This startup wants to change the way kids are taught coding in India

Edtech space is booming in India with the likes of Byju’s and Unacademy leading the troops. Government’s new education policy has made it mandatory for schools to teach kids coding. We talked to Kushal Trivedi, the founder of PreBOO, to gain some insights on what is actually happening on the ground.

PreBOO is a web platform where kids are introduced to the world of programming via games, lessons, puzzles, and much more. The company started in 2016, as a mobile app for communication between schools and families. Now they are developing a coding platform where kids can be introduced to the concepts of basic coding through using visual code blocks that represent real programming concepts.

How did you come up with the name “PreBOO”?

We are working in the early education sector, so “Pre” is for Preschool, and “Boo” is for the expression that we use for small kids. We merged these two, and that’s how we came up with the name “PreBOO”.

Recently Whitehat Jr. got acquired for $300 million, and the edtech space as a whole is also booming. This must be the best time to be in the edtech space, what do you think?

It is a good time…but at the same time, it is a very saturated market as well, so one has to find its niche. Unless and until you can find their niche or unless and until you have a very good customer base, you cannot survive. Because there are so many free tools and services available for everyone at their disposal, it becomes a very saturated, small, and highly competitive market. You can’t derive any conclusion based on a few acquisitions, the industry overall is shifting towards digital, and everyone knows it, and everyone is trying to get their pie out of it.

Yeah, and it is also about getting the product right. I was watching the interview of Karan Bajaj, the founder of Whitehat Jr., he also mentioned that his first step was focusing on making a good product. You can focus on scaling exponentially once you get a good product. They went from around 300 employees before the pandemic to around 3000 in the time of 3 or 4 months.

So, it happens in two ways. In the case of Whitehat, their product is not the content, but the delivery method. So the majority of the part that they teach is someone else’s content, they just incorporate that in their offerings and then provide it to the users. So when we talk about getting the product right, we have to ensure what we are going to deliver, and what is the vision behind it. So let’s say if we are building up a product for a certain age group, then we have to see about the other competitors, service providers, and the products which are already there in the market. Then try to differentiate and think about what will be our unique product offering, that can be a delivery method, that can be the content, that can also be the business model altogether.

So basically, the difference between your company, and Unacademy or Whitehat Jr. is that they don’t have to produce their content as they are more of a platform provider, while you also have to produce your content. So the challenges are somewhat different for your company…

Unacademy is a totally different thing, as they are more into online learning and competitive examinations. Whitehat Jr. and ours can be compared to a certain degree, as we are both into teaching coding to kids. But we are building our content at the same time, on the technology itself. So our challenge is getting the content developed. On the other hand, Whitehat Jr. has developed the technology, which is the website. So their challenge is to divide the content which is already there in the open-source market into their offerings. So they are using different tools and services that are open source, like Scratch or Code.org. Scratch is an open-source tool, so everyone and anyone can download and use it, either at a personal or at a tutor level. There’s a worldwide community and it is an old product in itself. Code.org, again, is a non-profit organization that is into teaching kids coding, it’s a US-based company. These platforms are also in tie-ups with the other companies which are for-profit companies. What we did is that we learned the technology that is block-based coding, on which Scratch and Code.org have developed their content and platform. So we’ve learned that, and now we want to Indian-ize the technology…what are the topics, what are the subjects, what are the moral learnings, etc. in schools in India? So we have to build the content accordingly. So that is the difference between Whitehat Jr. and our company, and that is why we are lagging while Whitehat Jr. got a solid exposure and now it is acquired. Because they had the content ready, they just had to build the technology to deliver the content.

I also read somewhere in an article that you are focusing on vernacular languages, you are developing content in Hindi, Gujarati, and I think, Marathi also…

Yes, so like I said, we have learned the technology. So we know how to twist the content. We try to develop the content from English to Gujarati, and Gujarati to any other language, as and when we get a good translator. What Whitehat Jr. has done is they have picked up a couple of tools and services from the US itself. Now for them, they can get into vernacular languages as well, but they have to take permission from those companies to do so, or they have to search for an open API. So that’s where the differentiating factor is.

Let’s talk about the new education policy which has made learning coding mandatory in the schools, will it affect your business positively or negatively?

It will definitely affect more positively, but it depends and it remains to be seen how the schools accept and allow private players who are masters in their field with the quality content, to get into it. But on the larger part, there will be more coaching institutes and coaching classes sprouting in the coming days.

But do we have enough resources available to serve all the educational institutions in India to teach kids coding?

No, we don’t have, unfortunately. And even if we had the resources to deliver everything, there’s still some challenge that lies from the administrative part of the school. Are they willing to pay for the right quality content or not? If they have to buy content or services from the private players, then why would they need to have a computer teacher in their school? So those challenges are going to remain. But on this particular thing in the policy, the programming boost that India really needed, will be impacted definitely in a positive way.

Start-ups generally have a hard time finding good talents, because of the limited financial resources available to them. How do you manage that?

