Peyush Bansal Calls Out Edtech Founders, Says 'Jitni Clarity Se Physics Wallah Ka Business Samjhaya, Apna Nahi Samjha Paaye'

The episode focused on an online education platform, ‘Competishun’, founded by Neeraj Saini, Mohit Kumar Tyagi, and Amit Bijarnia, which provides online coaching for JEE/NEET preparation to students

A Shark Tank episode last week featured a edtech start-up founders who managed to face the ire of all the Sharks. The episode focused on an online education platform, ‘Competishun’, founded by Neeraj Saini, Mohit Kumar Tyagi, and Amit Bijarnia. The firm provides online coaching for JEE/NEET preparation to students and pitches the sharks for Rs 2 crore in exchange for 1 per cent equity. 

Explaining the pitch, the founders start by talking about the negativity surrounding the edtech industry, claiming that firms are only interested in making money and don’t care enough to educate themselves about the students’ needs.

They explain that they have been working in the industry for nearly 2 decades now and have been working on their platform for the last 3 years. The founders shared that their platform has been providing online coaching to the students for Rs 30,000, while offline coaching for students for the same education costs Rs 3,00,000.

Questioning their ask, Anupam raises questions about their strategy to become successful when they term ‘money-minded’ a bad quality for edtech platforms. He enquires how they plan to generate returns on their investment if they don’t intend to follow the same strategy of other platforms. 

When Mohit Tyagi shares that their platform has 1 million subscribers on their YouTube channel, Aman interrupts calling the number really low as all other platforms have easily around 20 million subscribers. 

Tyagi tries to justify that their platform provides serious education without the distraction of poems and shayari, however, Vineeta expresses her disagreement here. She states that Shark Tank also uses entertainment to help educate the masses about business and both education and entertainment can be interlinked successfully. 

When asked to show how their business is different from the rest, the founders share that they provide the same courses in different paces and packaging to cater to the students’ receptivity. They state that they started their business in 2020 and about 2,055 of their students got admission in IIT in 2023. Currently, the platform has 18 faculties including the founders. 

Vineeta however questions them on their valuation and asks them to justify how they differ from the money-minded mentality that they claim to shun of their peers. The Sharks get irked with the mentality of the founders toward their peers and state that they are unclear about their business model.

When the founders say that Physics Wallah is doing a good job in the edtech field, the Sharks ask them to explain about the firm. After hearing their response, Peyush comments, “Aapne jitne clarity se Physics Wallah ka business samjhaya, apna nahi samjha paaye.”

Eventually, all the sharks bow out of the deal claiming that the founders remain unclear about the individuality of their business.