4 Years ago, everything seemed so uncertain.
There was Cindy, my son’s teacher, who told me that she would never use an app to communicate with parents. She was afraid it would be too intrusive, inaccessible, and she felt fine about sending home notes and printing numerous copies. There were the investors who told us that the education market was too small, practically impossible to break into, and that we wouldn’t be able to really scale up like a startup is expected to. And then there were also all those who didn’t want us to succeed because we were disrupting long-established conventions. We gave teachers the opportunity to choose their own tool instead of imposing an outdated Digital Work Space (French version of a Learning Management System) that no one ever really wanted to use in the first place …
We gave it our best shot.
We listened to Cindy and were considerate of her concerns. We created a simple, instantaneous and secure App, easily accessible by all parents to reinforce the indispensable communication needed between schools and families, while still respecting Cindy’s privacy and her right to disconnect.
We understood that education was not FinTechs’ El Dorado, market access is difficult, slow, complicated and not always logical. To work in this sector, you have to be driven by something else … By offering a service essentially free for schools and parents with premium options (with more professional features for schools, a yearbook, premium/nice to have options and features for parents), we were able to bypass this aspect of Edtech. Klassroom is now doing well and growing quickly in the world of education, without becoming completely dependent of the market and its complexities.
Finally, we understood that the user must be at the center of everything, Love cannot be bought. If a user doesn’t like what you’re offering, it won’t be used, period. You can’t try to force it, it won’t happen. On the other hand, if a user likes your product and agrees with your vision, they will gladly use it and share their enthusiasm about it!
Today Cindy uses Klassroom. She even convinced the ten other classes in her school to switch over. In her class, everything changed, relationships with parents, their involvement, the atmosphere in her class. Klassroom now has 20 dedicated people on the team and a few awesome investors. We expect to break even in 2021. The app is used in 35 countries and we just reached 1 million users.
Thank you to all the early adopters of Klassroom who gave us a chance by believing in us from the beginning. I also want to Thank those who criticized us. Even if this isn’t necessarily their intention, they push us to give the best of ourselves, to maintain high standards, to constantly reinvent ourselves and strengthen our determination.
1 million users is already quite a step, but it is just the beginning!
25 French unicorns in 5 years? How about us? 🦄🇫🇷
