How Alakh Pandey, an engineering college dropout, toiled hard, braved umpteen odds and battled well-funded edtech rivals to build his IIT and medical coaching empire
February 2014, Softways Coaching Institute, Allahabad. Alakh Pandey was super confident of pulling off a class act. And why not? The 22-year-old from Allahabad (now Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, who had just dropped out of an engineering college in Kanpur, had been burning the midnight oil to thoroughly prepare the second chapter of Class X Physics. After quitting engineering in the third year, Pandey came back to his hometown, joined an institute in Allahabad to teach physics and had got an opportunity to work at another coaching academy.
The idea was to maximise income. The young dropout had been drawing Rs5,000 per month from his first coaching class in the evening. “I didn’t want to lose this chance of doubling my salary,” recalls Pandey, who started taking tuitions when he was in class 8. His first tryst with coaching happened when he cycled a few kilometres to teach some half a-dozen students of Class 9 when he was in the first year of higher secondary schooling. “The vibes that you get from teaching a bunch of curious students is a big kick,” he underlines, adding that his cycle was stolen when he was in class 12, and he could not afford a new one.