Gaurav Munjal’s Journey: How One Engineer Questioned the System and Built Unacademy
Meet Gaurav Munjal, Unacademy Founder — a name now inseparable from India’s online education revolution — did not begin his journey with a grand vision of building a unicorn. His story did not start in boardrooms, pitch decks, or venture capital corridors. It began quietly, with a young engineer sitting in front of a laptop, typing explanations for strangers on the internet, unsure if anyone would even read them.
This is the story of a man who grew up inside the Indian education system, understood its unfairness early on, and felt an unease he could not name at first. He saw how access to good teachers could alter destinies, and how the absence of it quietly crushed millions of dreams before they ever had a chance. Long before Unacademy became an Indian EdTech unicorn, it was simply an attempt to answer a deeply personal question: Why should quality education depend on where you are born or how much you can pay?
Unacademy officially came into existence in 2015, but its emotional roots stretch back much further — to moments of frustration, curiosity, and silent rebellion against a system that rewarded privilege more than potential. The “what” of Unacademy is an online learning platform. The “how” is technology and creators. But the “why” lives in the invisible stories of students who were never supposed to make it — until they did.
Journey unfolded in India
This journey unfolded in India, during a time when online education was dismissed, YouTube was not taken seriously as a learning medium, and EdTech was still an unproven idea. What followed was not a straight line to success, but a long walk through doubt, financial anxiety, leadership failures, burnout, and public scrutiny.
This is not just the founder story of Unacademy. This is the inner journey of Gaurav Munjal — the human cost behind the headlines, the emotional weight behind every decision, and the lessons carved slowly through years of uncertainty.
1. Background and Early Life
Gaurav Munjal did not grow up believing he would change Indian education. Like millions of middle-class Indian children, he grew up believing education was the only safe bridge between uncertainty and security. It was not romantic. It was practical.
His family background was grounded, aspirational, and realistic. Education was respected, but never idealized. Marks mattered. Exams mattered. Outcomes mattered. Yet even within this structure, Munjal sensed something unsettling early on — that intelligence alone was not enough. Opportunity played a far bigger role than anyone openly admitted.
He noticed how some students had access to better teachers, better notes, better guidance — and how others quietly fell behind, not because they were less capable, but because the system never truly saw them. These observations did not spark rebellion then. They quietly settled somewhere deeper.
Growing up in India also meant growing up with competition — relentless, normalized, and often unforgiving. Success was scarce, failure was stigmatized, and second chances were rare. This environment shaped Munjal’s relationship with learning not as joy, but as survival.
At the same time, the internet was beginning to seep into everyday life. For Munjal, it felt different from school. Online spaces were not hierarchical. No one asked for degrees before listening. Ideas stood on clarity, not credentials. This contrast planted a seed that would take years to fully grow.
2. Education and the Early Restlessness
Munjal followed the expected path and pursued engineering, but the classroom never fully held him. He learned what he needed to, but he was far more fascinated by how people explained things outside textbooks.
During this phase, he discovered something about himself: he enjoyed simplifying complexity. He liked breaking difficult concepts into language that felt human, conversational, and accessible. It was not teaching in the traditional sense. It was translation.
Platforms like Quora became an unexpected outlet. Munjal wrote answers that stood out — not because they were academically superior, but because they felt honest. He used humor, real-life analogies, and plain language. People responded. Strangers thanked him. Some told him they finally understood something they had struggled with for years.
This response triggered a quiet realization. Learning did not have to feel intimidating. It did not need classrooms, uniforms, or fear. It needed empathy.
At this stage, Munjal was not thinking about startups or entrepreneurship. He was simply following curiosity. But unknowingly, he was already doing what Unacademy would later formalize — meeting learners where they were.
3. The Uncomfortable Truth About Indian Education
Before Unacademy existed, Munjal had already made peace with an uncomfortable truth: Indian education was not broken because of lack of effort. It was broken because of structural inequality.
Coaching institutes thrived by clustering talent in physical locations. If you could not move cities, afford fees, or take years off life, you were quietly excluded. This was not cruelty. It was economics. But the impact was deeply personal for millions of students.
Munjal saw students preparing for UPSC, IIT-JEE, and other competitive exams clinging to poorly photocopied notes and outdated books. Meanwhile, the best teachers were locked behind high fees and physical walls.
The internet, however, did not recognize walls.
