Alakh Pandey’s vision could crave the dream of thousands of students. A vision that is ablaze, exhumes buried dreams from the graves and gives hope to the students.
Alakh Pandey sir, the heart of millions of students, one who had a vision of revolutionizing the educational system of India.
So today in this article I’m going to share the firm, intense yet beautiful journey of Sir Alakh Pandey – Physics Walah. How his teaching and guidance have helped millions of students across India. What was the crucial role behind his success and how has he achieved it?
Who founded Physics Wallah?
Alakh Pandey started his YouTube Channel “Physics Wallah” on 27 January 2014 as a physics teacher.
Before that he used to teach in coaching institutes. Initially, he started teaching Physics, Chemistry, and Maths to students in classes 10,11, and 12. His lectures were based on NCERT( National Council of Educational Research and Training).
Alakh Pandey becomes a famous teacher because of his unique and easy teachings and methods. Later on 26th May 2020, Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari launched the Physics Wallah app.
Here, he started teaching online courses which include IIT, JEE Mains, JEE Advance, NEET, and AIIMS along with the privilege Board exams. He provides these online courses at very affordable prices.
He believes that teaching shouldn’t be a business and aims to provide quality content to all his beloved students.
A brief history of Physics Wallah- Alakh Pandey
Alakh Pandey was born on 2 October 1991 in Prayagraj (Allahabad), Uttar Pradesh, in a lower-middle-class family. His father’s name is Satish Pandey and his mother’s name is Rajat Pandey.
He has a sibling named Aditi Pandey. He did his schooling on the ISCE board at Bishop Johnson School. After that, he completed his graduation in mechanical engineering from Harcourt Butler Technical Institute, Kanpur.
His education was about to end in standard 8 because his father was not able to give fees. Due to these situations, he stepped into the teaching profession when his family shifted to the slums.
He started to teach students in primary and secondary school. Later, he used to save money and with the help of those, he bought a cycle so he could travel to more places for teaching and other purposes.
Alakh Pandey believed in hard work from the very beginning, so he continued his studies along with tuition. After passing the 12th standard examination in 2010, he started preparing for engineering.
He secured a good rank in the UPSEE ( Uttar Pradesh State Entrance Examination). Although he had hoped to gain admission to IIT, things didn’t go as planned when he failed the IIT Entrance exam.
Due to this, he got admission to Harcourt Butler Technical Institute (HBTI) in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. There he topped in college by securing 80% marks in Physics in the 1st year of B. Tech.
To fulfill his needs in college, he started teaching in a coaching institute in B.Tech’s 2nd year. By the end of 3rd year, his interest in coaching increased and he lost his mind. So, in his final year of B.Tech, he left his studies and came back to Prayagraj.
The foundation of Physics Wallah.
Alakh Pandey along with his partner started a coaching institute. Initially, around 2015 he struggled financially but in 2017 his institute started gaining popularity and he started earning quite well.
In between, he started his YouTube Channel by the name, Physics Wallah- Alakh Pandey on January 27, 2014. In 2016, he started publishing his videos on his YouTube Channel.
During that time, there weren’t many educational creators on YouTube. He even created a Facebook Page name of Physics Wallah where he created educational memes and asked questions. Though his Facebook Page didn’t become popular.
In 2017, Alakh Pandey realized that he can’t reach many students through his traditional offline coaching institute. So, in December 2017 he left his coaching institute to fully focus on his YouTube Channel.
And, at that time Alakh Pandey had only 10,000 subscribers on his YouTube Channel. Though his father was not happy with his decision and he opined that to left his coaching institution after growing his YouTube Channel but his mother and sister were very supportive of his decision. Thankfully, later he managed to convince his father and continued working on his YouTube Channel.
The Financial crisis.
Though Alakh Pandey had 10,000 subscribers he was getting only a few views on his YouTube videos and due to this, he wasn’t able to earn the sufficient amount needed to stabilize his living.
So, he also started preparing for the Civil Services Exam of the UPSC but his love for teaching didn’t allow him to quit. As Alakh Pandey started to get so many positive comments from the students demanding more of his videos.
Gradually, he saw the potential of his YouTube Channel and he continued working on it. In January 2017, he received his first ever payment of ₹8,000 from YouTube.
Though initially, the growth was slow, stepping back was never an option! His channel saw a breakthrough between 2017-2019 when his subscribers went from a mere 10k to 2 million.
Alakh Pandey- From a Youtuber to an Entrepreneur.
Alakh Pandey’s YouTube Channel gradually emerged with a glowing following and became a full-fledged ed-tech company in 2020.
In August 2018, Pandey was introduced to Prateek Maheshwari, the brain behind the Physics Wallah Platform, and in 2020, the platform and the app were launched.
” Prateek is responsible for the phenomenal growth of Physics Wallah in the last two years. I look after the academics and finance, business, among others, are taken care of by him,” said Alakh Pandey.
When other platforms like Buju’s and UNacademy were offering courses in lakhs, Physics Wallah’s courses started at just ₹999, giving him a competitive advantage.
Unhappy with the competition, other ed-tech firms started offering him crores to join them. He reportedly turned down a massive job offer with a salary of ₹75 crores an ed-tech firm said to be Unacademy.
Institutes even started poaching Physics Wallah’s teachers, but that didn’t affect him and he kept on going. The reason was to achieve the vision of bringing tools for quality education to the unprivileged.
The other commendable part of Physics Wallah is the dedication of the teachers. Since the company was formed, only four teachers fled to other bigger ed-tech platforms. Physics Wallah has 500 teachers and Pandey said that each teacher is a celebrity here. ” They have 20,000 to 100,000 followers on Instagram,” he added.
The transformation into a “Unicorn”.
Till 2022, he used all his revenue for everything. From the registration of his company to the development of the ‘Physics Wallah app, everything came from his YouTube revenue.
It was only in 2022, that companies saw potential in him. It was on 7th June 2022 that the company went through a series of funding. The self-made businessman Alakh Pandey’s startup was able to fetch $100 million from Westbridge Capital and GSV Ventures.
Alakh Pandey’s unicorn has a workplace of 19,000 which includes 500 teachers, 200 associate professors, 200 subject matter experts, and around 100 techies. Today Physics Wallah is a profitable ed-tech startup with 6 million students and ₹350 crores in revenue.
Making his startup stand out was not an easy task for him. He had to face a lot of downfalls and crossed a road full of challenges that he gave testimony of. Things didn’t stop at luring him, when he refused to give up on his company, several other startups started stealing his staff in various ways.
Most of his staff even resigned. But again, that didn’t stop him from moving ahead and this result is what he is today!
Thank you guys for your patience and the effort that you put to read this article. I hope this article was helpful for you and I hope that I’m able to put value in your life with the help of this article. All my best wishes are with you. Please drop your valuable feedback below…
