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Building a $500M EdTech Platform in 16 Months | Ravi Bhushan (BrightChamps)
372 Plays3 years ago
"A superstar team is better than a team of superstars."
This single cultural insight was the engine behind BrightChamps' explosive, capital-efficient growth. In this episode, founder Ravi Bhushan breaks down how fostering a community of passionate, mission-aligned individuals—from teachers to engineers—created a powerful growth flywheel that well-funded competitors struggled to match.
Key Insights from the Conversation:
- Global-First Strategy: Learn why BrightChamps launched in the Middle East before India, a counterintuitive move to build a truly global product from day one.
- Customer-Funded Growth: Discover how the company was bootstrapped to its first $10 million ARR solely on customer revenue, proving product-market fit before raising significant VC funding.
- The Teacher Flywheel: The key to great learning outcomes and retention is treating teachers as valued community members with growth paths, not transactional "gig workers."
- The Acquire-to-Build Playbook: BrightChamps uses strategic acquisitions to rapidly enter new verticals (like financial literacy) and markets, accelerating its mission to be a one-stop life-skills platform.
- Tech-Led Efficiency: The company uses technology to optimize everything from a lean counseling team to an algorithmic engine that matches the perfect teacher to each student globally.
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction
(01:22) The Spark: From "Hardcore Techie" to EdTech Founder
(04:35) Mission: Solving the "Everlasting Gap" in Global Education
(08:44) Product V1 & The "Execution Risk" Bet
(12:22) The Hypergrowth Story: $10M ARR with Zero VC Funding
(19:23) The Flywheel: Why Passionate Teachers are a Superpower
(27:57) Using Tech for Personalization & Global Scale
(33:50) The Business Model: Mastering LTV/CAC for Profitability
(43:35) The Playbook for Building a High-Ownership Culture
(48:26) Future Vision: Scaling Through Strategic M&A
Hashtags:
#FounderThesis #StartupPodcast #RaviBhushan #BrightChamps #EdTech #Entrepreneurship #ScalingGlobally #VentureCapital #Bootstrapping #ProductMarketFit #StartupStrategy #Leadership #BusinessPodcast #Unicorn
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone, I'm Ravi Bhusan, founder and CEO of Bright Champs.
00:00:31
Speaker
This episode is the story of what happens when passion combines with skills and will. This episode is the story of Bright Champs.
Rapid Growth and Market Position
00:00:40
Speaker
Bright Champs is an edtech startup that is exceptional in every way. They reached a valuation of $500 million within 16 months of starting. And in the current funding winter, when every edtech company is laying off people, they continue to hire and acquire and grow.
00:00:57
Speaker
Ravi Bhushan, the founder of Bright Champs is an IITian who spent a decade and a half in various startups building their technology and product. He built Bright Champs with a very first principles view of solving for educational outcomes for children and equipping them with 21st century skills. Here's Ravi talking about the journey of building up one of India's fastest growing ed techs. My, it's a very fascinating journey out here. I was a hardcore techy.
00:01:27
Speaker
As you can sense that I was participating in so many hackathons, so many software programming contests and things like that. So I was a hardcore techy, but then I realized that if you are.
00:01:36
Speaker
If you are building something interesting, then it is also important that people see it. There's no point creating a beautiful painting and keeping that in a dark room. So it is important that the platformers use your solution. But then I just loved the journey. It was very organic and not very planned, but it all happened because I just found that in every change of role,
00:01:58
Speaker
was bringing me closer to the user or the customer and that was much more fulfilling for me. So then what made you move on from housing till I think middle of 2019 you were with like Housing Prop Tiger, Makan.
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, so Akshay, as I told you, the journey was good over there and I know I was taking care of a relevant portfolio, which is product design, technology, organic growth, P&L of Makan and all those things. But then somehow this, you can say that
00:02:31
Speaker
This entrepreneurial bug had bitten me and I wanted to do something on my own. But then I was not in a hurry. I was just thinking that what would be the relevant thing to do. So the age of doing something on my own and doing something relevant and with a long-term approach, once it crossed a threshold, I twisted the board to leave me.
00:02:50
Speaker
And then I took some time on my own, deliberating around various ideas.
Entrepreneurial Journey and Motivation
00:02:55
Speaker
The good thing about that period is that whenever I deliberated about any idea, I researched or I worked on that. At the end of it, it was becoming more and more clear to me that there was a strong pull for the education field. I don't want to claim that because I was a misfit for the conventional education since childhood and things like that. I was just trying to become a tech founder.
00:03:18
Speaker
That's not the case, but somehow because I had exposure to various other roles in the industry, a lot of senior folks working in various other startups were close friends. So I was deliberating many ideas, but then ultimately it was very becoming very clear that after discussing deliberating, ultimately I'm coming back to education field. And when it happened three, four times, I realized that I should do something in the education vertical only rather than doing something in
00:03:43
Speaker
anything else, because if you have an interesting, strong attachment with certain thing, then you can, you can enter into that field with a long-term perspective. Otherwise it will be a short-lived thing. So I was just looking forward to a founder vertical fit in a stronger way. And when that calling happened three, four times in that period of six, seven months, then I decided that I'll do a tech startup and I started Bright Champs in July of 2020. And, and that is how it happened. Yeah.
00:04:13
Speaker
How did you finalize on the, it takes such a vast space. You have right from kindergarten all the way till further education for people who are already in careers. So how did you finalize what exactly you want to do? And tell me about that, the thought behind finalization of idea and what you wanted to do.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, the region of right chimps existence is very simple and it's all about the world is changing very fast, right? And the curriculum, which we are teaching to kids, to millions of kids across the globe, unfortunately is not changing with the same pace. And hence there is a gap, right? The gap, which I'm talking about actually is only increasing with time, right? Right chimps is all about filling that gap and becoming a global platform, which is synonym to
00:05:02
Speaker
high quality education around all these important life skills required to have a superlative outcome in life, right?
