Create value, valuation will follow: How Dr Sanjay Salunkhe built Jaro Education

Long before IPO bells, industry partnerships, or headlines, there was a boy who struggled to pay his school fees but never lost faith in the power of education. That belief, passed down by a mother who insisted that learning came before wealth, would one day shape one of India’s most quietly successful education companies.

Founded in 2009 by Dr Sanjay Salunkhe, Jaro Education was never about chasing scale for the sake of scale. It was about solving a deeply personal problem: How do ambitious Indians, regardless of geography or income, access world-class education while continuing to work and support their families?

Today, Jaro has enabled over 3.5 lakh learners, profitable from day one, proving that sustainable education businesses in India can be built with integrity, patience, and purpose. In an ecosystem often dominated by headlines around valuations, funding rounds, and rapid scale, some of India’s most meaningful businesses are built quietly — away from the spotlight, grounded in fundamentals, and driven by purpose.

A childhood rooted in learning, values, and conviction

Dr Salunkhe’s relationship with education is deeply personal. Growing up with limited financial means, paying school fees was often a struggle. His inspiration came from his mother and elder sister, who instilled in him a belief that learning was sacred.

“My mother used to say, if Goddess Saraswati blesses you, Goddess Lakshmi will follow. But wealth alone does not guarantee wisdom,” said Dr Salunkhe, in a conversation with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory.

That belief became the cornerstone of his entrepreneurial journey. Even though his parents were not formally educated, the values they imparted — honesty, integrity, and discipline — shaped how he would later build his company.

During his MBA, a brilliant finance professor left a lasting impression on him. While Dr Salunkhe specialised in HR, he found himself deeply inspired by the way great faculty could transform understanding. That led to a powerful realization, “Why should access to great teachers be limited to metro cities?

He imagined students in towns like Begusarai, Kolhapur, or Patna brimming with bright, ambitious minds with no access to world-class faculty. In the early 1990s, technology was not ready to support this vision. But the idea stayed with him.

Years later, while working in the corporate world, another gap became evident. Employees aspired to grow into leadership roles, but shift work, family responsibilities, and geography made full-time education impossible.

That’s when the dots connected.

How Jaro Education is empowering learners

Jaro Education was built as an enabler of premier institutions with a precise and focused role:

• Conduct business intelligence to understand industry needs
• Identify what corporates want professionals to learn
• Work with universities and institutions to shape relevant programs
• Provide technology, marketing, learner acquisition, infrastructure, and feedback support

Content creation, assessment, and degree conferral remain with institutions such as IIMs, IITs, global universities, and Ivy League partners. This model ensured credibility, scalability, and alignment with industry demand, without diluting academic integrity.

Jaro never relied on celebrity endorsements or flashy advertising. “Our philosophy was simple: deliver the best. If learners grow, referrals will follow,” Dr Salunkhe said.

And they did. Today, nearly 35% of Jaro’s enrolments come through referrals, a powerful indicator of trust and learner satisfaction.

Online education before wide acceptance

When Jaro started, online education was met with scepticism. Degrees earned remotely were not taken seriously by corporates. That changed dramatically with technological maturity, the pandemic-driven shift to online learning, and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which placed online and offline degrees on par. 

Suddenly, quality education became affordable, accessible, and democratic, reaching learners in rural India who could now learn from IIM and IIT faculty without leaving their hometowns.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Jaro’s journey is its financial discipline: the company has been profitable from year one, remained bootstrapped for over 16 years, and scaled without any venture capital dilution during its growth years. Dr Salunkhe mortgaged his house thrice to build the business. But he never compromised on salaries, ethics, or governance.

“Don’t chase valuation. Create value. Valuation will follow,” he advised, which is in sharp contrast to the “growth-at-any-cost” mindset that has hurt many startups.

Long before going public, Jaro invested deeply in governance, appointing Deloitte as its auditors from 2015 and transitioning to BDO from 2020 onwards. At a time when many founders avoided scrutiny, Dr Salunkhe actively welcomed it, firmly believing that “good governance is not an expense; it’s an investment”.

Jaro’s leadership stability is equally distinctive, with a CEO who has been with the company for over 18 years, a CFO for more than 15 years, and senior sales leaders who have spent over a decade building and scaling the organisation together.

Employee stock ownership, multiple ESOP cycles, and wealth-sharing ensured deep ownership and loyalty. “My dream is that everyone who worked hard with us should become a millionaire,” he said.

The opportunity ahead

India’s online higher education and upskilling market is projected to grow from Rs 13,200 crore in FY23 to Rs 41,500 crore by FY28, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 25.7%. 

With rising corporate demand for continuous learning, the government’s ambitious target to achieve higher education Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 50% by 2035, and the growing acceptance of online executive education, Jaro’s focused, partner-led model is well-positioned for long-term growth.

Dr Salunkhe advises new-age founders to be patient, build strong fundamentals, invest in people, never compromise on values, and keep learning, because skills tend to become obsolete every two to three years. At the core of his philosophy is a clear belief: “Human Capital is more important than Equity Capital.”

A story worth celebrating

Jaro Education’s journey reminds us that some of the most enduring businesses are not built in steady, disciplined strides whose success is measured beyond learner numbers or financial performance — in trust earned over time from institutions, employers, and from hundreds of thousands of professionals.

As India reimagines the future of learning, Jaro Education stands as evidence that patient, fundamentals-driven models can outperform growth-at-any-cost strategies. And perhaps that is why this story doesn’t end here. It invites us to keep watching, keep learning, and keep believing in the kind of institutions that are built to last.