Disrupt by being fast and brave - Lula de León (Leemons)
Lula de León - CEO Leemons
Segment: K-12, Higher education, Corporate education
Business model: B2B /B2G
Location: Madrid, Spain
Lula is a designer, teacher, entrepreneur and mother building an open-source Learning Experience Platform.
The full transcript of the podcast can be found below for those who prefer reading rather than listening. The podcast is hosted by Frank Albert Coates.
Episode summary
In this episode, Lula, founder of Leemons, shares her journey of building a cutting-edge learning platform on a software as a service model.
Lula talks about the ups and downs of developing Leemons from scratch, going open source, scaling the product, and pivoting to a SaaS model.
She highlights the importance of AI in education, helping in predictive analytics and data-driven decision making.
Lula candidly shares about the pressures of entrepreneurship, the importance of having a supportive community, and maintaining mental health.
She ends the episode announcing the successful close of a €1.5 million funding round for Leemons.
Transcript of interview
FA: So, first let's start with just a 30s pitch of, you know, what is your company and what are you doing?
LL: Leemons is a learning experience platform. We sell it in a software as a service model. It's B2B, and we help teachers and students build a high performance team together. It's not easy because it's a messy industry the technology for education. But, but we have a very, very different approach because we are not born in the education area.
We are born in the service design and technology area. So our approach is different, and this is I think one of our superpowers.
FA: That's definitely 30 seconds. Give us more on the background and, you know, why did you end up going into EdTech and create Leemons?
LL: Sure. I am a designer. I am a teacher. I've been teaching for 28 years. And all of this is a very good mix. But the third part of my background that has a big influence on what I am doing today is that I am a venture builder. I started my first company in 2007, maybe very close to the crisis of 2008, and it was my first company.
Since that moment I've been creating different projects. I think that the momentum was the covid, was when the mix of the different areas of my background, exploded in Leemons, in this project. So, as a designer, as a teacher, as a mother and as a venture builder, Leemons was a natural project for me.
FA: And, I guess why the direction of EdTech education and learning in particular, like what made you go in that direction?
LL: Because, in the 2020 I got covid. I was one of the first at the very beginning of April. And I got a different variant of Covid. And, it was very difficult to make that diagnostic of what was happening to me. And in this moment I had a personal crisis.
And, I think it was a crisis of purpose. I had a company, a company with very big clients, but the things that I was doing in that last 15 years, had no impact on people's lives. In this moment that I was very, very sick, my company was in a very good moment, I was helping my daughter, in her studies.
Because in this moment she was 10 years old. And then I got in contact with the EdTech platforms, with the learning platforms. And then I was a bit shocked because I felt that the difference between the project that I was doing in my everyday work, big e-commerce projects for logistics, banking, travel, the level was very, very high.
They collect a lot of data. The personalization of all the interfaces offering was huge. And then I enter the education technology, and I thought, what, what is happening in the LMS or in the LXP technology. That the companies that are developing this kind of software for the educational centers don't need to innovate at the same level that the e-commerce, travel banking industries. And I thought that I have the team, I have the experience, and I have maybe a vision that come from other industries. And then I, I thought, why not.
FA: And if we talk a bit about sort of the product and the team as well, what would you say that makes you succeed and sort of the magic secret sauce in the company? What do you think is the difference?
LL: Well, first of all, the team. Leemons is nothing without the team that is behind the project. My CTO, I think is the smartest person I have ever met. He has a business mind and a technology mind. He's always innovating, always trying new technologies, but with that kind of business approach.
So it's a very difficult thing. We have two 10x engineers that are really, really fast and I think that this is part of our success. When you are trying to disrupt a rest ocean market. You need to be faster. You need to, I don't want to say smart, you need to be brave, be braveto try things that the rest of the industry is not trying to do.
