The Kalaari Podcast | Divya Gokulnath, CoFounder of Byju’s, on rethinking education with technology

When it comes to startups, there is no fast track to success. Almost all startup teams go through a variety of crises and challenges Behind The Scenes. Having been a part of many startup journeys over the last decade at Kalaari, we believe that there are valuable lessons to be gained from the journeys of others.

Divya Gokulnath, Co-founder of Byju’s, recently shared her perspective on a variety of topics. Read the full transcript and watch the video below

VANI KOLA: Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me in this episode of Behind the Scenes with Divya who is the co-founder of Byju’s. Divya has been a teacher since 21-years-old and she is a dynamic person who has been an integral part of Byju’s growth and success.

Welcome, Divya. Thank you for taking the time to share your learnings and insights with the start-up ecosystem.

DIVYA GOKULNATH: It’s a pleasure to be here Vani.

VANI KOLA: Divya, you have been a teacher and now you are co-founder and tech entrepreneur of one of the most tracked companies in tech in India. So, share with us a little bit with us what this journey was for you from a teacher to an entrepreneur?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: I was 21 when I started teaching. I was very young. I still teach today. That’s the first role for me. One that I hold close to my heart because the impact it creates is like none other, apart from a doctor. So, being a teacher first has helped me understand the pulse of our students, which in turn has positively influenced, impacted and also, helped shape the product in a way.

So, it’s not just me. All of us at the core team, who joined in as teachers first, who had students before that, helped us understand the need we were trying to solve very clearly. And we understood that to really impact the way students learn, we need to start early. We need to enable younger children to become active learners, to make them love learning.

And we also realised that children will learn only when they want to learn, not when they have to learn. So, if we can create a learning environment, if we can create an experience for them where they like learning, where they enjoy learning, then you actually have them to come back to it again and again and again, much like a game that they really like. So, that’s crucial to bring back the child-like curiosity that eventually gets lost. So, we managed to integrate all these avenues through the right blend of researched pedagogy and we also leverage technology to enable access, to allow personalization, to also create an enjoyable learning experience for every child.

So, through movie-like videos, through gamified content, also to solve access at scale. Smartphones really helped. 70% of our youth have access to smartphones. So, it’s important that we were brave enough to constantly disrupt ourselves. Prior to 2015, we were 100% services, 100% offline. Today, we are 100% product, 100% online. So, while we have been fixed on our mission of making children love learning, we have been flexible on its execution. So, that’s been really important.

Also, you know technology really can solve access. We have seen that. We have used that as an enabler because as you go younger, you see that children are more and more digital natives, their learning from the screen is native, it’s almost intuitive to them. They learn their first numbers and everything from that. So, I think the whole idea is be a content company at core, be an education company at core but using technology as enabler is what worked for us.

Today, we have 60 Million students learning with us across the country. But I think what’s important to note is we are at a tipping point in education today because of the pandemic, as unfortunate as it is. We got 40 Million new students on our platform in first 4 years and 20 Million in the last 4 months. So, I think that shows a kind of increased adoption, a paradigm shift in a way all stakeholders in education, be it parents or children or teachers or institutions are all warming up to online learning, understanding the impact of online learning in our country.

And, I am very fortunate to be a part of a segment, which is of so much positive relevance in times like these.

VANI KOLA: Divya, with that massive scale that you have seen, what can you share, in terms of advice and ideas, with others on customer retention?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: I think brand advocacy is the most important thing. We have always been on the side of the students. So, whatever we have done, we have always done in a way that the end consumer enjoys doing it and in EdTech there is no playbook for success. It’s a new segment in a way we are creating our own path and our approach has always been based on first principles, especially since this was a relatively non-existent segment a couple of years ago.

What is happening to education and EdTech today is something which did not happen in decades and it’s now actually happening in months and weeks. So, we have constantly been innovating. As I mentioned, being brave enough to go on disrupting yourself, becoming a completely different model positively, making it even better. So, I think at Byju’s for us, it has been a clear case of passion intersecting with need. We wanted to address a core need in society, we had our directions set right, we were flexible in execution.