Educational Gaps and Bright Champs' Mission
00:05:11
Speaker
The realization of the problem, if you are asking me that where did you get a sense that it's a very interesting and important problem. So the realization of the problem is very deep. I'll give you two, three reasons. One, I find myself, as I told you, I find myself a misfit to the conventional education system. So that's one.
00:05:30
Speaker
During my professional journey, I encountered a lot of people in society who are serious about their profession, people like lawyers, interior designers, doctors, chartered accountants, etc., who came to me and ended up saying that, Ravi, if I would have had the knowledge of technology, I would have also done better in my life.
00:05:50
Speaker
And this clearly indicated that they feel that if they would have gotten an exposure around technology during their educational days, they would have also landed into a much better outcome. But nobody cared about providing a technology exposure to them. It's not that they are not serious about their profession. It's just that they didn't get the chance.
00:06:09
Speaker
Fortunately, unfortunately, we are living in a world which is led by technology and not providing technology education creates such a big gap. So what I'm trying to tell you is that we are living in a capitalistic society and money matters. It's a pivotal thing around so many things, but nobody gives a damn about providing financial literacy to kids. We grow up academically very smart, financially almost illiterate, right?
00:06:31
Speaker
So these are very important life skills which are required to have a superior outcome in life. But unfortunately, the conventional education system does not care about it. And the Bright Champs idea is all about, can we become a global platform filling this particular gap, which is about providing high quality education around this important life skills.
00:06:50
Speaker
which ideally should have been part of the curriculum, but unfortunately it is not. So the whole idea is there's no complication there. It's a very simple thought. I just think that, as I said earlier, that the world is changing very fast and there is a big gap. If we can do our own bit of service in terms of filling that particular gap as much as we can, I think the purpose of the BRAD GEMS is fulfilled. So that was the genesis. What was the age group you wanted to do this for?
00:07:20
Speaker
I think the most productive age for learning is as early as possible. So if you ask me if I want to learn, let's say language, let's say I want to learn French and my son wants to learn French and both of us start at the same time, I bet you that my son will learn faster than me.
00:07:39
Speaker
So what I'm trying to say is that certain things which are very fundamental in nature should be the foundation for that should be given as early as possible. And that is why we focused on the K-12 segment. And the focus was very clear that it will be K-12 and it will be global focus. It will not be like one country or this country or that country.
00:07:57
Speaker
So we started with the like overseas operation on day one. And we started with the technology foundation course for kids. But gradually now, as of now, we have expanded into multiple other important life skills. Now we have launched financial literacy, which is again very important life skill for superior outcome in today's time.
Product Offerings and Target Audience
00:08:16
Speaker
And then we have launched robotics and we are launching communication and all the things which basically aligns with the theme of our vision of bride champs. We are doing one by one.
00:08:25
Speaker
So the first product you launched was technology literacy in a way and was it like where you had like a tutoring, a small group tutoring format? Was that the approach or was it a more self-learning approach through product or what did you launch?
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah. So we launched. So what we realized that in a platform like Coursera and many other platform, which are like safe self learning platform, very new pay for the content, the completion rate is close to five to 6%. Right. That means after paying significant dollars, 95% of the people who have taken a call themselves to pay for such things, they don't end up
00:09:07
Speaker
completing it. So basically at this age, at this stage, children need some hand holding. So we started with one is to one format. We wanted to give a holistic exposure around technology. So our courses had many things like coding, but just one part of it. I feel that it's not about making, making giving a mastery of one particular skill in technology. It was, it is more about the attempt was more about providing a good exposure around various aspects of technology and let them decide that what do they want to pursue down the line.
00:09:37
Speaker
So it was like design thinking, technology, coding, security, internet. So various important aspects of the technology world were provided as an exposure as part of that particular course. So it was not just a coding course, I would say. So you're a product guy. Tell me about how you productified human service. At its core, it's a human service, right? Where there is one teacher who's teaching a child, but then you must have productified it to make it scalable. How did you do that?
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think that was the format which we started with which we launched in the market. But then gradually we ended up building a lot of experiences which are like product-led or form-led experiences. And we are continuing to build it. Our product roadmap, if you really
00:10:23
Speaker
want to know what is there as part of the product roadmap, what exactly we have built as part of the product. I think one part of the product roadmap in Bright Gems is all about adding these new life skills in a gamified way for the kids. So we started with technology, then we added financial literacy and so adding these life skills and building platform for them. So that's one.
00:10:46
Speaker
Second is launching experiences which are related to a specific pain point for our customers or users. For example, we realized during our journey that rents and children really want global exposure and international exposure for their children because a school's by design
00:11:03
Speaker
are a very local phenomenon, right? So they can only, even if your child is learning in New York or school, you can only get kids from New York to interact with. But because we are a global company and we are present in more than a dozen countries, we realize that we can do a very good service in terms of providing international exposure. We created a product called Global House, wherein children from different countries come together and work together and learn each other culture. And they work on a common project.
00:11:30
Speaker
So what we started doing is that we created a lot of product and platforms, which basically cater to different aspirations or pain points of the users of
Growth Strategies and Customer Acquisition
00:11:39
Speaker
the customer. This is just one example. And the third lens of building the product was how do we create a more efficient economic engine?
00:11:47
Speaker
Where in, you know, the different aspects of the funnels are efficiently taken care of at Nick and a scale better, right? Like we, how do we acquire customers at a more efficient cost? How do we convert? How do we have a better experience in the classroom using technology, right?