So, when we started two and a half years ago to talk to the investors, nobody wanted to know anything about EdTech, nobody wanted to know anything about K-12, schools or; this is a very, very difficult industry. It's a market that is very traditional. And two years later they told us, okay, your approach was the right approach, but let's be humble.
We have a lot, a lot of luck. I want to be clear about this. You have a magic sauce. You work really hard. You have an approach, an innovative approach with some kind of I don't know how to say it. Maybe, you are not very conscious of, the difficulty of the things that we want to do, you know?
But, there are a lot of startups that are trying so hard, that have great products and they are now in danger to close because the market is difficult and the moment is very complicated. So even though you have a secret sauce, you need to be prepared always to move, move forward because things are not easy, not easy in this industry.
So for me, my team, the approach and for sure the experience as a product designer. Everything that we do, is driven by the user. The user is the very center of the product, teachers, the students and managers of the educational center.
FA: If we go on and talk about, so you said luck, but you've been able to raise a big, you know, fundraising round now recently, and it wasn't all up to luck. So, you know, when you look back on that funding round, and you said that you have been talking to investors for a while, what learnings do you have from that?
And what do you think made the difference that it actually came through now?
LL: Well, during this time I have learnt a lot. So let's be clear. It's very different to a startup a company that is service based, from a company that is product based. It's very, very, very different and I was a service entrepreneur. So my experience was not a big help. But, I think that I started in the right point because our first round of investment was with friends and family.
Okay. We have a, a commitment. The commitment was to have an open source product in one year. With an investment of 300,000 euros. Six persons working a lot. Okay. We have the product. We started with the pilots, the testing, and then we raised another round of investment.
This round was with a public public loan. And, again, friends and family and our first two business angels. So I think that the best thing that I did was to start small, a small friends and family with a one year plan. No more, no more. And, achieve the goals.
Because your investors have some expectation about what are you going to do with their money. It's a small account of money, so your risk is small and your responsibility is small. I know entrepreneurs that are really, really, concerned about the responsibility with the big investors.
Okay. It's not too small. And then give a second step and you cannot think about serious A in your first year. It doesn't make sense. So we make that friends and family, business angels, and then we start to talk with investors about our round of investment. As a pre-revenue company, it seems to be an impossible quest.
It was crazy. There were VCs uh, when we talked about our state, we are pre-revenue, was like, why I am I talking to you if you are pre-revenue, but for each one investor that has signed the term sheet, we talked to 100 investors. 100 for one successful conversation, 100. So my second advice is; talk to everyone, even though, even though if your project doesn't fit in their investment thesis. You need to make a rehearsal, you need to iterate your pitch. You need to move small pieces on your storytelling, because at the end of the day, you need to have the right response in the right moment to achieve the goal, is to convince one investor.
So for me, to send your deck to everyone.
FA: And when you had that list of investors, a hundred more investors, what did you do to, you know, select the right ones, I guess from the beginning? Like, how did you, how did you go about to do that?
LL: There are a lot of lists that are on sale on the internet, but the best way is to go to the public list of investors.Maybe you need to pay, but you are going to save a lot of time. You are going to call up the right doors and it's very important. Then I select my dream VCs. And then I open for a wide range of different VCs that are in the ticket size, because sometimes you're talking to a VC that, their minimum ticket is for 5 million euros.
So it is like, okay. But, but I have conversation for the next summer with those VCs because they think, okay, you are small, you are interesting, but we are going to meet each other in the way. So it's important you are not the part in this conversation that has to say no to the conversation.
Don't care if you get a big fund, talk to the big fund. It's experience. So for me to find the right VCs was a question of talking to the VCs that was in my Irans. Open the target and then start to build relationships with the rest of the VCs. Okay. We don't fit your investment thesis, but do you know another VC that could be interesting. And when the, the other part, tells you, okay, I love your project, but it's not the moment. Okay, but introduce me please to other VCs where we can have a match. So ask for help. Most entrepreneurs are a bit shy to ask for help. Ask for help. You are not going to lose anything.
