The unconventional journey of Karan Bajaj, Founder, WhiteHatJr

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

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