00:12:03
Speaker
So all those things. I'd love to hear as a story format that this is what we launched with, and then we discovered this, and then we added this on, and then we added this. And so like that, if you can take me through that journey from launch to now of the product, like the product journey, basically. Sure. Yeah. So as I told you that we started with a global mindset, and then we started with Middle East on day one.
00:12:30
Speaker
And we started with this technology course. The good thing was that... And this was happening how like you were using Zoom at that time or what was version one of your product? Version one was simple Zoom. Yeah. So version one was just like the product was lead gen basically like a landing page where
00:12:49
Speaker
So we built a curriculum, we internally used to call first-class citizen of the technology world. We named it Techision, which was about providing exposure around all these important technological aspects. And so building the curriculum and building a gamified platform through which children should be able to explore various aspects of mathematical concepts using coding.
00:13:14
Speaker
was we internally used to call it Kodai math. These are the two things we started, we launched in the market and the classrooms were happening on June, but then we were focusing a lot on a lot in terms of how do you ensure that children are learning in each and every session which they are attending. So it was more about learning outcome rather than deciding about which platform are you teaching on your own video streaming platform or Zoom.
00:13:40
Speaker
I think in terms of decision making we did a good job there.
00:13:52
Speaker
While we focused on customer more, rather than more sexier product, I would say. And that helped us save a lot of bandwidth, which we ended up spending in terms of building a better content or better learning outcome. So we started with Middle East. When we launched our Legend Surprise, we got a very good response from the market.
00:14:11
Speaker
Fortunately, unfortunately, when we started, many of the players were already teaching coding in the market. People came to me saying that yours will be like 20th a startup, how are you going to survive? You will not get the funding and things like that. And I knew that I'm a strong believer that if so many people are trying in one thing, that means there is a stronger product market fit signal.
00:14:32
Speaker
And if among the three type of risks as per me in a startup, which is one is product market fit risk. The second is capital raise risk and third is execution risk. If I have to own some risk as per my choice, then I will own the execution risk.
00:14:48
Speaker
So then I thought that rather than working on something random, here I'm getting a signal wherein people are looking forward to such things. It's just that some of the other players are focusing more on acquisition rather than delivery. So if we become a company which focuses more on better delivery and better learning outcome, I think we will be able to create a better flywheel effect in the market and in the long run we will come out as a winner.
00:15:10
Speaker
So we started with that approach. And rather than doing very aggressive packages on a strategy, we focused a lot on delivery aspects. And that ultimately helped. People started rewarding. People actually wanted such kind of service, right? A lot of parents like you and me, they really did not want their children to go through the same pain of not getting exposed, not being exposed to technology and hence having an inferior outcome in life. So they rewarded us. What was your customer acquisition strategy when you launched? Was it like performance marketing or like, how did you get leads?
00:15:40
Speaker
So we started with performance marketing, but we started meeting up with the schools. We used a lot of micro influencers, educationists in the society. So we actually tried three, like we used to experiment very fast. I will say that the day one was performance marketing, but gradually we relied upon many other, other channels of acquisition also.
00:15:59
Speaker
given that we got a fantastic response, we launched into other countries in the MENA region and then we realized that why don't we enter into another big region and then we launched to Southeast Asia. There also it was like very fantastic response, we could initially be very skeptical that what would be the purchase power of countries like Indonesia and many other countries over there, but then we realized that no the need is very strong over there as well and people are
00:16:24
Speaker
very much willing to have such a thing. And then we got a very similar response like Middle East. And then we, after a certain time, we realized that a significant portion of many countries are locked because of the language barrier. So we started building the supply of teachers and all those things into local languages. So now we have hundreds of teachers sitting out of Indonesia, hundreds of teachers sitting out of various other countries in Southeast Asia.
00:16:48
Speaker
I know teaching in local languages to different countries. So that was another interesting challenge and problem and we built the platform and experience around local languages also. So it all was like, I will say that we had a dream run when we launched. In less than 10 months, we crossed like 10 million ARR. We did not use a single external source of funding. It was all basis
00:17:10
Speaker
the funding from only one source, which is customer funding. So it was pretty organic. And I literally say that that is the best way of scaling up in the startup and the funding and everything. When people saw the number and when people realize the execution capability and everything, people rewarded us with the, we also got external source of funding and, and I'm proud and blessed to be in a situation that we got the partners.
00:17:33
Speaker
as per our choice as far as the funding part is concerned.
Learning Outcomes and Educational Experience
00:17:37
Speaker
So all those things happened down the line but the most important part is that you are growing very fast and all the growth was happening. This is the customer funding which was the only source of income for the company and while other companies in the territory were well funded and they were burning a lot of cash and all those things were happening.
00:17:55
Speaker
But then I realized that if you focus on the real outcome, a real pain points of the customer, there can be a flywheel effect, which can ultimately help you. And I think that is what helped us overall in the overall growth of the company.
00:18:08
Speaker
So this 63 million dollar round where you were valued at 500 million, this was like your very first external fundraise. Yeah. So we got our seat round and just after like few months, we got the second round. So the announcement happened in a club way. So first round was $12 million and then second one was 51. But yeah, things were moving very fast. And even right now, I see a huge potential in the market and we are only doing technology education for kids.
00:18:36
Speaker
Now we are doing financial literacy. We acquired a company wherein I found the founders to be very driven for financial literacy. And they are now, they are seeing their passion and commitment for this particular vertical. We joined hands together. And what I see is that in just three, four months' time, they have grown by more than 10x, right? That is the level of growth we are witnessing in that particular segment. We have gotten another gentleman who is very passionate about
00:19:01
Speaker
robotics vertical and we are launching robotics which is another important life skill in today's time. So I feel that we were fortunate to pick the right market, right team and we were able to accelerate our execution and that is why we landed into what we are but we have just scratched the tip of the iceberg and there is a lot which can be done.
