How To Start An Edtech Company in India? Edtech employs innovative methods to improve learning outcomes. This industry is expanding at an incredible pace due to the changing landscape and pandemic. If you are interested in joining the edtech train in 2022, we have a guide for you.
How To Start An Edtech Company in India?
Get to know the market
“Is it a smart idea to invest my resources in building a startup education company?” and “Is edtech a lucrative niche?”
What the data say about the market?
The US edtech industry received $1.66 Billion in investments before the pandemic. This is the largest amount of investment in the last five years. While whole industries were ravaged by lockdowns, edtech companies managed to raise a record 16.1 billion dollars.
The pandemic was just one factor that has contributed to the rise in online education.
According to the OECD, approximately 1 billion jobs will change by 2030. This means that there is a great need to reskill and upskill the global workforce.
The world’s most successful businesses recognize this need and invest billions in employee education.
- PwC – $3 billion.
- Amazon – $700 million
- JPMorgan Chase – $600 million.
These challenges are too difficult for traditional education. Governments are now looking for cost-effective options and ROI. The sector is incredibly promising, with edtech accounting for less than 5% of global education spending.
Find your niche
The number one mistake edtech founders can make is to not do market research. Edtech is too big a market for one company so you will need to narrow your focus.
To understand if your idea is truly unique and if enough people are willing to pay for it, you need to examine the current edtech landscape. This would help you identify trends in your niche and predict market shifts.
You can assess the strengths and weaknesses in your competitors to find companies that target the same audience. You can use sites such as Crunchbase, G2 Crowd, and LinkedIn to find competitors and buy research from companies like Nielsen, Gartner and Forrester.
After identifying your competitors, dive deeper. You should also check financial records, mergers and acquisitions in the past, pricing strategies and go-to market strategies, unique selling points and features, as well as technologies used in their products.
It is possible that your adversaries may have competitive defenses that make it difficult to create a niche in the market. These include:
- Data network effects – Customers benefit from data generated during the use of the product. All data is lost when you switch to a competitor.
- Network Effects – There’s an extremely loyal community that surrounds the product and it is difficult to get away from.
- Ecosystem – Other businesses can build their products on top the platform of a competitor.
These strategies will also assist you in protecting your product from future competition. You should choose at most one strategy to defend your market position. While conducting your research, keep all of your competitors in one Excel sheet or database. You can gain valuable insights into your niche if you have all the data you need.
Validate your idea
It might seem tempting to build your edtech product. First, ask yourself these questions:
- Do you want to resolve a problem that is painful for many?
- How can you tell if it’s a problem?
- Did enough people validate your assumptions?
According CBS Insights 42% of startups fail due to not meeting a real need.
Talking to potential customers is one of the best ways for market needs to be assessed. Interviews should be approached with care.
Here are some tips to help you with user interviews :
- Instead of focusing on your product ideas, ask users about their lives. Start by asking your users a simple question: Who are you? And what do you do for work?
- Do not start with the problems. Discuss situations that arise.
- Ask about your past experiences. People have a hard time predicting what their future behavior will be.
- Open-ended questions can be used to dig into the problem (Why? Where? When? What was your first impression? )
- Listening is more important than selling your idea.
- You should only believe in facts, not hypotheticals. Anything that isn’t user-first-hand experience should be dismissed (exception: if you are interviewing an expert).
- Focus on the end results people are looking for, not features and solutions.
- See how much users pay to solve these problems (both financially and in time).
Take notes or record interviews and compile them into one database. When you are done, thank your interviewee and ask for contact information.
Define your unique value proposition
It’s now time to identify your unique value proposition (UVP). This is why people should purchase from you, and not your competitors. This is a concise and attractive message that describes:
- The product’s value.
- Its intended users.
- What makes your unique?
Focus on the things that matter to your target audience. This could be pricing, functionality, performance or integrations. Support is another important aspect of a UVP. Understanding what makes your product unique will help you position it in the edtech marketplace and create effective messaging.
