Being close to users improves product and iteration speed
Guest: Jens Aarre Seip, CEO and co-founder of Curipod, a K12 startup based in Norway specialized in helping teachers make interactive lessons.
Frank Albert Coates
I'd like to know how come you ended up in EdTech and started up your company together with your co-founders?
Jens Aarre Seip
The main reason that I ended up in EdTech, was that I really experienced the highs and lows of the current education system. When I was 17, I dropped out of high school. And I'm from an area where were all my friends were studying or planning to become doctors and lawyers and engineers. So that was a very, very different path, where I felt very unmotivated by school. And somehow, even though I hadn't finished high school, I came into a sports College and boarding school, out in rural Norway, where I studied for one year. And there, we did a development project in southeast Africa where I really felt how much fun learning could be. It was about exploring your interests, seeing all the possibilities, seeing what you can do in the world, with education, and not just remembering facts. And this led me into deciding that I wanted to study more. So I went to a business school and studied economics and business. And this is where I met one of my co founders as well. And I think during our studies, I was very aware of some parts of education, which was great. But I also very much noticed, all the things that could be done much better, like giving students help when they're studying by themselves outside of classes, and making classes more interactive, more engaging.
I also very much noticed, all the things that could be done much better, like giving students help when they're studying by themselves outside of classes, and making classes more interactive, more engaging.
And all of these things led me to start up Curipod together with my co-founders.
Frank Albert Coates
So you both experienced the pain points as a user and you found your co-founders. It is a real privilege that you knew them quite intimately from even before you started up the company.
Jens Aarre Seip
Yeah, I'm very fortunate there. So one of my co-founders, Erik, I met during business school. And we very much felt the challenges together. And my other co-founder is a childhood friend, which I know way back, and that I also studied with during high school. And he's also very much into, into learning new things, and very passionate. So I'm very fortunate to be able to work with two really good friends as co-founders. I think that's been a huge advantage for us. As we collaborate really well, we also dare to challenge each othe and we have lots of fun.
Frank Albert Coates
Yeah, you need to keep the fun going to maintain the energy and get ready for the next challenge. So, talk to me a bit about your journey until now; if you can pinpoint one of the biggest challenges that you faced in starting the company and how you solved it?
Jens Aarre Seip
One of the larger challenges we've had, is coming close enough to the teachers.
One of the larger challenges we've had, is coming close enough to the teachers. From the beginning, we were very much focused on the end users needs. And for us, it was the students, which was a natural starting point. And we really understood what students wanted and why. But, it took quite some time before we understood what the teachers really needed. And it was really hard to get to them, because first it was the pandemic and we started up just before that. And they're obviously super busy. Also it was challenging without having a really good network from the start. It took time to build good relationships with teachers who could give us honest and good feedback. And I think it took us a bit too much time before we realized just how important that teachers are in the current education system. They are important, obviously, but they have needs which are obviously different than the students. And of course, they have many of the same goals, but they experience things differently, and also have different things they have to do besides being in the classroom, for example. But, I think how we solved it was very much just getting in touch with teachers, trying to talk to them and take a coffee with them to ask how we can help. And now we have a really good grip of teachers who are giving us super feedback. And like last week, we're visiting a school just being a fly on the wall, in the classroom with one of our the teachers we work with, which was super interesting. And when you're in the classroom, you see all of these things like balancing between the physical classroom and Microsoft Teams, for example, because in Norway (high school level) half the class is in the classroom and the other half is joining through Teams. Then for the teacher to be able to handle basically two classes at the same time is a big challenge. And we have teachers abroad as well; we have a teacher in Estonia, an English teacher, which we talked to regularly, who is giving us great feedback. So, I think the main thing was coming to the realization point of how important the teachers are and spending enough time with them.
Frank Albert Coates
So essentially going back to being close to the user and listening to their needs, from the beginning and repeatedly.
Jens Aarre Seip
Yeah, exactly. And I think what we probably should have realized sooner was that we began with what we perceived as the most important user, the student, which we still believe is the one who's learning and experiencing the learning situation. But, the teachers and the administrators, one level up are also important stakeholders. So we need to be very aware of their needs as well. We really experienced improved product, increased iteration speed and all of these things when we were able to be even closer to the users.
We really experienced improved product, increased iteration speed and all of these things when we were able to be even closer to the users.
Frank Albert Coates
You were talking about the K12 market and the network to be able to find a network of teachers; was there anything that helped you get get to that or some shortcuts, or was it just hard work?