00:19:23
Speaker
So I want to understand how you build great execution, which essentially means great learning outcomes because that is the flywheel, right? Like you have mastered learning outcomes and hence you don't need to burn to acquire customers because there is word of mouth happening. So learning outcomes would probably mean your teachers would be a pivotal part of it. Like what kind of teachers you hire, how you train them, what kind of product do you build for a teacher to teach so that
00:19:50
Speaker
It is easy for her. And how do you monitor what's going on in the classroom? How do you assess student's learning? Tell me about all of that. Yeah.
00:20:01
Speaker
So Akshay, there is a lot of hard work which goes in. It's very easy to say that we will just product the great learning outcome. I think you need to be fanatically obsessed about the customer part, right? So after every class, we just ensured that there should be a clear tangible outcome that what the child learned in that particular class. And we will be very transparent and we communicate that to the parent after each and every class that this is the concept which was taught and this is what
00:20:28
Speaker
The learning outcome is that this is the assignment and this is the homework. So everything has to be very straightforward and transparent with the parent. How do you measure if that learning outcome was actually delivered or not? Like you're not sitting in the class with the teacher. Yes, we also have frequent classes followed by some assignment. And if the child does the assignment, we understand that whether he is able to navigate through the concept or not. So it is not that we teach and we claim that we have taught well. There is a feedback loop which is there.
00:20:57
Speaker
I think assignment would be gamified so that kids are motivated to do those assignments
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, so the gamification angle has to be in each and every aspect. You have to make sure that the child is curious about the subject matter. And if they are curious, they will be able to navigate through the concept. They will be able to learn. So curiosity has to be in the center stage. And for curiosity, you have to make it like gamified and make it entertaining. But ultimately, if they are alert and attentive and curious, they will be able to learn. They have immense power, immense talent.
00:21:30
Speaker
So that is one. On the teacher side, I think the way we treat our teachers is not very transactional. Day one, we believe that if teachers are excited about what they are doing in the class, that is going to be the superpower for our success. And for that, we need to have a sense of community feeling in the teachers. They need to believe that they are part of a university, which is wherein they are a faculty member, rather than getting a feeling that they are a
00:21:55
Speaker
they are contractual staff in a company. And I think that comes with a very inherent belief that we feel that success of Bright Champs is pretty much ingrained in the success of our teachers. And day one, when we started building the academy part, we always said that we are building the biggest university which ever existed on the internet. And you are going to be part of that. And each and every class, each and every child is special and important. So we need to be very careful about
00:22:24
Speaker
every experience we have, we are delivering in different classes. So even if a teacher is knowledgeable and if he or she is not very excited about taking that particular class, the class experience can be below average, right? So it is not about the, just the knowledge co-cent of the teacher. It is also about the excitement factor. It is also about with how much passion he or she is delivering into the classroom.
00:22:45
Speaker
So we made sure that they belong there, they connect with what they are doing and there is a growth path for every teacher. So the feeling of a community was very important and we worked on that from day one rather than treating them very transactionally like a
00:23:00
Speaker
Like a gig worker who does the work and completes and gets some payment. So we don't see it that way. I think teaching is a very profound, very respectable sort of profession. And we take a lot of pride and a lot of glory in terms of saying that we have built one of the most engaged community of teachers across the world in different cultures.
00:23:23
Speaker
If you like to hear stories of founders then we have tons of great stories from entrepreneurs who have built billion dollar businesses. Just search for the founder thesis podcast on any audio streaming app like Spotify, Ghana, Apple Podcasts and subscribe to the show.
00:23:44
Speaker
How did you do that? And how do you give them a career? Like they're not on payroll, right? They are at the end of the day still getting paid per hour like a gig worker would. So how did you show them growth path or make them more deeply engaged beyond just taking it as gig work?
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, so we don't treat teachers as somebody who is just taking the classes and completing hours with us. I think what we, we have thousands of people across different countries and what we believe that apart from teaching, every one of them has unique potential.
00:24:20
Speaker
Some of them would be very good in terms of managing operations. Some of them would be very good in writing content or let's say, or let's say hiring or let's say quality evaluation. So what I'm trying to say is that you need to unleash their potential, right? They are a human being. They are not just supposed to do one type of work. So what we have created is that we have created a community where in
00:24:45
Speaker
We do the curation of people in that community basis, their potential apart from teaching. They also end up doing a number of other things. That's one. And second is that there is a very technology led reward and recognition, which is basically we, we ensure that each and every one of them is getting the right feedback in terms of how do they, how can they do better? Right. It's a very, it's a very.
00:25:08
Speaker
It's not a single line answer from my side, but it's a very deep involved work which has to be done to ensure that they are taken care from multiple sites. And once they find that the company is not treating them just normal teaching a staff, but they are also trying to create a win-win situation around various other things which they are capable of doing, then that becomes deeper connector. And they feel that both in terms of earning
00:25:35
Speaker
and learning and belonging in a good environment wherein they are feeling happy and that becomes the reason of a stickiness for them. So I think it's a tough task to achieve. It's not like one item you do and it gets addressed.
00:25:50
Speaker
But wherever we see such kind of opportunity, I can only say you directionally how we think, right, and how we treat them. And if you do it, do that with the regular sort of effort from your side, most of them will start believing it and that the company truly believes that their success is company success. And then ultimately that creates a flywheel effect in the learning experience in the classroom.
