As the number of startups continues to surge in India, there has been a notable increase in the number of companies facing failure, with Byju’s being a prominent recent example.

The edtech company has found itself embroiled in a storm of challenges, raising concerns about its future viability. Despite the turmoil, there are still some who argue that Byju’s deserves another opportunity to turn things around and recover from its current predicament.

According to Shantanu Deshpande, the founder of Bombay Shaving Company, Indians enjoy pulling down uber-successful people. In an Instagram reel posted by Deshpande’s podcast channel, The BarberShop with Shantanu, the entrepreneur is seen citing the example of Indian ed-tech firm Byju’s and Mamaearth. As per Deshpande, people love to hate these startups for no apparent reason.

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The CEO remarked that it’s easy to criticise the company but difficult to attain a market capitalisation like these companies. While Byju’s is unlisted, Mamaearth’s parent company Honasa Consumer‘s market cap stands at around ₹13,376 crore. He goes on to suggest that Byju’s may have scope for a turnaround “with a good CEO, come capital and some focus”.

While some users on the social media platform agreed with Deshpande’s thoughts, several users were in disagreement.

“Byjus raised insane amount of money from investors then harassed a bunch of college fresh graduates into meeting the sales target that he promised the investors. The CTC he offered to fresh engineering graduates was misleading at best,” one of the comments on the post said.

Some even called out Byju’s for lacking a work ethic and a decent office culture. On the other hand, some users suggested Byju’s failure should be taken as a lesson instead.

Byju’s downfall began in 2023 with a host of issues including alleged misuse of investors’ money and financial mismanagement where it defaulted on payments, failed to pay the staff’s salaries and even their provident fund deposits. The company, which was once valued at $22 billion saw its worth plummet to $1 billion amid the company’s investors losing confidence in the leadership.

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