Select the right business model
The business model outlines how your edtech startup will reach its goals and make money. It outlines the key assumptions of your product and how it will add value to your target customers.
Edtech startups have tried many business models. Many of these startups focus on rapid growth and capturing a large market share. Others sell products directly to institutions, and then monetize them from the beginning. You must remember that you are not only trying to grow a user base, or making a quick buck. It’s about building a sustainable business around solving the problem you care about.
Create the right team
A well-rounded team of educators is key to creating great edtech products. It’s a different experience to be a CEO at an online learning startup than being an educator. This gap should be filled. Attend local schools and universities regularly, be a frequent guest at conferences, and listen to educators at professional events.
A CTO is another important ingredient. They can help you create a sustainable monetization model for your product and a go to market strategy. Your startup will likely require a CTO, someone with sufficient expertise to oversee and design the product.
You don’t have to hire an entire team of engineers. You can find IT professionals with high skills at affordable rates by working with an outsourcing company.
- Product manager – This is the person responsible for your product strategy and solving user problems. This role should not be outsourced.
- Project manager – The project manager is the person responsible for the execution and monitoring of your project. Your budget, scope and schedule are all managed by a PM. They also manage risk and quality. They act as a bridge between remote teams and clients in outsourcing.
- Business analyst – This person translates your business requirements into software specifications and specifications.
- UX/UI designer – Someone who designs the app’s overall appearance, creates UI elements and builds prototypes that help shape the user experience
- Developers – These are the people who create application code, assist you in choosing technologies and give accurate estimates based on your needs.
- Quality Assurance – Engineers ensure that your product meets business requirements by detecting and fixing bugs in the code.
DevOps engineers and test automation specialists might be part of your project team, depending on your needs.
You still need some technical knowledge, even though outsourcing isn’t an option. Accept this responsibility and you will get a solution that suits your needs. It’s easy to overlook it, and open yourself up to the potential risks of outsourcing.
You’ll need to have a well-rounded and strong team whether you outsource or hire in-house specialists.
Expand your edtech company
Your top priorities should be to improve your product and grow your business after you have released an MVP. First, gather feedback. Ask users this question: “How would it feel if [your product span] was discontinued?”
Your super-fans are the ones who would feel “Very disappointed”. You can make your product more appealing to super-fans and attract more of them. When you have 10 to 100 users who love your app, it is clear that you have a product market fit. You can rest assured that you will have great retention and growth once you scale up.
After you have analyzed the feedback, your next task will be to prioritize work for next iteration. Ask yourself these questions before you add a feature to your roadmap.
- Is it in line with your vision?
- Is there a greater benefit than the perceived cost (including time and effort)?
- Does it enhance or complement existing workflows?
- Does it help you grow your business (improvement, retention or monetization?
- Does it distract from other parts of your product?
- Are you able to realize it and offer adequate support?
Shipping a feature is only half the work. Your features may not be used if they aren’t being used.
Market new features to existing customers and make them available to them. These features can be highlighted in a tutorial or slowly revealed as users use your product. Contextual hints can be one of the best ways to get users to try new features.
Product development is a continual process that involves building new features, measuring feedback and learning from the market. Sometimes this may mean changing the direction of your company. Sometimes, this means abandoning your business for better opportunities.
Often, this involves creating new improvements to your product that add value and help you build a sustainable company.
Conclusion
I hope you found this article helpful in answering your questions about how to start an educational technology company.
Every business is different. It’s important to use the best practices regardless of whether you are building a learning management system for your business or an app to help language students.
Begin with the need that drives your customers crazy. To understand the opportunities and challenges in your niche, research the market. Create a team of passionate people. Learn from educators and network a lot. Your product should be treated as a hypothesis that can be tested in the real world.
It can be difficult and confusing to find your way to success. One thing is certain: you must take the first step towards achieving your goals.
Also, Read – How To Create And Sell Your Own Merch? A 7-Steps Guide
8 ACTIONABLE WAYS TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO INCREASE ORGANIC WEBSITE TRAFFIC
3 thoughts on “How To Start An Edtech Company in India? 7-Steps Guide”