00:26:12
Speaker
Does the student pay for X number of hours of teaching or does the student pay for a certain learning outcome which includes X number of hours of teaching and some platform experiences, like what is the package like for us? The student pays for, so it's not an hourly treatment with the student, it's about pay for, most of the parents they don't understand, they don't have their direct exposure around various things of technology, right? So they, you need to do,
00:26:38
Speaker
We need to help them in terms of what the child should learn. So we take the trial class and we also counsel them in terms of what should be the right combination of things. We have standard solutions where we say that we should start from there and do these models. But then we also have the provision of customized curriculum, which is after three-flow classes. We get to know that the child is like this, and his interest area is this, and he has already learned these things. So there is a customized curriculum for every child which we provide.
00:27:07
Speaker
So there is, we don't want to, we don't want to, as they say that if Henry Ford would have asked people like what do you want, they would have said a stronger horses rather than car. So we don't want to leave that burden to the customer saying that what do you want your child to learn. Being an academic institute, being a net tech company, it's our
00:27:25
Speaker
responsibility to guide them in terms of what they should go through. And if later on, after three, four classes, if we get to know that there is some customization required, then we provide them a customized curriculum from our side.
00:27:38
Speaker
How do you do that at scale? This figuring out customization is required and then customizing it. And is there like an owner for each student, which is one of your, like the teachers, they own the student and then they decide, okay, customization is needed or is it tech decision like driven by tech and analytics or like, how does it happen?
00:27:57
Speaker
Mostly it is technology. So what happens that each and every class is followed by a feedback from the teacher and that feedback gets added to a common system. And then based on that, we have different learning paths designed for various type of students. And then we find the technology figures out the proximity that this child is
00:28:17
Speaker
having this kind of interest and this kind of knowledge already, the best matching learning path will be this, right? The customization happens, customized curriculum is a technology generated, you can say intelligent system which generates that, but it is also basis the feedback which is provided by
00:28:35
Speaker
after every class by the teacher. So there are certain things which we mandate to the teacher that after every class you have to provide this kind of information about the child. And that happens not only in the first four or five classes, that happens for each and every class throughout the year. So that we keep on grabbing the signals in terms of what is happening with the child. And so that is the signal received in the system by the teacher. And then on the other side,
00:28:59
Speaker
Students also submit their assignment and do some interaction with the platform. So that is the signal we receive from the student side. Combining together we begin to know that whether the progress is adequate or not. And how are teachers and children matched? Is it again algorithmically? Like you collect data points about it? We have an OXO engine. We call it internally, which is the matching engine. And we have a lot of signals.
00:29:23
Speaker
Like, for example, if a trial class is happening by a grade three student in the coastal region of Indonesia, who browses the internet in Bahasa language. And so these are the signals. And if we grab it, Oxo Engine figures out that which is the best matching teacher to take the class of this particular child. And out of thousands of teachers of different ethnicity, different culture, the engine basically recommends the best fit. And the assignment of the class happens like that. So this is a very
00:29:50
Speaker
Initially, it was very crude. Now we have gotten into a very sophisticated mode of the Oxo-Indian, which is supply-demand matching at a global level. And there are prediction engines. For example, we know that at this particular hour in a given country, let's say in the Middle East, if there are so many trial class interests happening, maybe the turnout will not be as good as generally it happens because this is the namaste time in that particular country.
00:30:14
Speaker
So what I'm trying to say is that all those signals are very predictively done by the system itself because it's almost impossible to gain insight and knowledge about each and every country and assist that in into the system. But system auto-corrects and auto-evolves basis in the outcome which they are with for. So we have technology dealing with all those things. But most importantly, as I said that we have three lenses of rebuilding our product roadmap.
00:30:39
Speaker
One is for the pinpoints of the customer. Second is for a more efficient economic engine. And third is about adding new life skill verticals. So will the student have different packages then? Like they can choose a like a teacher led package or they can choose a self-learning gamified package or is it going to get bundled into one single product?
00:31:02
Speaker
It will be mostly, we don't want to confuse the customer, right? Or the students. So it will be bundled. And if there are a few things we know we would like to give them as free also, because we want as many people to go through it as possible. So it is not that if you ask a parent, whether you want a child to self-learn or teacher-led learning and whatever, like they will get confused. So it is more about, it is more about bundling them together in a relevant way and then, and then providing that to the market.
00:31:29
Speaker
So your philosophy is somewhat like Apple, you don't want to have too many options for people to get confused. You want to curate the options and present them with what will solve their use case basically.
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I am a strong believer of that. The reason being that I don't think any educational institute say that if you have to learn physics, which chapter do you want to learn, you pick yourself. There is a guided, there is a natural way of learning concepts in a sequence. Otherwise it will become very haphazard. So I believe that they should take the decision that how much they want to spend and for how long they want to get engaged. But after that decision, what exactly you are going to teach in what format?
00:32:07
Speaker
Most of it should be owned by the Jugisman Institute rather than the parent because you are the subject matter expert and there is a better outcome for the child. So that is why we are building and crafting these experiences. And what do these look like? Do they look like the typical games or what are these experiences like? Give me an example if you can paint a picture with words.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, so some of them are like real games, right? Some of them are like, if you are asking about self-learning platform, some of them are like semi-mode, wherein there is some content which you have to consume in video or game format. And after that, there will be some doubt-solving sessions. And so it's a hybrid model. So one by one.
00:32:45
Speaker
So what I'm trying to say, I don't want to pass on this notion that this is exactly only way of doing it right. There are multiple ways. You are dealing with a child who is generally not fixated on the solution side. He's just curious and you can engage him or her in various ways. And we are trying, we are trying a number of techniques. And I think our experiments suggest that games are definitely one exciting way of engaging the child. But beyond a point, it reduces that span.
00:33:10
Speaker
So, you have to have some goal and some game and some milestone and some sort of supervision, semi-supervision. So, all these things combined together, you can actually lead to an optimal outcome. If I just ask like a Coursera like treatment for a child, it will not work because they are not like goal oriented people. They are like, they are living in now, they are living in the present and they are just thinking about what will happen in the present.
