Previous EdTechX Award Winner Showcase — GoSkills
The American writer and futurist, Alvin Toffler famously said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn,” a message that should resonate with businesses in industries that are rapidly evolving, like online education. This is the viewpoint of Bhavneet Chahal, co-founder of online learning company and 2020 EdTechX Startup Award winner, GoSkills. For this latest Previous EdTechX Award Winners Showcase, Bhavneet told us how she and her team have had to continuously iterate and improve their product over the last 8 years, positioning, customer acquisition channels and many other aspects of the business. “And we’ll need to keep doing so to remain relevant and competitive in the future,” she says.
In 2013, when GoSkills was founded, Bhavneet and her co-founder Franz Ombler saw that online courses were a growth area, but that they were not always providing the quality content required by professionals who were looking to expand their skills. With the belief that “affordable, high-quality education should be accessible to everyone“, the pair took the opportunity to create online courses that leveraged both top instructors and web-based technologies to drive improvements in learning outcomes.
GoSkills has since grown to serve over 250,000 learners and 3,000 businesses worldwide. Their first business-facing product — a cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS) launched in 2019 — is used globally by both SME and Enterprise clients for their training needs. “We saw a need for small and medium-sized businesses to provide their own training on a friendly and easy-to-use online training platform,” Bhavneet told us. As for many EdTech businesses, GoSkills saw a significant increase in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, from both businesses and individuals, coinciding with the global shift to remote working. “Many businesses — some of whom had been slow to adapt to online training methods — needed to quickly get their staff set up in a matter of days,” she said. The company responded by onboarding a record number of new businesses onto their free LMS, and reducing subscription costs for individuals. “Although there are many LMSs out there, they often come with a high minimum number of learners and costly set up fees that are just not realistic for SMEs and lean startups,” she told us.
“Winning the EdTechX Startup Award has given even more credibility to the work our small, but mighty, team continues to do every day.” - Bhavneet Chahal
Bhavneet believes it is their inclusive approach to online education that won them the esteemed EdTechX All Stars Startup Award in 2020. “Our goal with GoSkills has always been to remove barriers to high-quality education, so that everyone can access the training they need,” she said. “As a lean startup ourselves, run by a completely remote and distributed team, we want to help other small businesses and individuals to grow their talent.” Since receiving the award last year, the startup has launched new courses, improved their user experience and gamification capabilities, and have laid the foundations for an in-built course editor to add to their LMS offering, giving their business customers the ability to create their own courses using their award-winning format.
“Winning the EdTechX Startup Award,” Bhavneet told us, “has given even more credibility to the work our small, but mighty, team continues to do every day.” “Being associated with EdTechX gives the signal to potential clients that our product, while new, holds its own amongst industry giants,” she added. Her top tip to those who may be considering applying this year is to have a clear value proposition. She also believes the application process has its own intrinsic benefit by ensuring applicants take stock of their strengths and weaknesses, and acknowledge their achievements. “Applying to awards, especially one as prestigious as EdTechX, forces us to remain competitive, agile, and future-focused,” she said.
Submit your application to the 2021 EdTechX Startup Awards here >>
