Alakh Pandey rejected ₹75-crore (USD 10mn) salary, now owns a unicorn - PhysicsWallah

Alakh Pandey from Allahabad, India always wanted to become an engineer from IIT - one of the leading engineering college in India, but due to lack of resources and money, he couldn't.

His parents had to sell their only home, so that Alakh can complete his engineering from a local college, and from day 1, he started teaching to earn money, and get back the home his parents had sold.

He went from home to home, taking classes, and saving money. But the operations couldn't scale up.

In 2016, he decided to start his Youtube channel for teaching Physics, and named it Physics Wallah.

Soon, he quit teaching in the offline mode, and concentrated solely on his Youtube channel, and he taught for free.

In the first year, he got 10,000 subscribers, and a loyal community of students, who loved to listen Alakh. His keen passion in drama and acting helped him as well, and slowly, his subscribers increased.

The turning point was when he started selling complete IIT-JEE entrance kit covering all subjects, for just Rs 3500 (~USD 50). At a time when reputed and big-shot coaching institutes charged lakhs, his coaching course was a huge hit.

He was even reportedly offered USD 5 mn package by UnAcademy… but he refused.

Subscribers increased, paid users increased, and he kept on teaching, engaging his students and empowering them with information and motivation.

In March, 2022, that is 3 months back, his company started talking with investors, and recently, he raised 1st ever funding of USD 100 million.

But that's not the news…the news is that, with their 1st ever funding round, they have become a Unicorn at USD 1.1 billion valuation. A rare and unprecedented occurrence, atleast in India.

As of now, they generate Rs 24 crore annual revenues, booked Rs 6.9 crore profits out of that, and have 1900 employees, and 20 offline coaching centres, along with almost 8 million Youtube subscribers and fans.

I don't know how, but a single person, who started a Youtube channel with an investment of Rs 30,000 (USD 400), in which he bought a tripod, a white board, and a smartphone, has somehow become India's 101st unicorn.