00:33:34
Speaker
So I think it's a mix of many things, fingers crossed. I am very excited about what one, what has happened so far in breadchums and what we are building for the future as far as the experience for our users are concerned. I think it's a very exciting thing. But you're selling on a parallel basis or is it like a package cost? Like you, you buy this. It's a package cost, but I was just giving you a sense in terms of our class price. So what would be a package for the world? And it depends.
00:34:02
Speaker
The smallest course, which is the accelerator course, is like three and a half months. And the price for that will be close to 25,000 rupees. Okay. And this would not really depend on ours because you can have more gamified experiences in it and whatever. So the ours is not really linked to the package pricing. We guarantee that there will be 30 minimum 30 sessions in that particular course, right? Yeah.
00:34:29
Speaker
So that number of teacher ads remains the same irrespective of what gamification you add on. Those are like value ads for student success. Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. And how will you bring down the price for India? What's the strategy there? Like how will you create a mass market product for India?
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think you need to have very strong technology for that. You need to have a platform wherein you provide a classroom experience at a mass level. At the same time, you have the personalization being taken care at an equal to one level for every student. It is a deep learning platform experience. We have done a few experiments already.
00:35:09
Speaker
And I think it is possible. So if you truly ask me, even if you degrade, so compared to one is to one learning experience where in the child has to pay, let's say $10 a class, if you degrade the experience by let's say 10% and reduce the price by let's say, let's say 75%, right? Then I think that will be the point of time when I think the MVP for India will be ready. And that requires
00:35:37
Speaker
various analytics and various sort of integration of capturing of user behavior from both the sides teacher and student and providing a tech-led response rather than people-led response in the learning platform. So it's a tough uphill task to achieve, but I think those are the things I enjoy the most and we are on it.
00:36:00
Speaker
When you lost in Middle East your teachers were from India or like where did you source the teachers from? Initially it was from India but now we have teachers from more than 10 countries. So right now you're teacher neutral. Teacher can come from any country. Your algorithm will match them to the students. So if that teacher is in demand then she will get more hours or if that algorithm is unable to match her then she will not get those many hours.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah. So it's not that anybody can join us. We basically bring the teacher of ourself. We train them. We help them understand the entire system and provide a quality learning experience. It's not that it's not a free open marketplace, right? Yeah. So it is like a managed marketplace where in the quality notion is owned by the platform, right? So if anything goes off, as far as the experience of the customer is concerned, we are the, we are responsible, right? And we take a lot of pride in, in taking that responsibility.
00:36:55
Speaker
But what I'm trying to say is that it's a multivariate problem. So now we have in the system on the supply side, we have people from different countries, different languages, different culture, different type of knowledge. We have teachers. We have hundreds of teachers teaching financial literacy, who are generally the chartered accountant or finance MBA graduates. We have teachers who can teach technology. We have teachers who can speak in Bahasa, who can speak in Arabic, who can speak in French.
00:37:24
Speaker
So the engine has improved to a level wherein the supply demand matching is happening at a sophisticated level. But then more importantly, what I'm trying to say is that we don't invite any random person to be a teacher in right jams. It has to be well curated by us and trained by us. Only if they qualify our inference criteria, then only they can get into the system.
00:37:46
Speaker
And how do you source teachers? Because like my wife is a teacher and so I've been around teachers for the last 10-12 years. Teachers are typically risk averse. Most teachers in my wife's circle would never really be comfortable doing a gig job where they don't get fixed salary and all that. So how did you overcome that challenge?
00:38:06
Speaker
I think you need to provide a lot of evidence that why should they not believe like that. By default, they will believe like that. I understand your point. But then anybody who has spent like two, three months in right jump, they get to know that what's the style of dealing with teachers in right jumps.
00:38:23
Speaker
The moment they get a taste of being in a community, being not only utilized for teaching, but also various other important things, which is important for the organization. They think that it's about unleashing their true potential rather than just using them as a gig worker. So I think a lot of teachers get sourced using referral, because people who are already in, they know the experience and they bring in other people. So that is one.
00:38:50
Speaker
And second is that we also reach out to people in the market and we have a strong filtering criteria in terms of hiring. And that is another source. But what I'm trying to say is that till the time somebody has not seen the ecosystem of right chance, they will believe the other way.
00:39:05
Speaker
because most of the other company treated them that way. But once they come, they get to know that the style and approach is different.
Community Building and Organizational Growth
00:39:12
Speaker
And of course, I'm not claiming that we have done every bit which we could have done. There are so many things which are there in the plan and additional things which we are doing for the teacher success. And it's an ever-growing process. But I think the approach is very different. We don't just use them as an hourly workers. We treat them as a teacher. We respect them as a teacher. And we utilize not only for teaching, but various other things.
00:39:34
Speaker
So you would probably have some sort of landing page for teachers as well, where you would have testimonials of other teachers for their trust building and things like that. Yeah, we have a bridegum community for platforms for teachers wherein they can connect with each other. There is a whole lot of facilitation you can take for the teacher side of things.
00:39:59
Speaker
Okay. Tell me about your customer acquisition channels. What is the split? How many leads come from SEO based organic? How many leads come from performance marketing? How many are coming from word of mouth? Yeah. So rather than I'm not sure, rather than just talking in terms of number, because numbers keep on changing in different countries in different months. I think we had started with a lot of reliance upon performance marketing.
00:40:23
Speaker
That channel, of course, right now is a prominent channel, but affiliate and referral and organically it's have started contributing more. On the non-performance marketing side, we have close to 35% contribution on the non-performance side and we have started focusing strongly on the SEO, YouTube and all those pieces. So we are looking forward to have 50% contribution from the non-performance side. And we are very close to that. I think we may cross that particular number.
