Earlier we wrote about the creation of the idea and the history of the development of EduDo , how EduDo attracted investments , about its first release on the market , and how it became the product of the week on Product Hunt .

After the new release, we again contacted EduDo founder Yuri Shlaganov to be one of the first to talk about the changes in the project. 

“We have always positioned ourselves as a platform with developing content and set the goal of simplifying the process of self-development. In December 2020, MVP on iOS was released, since then we have attracted more than 30 thousand users and 100 content creators, “raised” $500,000 Pre-seed investment, became Product Hunt mobile app of the year, collected feedback from users, product metrics and – we decided to change direction and make a pivot, ”said Yuri.

What is the essence of the update?

The goal of EduDo 2.0 remains the same, but the concept will be different. If earlier we created a TikTok-style application with educational content, now we are creating a platform for asynchronous discussions in video format.

Why did you decide to upgrade radically?

For the growth of any platform on which users generate content, they need a clear mechanics of their interaction and an answer to the question: “Why should I publish content here?”. It is important for us that users not only come to our application in search of insights, but also stay, come again and again to learn new things, learn something, share opinions and get feedback. In other words, the ability to discuss in the most native format gives users more motivation to come to EduDo.

After the first launch, we analyzed our Retention and realized that there was potential: of the users who found value for themselves and showed it at least once with some kind of social action (like, comment, share or subscribe), almost 34% remained on the platform after first month. Such Retention for Consumer Social platforms is very good, for example, for Snapchat and TikTok, these figures are 26% and 23%, respectively.

However, such users accounted for a little more than 13% of the total number who visited the platform at least once. From which we concluded that in order to increase the number of people who come to us, do something and eventually stay, you need to: firstly, involve users in discussions, and secondly, reduce the time interval between when a user enters to the app and our “a-ha!” moment (finding the kind of content that will make you want to do a social action). 

One could do this in an extensive way – focus on the user profile of those who find relevant content for themselves faster, attract only them and stimulate them to create content for each other in the future. However, in this way, we would limit ourselves to the upside – the opportunity for potential growth. Therefore, a different path was chosen – with the search for a clearer mechanics of user interaction, which will not only give them clear rules of the game and more value, but also will not limit us in growth.

To do this, it was decided to do two things: ensure a constant flow of content from users and make it as easy as possible for them to find content that is relevant to them. In order to cope with the first task, it was necessary to offer users crystal-clear mechanics of interaction on the platform – and discussions in the format of short videos were chosen as such mechanics.

Our new concept potentially solves the second problem – finding relevant content. Everything is very simple here: more content on the platform – a higher probability that the user will find among it relevant to himself.

Why now?

Each new idea must be implemented in a timely manner. It doesn’t matter what innovative idea you have if the market is not ready to accept it. For example, the first tablets appeared in the early 90s and no one needed them at all.

If someone had started to make a platform based on the concept of communication through video two or three years ago, it would have failed for sure – people were not ready to film themselves every day in the daily rhythm. Now more than a billion people are filming TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram stories, video messages in instant messengers – communication through video is becoming not a simple part of our lives, but mainstream. And we can ride this wave.

What is the essence of the new format? 

People have always liked to discuss something. Now the most common format is text – when in social networks, on forums and platforms such as Reddit, Twitter, or Facebook, people share opinions and discuss ideas. But the point is that text is inherently more effective for conveying data, statistics, or facts, but not for emotion. Despite the use of stickers or emoticons in the text, it is impossible to fully convey what the interlocutor feels at the moment and show his intonation. 

We believe that video will be more effective for sharing opinions, as it allows you to create the effect of presence, which inspires more trust and, therefore, more fruitful discussions. 

Why asynchronous discussions?

We thought about many variations of digital discussions and came to the conclusion that in the real world, synchronous communication is not always convenient – people have a very fast pace of life. Instead of calls, we often use audio or text messages that the interlocutor can watch or listen to when he has time. There is even such a concept as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), or missed profit syndrome, when we constantly think that we missed something important. 

We want to relieve our users of this feeling – asynchronous communication will allow them to participate in discussions and receive information regardless of where they are and how much time they have. It also gives you extra time to think before answering – and it also leads to more fruitful discussions.

This is not to say that we have completely changed the way the platform works – rather, this is a radical update, since there is already a user base that we really appreciate and do not want to lose. Just when entering the old version, users will be prompted to upgrade, so they will not lose their data and they do not need to register again.

