Byju Raveendran

Byju's: the teacher who sold out stadiums became an $8 billion company

Shaan recounts Byju Raveendran, who started as a small-town test-prep teacher in India and grew so popular he sold out stadiums of students, then turned it into a for-profit video learning platform now worth $8 billion. A YC company in this batch is run by Byju's former lead instructor, who claims the original has under 15% retention.

“People wanted to learn from him to the point where he was selling out stadiums of people coming to watch him teach math. And, uh, that was when I saw the picture of the stadium, I thought, this is remarkable. Then, uh, he turned it into an online learning platform, basically a video-based teaching platform, sort of like Khan Academy but for profit, and it's an $8 billion company now.”