Most difficult to balance revenue and student outcomes: 40u40 2024 Alakh Pandey

Alakh Pandey, featured in Fortune India’s 2024 edition of the 40Under40 list, reminisced about a pivotal moment in his career when he made the bold choice to leave college during his third year. This decision entailed taking a loan of around ₹1.5 lakh while his family resided in a rented space in a slum. Reflecting on that period, he acknowledged that it initially seemed like a daunting decision, yet in hindsight, it turned out to be the most rewarding risk he ever took.

“I would give advice to my younger self to be happy, give yourself the benefit of doubt that you’ll make it, and have less pressure,” PhysicsWallah says.

Speaking on which Entrepreneur he idolises the most, Pandey says, “I am my worst entrepreneur and the best entrepreneur, so I idolise my entrepreneurship in different phases.”

Pandey  reveals that the most difficult problem he still faces is how to balance revenue and student outcomes.

Voicing out his challenges, Pandey shares his experience when he started his app, “My first class had 50,000 kids, and it crashed, so our app didn’t work for the first five days. There was a time when I said that I’m going to shut PhysicsWallah down. It took 15 days to run that class. Technology was a big problem.”

Sometimes he thinks he has arrived and sometimes he thinks he hasn’t. “Whenever I meet a student who's the first doctor in their village, or a student who's the child of an auto driver and has been accepted into a prestigious medical college, I feel like, yes, I have achieved something in life. When I met a 16-year-old girl and she didn’t have any basic knowledge of maths, I felt that I haven’t done enough.”

Lastly, when asked how he unwinds, he simply replied that he talks to his wife.