I think that the ecosystem of entrepreneurs and more in the EdTech sector are open to helping the rest of the actors. And for me, for me is the, is the part that I love, the more. This, this feeling of a community that are in the EdTech industry. Yeah.
FA: Absolutely, absolutely. What you're saying with building relationships with investors over a long period, this is something I've heard also from other founders. Right? So it's about cultivating these relationships even though it's not, you know, maybe the right timing or right fit.
LL: I want to add something; that it was the way we got our lead investor. The guy that was our contact at AWS, one day, contacted me and, and told me, okay, Lu, I want you to meet a guy that knows a lot of sales. Oh, great. This guy was the chairman of Swaanlab that now is my lead investor.
I came to their offices with a project that doesn't fit with the investment thesis at all, at all. But we builet together the right approach. And now is my lead investor. So who knows?
FA: Exactly, exactly. You never know, well, who you might meet and what kind of connections you build for later. And one final question on the fundraising part is; anything that you found particularly hard?
LL: I know what I know and I know what I don't know. So most of the time, entrepreneurs are working with the money no, the cash that they have and the things that they need to do next. And sometimes, they don't make the right decision. Maybe from my experience, I'm nearly 50 years old, so I get the best lawyers at my level. Okay. And the best financial team. Financial lawyers. A contract that is not written in the right way can be a big problem in the future,. Or a business plan that is not realistic or you need a financial person at your side.
For me, it was really, really important because the amount of work that is for me. To look at every, every line of the financial plan is crazy. So the investment in the right people in the financial area and in the, legal area is very, very important. And don't, don't look for the cheaper lawyer or the cheaper financial person. You need a person that points you say, you are wrong. This is not the right way. These figures are not realistic and work together. No, I don't want a financial team that work for me. No, no. I want a financial team that work with me because every figure is a promise. And when you have investors, your figures are promised. So it's a commitment that you need to meet expectations and, it is very important for me.
LL: A bit over to more the company as a whole. If you look at your experience since you started up, Leemons what's been your biggest challenge until now and how did you solve it sort of outside of the funding piece?
We developed a whole product from scratch in 12 months. Then we developed again, a second version, to launch the software as a service platform. When we made a decision to be open source. It was a question of both purpose, we want every school or university to have access to the best software or to a good software. Okay.
With a cutting edge technology, because Moodle is a very good software. And, and it's for free. But, nowadays it's very difficult to find developers that want to work with PHP. It is the technology of Moodle. It's an old fashioned technology and now it's very difficult for them to innovate.
For example, the AI or the data governance, or there are lot of key features or key technologies that the platforms need to have. So the old fashion platforms are having difficulties with this.
Then we choose the, the, the tech stack at the very beginning. We develop open source because we wanted the open source community to be involved in creating new features and et cetera.
And now this second part of the project to create the software as a service platform, has been crazy. So we have done a huge effort in terms of development. For me is the, the key part. We haven't developed an MVP. We have developed an enterprise product, multi-tenant, multi-language, multi-center. We wanted to be scalable from the very beginning and not to be a small product that anyone can copy. It is because it's a dress ocean.
There are 8 incumbents that share 80% of the market with their LMS, and there are no space for another LMS, another old fashioned LMS or another. So the idea was; we are going to create a very different LMS in the shortest time that is possible. And with an innovative approach.
It's been very, very, very hard. Very hard. This is the challenge that we have faced in these two years, and well, the cost, the personal cost has been crazy.
FA: Okay. And then the question that we have to ask, about about AI of course. So how are you thinking about AI for Leemons and I guess for the sector you're in as a whole?
LL: We presented the first proof of concept four months ago with AWS. We have a library where the students can find everything. The materials or the recorded classes and the tasks, the exams, et cetera. So, we have an AI that allows the student to ask in the communication area as a virtual tutor.
