Episode Description

"Please don't come to my friend’s birthday party…”

Soumya's kids said this to her out of embarrassment as she couldn’t speak English. She skipped every parent-teacher meeting at their English-medium school, unable to face conversations with teachers. When Arpit Agarwal heard this customer's story, it hit home. Arpit had lived a version of this pain himself, growing up in Haridwar, studying in an English-medium school, but struggling to speak confidently.

That emotional moment pushed Arpit to completely pivot the kids’ hobby-learning platform Yellow Class into SpeakX. Unlike traditional language apps that emphasize grammar and vocabulary drills, SpeakX uses AI to simulate real-life conversations, allowing users to practice speaking English in practical, everyday scenarios.

Today, SpeakX is India’s largest AI-first English language learning app with over 2 lakh paid subscribers and clocks $7M ARR with just 20 people.

In this deeply personal conversation with Manish Advani (Principal, Elevation Capital), Arpit shares the hard-earned lessons from his 15-year entrepreneurial journey, the discipline of building profitably, and how SpeakX makes English learning accessible for middle India.

In this episode, you will gain insights into:

> How GenAI unlocked conversational English learning at scale

> Why India is the perfect testing ground for global AI products

> Why capital should only fuel growth, not problem-solving

> Prioritization as the ultimate superpower in lean teams

> Why startups are built by mission-driven people

…and more