If you've ever wondered why so many Indian EdTech apps feel like they're really trying to impress your parents more than actually teach you something — entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo just said exactly that, out loud, and the internet noticed. His comment named something a lot of students and parents have probably felt but never quite put into words: products designed around reassuring the person paying the bill, rather than around whether the person actually learning is getting real value.
What Warikoo Said
In a post on X, Warikoo wrote: "Most Indian EdTech companies were built for parents, not students. But when you earn their trust, they don't leave" (Economic Times). It's a sharp, quotable line — but it's also a diagnosis with two parts: a criticism of how the sector was built, and a claim about what fixes it.
Who Is Ankur Warikoo
Worth knowing who's saying this, since it carries some weight. Warikoo is an internet entrepreneur and digital educator with a substantial track record — he's a Startup Investor, previously worked at nearbuy.com and Groupon, and holds an MS in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Michigan State University along with an MBA from the Indian School of Business (LinkedIn). He's been recognized as one of Forbes India's Top 100 Digital Creators, and has built a following of more than 14 million people across platforms (LinkedIn; LinkedIn post). This isn't a random hot take — it's coming from someone who's actually built and sold education-adjacent products himself.
The Reaction, and the Market It's Aimed At
His post landed right at a moment when the discussion around this topic was already simmering. The comments underneath it echoed real frustration: one user wrote that "parents are not able to] verify the stats and get betrayed," another said "that's why most of them are closed or closing soon," and a third added, "I don't see any edtech company working to gain trust" ([Economic Times).
That reaction matters because this critique isn't really an argument that EdTech itself is a bad idea. India's EdTech market is currently valued at around Rs 64,875 crore (roughly $7.5 billion), according to data cited by the India Brand Equity Foundation (Economic Times). That's a huge market that isn't shrinking. What Warikoo's comment lands on is more specific: that the sector's incentives got misaligned during its rapid growth phase, chasing sales and customer acquisition rather than whether students were actually learning (Economic Times).
His Own Pivot: WebVeda
Warikoo isn't just commentating from the sidelines here — he's lived this shift himself. He shut down his own large courses business and pivoted to something called WebVeda, a subscription model he says treats growth itself as the subscription, built around relatability and trust rather than traditional advertising (StartupsUnion; LinkedIn post). In 2024, his ventures under the holding company Zaan WebVeda generated around ₹16.84 crore in revenue, with courses reaching over 425,000 students (LinkedIn post). So his "trust over sales pitch" comment isn't just a slogan — it's the actual pivot he made with his own business.
What This Means for Parents and Students
If you're a student currently choosing between EdTech platforms, or a parent about to sign up for one on your kid's behalf, here's the practical filter worth pulling from all this: ask whether the platform's marketing is aimed at convincing you (the parent, with the wallet) that this looks impressive, or whether it's actually built around what keeps a student coming back because they're genuinely learning. Warikoo's whole point is that those two things aren't automatically the same — and the platforms confusing one for the other are, by his own account, the ones now struggling to survive.