Lessons For A Goldfish

Edtech start-ups are seeing a boom, raising millions of dollars in funding, on the back of cheap data and an easily distracted student population.

- Hari Menon

First love? Maths, Chemistry… I love maths this much (a lit-tle, bespectacled boy spreads his hands wide open). Ad connoisseurs will remember these lines from Byju’s earliest campaign. LinEngage, MullenLowe Lintas Group’s marketing agency, have done quite the job of introducing TV-viewers to the catch-phrase ‘Fall in love with learning’. Internationally, the e-learning space is burgeoning with platforms such as Coursera, Lynda (now LinkedIn Learning), Udemy, Udacity, and MasterClass. Homegrown players — Byju’s, Toppr, and younger ones such as Cuemath — are also building a strong case for themselves.

This is evident in how bullish investors and venture capitalists are on them (See: Bright future). Tencent, Sequoia Capital India, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Naspers, and Lightspeed Venture Partners are some of the investors on board Byju’s; Alteria Capital and Helion Venture Partners are among the handful backing Toppr; while Alphabet, Sequoia Capital India, and Unitus Ventures fund Cuemath.

MOBILE LEARNING

The pro-e-learning sentiment is undoubtedly growing. K Ganesh, serial entrepreneur and patron of startups such as Bigbasket, FreshMenu, Portea Medical through GrowthStory, says this is driven by convenience. “People want services when and where they are. Gone are the days where you waited in a queue in a bank to withdraw money,” he says.

Today’s tech-savvy learner also has the attention span of a goldfish and needs constant stimulus to remain engaged. The old hour-long lectures don’t work. Lessons have to be packaged in multiple media formats: YouTube, audiobooks, text, and through interactive question-answer sessions. If you don’t ask a question every two minutes, the student gets bored. This multiplicity also helps e-learning platforms adapt and cater to individual student’s preferences.