So, the foundation of the brand exists and rests on the fact that, as you said rightly, the students love us. So, we are profitable, we are valued, and some might call us world’s most valued EdTech company and all that but the 2 numbers that we constantly track are the time the students spend on the app and the renewals. Because one shows engagement which is about 71 minutes per session which went up to 100 minutes during the lockdown. And the second, which is renewals, is we are at 85% annual renewals. So, that really shows the effectiveness. Otherwise, there won’t go for it again and again.

So, being very focused on your end consumer, having students on your side, making sure they love what you give them and tracking the numbers that really matter, which is retention and renewal. These 2 things have helped us.

VANI KOLA: How do you go about building a team when, you know, tomorrow it’s such a different company than what it is today?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: The team is one of the most important components of any strong company. So, the core team at Byju’s has been very organically built into the system for over a decade. So, the first 8–10 people were all students of Byju’s and we are all here even today. So, I think having a team that truly feels and understands the brand is an intangible ingredient for success. And if you get the formula right on the top and the top management trickles down to every level. And, what we always say that it’s always easy to start a mission-driven company, but it is very hard to stay mission-driven. Our single core purpose, “Make students love learning”, unified all our teams by a common thread, motivated them, you know, go ahead, put your best step forward. And I think what makes the team stay focused all the time is the realisation that they are creating an impact.

Education is something that is close to all of us. It’s the only way for most of us to make it big in life. Now skills can be taught, but I think the drive and the passion to make a difference in the sector is what you predominantly look for and that’s easy to achieve in education.

I will give you an example, as we all are in COVID times. Our operations during the COVID-19 pandemic indicates a kind of unified drive we all possessed as a team with millions of students. As per UNESCO reports, 1.2 or 1.3 Billion students are out of schools. They have been impacted across the globe because of the temporary closure of schools.

So, our teams, despite working from home for the first time ever, worked harder than ever before to kind of make sure that learning is seamless for kids. We constantly disrupted ourselves. We made our classes completely free. We witnessed massive surge in the adoption of our learning program. So, like I told you, we saw 20 million new students just in the last 4 months. Everybody worked harder than ever to meet the demand and ensure the students receive the highest quality of learning.

So, we had planned a lot of launches later this year like live classes and all of that. But we accelerated the launch because what students were missing was the kind of regularity that the school gives them. You know, you go out at a stipulated time and you miss learning from the teachers in such times. So, we launched the live classes in matter of weeks and the teams turned it around in no time at all. We also launched in various vernacular languages so we could go deeper into the country. That’s always been a priority for us. We also launched additional subjects like Social Studies and all of that.

So, I think that is the thing. Managing to accomplish all of these even though your teams are working remotely, away but also together, I think shows the love and dedication of everyone towards the job that they do.

VANI KOLA: Earlier, Divya, you talked about brand advocacy. Can you demystify, unpack what is brand advocacy?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: I think the foundation of the future of the brand depends on the fact that children love us. So, I think the word of mouth popularity has been the big differentiator. This is because the product has genuinely managed to solve a problem in the lives of students. So, I think the focus is to be continuously ensuring that you are able to deliver a product of exceptional quality and service.

So, I think that’s basically what I meant by brand advocacy, brand love. It was an external study but what we were happy to see is that our paid user visits were at 76. So, we were all so happy to see that because I think that these are the numbers which really drive us every day, when a student living in Kashmir called us one day and affected by school closure well before COVID, is able to continue learning because of us.

A girl in Gujarat, who is unable to go to school because of safety reasons, continues to learn safely from home because of us. Then her mother calls and tells you that if I had a product like this, I would have been something else in life. I think these are the kind of little steps which come together and create a bigger impact. That’s what I mean by brand love and brand advocacy.

VANI KOLA: Now, that’s really beautiful. We talked about teams and follow on to that is what is a leadership trait that you really value in others and what is a leadership trait that founders need to have?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: Especially with start-ups, I think the most important would be resilience because there are so many challenges that will be thrown your way, ups and downs that will be hurdled at you. I mean we all read about the big wins; nobody writes about the little losses. But I think it’s important that those little failures are there so that you fail fast and you win big. I think resilience is so important because when you hit a roadblock, you don’t give up. You persist. You be at it till you get it. So, that’s one.

And I would also say that when you are an early stage founder, when you are founder along with any purpose-driven organization, teamwork is I think the organization’s backbone. So, creating a spirit of intrapreneurship so that people are willing to try new things, be brave, learn from mistakes. And I think it’s about building that sense of ownership in more and more people in your team, so they are all ready to come and take this company to be their own.

