Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo (Part 4)

Pallav Pandey: Then we had another divine intervention, I would say. He started collecting whatever money was due from schools so that he can pool up whatever was left. He said, “There is one school in Delhi which was opposite to your house. They were supposed to pay us some amount. They’re not paying us. They want to meet somebody senior.” The principal was insisting on it.

I met the principal. She said, “I’m very sorry to hold your payment to meet you.” She thought I was the founder. She said, “I really wanted to meet you. We love your product. This is how we use it.” It was a very simple ERP. Think of like WhatsApp for schools so they can do the parent-teacher communication via the app. She said, “I will refer you to a school I used to work with. We have three branches in our current school. Before referring you, I wanted to know who these guys are.”

I called out Ankur and told him about the conversation. My own startup was going on at this time. I said, “Give it one more try. It takes time. Why don’t we raise some funds?” I ended up leading a syndicate round. We raised one more syndicate on Angel List. We raised 2.5 crores (~$300K). We searched for a co-founder. There were people I pitched to be co-founder of Uolo, but we could not find one. The company dragged on for some more time.

I reached out to Ankur in 2019 of October. I said, “Why don’t we start Uolo afresh? I’ll buy out the old company. You join me as the co-founder. We’ll do a different strategy.” Ankur said yes. This was just before COVID. Then COVID happened. While it was good for EdTech, it was a nightmare for schools. Every school shut down. Somehow, we were able to raise money. Then things started falling in place.

Sramana Mitra: This is money you raised from angels?

Pallav Pandey: No. When we pivoted, we raised $3 million from Blume.

Sramana Mitra: What was the thesis?

Pallav Pandey: Our thesis was the way people were approaching EdTech was not correct. EdTech needs to happen with the schools as the distribution point. Every child who needs to consume EdTech is going to a school already. You don’t need to reach out to the parents and child via Facebook and Google. You should reach out via the school. Make that work. If that works, your cost of distribution goes down to practically zero. We have acquired 700 odd schools from the previous company. We’ll show that this can be done. Blume invested in the previous company. They gave us more time.

Sramana Mitra: How did that hypothesis play out?

Pallav Pandey: It was a disaster because of COVID. Schools started asking temporary arrangements like online classes and LMS. All of our time and effort went into surviving COVID somehow. The first two years were hard. Ankur had spent much more time. Over time, I got clearer that the thesis was correct. We made our offering to schools free of cost. The communication software that we have, everybody needs it.

Sramana Mitra: This is the old parent communication software?

Pallav Pandey: Yes. The philosophy for the new company is that we will become a platform to bring EdTech to the masses of India. You look at Byju. They sell their product for something like 25,000 Rupees (~$300) per annum. That is not a mass market play. If you look at the pyramid of Indian students, people who are paying more than 30,000 Rupees (~$360) per annum in tuition is less than 3% of the entire population.

The question, is in this market, we have to realize the main thing. Think of mobile phones and the accessories. When you buy a mobile phone for 40,000 Rupees, the accessory like a headphone costs around 2,000 Rupees. In our market, the equivalent is the school. Whatever the parents are spending on the school will have an order of magnitude more than the accessories. By that logic, if mass market school is 15,000 Rupees, maybe we’re talking about 3,000 Rupees that people will spend on EdTech. At that price point, you will be able to get to every single person in India.

It is a very interesting country, right? India is a poor country. We want everything free from the government. When the election happens, they’ll say free electricity or free LPG cylinders. Half of India, when they’re given free education from the government, do not take the offer. They send their children to a private school. That is the willingness of parents to spend on their children’s education. Culturally, we don’t think of education as an expense. We think of it as an investment.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo
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