Supporting student well-being and mental health is no longer a luxury
Guest: Miska Noponen, CEO of Annie Advisor, a company that proactively finds students in need of support and help them when it's most impactful. They offer this service for K12 and Higher Education schools & institutions and are based out of Helsinki, Finland.
Listen in on any of these podcasting platforms or read the transcript below:
Frank Albert Coates
Thank you for joining us today Miska. What does your company do and what stage are you at?
Miska Noponen
The problem we're working on with Annie Advisor is that students often don't ask for help early enough. So their problems tend to escalate or they don't seek the support services they need, when they actually need them. So it can lead to a whole host of issues; their studies don't progress, or they interrupt their studies or otherwise they do badly or feel unwell. And we originally tried to solve this with with data, because our background is as learning analytics consultants - we try to make predictions or models about which students are doing badly. And then we had through a hackathon a radical idea; why don't we just ask the student how they're doing?
And then we had through a hackathon a radical idea; why don't we just ask the student how they're doing?
So that's what we're basically doing. We have an SMS chat bot that will reach out proactively to the student, ask them if they need help with anything and try to make with a low threshold and as easy as possible to get help. And so far, it's been going well, and our response rates are routinely over 80%. And about 10% to 20% of students each time will say that they need help with something. And if they need help, we'll direct them to either a professional at their school or in the county municipality, or some kind of additional resource or instruction, if there is something like that available. And the stage we are at now is that we're working with 15 schools in total, across secondary and higher education. The majority of our partners are secondary vocational schools, but also universities, secondary academic schools. And we're in a seed stage. We're seed funded very recently actually by a VC. And we have a six person team now working full time on this. Most of our work and most of our partners are in Finland now. But, we're just getting our first cases across Europe. So internationalization has also begun.
Frank Albert Coates
Lots of things going on at the same time! And one thing I wanted to dig into when you're mentioning data; you said that you started off with a data approach. So, what did you find out that didn't work and ended up in the way you designed your product today?
Miska Noponen
So originally, we were working on this as part of our learning, analytics consultancy, and we have a data science and data engineering background with some of the founding team. We created an intelligent model for trying to predict whether students are likely to drop out or not, and what are the early signals, but it turns out that it kind of works. So you get some kind of red flags or orange flags about students, but they come very late, and you only identify some of the students who are in trouble. So there's a majority of students you don't find this way. And schools data in general is either lacking or it's kind of a mess. So it doesn't scale as a solution either.
And schools data in general is either lacking or it's kind of a mess. So it doesn't scale as a solution either.
So originally, we thought this would be a good way to do it. But, it turns out that our direct approach is better for us.
Frank Albert Coates
That's interesting, because we have another member in the Garage as well working on analytics and all kinds of analytics signals you can get from from schools. And you would think that you could capture it through that, but it's not that easy, obviously.
Miska Noponen
I heard your podcast about Analytikus. I think it's a complementary solution. Some of our partners are already using both some kind of intelligent model and Annie on the side, and it kind of seems we find different students. So some students who are kind of hidden will be found by Annie and others through the data model, but it's a complementary and good solution, I think.
Frank Albert Coates
So let's take a few steps back and talk about the EdTech adventure. What was the moment that made you jump into EdTech?
Miska Noponen
Originally for me, it was a really natural thing. I studied education or adult education at first and then got excited by tech during my studies and ended up graduating for both computer science and the education side. And then went into EdTech and worked with a bunch of different products across different kind of spheres where EdTech is used. And I kind of have this sense that I'm not working on something that is worthwhile for me, or meaningful for me. So the corporate learning space, especially where I was, most recently, it wasn't enough for me personally to work on that. So through working with data and working with the learning analytics consultancy, we figured out that, hey, this is a real thing that people have issues with, that schools have issues with, they don't find students who need help, and they don't find them early enough. And the original feedback that we've got was so encouraging that we decided to kind of spin off this product into its own company. So we started working on it already, before we started the company itself. And now a year and a half later, it seems like it was a good approach and student well being has become more and more critical, also, throughout the pandemic. And the research related to that has highlighted that students are generally not doing great.
…student well being has become more and more critical, also, throughout the pandemic. And the research related to that has highlighted that students are generally not doing great.
So it's a good time for us to work on this.
Frank Albert Coates
Has it helped the company that mental health is now a bit more top of mind?
Miska Noponen
Yeah, definitely. At some point, before the pandemic, there was this idea that student well being, especially mental health, is kind of a luxury.
…before the pandemic, there was this idea that student well being, especially mental health, is kind of a luxury.
