Byju's both parents were teachers, but teaching never inspired him when he was a young boy.
When he was in school, his passion was sports. Some of his teachers complained to his parents
that Byju was missing lots of classes due to his sports activities. But Byju's parents
allowed him the freedom to choose sports if that is what he wanted to do.
Though Byju played sports well, he did not have any intention to adopt sports as a career.
He played sports because he enjoyed playing them.
Byju chose mechanical engineering in college because he thought compared to medical college students,
engineering college students get more time to play sports!
After Byju passed engineering degree from the university, he accepted
the job as service engineer in a shipping company. During his holidays, since he was good in math, on request from
some of his friends, he coached them and helped them to pass the common aptitude test (CAT) entrance exam. This is one of the toughest
tests which qualifies students for management degree course in India.
Once his friends passed this exam, a word of mouth publicity spread among his friend's
friends and Byju started getting more requests for teaching students to pass CAT.
In no time, Byju's classes became so popular that he quit his job and was travelling
between 9 cities in India to teach students, how to pass CAT.
In those days, he was teaching CAT students on week days and on weekends, he would prepare
himself on innovative ways to solve math problems.
What initially started as 1 room class, gradually grew into a hall and then an auditorium
and then a stadium! Once he conducted math workshop for 20,000 students in a stadium!
While coaching students for CAT exam, Byju realized that if these students were given better
conceptual understanding of subjects and proper foundation at school level, they can do much better at higher levels.
Hence in 2011 when he opened his company, he chose to create content for school students.
Today, Byju's classes begin from grade 4 to 12 students in math, physics, chemistry and biology.
from 2011 to 2015, Byju focused on creating content mainly for school students. He created
each chapter in a subject like a movie. His content is very contextual and visual.
Instead of focusing on "what" on learning, he pays more attention on "why" and "how".
Byju's travelling became so hectic that he had to think about doing his teaching in a more
effective way where his physical presence is not required.
In 2015, Byju launched his app and within a year, he had 5.5 million download and 250,000
students using it on an annual subscription basis.
Soon this idea appealed to many investors and in 2016 alone Byju received investments of over $100 million from
investors to improve his app and enlarge the scope of this project. The latest investment
is made from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative- the philanthropic organization created by Facebook
founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr Priscilla Chan.
Today, Byju's India's most latest billionaire.
But Byju says, "In the sector we are in, the real fun is not in creating a billion dollar
company, but changing the way millions of students learn".
You can learn more about Byju's coaching from the link below.
https://byjus.com/
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