EdTech stands for “education technology”. It is a combination of IT tools and educational practices to enable and enhance learning. You can start an EdTech business to facilitate an engaging, inclusive, and individualized learning experience.
EdTech business targets many different niches also, such as formal education platforms for institutions, independent education platforms, language proficiency platforms, professional courses, etc.
Outschool- The Beginning
Outschool was founded by Amir Nathoo in 2015. Homeschoolers were the first to discover Outschool classes but soon the students from conventional schools began augmenting their classing studies with online fun and unique online education that are completely based on their interests.
Talking about the founder, Amir Nathoo, he always wanted to start his own business and then he eventually found inspiration for a startup in 2007. He, along with James Brady, and Patrick Buckley, teamed up to start a business. For early investment, they approached Y Combinator, a seed investment fund that just started at that time in Silicon Valley. However, the three of them didn’t stay together for long. Amir started Trigger.io- a mobile app development platform, with Kirsty and then started up with Square in 2013.
Outschool, a newfangled online education software , offers various engaging group classes online for online education. It does not work like traditional classes, instead gives students a unique opportunity to explore their interests in-depth using an interactive live session held by various experienced educators on the platform. Today, in this article we’ll explore the Outschool Business Model in detail and get answers to our customary questions- “How does Outschool work?” and “How does Outschool make money?”.Understanding a company’s business model, investors’ details, revenue model, and growth rate gives a lot of insights into the in-depth working process of the company. To get in-depth answers, keep reading the article till the end and stay connected with our blog to enhance your knowledge on more such business models. So, let’s get started.
Outschool- The Global Reach
Outschool works on its mission of inspiring kids to love learning. They do this by providing them with innovative learning opportunities outside their traditional classrooms from the comfort of home.
With this strong vision and seed capital from Y Combinator and others in 2016, Nathoo and his team built this platform and launched it in 2017. Since then, more than 60 thousand students/ learners have attended classes on this platform.
As per the Forbes information of 2019, Outschool continues to expand and raised $8.5 million in Series A funding from Union Square Ventures and Reach Capital. From 2019 to 2020, there has been an incredible surge in online education platforms and is the result of the widespread COVID-19 pandemic. During this time interval, Outschool saw a more than 2000% increase in their class bookings. In 2020, the company’s sales were around $54 million as compared to $6.5 million in 2018. The pandemic has turned out to be a profitable one for the platform as it has started making more than $100 million in annual run rate.
How does Outschool work?
We have discussed the Outschool Business Model in detail, so let’s move on to answer the question- “How does Outschool work?”. To answer this, we must understand the major features of the business model. Down below are the two major features of the Outschool Business Model.
Passion-based learning
Every student has at least one weak subject in school and some others might have more than one. It’s absolutely normal to have a weak subject in school days. So, Outschool has a solution for this. The platform has adopted a passion-based learning approach by engaging students in the study material through an innovative, fun, and supportive environment.
Outschool helps learners to understand the concept in a fun way by making them learn their weak subject through Minecraft or any other such game which is likely to be a more engaging and fun way to make the student learn the concepts. These playful classes at Outschool can help engage students who may otherwise not be interested in attending their traditional school classes.
This model has turned out amazing for parents who are concerned about students not engaging with an important subject at school, they can easily sign up on Outschool and buy a course to make them learn the subject from a different and engaging perspective. Also, if the student is deeply interested in any particular subject then he/she may go for that particular subject’s courses on the platform to learn about the subject more deeply and enhance their knowledge to follow their passion. The platform is being used by students all around the world. Students from countries like UK, New Zealand, India, and Canada are signing up on the platform and participating in the courses actively.
One-to-one interaction classes
Lack of human interaction is the most important feature lacking in most other edtech platforms. Although the quality of MOOC courses has allowed them to survive in this tough competition. Today, the edtech companies are focused more on enhancing the technology of their platform using Artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and all but they are forgetting the most valuable feature that the students are looking for i.e., one-to-one human interaction classes. Students grab more knowledge when they have constant interaction with their teachers.
This is where the Outschool platform outperforms. Here, the teachers take classes through teleconferencing tools such as Zoom, Skype, Meet, etc. The video conferencing software allows students to engage directly with teachers and share their doubts with them. Also, the presence of the rest of the class creates a social environment and creates relationships with kids who they may otherwise not have met. This platform has a different approach towards learning, they encourage students to interact and grow with people.