Using Game-based Pedagogy to Encourage Interactive Learning SplashLearn claims to have benefitted over 40 million students in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand, and is currently working on its India strategy
By S Shanthi
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Launched in 2010, SplashLearn claims that its content today completely revamps the existing curriculum and provides immersive content with rich context, embedded instructions within games, meaningful interactions, and innovative in-game manipulatives.
So far, SplashLearn has benefitted over 40 million students in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand, and is currently working on its India strategy to align the content to the local curriculum.
The startup's online subscription-based business model allows it to run a low-cost, high-margin business (80 per cent gross margin) thereby allowing it to grow profitably. And, with each new subscriber on board, the cost of content creation per subscriber reduces, thereby widening the scope of innovation.
In 2018, we moved from a 'one-time' payment app to a subscription model - from $10 for a lifetime to $10 per month. This the startup claims made its unit economics stronger. Its product is offered free to teachers and schools across the world. However, parents need to subscribe to use it at home.
"We made the product free for schools and teachers to use worldwide. This not only helped us make quality education accessible to every child, but eventually, it also became another channel for us to build awareness amongst parents," says Arpit Jain, CEO, SplashLearn.
In early 2020, SplashLearn launched online tutoring which has grown into an important vertical contributing 20 per cent of the revenue in a short span of time. "We have always believed in building a good product that speaks for itself and grows organically through word of mouth. Once a learner enters the SplashLearn ecosystem, they stick around for the quality and the value they get out of it," says Jain.
The company claims that more than 80 per cent of its subscribers come via organic channels. "This is the reason that SplashLearn has been profitable from the very beginning," Jain adds.
The startup plans to add 3x new team members between 2022 and 2025, in line with its plan for global, especially Asian and Indian market expansion. SplashLearn currently targets PreK-5 Math and reading. In the next three years, its plan is to target the entire K-12 segment and add more subjects such as financial literacy, science, and coding for both the digital learning program as well as tutoring.