To some extent, our platform will be a combination of TikTok and Reddit: after launching the application, you will be immersed in a TikTok-like feed that will offer you various discussions on topics of interest. In it, you can create discussions (threads), leave video comments in other people’s threads, vote for your favorite comment or topic, bookmark, browse content and subscribe to its author. 

The thread will remain in the feed as long as it receives new comments. They will also be sorted by engagement received from users – upvotes, saves, and so on. To understand which users give more value to others, we are introducing a karma system. The user gets karma for every upvote on their videos, as well as for every comment in the thread they started. Here, motivation and a competitive spirit will also work for us – the opportunity to get different levels-ranks and get into the leaderboard will only stir up the interest of users and trigger them to be more active.

Will there be an emphasis on a new topic, previously you mainly focused on Wellness, Beauty & Fashion, Health, Soft Skills?

A new theme will be required. We analyzed the interests of our users very deeply based on the collected qualitative (user interviews) and quantitative (metrics, questionnaires) data and noticed that content about technology, space and the future involved our users several times more than other topics. 

Therefore, now we are focusing on people interested in the technology field. In addition, such an audience is one of the best to attract at the start, because they have a “hunger” for new products, they understand and are ready to tolerate some flaws that are always there at the beginning, and are also ready to give high-quality feedback.

We plan to attract them, including through collaboration with influencers — and this is not only about content creators, but rather about respected personalities from the world of technology (venture fund partners, successful entrepreneurs, community leaders, and others). We are partnering with influencers from major US technology centers (Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Miami, Austin, and Seattle) to accelerate building the backbone of our community.

Who can be called your competitors?

There is a certain specificity in the Consumer Social vertical – you simultaneously compete with all social networks, and with no one. This is because social networks are so complex that it is very difficult to say what specific problem each of them solves.

The closest in spirit and purpose to existing solutions are discussion platforms like Reddit and Clubhouse, Q&A platforms like Brainly and Quora, and next-generation social networks like TikTok and Snapchat. 

It is difficult to estimate the exact size of the market we are entering, but it is undoubtedly huge. This is confirmed by several trends:

• the demand for self-development is growing, and growing rapidly – research suggests that 87% of social media users subscribe to content authors to learn something new;
• there is also a growing demand for digital discussions. Let’s leave out the rather well-worn example of Clubhouse’s explosive growth, as it was driven not only by the demand for discussions in new formats, but also by the strategy of exclusivity that they masterfully applied, having direct access to the stars of the technology market. The dynamics are best reflected by the growth of Reddit – the 16-year-old platform, in fact, the old man in the social media market, grew by 23% in 2020 and entered the Top 3 fastest growing platforms , second only to TikTok and Snapchat.

Are you planning to make EduDo 2.0 for Android? 

Unfortunately, not yet – this requires resources that are now focused on more important tasks: testing the main hypothesis and searching for Product / Market Fit. Yes, we understand that Android device owners (and, as a result, our plans to scale in markets where Android prevails) will have to wait a bit – and we will try to launch our application for them as soon as possible after we find a growth point and understand how to scale.

How many people are on the EduDo team?

We are 15 people, conditionally divided into 2 areas: product-technical and marketing. The team is a bit scattered around the world, but the two main centers of attraction are Minsk, where it all started, and Kyiv, where a significant part of the employees is located. 

What are your plans for the future?

We made a soft launch ( a preliminary release of a product or service for a limited audience, a kind of rehearsal before a full launch – Startup Jedi) and have already begun to receive the first feedback from the market in search of Product/Market Fit. At the same time, we are “raising” a round of $500,000, which will allow us to attract more than 100 thousand users, find Product / Market Fit and prepare for raising a big Seed round in the middle of next year. 

Despite the fact that we started active fundraising only a month ago, there are already several dialogues at a fairly advanced stage and a hard commit from one of the early investors who believed in our new vision and made sure that we, as a team, are ready to implement it. Our big goal is to create a global smart community, making the exchange process as intuitive as possible. 

Everything is simple here – the main difference between a startup and a regular digital business is the goal. The sole purpose of a startup at an early stage is to find and validate a working and scalable business model, the rest is secondary.

In the vast majority of cases, such a model is not found the first time, so pivots are not just normal, they are almost mandatory for any startup. And being afraid of change and uncertainty when you create a startup is like being afraid of water if you want to learn how to swim (most likely you will, but overcoming this fear is critical, otherwise nothing will work out).