When Munjal began uploading educational videos on YouTube, he did not expect scale. He expected maybe a few dozen viewers. Instead, he found something startling — students were hungry. They were not just watching. They were listening. trusting.
This was the first crack in the belief that serious education could only happen offline.
4. The Birth of Unacademy — Almost Accidentally
Unacademy did not arrive as a bold startup launch. It arrived quietly, almost accidentally. The initial videos were simple. No studio. No marketing. production gloss. Just explanations. But something important happened — students began returning. They began sharing links. They began asking for more structure.
This is when the idea shifted. What if education did not need institutions first? What if it needed educators and learners first — and systems later? In 2015, Unacademy was formally founded. The platform’s earliest identity was fragile and undefined. Was it a content site? A marketplace? A YouTube extension? Even Munjal did not fully know.
What he knew was this: something meaningful was happening, and it deserved commitment. Choosing to build Unacademy full-time was not a glamorous decision. It meant financial uncertainty, unclear career paths, and explaining to family why a “real job” was being postponed. It meant betting on something that did not yet have language.
This was not confidence. This was conviction mixed with fear.
5. Early Days: Idealism Meets Reality
The early days of Unacademy were fueled by belief, not experience. Munjal believed good content would win. He believed educators would naturally embrace online platforms. He believed monetization would figure itself out. Reality arrived slowly — and then all at once. Teachers were hesitant. Many feared losing authority or income. Students liked free content but resisted paying. Technology broke at the worst moments. Revenue was inconsistent. Costs quietly grew. Running an online education startup turned out to be emotionally heavier than expected. Education is not neutral. When a class fails, it affects futures. When a feature breaks, it affects confidence. Every mistake felt amplified. Munjal was learning entrepreneurship in real time, without a playbook. Every decision felt irreversible. Every delay felt dangerous.
This phase tested his emotional stamina more than his intelligence.
6. The First Quiet Validation
Validation did not arrive through funding or press coverage. It arrived through messages.
Students began writing that they had cleared exams using Unacademy content. Some said they could never afford coaching. Others said they lived in places where no good teachers were available. These messages carried weight. They were not metrics. They were lives. This was the moment when Unacademy stopped feeling optional. It was no longer “something interesting.” It was something necessary. For Munjal, this realization came with responsibility. Scaling now meant more than growth. It meant accountability. And that realization marked the end of innocence — and the beginning of a far more difficult journey.
7. When Growth Stops Feeling Like Progress
By the time Unacademy began to scale meaningfully, Gaurav Munjal had already learned one hard truth: growth does not feel like celebration when you are responsible for thousands of lives moving in the same direction. What looks like momentum from the outside often feels like instability from within.
Funding arrived, and with it came validation of a different kind. Investors believed the Indian EdTech story. They believed Unacademy could become a category-defining online education startup. The platform raised capital, expanded teams, and pushed aggressively into new exam categories.
But capital also changed the emotional texture of the company. Decisions that were once instinctive became scrutinized. Experiments now had consequences. Every month came with expectations, projections, and comparisons.
Munjal found himself caught between two identities. On one side was the builder who loved product, content, and learner feedback. On the other was the CEO expected to manage scale, optics, and growth narratives. The gap between these roles widened with every funding round.
Unacademy was becoming an Indian EdTech unicorn. Inside, it still felt fragile.
8. Scaling Education Is Not Like Scaling Code
One of the most painful lessons Munjal learned was that education does not scale cleanly. You can scale servers. You can scale features. cannot easily scale trust. Live classes brought complexity that no dashboard could fully capture. A delayed class meant anxiety for students. A disengaged educator meant loss of credibility. A technical glitch meant hundreds of disappointed learners at once. Operational breakdowns were not abstract. They were emotional. Every complaint carried urgency because someone’s future felt attached to it. Munjal realized that running an online learning platform in India was closer to running a public utility than a tech product. The responsibility was relentless. There were no off days. Exams did not wait for systems to stabilize. Every fix introduced new problems. Every expansion stretched quality. This constant tension became the background noise of leadership.
9. The Hidden Cost of Hypergrowth
As Unacademy expanded rapidly, cracks began to show internally. Teams grew faster than culture. Hiring decisions made in urgency revealed themselves as misalignments later. Some leaders struggled with the pace. Others struggled with clarity. Communication broke down in subtle ways — missed expectations, unspoken resentments, quiet burnout. Munjal, like many founders, held on too tightly at first. Delegation felt risky. Letting go felt like losing control over something deeply personal.
