TL;DR: While the ghost of Byju’s continues to haunt the valuation graveyards, PhysicsWallah has reported a staggering 33% YoY increase in Q3 profit, hitting ₹102 Cr. Alakh Pandey’s "student-first, vanity-last" approach is now the blueprint for sustainable edtech in India.
The Vichaarak Perspective
There is a delicious irony in the fact that the most "primitive" looking edtech startup—one that started with a white-board and a YouTube channel—is the one currently printing money. While their competitors were busy hiring Hollywood A-listers and buying stadium naming rights, PhysicsWallah was busy actually... teaching.
The outlier angle here is that PhysicsWallah isn't actually an "edtech" company; it’s a community that happens to use technology. In a world where every venture-backed startup tries to "disrupt" the human element, Pandey doubled down on it. Profitability in edtech isn't about the sophistication of your LLM or the gamification of your UI; it’s about the trust-to-CAC ratio. If your students are your best marketing team, your CAC is zero. As Harkirat (@harkirat1892) often highlights in his deep dives, the most resilient businesses are those that solve for the user's wallet before their own valuation. PhysicsWallah didn't pivot to profitability; they never left it.