BYJU and nearbuy.com OR rather Education vs Lifestyle /O2O tech-business in India
Disclaimer 1: I am a techie neither a business person nor a marketer, so you could see a pretty bad business use case / pondering or feel like I am taking advantage of a better placed (I would say) startup BYJU for nearbuy.com but believe me that is not the intention.
Disclaimer 2: I work for nearbuy.com
Disclaimer 3: This is more of opinion based article than stats based. And all of the opinions are mine :). I don’t represent my employer.
TL;DR
- There is a huge potential at present in tech-startup space in India, Education and Health are like getting slightly a bigger pie share (though Education focus has subsided I believe compares to Health this year) but nonetehless every damn sector has potential as of date in India.
- The tech startup space in India works in and solves many a times problems of unorganised sectors.
- This (the above) should not be taken as an excuse, the key is to be more focused and solve more problems, present problems, and the right problems.
This is what triggered the whole (musings and) a journey and reinforcement to the age-old focus on keep on (a slight improved version of that) solving the right problem for a startup / any business.
(the above needs you to signup so a more open link of the same ;) is )
So here is the story that triggered it. BYJU’s current monthly revenue is Rs. 100 Crore a month (and it’s a unicorn) and nearbuy.com is kind of 1/3rd of that (in altogether different space / domain), so first I thought not to be too sad / harsh on ourselves but then what the heck why not to introspect and improve?
So, here is the thing. How in the world (India) education start-up is doing Rs. 100 crore a month and a lifestyle / 020 / food tech-startup (and let me be honest, biggest vertical and focus of ours is food) is doing less. India is a developing country after all correct? So, Food comes first than education. Or wrong?
(Or is it since we are developing country people cut on lifestyle and spend on education. Or its our DNA that we value Education a lot.)
(All of this would mean my basic premise is wrong and like I said I am not a business person but a techie. So, please be open. And all of these are open questions not an self-critique / expert statements and I am happy to have discussion around them too.)
So assuming let’s say that lifestyle (and food) should have naturally more growth potential (natural trajectory / ease of business) in India, how come we (nearbuy.com) are lagging? That brought me to the second point, is it because of unorganised nature of our business. But then education is also as unorganised as it can get in India. Think of the mom-an-pop tuition centres in your street, city, and state. And it’s not like that they are not up-to-the-mark. They work, they produce our university/IIT/AIIMS going people of the country day-in-day out. So naturally we (nearbuy.com) and BYJU are equal there. So, this stands as second open question; is lifestyle (and food) more unorganised than Education in India?
A slight diversion, may be comparing BYJU with nearbuy.com was not right in the first place. A better comparison would have been BYJU and swiggy (in terms of food). But equally debating on other side we can / should be compared in lifestyle / 020 / food 020 space, (right guys)?
That leads me to the final conclusion part of it. That (my view) is still that we stand equal on the unorganised nature of the business space in the two sectors and in general in India. And the conclusion is not to be harsh on ourselves or sad about our business or achievements. And here is the conclusion. That we should diligently be working more towards the right problems. Problems of our domain, comparing it with other domain is also futile in some sense.
As solving more problems, present problems, and right problems is the key to the growth. — Unknown
That should be attributed to the present state of us. It can work as light house for steering every growth ship, and rightly so I would argue.
It’s a journey but may be this light house helps! Thoughts please.
