In this episode, we chat with Karan Bajaj, Founder, WhiteHat Jr. From being the CEO at Discovery, to being an author with Penguin Random House & HarperCollins Publishers, to curating his Edtech venture Karan has donned many hats.
Founded in November 2018, WhiteHat Jr is focused on helping children between 6 to 14 years in developing commercial-ready games, animations, and apps online using the fundamentals of coding. In August 2020, Whitehat Jr was sold to Byju’s in a $300 million all-cash deal.
During the podcast, Karan talks about how he took 3 breaks in his professional career and how they impacted him as a person, he also talks about what roles should a founder play at various growth stages in a startup’s journey.
For anyone looking to make a planned approach & setting outcomes for sabbaticals, or for any founder confused with prioritizing the impactful things in their journey at various stages, this conversation can be of great value.
Notes -
01:03 - Early childhood & career prior to WhiteHat Jr
03:49 - Taking breaks in a professional career
04:10 - Becoming consistent with writing - “Natural consequence of living what I thought was a very interesting adventure, an experience that I thought that many people should do.”
07:04 - Major career sabbaticals throughout his journey
14:24 - Impact of 1st Sabbatical: Understanding that the world is very boundary-less
15:06 - Impact of 2nd Sabbatical: Productivity as an individual
15:41 - Impact of 3rd Sabbatical: “If I pick up something, I just have to keep at it every day.”
17:00 - Growing leaps and bounds in corporate career after 2nd sabbatical
18:30 - Self-doubts while writing and publishing his books
22:04 - Accepting and realising that growth isn’t linear
28:43 - Ideating and pursuing WhiteHat Jr
34:46 - Initial scale, revenue, and metrics tracked at WhiteHat Jr
38:17 - Top mistakes at WhiteHat Jr while blitzscaling
41:45 - Being mindful as a founder while facing criticism
43:15 - “The founder in a blitzscaling phase has to let some fires burn.”
45:41 - Byju’s & WhiteHat Jr deal: Startup economics for Acquirer, Acquired & Investors
51:19 - Enabling 11000+ women teachers on the platform
52:07 - Karan’s perspective on the Wolf Gupta’s Ad
1:00:14 - WhiteHat Jr’s journey in a book & chapter names for each phase
1:04:32 - One major personality change while building WhiteHat Jr
