Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal's take on why Byju Raveendran failed: ‘He didn’t listen to anyone…'

Unacademy Chief Executive Officer Gaurav Munjal on Friday shared his take on the downfall of ed-tech firm Byju's and its founder Byju Raveendran, highlighting the importance of ‘blunt feedback’ in running a business. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Munjal said the troubled ed-tech startup's founder stopped listening and failed to have people who could give him the right feedback.

“He put himself on a pedestal and stopped listening,” posted Munjal. “Don’t listen to everyone but have people who can give you blunt feedback,” he wrote.

Munjal questioned Byju Raveendran's leadership and his ability to take feedback and to act on it. “You might not always like the feedback, but take the feedback and act on it,” said Munjal in his post.

Munjal also shared his views and learning from the last two years with his followers on X.

Here are 5 takeaways from his post

1. If you are building for India, you must have some form of offline play.
2. When times are tough, increase transparency by 10x with your investors and team members.
3. When taking tough decisions, don’t hide behind silent layoffs or more such sophisticated things. Be transparent above all.
4. Business model innovation is more important than product innovation.
5. Figuring out what your leverage points are and playing the game accordingly is the way to win. Not by blindly executing.

Munjal's take on Byju Raveendran highlights the case study of the rise and fall of Byju's as a company. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs on June 26 denied giving a clean chit to Bjyu's amid allegations of financial fraud. The investigations are still continuing into allegations of financial misconduct involving Byju's, the ministry had clarified.

Once valued at $22 billion, the valuation of Byju's has plummeted to $1 billion, after BlackRock reduced its holdings in Byju's, according to media reports.