Backed by Ola’s Ankit Bhati, this edtech startup by IIT Delhi alumni aims to empower children in small towns with spoken English

India is home to over 19,500 languages and dialects, but if you are not an English language speaker, chances are you might have a hard time fitting in at top tier universities and multinational companies. 

During their corporate work life, Ishan Gupta and Aarti Gupta noticed that being able to converse in English, having good interpersonal communication skills, and cognitive ability makes a huge difference in succeeding at a workplace. They noticed that lack of such skills was impeding the career growth of many colleagues hailing from non-metros. 

“This was because of the country’s education system, which is heavily focused on academics. In some cases, even if these towns have the facilities, affordability becomes a major challenge,” Aarti says.

This prompted the duo, both IIT-Delhi alumni, to take on the entrepreneurial path by launching Qin1, to impart life skills to Tier II and III cities, and other smaller towns in India.

The aim was to equip the target population with industry relevant skills, and through that, a successful career. A larger vision also played in the duo’s mind - lessening the class divide to the extent possible. 

Founded in 2019, Qin1 is now backed by Venture Catalyst; Ankit Bhati, Co-founder and CTO of Ola, and Mitesh Shah, Head of Finance at Bookmyshow, all of whom made an undisclosed amount of funding in the startup.

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How does Qin1 work?

The Noida-based startup works with college-going and university students hailing from similar backgrounds in non-metros, who make up 70 percent of the 1,000 educators they have on board. 

After going through in-house screening assessment on English language and accent training, these part-time educators are paid Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 per month. Many of them have expressed an interest in pursuing teaching professionally. 

And so Qin1, which guides such aspiring teachers with career counselling, plans on launching ‘Educator Scholarship Programme’ to support educators from weaker economic backgrounds.

The startup also has a team of full time employees, who boast of a strong suite of professional experience from diverse institutions like Ola, Flipkart, Lenskart, British Council, and IIT alumni as well.

The edtech platform offers programmes in English language (LingoQ) and Coding (CodeQ) to children between the ages of five and 15. There are different courses designed for different age groups, levels, interest, and parent’s goals, starting at a monthly fee of Rs 999, and going up to Rs 2800. 

“Teachers and students are mapped based on personality type. A quiet child needs a teacher who is extroverted and pushes the child to speak. Similarly, an extrovert child needs a quiet and patient teacher,” Aarti explains.

The curriculum, she adds, is developed by a team of subject matter experts, and is constantly improvised based on feedback from teachers and parents. 

Based on a demo session, the platform’s internal algorithm identifies a student’s aptitude level in their chosen programme before onboarding. As the student continues learning, the startup ensures that parents are kept in the loop on progress.

With 10,000 students learning on the platform from across India, the startup has seen students from cities like Dilwara, Shimla, Coimbatore, Alirajpur, Muradabd, Tirupathi, Mednapur, Chatmalpur, Vazhakulam, as well as a few hailing from Delhi and Mumbai as well.

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Navigating the market and challenges

The pandemic may have brought forth many online learning platforms, but very few of them cater to students in low income families.  

Qin1’s founders visit small town schools, and conduct masterclasses and counselling sessions on their interests to reach the target audience. “These are the places where the likes of BYJU's and other startups do not reach,” Aarti says. 

She is acutely aware that Qin1 is tapping into a population with limited means and meagre incomes and thus, building trust with parents was as important as it was difficult. 

“You have to be in constant touch with them, and solve their problems quick enough because every minute counts. The propensity to treat their educational expense at Qin1 as an additional spend is obviously low,” she says. 

It also becomes difficult when parents expect to see visible impact in the first month itself. “Often, the first thing parents ask is “I have paid you Rs 1000, show me the impact”; they expect the results to show in the very first month,” Aarti shares. Which is why, Qin1 looks at demonstrating the incremental impact on a student every month. 

Once they are convinced, parents are happy to spread the word in their communities. The startup also began offering about six free sessions for every referral. Vernacular language-based platforms like Share Chat and WhatsApp also play a key role in tapping the audience. 

Another challenge the company has had to deal with is technical issues, as the students are too young in most cases, and parents are not very tech savvy. To solve this, Aarti first educates parents on how to join and run the classes on mobile internet. 

Educators on board Qin1, who are pursuing psychology and related studies, have seen students exhibiting speech disorder or autistic symptoms. “In such cases, we inform the parents that their child might need a doctor's attention,” she adds. 

The startup has broken even with a “teaching-as-a-service product that allows us to create strong teachers out of college students.” 

In FY21, the startup is looking to earn $ 2 million in revenue. Moving ahead, the team hopes to leverage AI further to reduce pricing.