 "She started WONK, an edtech start-up, and here's her journey so far")
My family has no VC or start-up or experience. I had some tough times wading through this new, complex maze.
My challenge was compounded by what I had read and heard: namely, that achieving success as a start-up in the field of education technology (edtech) will be extremely difficult & painstaking.
Personally, I’ve always had a positive outlook towards life. Challenges and hurdles tend to bring the best out of me; in fact, I find life monotonous without any victories to be conquered. I thought that the opportunity is huge and vacant. Definitely worth a shot! What’s the worst that could happen? I lose hard-earned money, give up a few years of professional corporate growth, and face bouts of depression.
I got down to conducting extensive market research: I contacted parents and students in my network. I also spoke to a number of teachers and tutors to understand their technology requirements. Then, I used a drawing product to design an offering not available in the country, and as per my research on the Play Store, possibly not even across the world.
After a series of deliberations and brainstorming sessions with my co-founders, we developed WONK: India’s first tutor discovery and tuition booking app. Significant time had to be spent on technology and testing, as it was the first of its kind to be developed. The biggest challenge – now probably our biggest intellectual property – was to permit a user to book multiple classes over the course of the year so as to study the full course. Booking a one-off session is easy, but trying to slot 100 classes is tricky. We did our best and enabled a tuition booking within three clicks.
This article was published on Tech In Asia. You can read it here.