This is a guest post written by Gaurav Munjal who is the Founder and CEO of Unacademy, which aims to build the world's largest online knowledge repository for multi-lingual education. Previous to that he was Founder and CEO of Flatchat, a real estate platform for college students and bachelors across India.
Guest Author: Gaurav Munjal
Learnings in 2023:
Taking decision from First Principles might make you look dumb in the short term but it’s still the right way to take decisions.
In 2021 we were being offered $500M Debt at really lucrative Rates. We said no. We also said no to a lot of random M&A.
We got a lot of flak.
But after two years, it looks like we made some right choices.
Growth stage Leaders might not always survive the transition to growing Profitably. And it’s not a capability issue. It’s just that Growth Leaders thrive on not being constrained. And the Leaders who work with constrains have a different DNA.
Brand will always be one of the most Important Moats specially if you don’t have a Deep Tech Moat. Build a great Brand and protect it at all costs.
Most Companies under invest in Brand and Content and over invest in Performance Marketing.
Replace your traditional Social Media team with Influencers who have themselves built Content and amassed huge following. They know more about Social Media that your current team ever will.
Great Distribution and Marketing can suffice for a bad Product. But only for 1-2 years. It’s always better to focus on Product and Service Delivery as well. From Day One. And it’s also Important to be obsessed about Distribution.
Distribution and Marketing are so Important because most Products are Commodities today.
EdTech is a one transaction game. Either you make money on the first transaction, or you never make money. First transaction is the LTV.
EdTech is not a Sector where one should Blitzscale. Every Customer churns. It’s a Sector where every single transaction should generate a Profit.
Online Learning is here to stay. Duolingo is generating $100M of Cash Annually and is now valued at $10B. Honestly, this is just the start for Online Learning.
Any Zero to One Project takes at least 3-4 years to show some tangible Results. Graphy hit PMF and is growing well. But it took years.
There is no substitute for Speed. Teams that have a sense of urgency and deliver things at a great Speed will always beat slow Teams.
Reality has changed. The period before 2022 was an anomaly. The sooner you adapt to the new reality, the better.
Yes, suddenly everyone is excited about Consumer Goods. But I am extremely optimistic about Tech in the long run even if everyone is bearish about Tech right now. It’s a fallacy that India won’t have great Tech Companies so it’s better to build Consumer Goods Companies.
