Scalar, Airtribe, UpGrad, Physics Wallah, etc. What actually happens inside Indian EdTech sales?

I don’t work in EdTech anymore. I’ve moved into a completely different role, so I have absolutely nothing to gain from writing this.

Indian students and working professionals deserve to know what they’re actually buying.

But after seeing how these companies operate from the inside, I genuinely think there is a conversation that needs to happen.

What I didn’t expect was how much of the job was about learning how to manipulate people.
I originally wanted to move to Bangalore and thought I’d use the opportunity to get some actual business experience. I’ve run small businesses myself and thought I was reasonably good at business and management, so when I saw a Business Development Executive internship at an EdTech company on LinkedIn, I thought it could be a decent opportunity.
The title sounded like business development.
That was my first mistake.

Because apparently in Indian EdTech, “Business Development Executive”, “Business Development Associate”, “Business Growth Executive”, “Business Management Executive”, “Client Acquisition Executive”, “Relationship Manager”, “Career Counsellor” and “Inside Sales Associate” can all basically mean the same thing.

Sales🏆

I interviewed, got selected and moved to Bangalore pretty excited.

Within the first few days, I realised what the actual job was.
The product I was selling was an AI engineering programme. There were other programmes too, including product management.

And the training wasn’t just “here’s our product, here’s who it’s useful for, explain it honestly and answer questions.”

A lot of the training was about understanding someone’s psychology and figuring out what emotional pressure points could get them to buy.

You learn how to structure the call.
You learn when to ask about their salary.
You learn why they want to change careers.
You learn about their family.
Their age.
Their career anxiety.
Their financial situation.

Someone is 27 or 28 and worried about their career?
You can steer the conversation towards their future.
“You’re going to get married soon.”
“How are you going to support your family?”
“Do you really want to be earning this much five years from now?”
“Don’t you think you need to upgrade yourself?”

It’s not presented as manipulation.
It’s presented as a sales technique.
Find the insecurity.
Make them think about it.
Increase the urgency.
Then sell the solution.
And this is where I started having a problem with it.

Because these aren’t ₹500 courses.
You’re talking about programmes costing lakhs of rupees.
And the people you’re speaking to aren’t necessarily wealthy people looking to spend money on another hobby.
A lot of them are middle-class people who genuinely believe this could change their lives.
Someone earning ₹30,000 a month is looking at a course costing several lakhs because they have been told this is their path to a better career.

Someone is already struggling financially and you’re discussing EMI as if taking another loan is simply an “investment in yourself.”
Someone is scared that they’re falling behind in their career and you’re trained to make that fear stronger.

At some point I had to ask myself:
Am I actually helping this person make a better career decision, or am I just trying to make them buy something?
And when your entire performance is measured through conversions, you already know which answer the company wants.

The other thing that really opened my eyes was the placement side of the business.
“Placement assistance.”
“Placement guarantee.”
“90% placement.”
“Get placed in top product companies.”
“Guaranteed career transformation.”

These words sound fantastic when you’re sitting on the customer side of the phone.
But when you’re inside the sales ecosystem and you start seeing the actual numbers, the picture can look very different. From the data I see, 1 in 200 are probably getting placed.

You can teach someone.
You can mentor them.
You can give them projects.
You can help with interview preparation.
You can introduce them to recruiters.
But you cannot magically guarantee that someone will become a software engineer at a product company because they paid ₹1 lakh for a course.
Yet the sales pitch can make it sound almost like that.

And I’ve seen similar complaints from students and former employees across different EdTech companies.
People describing aggressive sales calls.
“Only a few seats left.”
“Fees are going up tomorrow.”
“You’re getting a special offer.”
“You’re talented, we can see huge potential in you.”
“Take the EMI and invest in yourself.”

Then once the money is paid, the experience can be very different from what the sales conversation made it sound like.

The point is that there seems to be a very uncomfortable business model developing across parts of Indian EdTech.

Sell people the dream of changing their lives, then train salespeople to exploit the fear that they won’t.

You join expecting to learn how businesses grow.
Instead, you’re sitting with a CRM, making calls, following up with leads and being asked why yesterday’s number was 0.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with being a salesperson.
Sales is a real skill and a very difficult job.
A good salesperson understands a customer’s problem and tells them honestly whether the product can solve it.
What I’m talking about is completely different.
If someone doesn’t need your course, don’t convince them that they do.
If someone can’t afford it, don’t turn their financial anxiety into a closing technique.
If the placement outcome isn’t guaranteed, don’t make the customer feel like they’re buying a guaranteed job.

I think Indian students and working professionals deserve to know what they’re actually buying.

P.S. Structured my rant using AI for better clarity. The experienced and opinions are mine.