00:40:54
Speaker
How much does, what is your customer acquisition cost on an average? Again, it depends upon different country. It is different for US, it is different for Southeast Asia. We generally have a mindset that more than worrying about
00:41:11
Speaker
the customer acquisition cost worry about you by CAC ratio and optimize on that. And the whole point is that even if the CAC is low and the engagement duration is low, then there is no fun. If the CAC is low and LTV is high, then it's awesome. If the CAC is high and the child is getting engaged for three years rather than one year, then also it doesn't, it's not very bad. So we, our plan is more about how do we improve the engagement level of the child so that the child
00:41:37
Speaker
When we had started, when we had launched Bright Champs, it was more about the average engagement duration of the child was five to six months. Right now that has gone close to a year. And we have an entire roadmap that how do we engage with the child on an average more than close to two years. So we have to increase that by a hundred percent.
00:41:56
Speaker
And the more you engage that know the better is the outcome. So what I'm trying to say is that CAC in isolation is not a very healthy metric to see. Of course, that has to be as low as possible. But what do you have to say is that if you are acquiring and engaging the child for a relevant longer duration, then the increase in CAC is not going to bite you hard. So you have to see that where for me, LTV by CAC ratio is an important piece. And what is that like the LTV by CAC ratio?
00:42:24
Speaker
We had started being close to three and we have now planned to reach to close to five. And the idea is that I'm just talking about one course, but when we start doing cross-selling and many other things, I think it will lead to a much better outcome, which is already happening, like financial literacy. A lot of people who are taking the technology courses, they are landing into financial literacy course. So LTV increases for the child, right?
00:42:49
Speaker
So your plan to make a two-year engagement and that is by cross-selling other courses or just like that technology literacy itself becoming a two-year engagement? Both ways. So I think a child who is in grade four has taken some course and that doesn't mean that he has become expert in everything related to technology.
00:43:09
Speaker
There is, there are excites. So once the child has developed some interest for something, can we provide a specialization course in that particular area? So that is one. And second is that cross selling around, if the child finds that the other aspects, it's not only about, I keep on saying that we are a platform synonym to high quality education around important life skills, not only technology. So if that is the case that we provide to, we try to provide the exposure on various other things also, the child being interested.
00:43:34
Speaker
Then, of course, the engagement level accordingly improves. Okay. And tell me about the organization building for Bright Champs. Like, obviously technology is something which you could lead, but what about like an academics? Did you need to bring on an academician in the early days? Or tell me about that journey of building the leadership out.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think I was very fortunate and lucky in terms of having few initial folks who came with a very similar mindset with a lot of passion and ownership, right? And those guys were mostly like very high in energy, second time entrepreneur.
00:44:15
Speaker
And they knew from day one that what it takes to build a scalable organization. So I can tell you that if you can check our Glassdoor rating, you will find that we are the best in the class amongst all the IT companies. We didn't have a designated people function or HR function for quite some time, but we are considering so much together.
00:44:34
Speaker
There is a common belief in the company that a superstar team is better than a team of superstars. And we all work together. So that way, I think the first top 30-40 people in the right chance, we had an unfair advantage in terms of bringing them in at the right time. And the company got a much better traction. Ultimately, your outcome is dependent upon the kind of people you have in the company.
00:44:57
Speaker
culturally I feel that a lot of people we strongly believe in the purpose that we are here not to build a company which is just for valuation or just for some sort of number but we are here to build a company which is long-term iconic company which is known for its purpose for which we had started and for that it is important that so like every statement every communication on our slack channel we threw up by us or through through various other boards we keep on saying that
00:45:26
Speaker
We are committed to become the best tech company in the world. So what I'm trying to say is that there is a lot of, a lot of common connect and a lot of, a lot of passion at that level. And I was just lucky if you ask me a formula that how did that happen? I don't know what's the formula. It's just that maybe God bless us with the right set of people. That's one.
00:45:46
Speaker
And then the second thing is that we define our cultural values very clearly. And we keep on saying that we believe in meritocracy, we believe in PPP, which is people product and profit in the same order of priority. We believe in bias for action, right? We believe in high ownership. Those things we have repeatedly communicated and inculcated that in every walk of life. And that has become the core DNA of the company. We had no other way, there was no other way of growing the company. As I said to you earlier that we were growing organically, we had no external source of funding.
00:46:15
Speaker
So, we could only grow more compared to other funded setups because of our passion and because of our better experience which we are providing in the market. Otherwise, we had no chance to win just by money. So, we solved the problem using passion and using high ownership and using customer centricity, right? And that I think has become the core DNA of the company. It's easier said than done, but I find that there was a bit of a strategy, there was a bit of deliberation, there was a bit of luck.
00:46:44
Speaker
all combined together. But what does the headcount consist of? The on payroll, how many are doing sales, how many are in academics, how many are in tech and so on.
00:46:57
Speaker
Yeah, so we are close to as of now, this counts are changing very rapidly, right? Because we are acquiring companies. So what I'm trying to say, these numbers are dynamic, but as of now, we have close to 225 people and significant number of payroll cost and account is in product technology, design, marketing and content. And, and, and there are other functions also there are like important functions where in
00:47:25
Speaker
they are also very important to have a better long-term sustainable business. Things like people function, things like finance and so everywhere we have invested. But we are not a company wherein, how do I say it, even if you are curious to know that, is it like to achieve this kind of level of success? Do we have 500 people working in the sales department? Is like sales, I think we call it counseling team, not sales team. The counseling team is there, but we
00:47:51
Speaker
We reached to that level of growth with close to 100 people. And while many other places to achieve the same level of growth, people have gone to 700, 800, 1000 level of ad count. So we have tried to optimize wherever possible using technology. And that is the thesis. That is the approach we follow everywhere. Yeah.