My goal was always to have a perfect product that I can sell to a perfect set of customers so that I can immediately make money out of that version of the product. So the first thing you need to be clear about is whom you are going to sell, immediately. Say for an example that if I am creating a Teen Patti game, so I should know whom I will be selling. If I talk about a very simple term, if I have a friend circle of 10 people, and out of the 10, 6 people are, you know, very much addicted to playing card games or any shorts. They play on Janmashtami or they play occasionally, I mean, that kind of stuff. So the first set of customers will be those 6 friends of mine, once I create a Teen Patti game. Because I will get some input ideas, I will get some feedback, I will get some other insights that I might have not learned about. Then I will go to them again and ask them about their other friends who might also be interested in that. That is how I can get the inputs. So, you can make the lists of inputs and changes, then prioritize those changes accordingly, as per your need and as per your strength. Then revise the product on and off, on and off…then probably you can get into full-fledged marketing. Because a product is an ever going evolution, so if you stop or you get stuck with one product for too long, then your competitor can come up with one new feature and destroy your whole business. You need to always listen to your customers.

Gamification is on the rise, more and more companies like Amazon, Flipkart, MX Player, and Robinhood are working towards gamifying the user experience. So is Gamification going to be a new trend now?

Gaming has recently come into the limelight, especially after the success of Ludo 2. The way they got millions of users during the pandemic time, nobody is talking about it. Some companies are already there in the market for way too long, like Nazara games, and Hungama games, etc. so gaming is a very lucrative business, at the same time, a luck-based business as well. Because developing a game has its own cost, it’s an expensive business. Now, how you sell is also a challenging thing. Because in India, people will watch a 30 seconds video to gain access to some coins or gain a new life. But they won’t pay the 10 rupees to do the same thing immediately. So you need to understand your users, and how you will monetize in the Indian scenario. Gaming is such a business where anyone can, you know, get some code out of it and develop a similar pattern and things. So, you have to have a very good business model. You need to have some patience and a vision to scale.

You are also teaching kids coding with the help of gaming, you have combined both gaming and learning. So can gaming be a good way of learning?

See, I can tell you one thing…when I work with the kids, gaming can be the only tool with which they can learn some concepts very easily, which is out of my own experience. Every start-up in the K-5 segment, if you follow some of these companies’ pages, you will be shown more of their ads. And you will only realize a few things…that games can improve your memory, your logical thinking, and also creativity. All these through a simple and very basic offering. They are taking the graphics out of the textbooks and building them as a puzzle and then delivering that. I am not sure about how you guys have spent your childhood, but if I talk about my childhood, in the ’90s, we used to play a lot of card games and you know, Indian traditional games. Those games can help you increase concentration, judgment, and strategically thinking. So those things got automatically developed. So if you can convert the games into learnings, it can work wonders, especially for the kids.

So do you want to focus just on the K-5 segment, or you want to increase your user base to the K-12 segment, in the future?

I don’t want to, actually. Because the K-5 segment itself has a very vast user base. If we talk about the 9th standard, then everyone knows that most of the students who are interested to get into science will go to JEE or NEET classes, or prepare for some competitive examinations. So they are already trapped, schools…plus boards…then competitive exams or the entrance tests. And the ones who are just focused on getting into the B.Com. or BBA will be the only ones who have some free time at their disposal, at a school level. Because everyone who wants to get into science will be racing to join Aakash, or Allen, or Times…those kinds of institutes. So at that age, companies like Vedantu, Unacademy, or Byju’s will come into the picture. So we don’t have to get into that competition. Like I already said, you need to know to whom you are going to sell. So you should be focused on that one segment only, and keep on innovating. And if I have a user base, if I have captured the Gujarat market, then that’s it, Byju’s or Whitehat Jr. will have to acquire me…why would they waste money by using their market resources, to build from scratch.

That’s a great strategy. The market starts narrowing down as you start going up in the higher education sector…

See, there’s a simple logical thing. When we grow up, and when we get sick, we go to a simple MBBS doctor, we don’t even visit an MD. We visit an MBBS doctor who’s nearby our society and we buy medicines for 50 or 60 rupees. But when the kid is small, below 5 years, parents will definitely take it to a paediatrician, even for a small flu or something like that. And we will pay 500 or 600 rupees for that because the fear is working here. So it is the same logic that applies to the same segment as well, the moment you enter higher education, the market gets smaller. If you go out in the market, then you will find more products for the early education sector that is the K-5 segment, than you will find for the higher standards. What you mostly find in the higher standards is, e-learnings. The delivery methods might be different, but it’s all online education. Either there will be the recorded lectures and pay for the subscriptions, or the live lectures and solve your queries…that’s it, only the two models.

Yes, and another thing is, the kind of customers you have to attract. In the K-5 segment, you have to convince the parents to buy your products, as the kids are not the decision-makers. But if we talk about 9–12 standards, then you also have to convince the students to use your product.

That is also one thing, and the other thing is about the changes in the modes and the curriculum. So when you speak about early education, ABCD is going to remain as ABCD, and it will not change, because it is the base. “Twinkle Twinkle little star” is also the same now as it was earlier. So the changes are very less, the curriculum mostly remains the same in early education, because the base will always remain the same.

Written By: Mitesh Kariya

Interviewed By: Mitesh Kariya & Vaishali Dagar