VANI KOLA: You are co-founder of a large company, that too with your husband. And most of the time, it’s really difficult to make that work. But you both have done this so successfully. So, what is it? How does it work? Would you recommend this to others? What’s easy? What’s hard?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: I think the most important thing is mutual respect. We have a lot of it for each other. With that being said, I think opposites attract is a notion that is promoted a lot in movies and all. But in real life, having like-minded people both in your team as well as in your life is a great asset. So, I think this is one of the reasons why we work so well together. We are driven by the same goal, the same passion — to impact the lives of students around the world and apart from work, our entire universe is centred around our son. So, I think when you have your missions aligned, your goals aligned, your passions aligned, it just works out.

VANI KOLA: But how can we bring more women into leadership roles in our start-up ecosystem?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: I think the whole concept of having diversity in an organization is no more a feminist notion. It’s a corporate agenda. And I think a lot of organizations are cognizant of this. They are trying to build more women into leadership roles. Why I say so much about leadership roles is I believe that you don’t have enough women mentors out there. So, in media or anywhere when we talk, so many more women see us and they say, “Hey, even I can do this”, because if you look at the statistics, half of the women leave during mid-30s. That’s where I am right now.

And even though when say 25% of them join back, I think another 40% of them leave within 3 months. So, it’s just that they probably don’t have enough motivation to keep them going. So, I think, having enough women in top roles as mentors out there really helps and I think it’s a dual advantage because:

1. You inspire more people.

2. Within the role itself, there are enough studies which show that women like or tend to surround themselves with more women. It’s called the ‘Queen Bee’ myth. It says that you are more likely to hire women in other leadership roles to support you, if you are a woman leader yourself.

If you take care of this from the beginning because this is not a problem a start-up should solve later, after 4 or 5 years, when diversity is an issue and you have very skewed ratios. I think if it’s looked upon during the inception, if you have a good and healthy representation of women in the leadership, in your board, in your top management, it becomes much easier to get the ball of diversity rolling throughout your organization. So, I think that’s very important.

Apart from that, I think the mentors at your home, be it your mother, your mother-in-law, your sister-in-law, your sister, every other woman around you is a mentor to you. So, I think the kind of mentorship which comes from them, the support they give you and all the men too because nothing can be ever achieved alone, and a woman’s confidence comes so much from her as it comes from the people who influence her.

So, she believes that she can do it. It’s because there are many other people who believe in her. So, I think it’s a combination of both, work as well as home.

VANI KOLA: You know the pandemic, the pressures, the stress that’s out there, how do you see India opportunity for start-ups, despite obviously the economic downturn and all of that?

DIVYA GOKULNATH: If you actually think about it, start-ups launched during a downturn tend to be far more durable and resilient than those which have started in a better economic state, if you look at the previous financial crisis as well. Since every crisis creates so many challenges, there are enough problems to be solved and enough opportunities and scope for new ideas.

Just to give you an example. There were more than 50 unicorns created globally immediately after the last financial crisis and if I talk about EdTech itself, there is so much to do because the kind of awareness, which the pandemic has created as unfortunate as the situation has been, has put EdTech in the spotlight. There is so much scope for us to change the way in which students learn, the way which makes it easier for teachers to teach, help schools come online because the future of learning today and I am talking about EdTech because that’s the segment I am from. I think the future of learning is neither going to be 100% online nor is it going to be 100% offline. It’s going to be blended.

So, there is so much scope to make the entire experience better. There’s place for so many people to come in and create an impact because there is a paradigm shift in the mind of all the stakeholders. So, I think there is no better time than now if you really want to do something, if you are very passionate about what you want to do. I think this is the right time to do it because, like I said before, a business cannot be driven just by the passion to make money. The passion to change society is far more important and any idea will work if you are addressing a need and especially if you are a tech company, you can solve any problem at scale.

So, I think, that’s what I would like to say about anybody who wants to start a company right now because, I think, this is the right time to start because there are so many problems to solve.

VANI KOLA: Awesome. Thank you so much, Divya for joining us today on this episode.

DIVYA GOKULNATH: Thank you so much Vani. It was a pleasure talking to you.

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