00:48:11
Speaker
So it's not a very high-touch sales. You're trying to have more self-checkout happening. Yeah, mostly. Like many of the country's sales don't have, in most of the country, they don't have any direct access to the customer. They can't even call them.
00:48:24
Speaker
Tell me about the acquisition strategy. Yeah, so inorganic growth is a very important, important piece of growth for bright jams. I think we are strictly positioned as a company. In a stage we are rightly, we are growing fast and there is a significant headroom for us to grow further. So any operator, any founder or any setup where they feel that we can become
00:48:45
Speaker
better together, right? They are most welcome at bright champs, right? The approach which we are taking is that either we are a query company who which can give us head start in launching a new vertical related to any important life skill across the world or like financial literacy, like robotics or communication or anything, but which basically aligns with our vision or theme of the company.
00:49:05
Speaker
Or the second is that we are keen to acquire companies which are product-led distribution union, which can give us unfair advantage in terms of building a strong distribution layer using product or platform. That is the second type of... What do you mean by this? Can you give an example? Product-led...
00:49:22
Speaker
For example, if there is a platform in a country which is a gaming platform wherein kids are coming and signing up to play that game, which is an educational game, that gives us a lot of user acquisition of the funnel. So the companies which can give us a distribution runway
00:49:40
Speaker
that is also a very important thing or third one is that companies which can give us more deeper penetration in a given market like for example we are growing very fast in Indonesia so any company which is can give us access to schools or partnership with the local players over there those kind of setups are also welcome. So either this would be like an offline coaching center or like what would this third type be give me an example
00:50:06
Speaker
Not necessarily offline. There could be a company in, let's say, Indonesia. They understand their school ecosystem and they are doing it like maybe online-offline way. But they are finding it is struggling beyond a point. The local knowledge and our aspirations combined together, we can have a better runway, a better interest in the country. So that kind of opportunity also we are open for.
00:50:28
Speaker
Okay, got it. Would you ever look at expanding beyond this core of life skills for K-12? Like for example, say test preparation and there are so many lucrative areas in the tech market. Would those come into play? Not short term obviously, but I'm asking like a long term question. Yeah, long term anything is possible, but short term a couple of years, I want to be focused on what we are doing. And as I told you that our approach is not that we are changing revenue, we are not acquiring people to add revenue.
00:50:58
Speaker
We are not acquiring company to add revenue. We are acquiring companies to solve relevant problems. So what I'm trying to say is, for a stable future we want to remain focused and we want to be known as a platform which is known into high quality education around important life skills. After we reach to a certain stage, after that, of course, you need to recalibrate your aspiration and accordingly navigate the market.
00:51:20
Speaker
So it's not that I'm never saying that we will never ever enter into those things. So those are also very interesting areas, but not for near future. And what about something like, say, language, say in Indonesia, I'm sure kids would benefit from learning spoken English as a way to open up global careers. And would that be... That aligns with our theme and hence we will do that.
00:51:43
Speaker
That would be, again, best done through an acquisition, because there are a lot of very mature companies in this language space. Yeah, should we evaluate basis how much head start we are getting? And what's the stage of what kind of founders are there? Are they like-minded people? And multiple factors. But if you get an interesting proposition, we are definitely open. And we are already doing some acquisition in that line, right? In few of the countries. And the announcement is going to happen very soon.
00:52:11
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. And when do you think you will need to raise the next round of funding? See, I think that's the least of worry for Brightshams as of now, because we have been growing organically. You mentioned $63 million. We have not even, even if I consider everything, given that we are in ag tech business, where in people pay upfront, we have hardly used any money, which we have used, which we have raised so far. But if we go very strong and very fast on the inorganic acquisition side, it may end up raising.
00:52:40
Speaker
I think the scenario will become very clear in a couple of months time. I think we will have a much better clarity on the inorganic path. For the organic growth, we don't need money as of now. We have like many years of runway already lying in the bank. And only when if we go very strong on inorganic, we may end up raging. So the answer is it depends.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. But the core product is profitable. That say 25,000 you are charging from a child, there would be some like reasonable amount of cash flow left over after paying for cost of acquisition, cost of teachers. Yeah. So mostly all across the journey, we have been mostly a bit upholstering. You are also like an active angel investor. So what is the thesis that you have? What is your as an investor?
00:53:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think again, I have been fortunate to be in a network because most of my life I have been a tech guy. So I was blessed to have a network of people who are very passionate about technology and doing, and they are doing interesting things in different verticals. My thesis of angel investment is to, one is I only do investment in those areas, which
00:53:51
Speaker
I understand, so I don't do investments in unknown territories. There could be a number of interesting things in the world happening, but if I don't understand it, I don't get into it. So that if I'm doing an angel investment, I should be able to help the founder or the company in a relevant way, if there is a need. So that is one, and that is why most of my investment had been around either EdTech or
00:54:17
Speaker
or crypto, which is a very interesting and fascinating area. I personally follow and read and learn about that particular world a lot or fintech. But something which is completely beyond my awareness and knowledge arena, I generally don't get into that. The second thing is that
00:54:35
Speaker
I, it's also a vehicle of learning for myself because you get to get in touch with a lot of founders who are high in energy doing interesting things that also helps you all as a person and you think in a, in a non-conventional way. And these are the people who are creating and building the future. So my motivation is to one, invest in relevant areas where in a, I can add value personally to the founder and the company, and also in return learn few things from them. And so far it has been.
00:55:05
Speaker
very exciting journey on the Agile Universe build side also. Even that I had a network always, a lot of interesting people, they come with very interesting ideas and I get thrilled when I hear that so many interesting things are nowadays happening in India. So that is the approach.
00:55:21
Speaker
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