Deliver Education or put work on hold

Startups are not for week hearted. I struggled with multiple challenges in my current startup and previous one. Most of times we came out of troubling area but sometimes it’s hard to find solution for toughest problem. At one point of time we have to take difficult decision of stopping what we are doing.

Sometime back I wrote about my startup journey with PocketScience. We were team of four people when I joined as co-founder. Founder of PocketScience was education specialist and he was man behind the game based science learning concept. There were two android developers and my job was supposed to be in online marketing.

Both of our developers left startup within first month of my joining, leaving only co-founders to run startup. But we managed to keep our mobile app running as we both had technical background.

We had little cash in our accounts. We decided not to take salaries until we figure out business model or raise external funds. We spent one month on ideation and brain storming so that we can come up with our future product. We pitched to VCs but things did not worked out in our favor.

We decided to put PocketScience on hold and started experimenting with other education apps focused on exams like CTET, SSC and Bank IBO.

Why no further development on PocketScience

Development is a costly affair. We don’t want to spend money until we have clear future of app. Our science learning app is available on android for class-X students covering all chapters of C.B.S.E science. From here onwards we can cover syllabus of other classes or introduce similar apps for Maths and English. We also thought of going international to cover US & UK syllabus.

But nothing really strikes as best option yet. Objective is to make money while sticking with our core values.

PocketScience is to create learning experience for kids

Core value of our startup is to provide learning experience for students. It differs us from many other companies who focus on creating value in form of better marks or ranks. There is nothing wrong with more marks but that is not our primary objective.

We love to create products where students can pause and think, where students raise questions and discuss solutions, where learning is not age bound or syllabus bound.

Maybe PocketScience is not perfect product or may be mobile app is not perfect delivery platform. We know that mobile app is for masses and our expected product is too niche for scientific minds. What you see in PocketScience is fraction of what we want to create.

PocketScience app is being loved by students but..

but no one wants to pay for unlocking chapters. Chapters are locked by default in PocketScience which can be unlocked by paying money or redeeming points which are earned while solving questions in free chapters. We have high engagement rate but low retention which means that either student will love our app or just uninstall. We have awesome 4.2 star rating on play store.

No business model yet

We observed that two business models can arise out of our product. Selling something within app or growing install base in millions to display ads.

We can sell mock tests which we believe is quick way of earning but not so good way of providing learning. We already tested that people do not pay for unlocking chapters otherwise we could have sold virtual goods within app to unlock games & experiences. Moreover our end users are students who do not have money to spend on apps. Parents do not perceive value in such apps and indian consumer is still not spending money on digital goods.

We are not confident of claiming million installs by next year or two. We remained #1 cbse science app on google play for more than one year. We observed some spikes in downloads but rest of year remains consistent.

About 15,00,000 students appeared for CBSE class-x exam last year. There are more students in state boards but question remains how many of them have access to mobile phones.

Assuming that mobile penetration growth is exponential in indian market and even sixth class student will have access to mobile gadget in coming years. We have to have something strong to retain students within app. Most of students expect exam preparation in education apps. After all very few students are attending school because they love learning. Our education system is marks centric so are students.

In both cases we have to adapt to the fact that only marks centric apps may be successful in making money in future.

We would like to put PocketScience on hold till we figure out business model for learning centric app otherwise we will move on !!

Any suggestions? Tweet me @pardeepg