Jens Aarre Seip
I would love to say there was a very smart shortcut, but I think hard work is a more accurate description. We were talking to friends who are teachers, or studying to become teachers and asking if they knew some teachers, we were conducting posting in Facebook groups. Actually, we had quite good success in some of the national Facebook groups, where we wanted to understand the teachers challenges today. And if anyone were interested in talking to us and telling us. And then obviously, we reached out to our users, the ones who signed up first and followed up really tight with them to ask for their feedback. We really try to give them a good experience as well as showing them that we're building this for them.
…we reached out to our users, the ones who signed up first and followed up really tight with them to ask for their feedback. We really try to give them a good experience as well as showing them that we're building this for them.
So, no real shortcuts other than prioritizing time for it, because it is time consuming. And it always feels a bit counterintuitive. You want to build your product, right? And it's very tangible every time you do a sale or every time you build a new feature. But, the output of spending a day or two or three, just getting interviews with teachers or be able to visit them, is invaluable. It's much less tangible, which makes it harder to prioritize even though it's very, very important.
Frank Albert Coates
Absolutely. And I guess a question is also how to know when you have enough feedback. When do you actually know that you're going in the right direction?
Jens Aarre Seip
That's the hard part. Also about building and products; listening but not building everything you get asked for.
That's the hard part…listening but not building everything you get asked for.
What we got much better at is realizing in these structured interviews, but also during observation for instance, to really notice what the problems are, and not always listen exactly to what the solutions which are suggested. But, when someone suggests a solution, they usually experience some sort of problem. And then when you find a problem, it's easier to begin looking for many different solutions. And you shouldn't begin with the solution, you should begin with the problem. But, figuring out these problems is also a process.
Frank Albert Coates
And knowing what what the real problem is; maybe there's a few layers under the onion.
Jens Aarre Seip
There are definitely many layers and also problems are interconnected. It's always nice when there's one root cause, but sometimes there might be several. And the combination of them are the real issue.
Frank Albert Coates
So, let's look a bit ahead in the next 6 to 12 months. What's keeping you up at night that you absolutely have to solve?
Jens Aarre Seip
In general, I'm a very good sleeper. So fortunate there. But, in the next few months, we're beginning fundraising. So that's obviously something which is time consuming. And I think the part about fundraising, which is most stressful for me, is the fact that spending time talking to investors and getting funding is time which is not spent on our users or the product.
…spending time talking to investors and getting funding is time which is not spent on our users or the product.
And that trade off is always a bit difficult. How much time should you spend on the product versus fundraising? You obviously have to do some fundraising, because the money rarely comes completely by itself. But, how we've structured it now in our team is that I'm the only one working on fundraising so the others can stay completely focused on users and product. And then I'm trying to do the balance. So that's a challenge. But, I'm positive that we will be able to get a good round and progress further.
Frank Albert Coates
Indeed, funding is a key priority. Then what are learnings that you have in this funding round that you could share with other founders?
Jens Aarre Seip
I think it was a big realization, how important the traction we have is when talking to investors as they're talking to hundreds of companies a year. And really emphasizing the traction we have, has been really important for us to get the attention. Because education is a difficult sector. And investors at least might have that perception. So showing that it's actually possible to get revenues or users and begin with that almost as a base is a good way to make sure they pay attention. And, obviously iterate on the pitch and everything. But again, this is the hard trade off of every minute you spend creating the pitches is a minute you don't spend with your users or the products. So finding that balance again, is a big, big challenge.
Frank Albert Coates
And a last question related to that. You say traction; so what concretely did you need to work out to prove your success until now?
Jens Aarre Seip
I think for our part, it's been showing how much we've been able to do with just the three people team, a very small team. And in our case, it's the annual recurring revenue, which is our most impressive metric, while for others, it might be the user growth or the usage, daily, weekly actives, etc. So finding which metric is important for your business, and which you've done well in is what will prove success.
…finding which metric is important for your business, and which you've done well in is what will prove success.
And then obviously, this requires that you had good progress. So it's the hard part part first, I guess, is to get that traction. But, I have the perception that if you don't have the traction, it's really hard to raise funding and you need to spend really a lot of time on the fundraising. So from our experience, at least, it's been a good idea to focus on that user growth and the revenue increase, rather than spending all our time doing fundraising.
Frank Albert Coates
Thank you so much. It's been extremely valuable to hear your journey so far and how you're going to solve and attack the year of 2022. Wishing you all the luck for this year and for your funding round in particular.
