Rashmi Guptey
1st February 2022
Harish Talreja
25th January 2022
Sid Talwar
31st December 2021
Ankit Moorjani
30th June 2021
20th January 2024
Sandeep Murthy
17th March 2022
1st January 2020
20th November 2017
7th June 2022
15th May 2022
17th February 2022
28th November 2023
Prashant Mehta
2nd February 2022
22nd September 2021
30th August 2021
15th March 2022
21st January 2022
14th January 2022
4th October 2024
5th August 2024
25th June 2024
20th December 2023
20th October 2021
25th April 2021
Akshat Jain
12th February 2021
31st May 2020
Tanya Rohatgi
19th August 2024
20th June 2024
Siddhant Ahuja
25th April 2022
14th February 2022
2nd June 2018
5th June 2024
15th February 2024
9th February 2024
26th May 2022
1st February 2024
20th November 2020
Shivani Daiya
20th February 2020
17th August 2014
18th July 2019
17th September 2021
15th September 2021
Maansi Vohra
28th January 2021
Atharva Purandare
10th January 2021
Tanvi Ghate
23rd January 2024
Ahan Rajgor
12th May 2022
8th March 2022
22nd February 2022
22nd August 2024
29th July 2024
5th June 2022
5th May 2022
16th April 2021
15th November 2014
25th October 2021
8th March 2020
7th August 2018
27th December 2016
17th February 2021
29th September 2020
24th September 2020
26th July 2020
20th January 2020
15th October 2018
26th June 2018
13th June 2017
21st May 2024
13th February 2024
15th July 2024
10th April 2024
20th February 2024
Product evolution plays a crucial role in the decision on how best to monetize. And that’s the Embibe story.
The last time I wrote about pivoting, I used our portfolio company, Embibe, as an example. I ended the article saying, “I can’t wait to see what Embibe does next!”
Of course, I had absolutely no idea what I was in for at the time!
In the story, I had concentrated mainly on how Embibe pivoted their business model, finally ending up making the product free and then slowly thinking through how best to monetise. They wanted as large a consumer base as possible to access their product, but didn’t want to stop the evolution of the product to support early monetization. A tight rope many product companies are familiar with in India and around the world.
What I didn’t discuss at the time, was how large a part product evolution needs to play in the eventual decision on how best to monetize. And that’s the Embibe story. They first decided to concentrate on making sure they were solving the biggest problem possible, which they decided was learning outcomes, not practice. Practice, they said, had become a commodity. You can’t succeed by trying to monetize a commodity. The best way to make money is on your own IP. And, in order to do that, Embibe went back to their roots as a technology company, focussing on using AI and data to help support outcomes.
The story changed from content consumption to learning outcomes. And today, Embibe guarantees improvement based on effort. The result: the platform is driving 55% + score improvement across some of the hardest exams in the country.
Slowly, they started seeing students spending more and more time on the platform; they saw teachers get more interested in applications like generating tests (where Embibe crunches millions of parameters for questions) or generating personalized practice packs for students; they saw parents give more credit to the platform for their children’s score improvements. And all this led to a series of accolades including them winning the Amazon award for best AI company in education in 2017.
And if outcomes was at the core of their philosophy, then it needed to be at the core of their monetization road map as well. They needed to put their money where their mouth was, so to say. And that’s exactly what they did.
Today, content consumption is free at Embibe. They only charge for learning outcomes and personalization. And that focus has jumped started revenue this past financial year, after nearly 18 months of very limited revenue.
So, how did Embibe answer my question from nearly two years ago? By going back to their core philosophy, doubling down on what they knew was the most critical aspect of their product, and believing that when the product delivered value, monetization would follow.
This next year is going to bear the fruits of that labour and I’m looking forward to it!
Like many good stories, it all started over a beer after a game of Rugby.
The more I look at the kinds of things that the government wants to do with education, the more it occurs to me how important a role technology needs to be playing in the implementation process.
Your Product Is Your Business Model. Changes in one impact the other and in the best cases they play off each other.
People spend on education because of employability. Employability leads to a better livelihood, a better quality of life. You don’t get to that kind of prosperity via MOOCS; you get there via cracking massively competitive exams. The world of exam prep has stayed largely offline, and it presents a very interesting opportunity. Technology coupled with data science can have a very meaningful impact on those exams.
You will receive the next newsletter in your inbox.
The monthly Gazette is your source of happenings within Lightbox - updates, blogs, deep dives, opinion pieces and all things consumer tech
Join the thousands who hear from us