It's a vitamin thing that as long as they finish their studies, and even like pressuring students is kind of a good thing in order to get them to graduate quickly and do their their studies well. But, the discourse has completely shifted during the pandemic. So already early in this phase, there were studies that were showing that students wellbeing, a sense of isolation, their feeling of their own competence, were all going down quite drastically. One Finnish psychologist said that it's the worst data that they have seen. And it's not a great thing. So in that sense, it's been good for the company that it's been more top of mind, as you said, more of a priority. And I think a lot of markets and countries who didn't originally think so much about student well being and were more oriented on the pedagogics and the academic achievement have kind of come around during this specific time.
…a lot of markets and countries who didn't originally think so much about student well being and were more oriented on the pedagogics and the academic achievement have kind of come around during this specific time.
Frank Albert Coates
So talking about the company; any keys to success for you? Why do you think you will succeed?
Miska Noponen
I'm sure many, or even all founders think this, but I think our secret sauce or a specific ingredient is the team. So we have the exact right people working on this. We have people with a psychology background, social psychology, education, tech design background. And really we are as a team humble enough to really research and listen to our users and the context they are working in.
We have people with a psychology background, social psychology, education, tech design background. And really we are as a team humble enough to really research and listen to our users and the context they are working in.
We are smart, and we work hard, but we also understand that they know themselves best, and they know their students best at the schools. So we should really listen and spend time on research. So we're the kind of quickest learners and good listeners in short.
Frank Albert Coates
That sounds like a good recipe for success. And when you look back since you started the company, what's been your biggest challenge? And how did you solve it?
Miska Noponen
In terms of the product, I think the biggest challenge originally was how to make it easy for students to admit support needs. Because there's a lot of stigma around it, that a lot of young people especially think that if I need help, if I ask for help, there's something wrong with me. And I'm the only one who needs help or even if I need help, there are other people who need it more than me and I shouldn't overload the services or something like that. So there was a lot of experimentation that went into the wording, the kind of chatbot workflows we should use, how the Chatbot personality should be, what kind of emojis and pads or chat flows we should use. So that was a big challenge for us. And we solved it with the same thing I said earlier; iteration and research, we just try a lot of things. We interview people, we work with the schools. And that was the solution for us. On a more generic level, I think a big challenge that probably all startups work with is managing energy and workloads in your team. And it's not something we talk about in startups a lot. We try to keep this illusion of endless youthful energy in a startup team that they can do everything and anything. And there is no need for free time, or recuperation, or sleep or anything like that.
…a big challenge that probably all startups work with is managing energy and workloads in your team. And it's not something we talk about in startups a lot. We try to keep this illusion of endless youthful energy in a startup team that they can do everything and anything. And there is no need for free time, or recuperation, or sleep or anything like that.
So when you work in EdTech, a lot of the team members will be motivated by what you do. They're passionate about the thing if you recruit well. And that's a risk also, it's a definite strength, but it's a risk, because then the burnout likelihood goes up, that people try to strain themselves. And when they find meaning in their work, it's harder to do work life balance. So managing that is is a definite thing. And I don't think that challenge will go away, we just try to talk about it with the team. And whenever there is somebody who feels that there's too much going on or too little going on, we even out between ourselves and decide what not to do. So focus focus focus here also.
Frank Albert Coates
That's really fascinating. And we actually had that topic come up in recent discussions with members saying that there's challenges for other startups to recruit. And salaries are really high for certain types of roles. However, in the EdTech space, you do find a lot of passionate people who want to join startups. So that is a good selling point. But, you point out that the dark side of that is that when you're so passionate, you sort of forget about a lot of other things. So you mentioned that you talk about it a lot with the team. Anything else that you put in place that has worked for that?
Miska Noponen
Yeah, or concrete practices that we do. One is that every weekly meeting we have on Monday afternoons. There's first we start with a round of how are you feeling right now? How has the last week been? How's the coming week looking? So there's an obvious opportunity to talk about your own workload, your energy as it is right now. And if somebody flags that, hey, there's stuff I need help with then people are eager to help and it's easy to fix usually.
…every weekly meeting ... we start with a round of how are you feeling right now? How has the last week been? How's the coming week looking? So there's an obvious opportunity to talk about your own workload, your energy as it is right now. And if somebody flags that, hey, there's stuff I need help with then people are eager to help and it's easy to fix usually.
Another thing we do is we have a team experience survey, which is as anonymous as it can be in a six person company. But, there's an opportunity also more indirectly to flag that, hey, I have too much work going on. And even on the board level and company level, we often talk about focus. So if we add this, for example, OKR, which is a framework we're using, it's an important OKR, but do we have the bandwidth for it? Does it mean that we do everything slightly worse, because we're adding yet another thing to do? So it's something that's a culture thing, but also a process thing.