And then the AI recommends contents depending of the question of the student. It acts as a substitution of the teacher when the teacher is not avAIlable. About AI, there are a lot of over promise, and I think that when we see that education, is in terms of technology an old fashioned area, they are low digitalized.
We cannot attack with AI that make a 100% of substitution of the teachers. To us teachers, teachers are core of the learning processes. So in this case, AI is a co-pilot for the teachers, and the approach of Leemons is copilot for teachers, virtual tutors, for students to have to be more effective, more efficient. And to help the students to read the data about the things where they need more help.
This is the approach; we we're not going to, to present a crazy thing about AI. Okay? You have a virtual person that is talking or acting as a teacher.
I think that this is not useful at all, and AI need to be in the context of learning and teaching processes in small pieces, small pieces, and with the small changes because, in another way, the user is not prepared for a crazy AI doing crazy things.
FA: Well that's, that's a good point, that it's recent, right? It's recent from a technological perspective, but it's also recent for the users to be able to use this technology and they have to learn how to use it. Unless you sort of bake it into the learning process and it's seamless.
Anything else that you want to share around AI or sort of future use cases that you're thinking about?
Track 1: The other user that is key to us is the manager of the educational center. So in terms of data. In terms of dashboards that help managers to make data informed decisions it is very important to provide this kind of dashboards in three ways.
You have an analytics that can tell you what is happening in the platform or in the class, or with a teacher or with a student.
Then you have a second step. Where the analytics can tell you what is going to happen in the future. There are much learnings in AI, okay?
And the third kind of analytic in this area is the analytic that could tell you what do you have to do to reach what you want, to get what you want.
So in these three moments; the present, this possible future and the future that you want. I think that AI can help a lot to the managers of the centers because as you know, when you are talking to a manager of an e-commerce platform, they know a lot about data, a lot, a lot.
They make decisions, look at the data all the time. We know a lot about a person, to whom we want to sell a T-shirt. But, we don't know anything about a person who wants to learn something new. So it is a bit stupid that educational centers are not learning organizations when they are teaching all the time.
They are not learning organizations. So maybe we can help the centers to make a continuous improvement processes with content, with methodologies, with process and then start in this way of being a learning organization.
FA: And it's a fantastic point. I especially like your comparison with the T-shirt. You know, , we, we know much more about people buying t-shirts than about any, any average learner, which is quite dramatic. So I'm looking forward to what you will build in this space.
And if you look generally at the resources that you've benefited from in the ecosystem or through other means, like what resources have helped you most along the way?
LL: The, the community. For example, when I knew about an EdTech cluster. For me, community is one of my sources of information when I need to make a decision. I don't know anything about this. I ask the community. I will have a response. No, I did that and was a bad decision, or I'm doing that and it's, it is working. It's great because people usually generous, open to help and is is wait.
The second one is an opportunity and it has a dangerous side. The acceleration programs. . Now startups are a business for other startup that are making business around the startups. So you don't know now very well if this program is good for you or it's only good for the business of other company or whatever. For example, SEK Lab, is a Spanish acceleration program that is now in their ninth edition is a very, very good acceleration program for EdTech Startups. And they helped me a lot. They connect me with lot of people, professionals, companies, investors. So acceleration programs are a very good help. And for sure the events, networking is a very good help. To know what is, what is happening, because entrepreneur's life is a bit lonely.
So you need to share, and you need to know about the experience of the rest of the entrepreneurs to feel less lonely. And to feel that, okay, I'm doing what I can do. There are a lot of people that is doing the same thing. Maybe we are all in a mistake or not, but now I feel more secure when I share my concerns.
FA: Yes, I concur with that. Get the community to get support along the way. And, when you look forward the next six to 12 months, what's keeping you up at night, if anything?
LL: Yeah. Yes, for, for sure sales because, open source life is hard in terms of revenue. But you are in the unicorn land? No, in the dream land that Oh, okay, the clients download the product. The clients use the product. Okay. But you don't see a cent. So , so now we have a sales team. Now we are going to launch next week, we are going to launch the freemium version.
