From Rs 5000 per month to Rs 76 lakh per day in just 5 years: Here is why this startup is different

India has the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. According to the Economic Survey 2021-22, there are over 61,400 startups that are recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). One such startup in India is 'Catalyst'. It has grown by leaps and bounds in the last five years. Founded in 2017 - by Akhand Swaroop, who worked as an Indian Engineering Services (IES) Office - Catalyst has a very interesting journey of growing from an income of Rs 5,000 a month to Rs 76 lakh per day.

Idea behind Catalyst

According to Swaroop, the journey of this startup began when he launched the Catalyst YouTube channel to provide free videos to students living in remote areas who cannot manage the fees of institutions.

"I was working as Assistant Director under the Department of Urban and Planning. This is when I started the Catalyst YouTube channel. But the response from the side of students was commendable. This encouraged my wife and me to launch our own website and online courses," Swaroop said.  

"In 2017, we started with 100 students from our home. I used to teach and my wife used to handle the queries of students and other management related work. In a few months, our strength increased to 1,000. And we decided to put a small fee amount in order to maintain serious students on the list. Then again, the response was great and in the very next year we reached the strength of 1 lakh paid users. This is when I resigned from the services in order to focus on Catalyst," he added.

Catalyst soon started hiring faculties and created a team for the same. "Between 2019 to 2022 we have reached from 1 lakh to 3 million users under catalyst with a company valuation of RS 1,250 Crore," Swaroop said.

What separates Catalyst from others?

"There are three things that separate Catalyst from others - Quality of content, Highly experienced faculties with over 30 years of experience, and affordable fee structure. Today students find it difficult to get all three things together as a combined package and as we are able to provide them, we have become the most trusted institution in India."

It is to be noted that the Catalyst is completely bootstrapped. "In the past one year we have been contacted by many VCs and fundraising groups but as we are doing well in the market and we don't want to dilute much of the equity, so we have currently postponed the idea of raising funding," Swaroop said.

Catalyst provides classes for UPSC IAS/CSE, UPSC IES, CAPF, NDA, CDS and other government exams like SSC CGL/CHSL/JE and GATE etc.