Too many too soon births cause trouble for moms and their newborn.That’s what we are taught in our Gynae Obs classes.It literally talks about giving time to your body to heal,grow stronger before giving birth again.It’s also a good way to help your kid grow to such an age when they can dress themselves and go to the loo by themselves. A minimum of two years is a requirement.
But what happens when this is not followed? Maternal morbidity,mortality and infant morbidity, mortality both rises.What does this have to do with Byjus?
Well, it’s like those fables- all that glitters is not gold; all that’s Byjus wasn’t their strength.
Byjus sold a dream and believe me when I say this,I almost fell for it .It was only by God’s grace I merely experienced their telephonic chasing by their representatives being located in a small town.But when I heard they had acquired WhitWhite Hat JR Live online Coding for kids: Is it worth it? #Causeachattere Hat Jr and Akash Institute. I knew there was something wrong.I had some experience with the former and knew how they operated.
Here’s an intelligent engineer(Mr.Byjus) who has cracked the MBA entrances multiple times and started an online educational enterprise after testing his technique on small batches of the same stream.How did he test whether middle,school,high school,premedical entrances were his thing?
Did he have people on his team who had similarly cracked NEET several times.I always wondered and decided to follow the story.
The first red signal was when I heard they were launching in America and they were already a Unicorn startup.I wondered what was their core competency for American education? Just hiring teachers and pushing out generic content is a poor business model.
But what I didn’t know was their blood curdling adventure in socio-economically challenged neighborhoods where they promised everything and allegedly made parents sign on bank loan documents. All this was not looking good for an educational institution and then their brand ambassador was selling everything, including mouth fresheners, for a Gutkha company. I am a big fan of the actor but not aware of his educational mettle or wisdom in those matters either.
Did Mr.Byjus sell the middle-class dream to the highest bidder?
Did he make business mistakes?
Too big too soon, no plan,bad management and poor fiscal habits or just plain greedy?
There’s a rumor about a lot of things but that makes me sad is that the man had sold a good dream.
Online education of high(possible) quality is affordable at all levels, accessible anywhere in the world, raising academically strong kids.
But we are left wondering.
Lessons from the Byjus fiasco
Don’t be greedy
Focus on your strengths
Listen to your audience
Growing too fast can be a problem
Never mess with the middle-class dream.Karma may be busy, but will come back to upset the apple cart just when you were planning the Apple pie if you have not taken out the rotten apples.
Ethics are personal, but in education, it’s a must. Mr. Byjus, I have heard, is an exceptional teacher.I hope he keeps accounts of all the real people he has helped. Because aside from his expansionist plan (which has caused the downfall of many an empire) if he had focused on his core strength, he would have been a business case report for years to come.That he is even now. But of the wrong kind.
The rise and fall of Byjus is a lesson of what not to do when you are a wildly successful business.
I personally feel Byjus still has a chance to make a turnaround. Sell off their nonperforming assets.Focus on their core strengths and definitely do a deep introspection of what went wrong. We all like to believe in Unicorns but sometimes a good sturdy horse is way better than a mythical creature.