But control came at a cost. Decision fatigue crept in. Days blurred into endless meetings. Nights were spent replaying conversations and second-guessing choices. This was not the glamorous side of startup life. This was the slow erosion of emotional energy.
10. Failures That Were Public — and Personal
Unacademy’s missteps did not stay private. In a sector under constant scrutiny, every restructuring, every course shutdown, every strategic shift became a headline. Layoffs, especially, carried emotional weight. Behind every role was a person who had believed in the mission. Letting people go was not a spreadsheet exercise. It was a human one.
For Munjal, these moments were deeply personal. He had built Unacademy on the promise of empowerment. Now he had to face the reality that survival sometimes required painful decisions. Public criticism was loud. Social media reduced complexity into blame. The founder learned what it meant to be visible in moments of uncertainty.
Self-doubt followed. Quietly at first. Then persistently.
11. The Loneliness of the Founder’s Chair
There is a loneliness unique to founders — especially those leading mission-driven companies. Munjal experienced it deeply during Unacademy’s most turbulent phases. Inside the company, he was expected to project confidence. Outside, he was expected to justify every decision. Privately, he was carrying questions he could not easily share.
- Was he still the right leader?
- Had growth come at the cost of values?
- Could Unacademy remain learner-first under investor pressure?
- These questions did not have quick answers.
- Munjal has spoken openly about mental health struggles and burnout. Not as performative honesty, but as lived reality. There were periods when exhaustion was not physical, but existential. Building something that matters means failing publicly — and doubting privately.
12. Learning to Let Go — and Trust Again
Leadership, Munjal learned, is not about intensity. It is about sustainability.
Over time, he began to step back from day-to-day control. Stronger leadership layers were built. Decision-making was distributed. Systems replaced instincts. This transition was uncomfortable. It felt like watching something fragile from a distance. But it was necessary. Slowly, Unacademy stabilized. Not dramatically. Not perfectly. But meaningfully.
The founder also changed. He became less reactive, more reflective. Less obsessed with speed, more focused on clarity. This evolution did not make him invincible. It made him human again.
13. Burnout, Boundaries, and the Cost of Caring Too Much
Burnout did not announce itself. It accumulated. Long hours became default. Stress became normalized. Joy became rare. Even wins felt heavy because they immediately raised the bar. The personal cost was real. Relationships were strained. Time felt compressed. Life outside Unacademy blurred. Eventually, Munjal learned — painfully — that caring too much without boundaries leads to collapse. Rest was not weakness. Distance was not disengagement. These lessons did not come from books. They came from survival.
14. What the Journey Taught Him
Looking back, Munjal often reflects not on valuation or scale, but on resilience. He learned that education businesses must be built slowly, even in fast markets. That trust compounds quietly. That leadership is less about vision speeches and more about emotional steadiness. He learned that founders must evolve or step aside — ego has no place in long-term impact. Most importantly, he learned that meaningful work will always demand sacrifice — but it should never demand self-erasure.
15. The Present and the Unfinished Future
Today, Unacademy exists in a different India. The EdTech boom has cooled. Investors ask harder questions. Efficiency matters more than expansion. Munjal now leads with realism, not hype. The focus is sharper. The ambition is quieter but deeper. Meet Gaurav Munjal, Unacademy Founder, is still obsessed with the same problem that started it all — access. Not growth for growth’s sake. Not headlines. Access.
The belief remains unchanged: that a student in a small town deserves the same quality of education as one in a metro. That technology can reduce inequality if used responsibly. That educators deserve scale without losing dignity. Unacademy’s story is still unfolding. So is Munjal’s. There is no neat ending here. Only continuity. And perhaps that is the most honest ending of all.
The FoundLanes View
At foundlanes, Culture Circle’s journey stands out not just for its headline-grabbing numbers but for what it reveals about building modern Indian startups—where trust, verification, and transparency can drive rapid adoption, even as losses widen. The Culture Circle 10x revenue growth reflects a clear market insight executed at speed, alongside the inevitable pressure of scaling through heavy spending on technology, hiring, and marketing. Stories like this matter because they show entrepreneurship as it truly unfolds: fast, demanding, and full of trade-offs, where short-term financial strain is often the price paid for long-term relevance and scale.