Frank Albert Coates
And I was gonna say, you can just send Annie Advisor to your employees or experiment with it for them.
Miska Noponen
Yeah, we did this kind of dogfooding at some point, to try it. But, it felt kind of unnatural for us as a team, and people were using the product for a lot of testing. So using it for an authentic use case was kind of a context switch. But it's a good idea.
Frank Albert Coates
Okay, so looking forwards. And you already mentioned your previous challenges, but looking forward next six to 12 months, what's keeping you up at night and what's really on on your mind?
Miska Noponen
We have a classic case of value demand. So we are getting quite good at recognizing support needs among the students, which leads to a situation where they have more students saying that they need help, and can lead to a situation where the support services are either overloaded, or there are support needs that the students have, that the schools don't have staff or the expertise to cover. We need to figure something out relative to this. And we have a lot of ideas on how to supplement the support services provided by the school or while people are waiting for a time to go to the psychologist something that we can provide in the meanwhile. But, this is going to be a really big thing for us. A big added value and it's going to help a lot of students I'm sure, but also cause a lot of headaches and kind of missed sleep, because it's a big undertaking for us.
Frank Albert Coates
And is there any advice that you would give other EdTech startups that are just getting off the ground based on what you've lived through in the last couple of years?
Miska Noponen
Having worked at several startups and now first time founder the most common mistake I see also when mentoring edtech startups is that people work from a lot of assumptions they have not validated.
…the most common mistake I see also when mentoring edtech startups is that people work from a lot of assumptions they have not validated.
So we have a lot of ideas, when we start a company that exactly this is how it's gonna work. And you have a specific vision about what the product is going to look like. But, it has a lot of underlying assumptions about whether there is added value, whether there is budget for it, if people have time to use it, if they can use it. So my advice is to always think; what is the lightest way I can try this to make sure it's the correct thing to do. So prototyping and user feedback collection before you start developing. If I were to design a money wasting machine, I would probably do it like that, that I would have a huge product team build a lot of stuff before testing it with actual users.
If I were to design a money wasting machine .. I would have a huge product team build a lot of stuff before testing it with actual users.
And a lot of companies work like that, that they first build and then they try and get feedback. And they realize that okay, this wasn't the thing we were supposed to do. So test early, get feedback early, and then do as many iterations as possible.
So test early, get feedback early, and then do as many iterations as possible.
Frank Albert Coates
Good advice. And I've certainly heard similar things from other startups. But, it all comes back to iteration, testing and listening to the users. Right?
Miska Noponen
Yes, and it's kind of an unintuitive thing that we often think that if we make a massive investment, and we have a huge plan that we follow, then that's the way to success. And that's kind of the hypothesis we've been fed traditionally. But, software companies, especially startups in tech don't work like that. And there's a lot of good literature on it. The shortest and most informative is probably the four big risks by the Silicon Valley product group, which is like 300 words, which explains the type of risk your company has and that I need to tackle. I think most companies will focus on business risk, usability risk, when value risk is the real issue that they have. And is this important enough that the already overloaded teachers, students, schools are going to carve out the time and budget to do this thing? And that's the most important thing you need to tackle early, as early as possible for your company. And then everything else will follow much easier if that works out.
Frank Albert Coates
I agree with that. Last question for today. There are lots of people around in the EdTech world, lots of personalities; anyone in particular that you look up to or listen to?
Miska Noponen
In the EdTech space, specifically, I think the most I've learned recently is from other founders. I've had calls with people through the Garage. And every time you know, even in a half hour call, there is something I learned, which saves me like dozens of hours.
…the most I've learned recently is from other founders. I've had calls with people through the Garage. And every time you know, even in a half hour call, there is something I learned, which saves me like dozens of hours.
So I think the other founders are a huge inspiration for me. I can't think of any specific people or companies that in our space are a big motivation. I think outside of our area, Marty Cagan, who I mentioned briefly through the Silicon Valley product group is a huge inspiration. We kind of treat his book semi religiously at the company. I don't know if that's healthy or not, but it's a good way for us to keep in mind the user and how to iterate to success. I think generally other founders and the people working on the education side. One name that comes to mind is Finland's previous lead for the agency of Education who is Olli-Pekka Heinonen and he's currently the lead of IBO - the organization that runs the international baccalaureate programs, and he has a politician background, but went into education and got a lot of good things done and a lot of projects were progressing through him that I really respect. And generally people working in schools every day, the partners we work with, are endless source of inspiration and learning. There's a lot of unsung heroes in our space.