Now metrics are my nightmare. No. Are we going to achieve the goals? The KPIs are okay, or the KPIs are tight for us in the moment that we are or. And we are thinking all the time about accomplishing the business plan and to have the right KPIs and to have the right figures because I really feel responsible with my investors. They trust a lot in the company, in the team, and in me as a leader of the project. And now I have the responsibility to give good news in the next six, nine months.
And on the other side, two of our investors are impact funds. So we have impact KPIs and we don't have a challenge, we have two challenges. And, I think that, there are a part that I love this; this commitment with a purpose, but, everything needs to work together. The purpose and the business. And the figures are my nightmare now.
FA: And just on the impact the KPIs, is the challenge there to measure them or to actually achieve them or both?
LL: We started as a big corp startup. So when you are big corp, you have in mind the KPIs. You have in mind the impact that we are social impact. So our impact is measured in the amount of help that we provide to the teachers in their lives, in their everyday work.
Coupled with diversity, for example and trying to reduce the amount of bureaucracy that they manage every day. So this is, for example, a KPI. When it comes to relate these KPIs with the business, with the number of teachers that are active in the platform and then that are using the features that has to do with metrics with these areas of pain points.
That we are trying to solve. And in terms of students, we can talk about, for example, for me it's very important this second life students that are older than 50, 55. If we get clients that are working with training for adult population, okay. For me, it's another big KPI.
FA: But it's good to see the funds and investors having KPIs of impact. We say finally as a part of their investment. So I think that's just great for the whole industry.
Let's move over to the final part of more hearing some tips and advice from you. So, based on your experience, is there any advice that you would give other EdTech startups? Obviously you've given a lot already, but I'm sure there's other things that you have in mind.
LL: Well, the pressure is really, really hard when you are an entrepreneur. I have a group of female entrepreneurs that met in one of the acceleration programs where we meet more or less, I don't know, twice or three times each year. We sit in a table and talk clear about what is happening as leaders, as entrepreneurs. And this small group where you can be completely honest without concerns.
You can be clear. Okay. I don't like to do that. I'm waiting for the moment that someone comes to the company to help me or I'm afraid of this. I don't feel that I have the abilities or I'm not capable of that. To express, express these concerns is very, very, very important.
Find your small group where you can trust on each other. And be clear and smile, cry or complain or whatever. Because it's very, very important to maintain your mind clear and calm. And this group makes the difference for me.
And the other side is that, don't be so afraid of failing or not to reach the level of, okay, you're an entrepreneur. It's the hardest work that I have ever done, and I've been working for 30 years of my life. The hardest work. So, okay. You are brave. If you are here and you have a company that you are leading you are smart for sure. Probably you are brilliant. So, okay. Don't be afraid of fail. And this advice, Mark, the chairman of Swaanlab gave me this advice. Don't be afraid. This is not going to be your last project. So do your best. Okay. And if everything fails, okay, your project is not doomed. And this is the moment when you can, exhale and say, okay, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to be as engaged with this project as I can. But your health, your mental health is first of all, so. Everything is going to be okay.
FA: Be careful with health and mental health and then have good people surrounding you. That's what I'm taking away. And anything else that you want to share with our audience?
LL: Well, the good news. We have closed 1.5 million euro round. We are very proud of our investors, of my team. And this is the good news. Not all the time we have good news and we are happy to share this with you. This is the first time that I say it aloud, because we are going to communicate next week. And it is the first time I say aloud, we have closed the round .
FA: I'm trying to put some emoji, some cheers and things like that on the screen So now. Huge, huge. Congrats. Huge, huge congrats. It's a big milestone. Big milestone. And we'll hopefully be able to celebrate that later, maybe in person even. With that, thank you so much Lula, for coming on the show, for talking about your journey with Leemons and I'm sure we'll hear more from you soon and what's coming next during, during this year. So thank you so much.
