How is Khan Academy winning over Indian EdTech giants?
With free and quality education for all, Khan Academy is disrupting the multi-dollar EdTech business.
The beginning of Khan Academy
In 2004, Salman Khan (not to be confused with Bollywood actor Salman Khan), the founder of Khan Academy, worked as a financial analyst in the US.
While he was there, he started to tutor his cousin for mathematics. His excellent way of tutoring led to more relatives asking Khan to teach their kids.
When he realised that there are enough students out there who are quite weak in mathematics, he decided to provide free tutoring.
In 2007, someone recommended Khan to record his videos so that the kids who missed the class could learn later. Khan took up the recommendation and started uploading content on Youtube. Eventually, he quit his job in 2009 to focus on creating educational tutorials and made teaching his full-time career.
About Khan Academy
Khan Academy is an American non-profit organisation whose foundation was laid in 2008 by Salman Khan. It aims at creating a set of online tools for providing free & world-class education for anyone, anywhere.
Majorly focusing on mathematics & science, it has produced over 8,000 video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects, including Math, Physics, Chemistry, Economics and SAT preparations. All resources are available for free to users on their website as well as application.
What is Khan Academy solving for?🤔
While other education platforms like Unacademy and Byjus provide quality education but are very expensive, Khan Academy provides education for free, making it affordable. Today, at Khan Academy, 9 crore students are learning for free in more than 43 languages.
Khan Academy’s rapid growth📈
Today, they are taking more than 20,000 classes and are offering more than 430 Education courses. As of February 2022, the Khan Academy channel on YouTube has 7.11 million subscribers and their videos have been viewed more than 1.94 billion times.
The reasons for Khan Academy’s success
Personalised learning
Help in building a deep & solid understanding
Students practice at their own pace
Trusted library of content for learners
Tools to empower teachers
How does Khan Academy earn money?💰
Neither does Khan Academy charge any fee, nor have they turned on ads on their Youtube channel. So, what are the major sources of revenue?
Donation Support
Khan Academy is mostly funded by donations coming from philanthropic organisations. Surprisingly, Khan Academy has never asked for any donations but it has received over 400 million dollars. It is funded by the likes of Tata, Google, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and many others.
If you are an aspiring founder, here is your lesson from Khan Academy’s success:
Focus on digitising products that are primarily available offline and are essential for everyday life.
Try building an affordable version of a premium product for common people which is currently accessible only to privileged people.
If you’re an aspiring founder contemplating the thought of starting up, you might want to check out inby.
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