Just as startups, and even big established companies, are trying desperately to stay afloat in the face of the lockdown, there is a sector that has taken off exponentially amidst this global crisis.
Not difficult to guess that it is the ed-tech companies that are seeing a massive surge in their user base. With the schools and colleges shut, students and the teaching community have taken to the virtual world with a vengeance.
Sensing the opportunity, many ed-tech companies, including Byju’s, Toppr and Vedantu, are offering free access to their platforms.
Industry insiders say that there is an impressive rise in the user onboarding. "The challenge now is to make the most of this momentum in the future," a source in the industry said.
"While acquiring customers/users is fine, the industry as such needs to work on building evidence on the efficacy of our products," the source added.
Scaling up is the challenge
There is a general scepticism about the effectiveness of online classes and tutorial material, and industry is now working to ensure that the public develops enough confidence in their working methods.
Companies are now actively involved in intensely studying the huge datasets generated in the lockdown period and are fine-tuning their strategies and hoping to scale up their business.
Scaling up is one of the weak areas of the companies so far. And despite there being potential for Indian startups to offer products for the international market --- remember English is one of the strengths of the Indian education scenario --- there has been nothing of that sort so far.
The ed-tech sector in India has over 4,400 startups. It is said to be the third in the world, behind the US and China. India also has Byju's which is one of the highly valued startups in the industry.
More students from Tier 2 and 3 cities
In the Indian market itself, these companies have barely scratched the surface. The market size of the school segment is huge in India --- 35% of the 1.3 billion population is below 15 years of age. It surely means that there is immense scope for scaling up. But lack of trust in technology-based education amongst parents is one of the areas that these companies have to address quickly if they intend ramping up their market quickly.
By opening up their platforms for free, the companies are now getting the trial and mindshare they were not able to earlier. It is the right time to slowly but surely nudge the people towards e-learning. "If not now, when can we bring in a behavioural change among the students and parents?" the source asked.
With more students enrolling from tier 2 and 3 cities, the companies can also come up with newer and more efficient products to match the various needs of a diverse market. This is the right time to establish the efficacy of the methods and modules, the source said.
