJU’s Became India’s Leading K-12 Education app.
What Is the Business Model Of. https://whatisthebusinessmodelof.com/business-
models/byjus-business-model/
Wikipedia contributors. (2020, December 3). BYJU’S. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYJU’S
Khanwani, K. (2020, May 1). Case Study: BYJUs Business Model - Kapil Khanwani.
Medium. https://medium.com/@kapilkhanwani/case-study-byjus-business-model-
c13f10692f2c
Buchholz, K. (2020, June 30). Byju’s Is the Most Popular E-Learning Platform in India.
Statista Infographics. https://www.statista.com/chart/22145/most-popular-e-learning-
platforms-in-india/
ETtech. (2020, September 23). Byju’s continues to rack up more funds, this time from three
new US investors. The Economic Times.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/internet/byjus-continues-to-rack-up-more-
funds-this-time-from-three-new-us-investors/articleshow/78262560.cms?from=mdr
