They say learning is light, and ignorance is darkness. This idea is especially relevant in the age of quick changes in both economic and social life spheres. Anyway, some predictions appear pretty scary when talking about the future of learning. The PwC Upskilling report indicates that "about half of all workforce globally will need reskilling by 2025". In other words, employees who don't upskill may jeopardize their careers, and that’s serious. 

But what about the job market?

Statistics PWC indicates that nearly 40% of workers fear their jobs will become outdated in the next couple of years. What's more, we're witnessing the downturn of 2022. Layoffs have become commonplace, and people realize that upskilling is the only way to remain competitive in the job market. 

LinkedIn's Future of Work shows that job skill sets have changed by nearly 25% since 2015. This way, staying competitive gets increasingly challenging. But the current situation leaves no alternative to the global workforce, and more and more people are looking to online education.

At the same time, the demand for self-education platforms that can work correctly under increasing loads increases. Also, the demand for microlearning technologies in the B2B sector will increase. In this regard, two trends define the learning process:  

• delivery of educational content broken down into small standalone units;
• mastering individual micro-skills (for example, working with a new tool) and small packages of knowledge.

Why it’s high time to start an EdTech startup

Those insights are pretty straightforward: the perfect time to launch an edTech startup is now. First, the market is not as saturated as in other sectors, and many business opportunities exist to explore. Second, edTech initiatives get more and more support on a governmental level. In 2021, the United Nations prioritized providing affordable education, developing lifelong learning programs, and fighting against hunger and environmental challenges.

Amazon claims that the global Edtech market is expected to grow by $133B in 2022-2026. In regard to all these statistics, no wonder that edTech startups are springing up like mushrooms after rain. But how do you develop an ed-tech product people will love? 

How to develop an edTech a product that users will like

The point of the article you're about to read is simple. We want to help early-stage edtechs clearly understand how to make their educational products popular. Let's dive straight into it.

Quality services

You'd say that the main requirement is evident but anyway. All the major players in the education market are increasingly emphasizing quality. They focus their efforts not on providing knowledge per se but on supporting their products' big ideas. 

Initially, it's advisable to set high requirements for experts that work on the project. For instance, Imagining an edTech startup team without an experienced methodologist is becoming increasingly difficult. The critical skill of such professionals is to formulate educational results and the learning trajectory design that ensures steady users' progress. 

Secondly, understanding sales strategy is critical. Don’t try to sell your services straight away. Be customer-centric and offer the best solution for each and every student. In other words, the sales strategy of an edTech startup needs to put learners in the first place.

Replacing the traditional model

Successful edtechs change the traditional lecturer-student paradigm with a new approach. Digital lectures, IT seminars, courses from leading universities, and master classes by reputable teachers are becoming increasingly popular at all ages. This way, both large companies and emerging players will continue to experiment with different ways of user interaction in the learning environment.

Building a robust ecosystem

Although students seek to gain knowledge, they also look for an educational ecosystem with social interaction. They need expert support and a convenient digital environment. Overall, student requirements are growing: they ask for unique content, detailed research, and links to primary sources.

A creative approach toward learning is the crucial factor here. Designing for the target audience's archetypes, storytelling, gamification, variety of learning models, and interactive mechanics help gain more user attention for your product.

Community

Great edTech products make great communities. People are curious to know what happens in a product's ecosystem. They want to benefit from communication with other students, personal mentoring, and the opportunity to create a portfolio/resume, not to mention casual meetings just to chit-chat. It is essential for students to feel their involvement in non-educational processes. Some folks want to be a part of the group, and you have to grant them this opportunity.

Are you qualified enough? 

Sure enough, challenges exist. Let's enumerate the most common reasons that lead to the failure of an edTech startup:

• You are a total stranger to the educational system;
• You’re building a non-relevant edTech product;
• Your startup team lacks professionals educators; 
• You haven't researched the current market properly.

Summing up: can you provide a bigger picture?

So what makes a decent edTech product? There's more to the product's idea than meets the eye. I mean, getting new skills is an excellent thing in itself. However, great EdTech products also teach students how to position themselves in the job market and be better at their work. 

Sure, convenience and quality are the main advantages educational startups offer to learners worldwide. But the general idea is way bigger than convenience, though. This big picture is all about equal rights to learn. For instance, UNESCO believes that technologies should eliminate knowledge gaps worldwide, and technology plays a key role here.

The best advice is simple: love what you do. Although it sounds simple, it’s true. As a former teacher myself, I believe people should have a personal reason to start an EduTech startup. Things won’t make sense if you start it because "it's popular" or some investors are interested. 

Do you have a cool edTech product idea? Our team of experienced specialists can assist you all along the whole development process, from an MVP creation to the release itself. Contact us to discuss your educational project straight away.

P.S. Here at Akveo, we write a lot about startups. Here are some articles that solve a specific problem you may be facing as a startup founder:

• Startups in 2022: 6 trends to watch this year
• 8 innovative marketing tips for startups: how to develop the right strategy
• 13 best early-stage startup advice to survive during the downturn
• How low-code tools can help startups during the downturn of 2022
• How to find funds for your early-stage startup in 2022

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