Zero-1 #1: Decoding Product Market Fit For Edtech
In the world of edtech, before you think about product-market fit, there's pedagogy-market fit.
Today's newsletter edition is more than six months in the making! Since we launched NextLeap in mid-2021, we have been focused on getting to product-market fit like any start-up. And we wanted to share our learnings from the journey so far. So, let's jump in!
If you scour the internet, you'll find many articles on the topic of product-market fit or PMF but no agreed-upon definition yet. It's pretty weird if you happen to think of it, especially given how critical it is in the start-up world.
So, we put our minds to it and what we could come up with is that PMF has a lot of complex pieces, but the outcome is quite simple – a predictable growth playbook. And it has its own nuances for each industry that the start-up is operating in. Let's try to decode it for the world of edtech.
In the world of edtech though, before you think about product-market fit, there's pedagogy-market fit. And that's been our biggest learning so far. Most edtech solutions so far have focused on teaching and not learning. For true learning to happen, we need to be nudged to use our brains which seldom happens in online learning. And for that, we need to strike an active pedagogy market fit.
Passive pedagogy market fit usually will lead to business success but limited learning impact, while active pedagogy market fit will drive both. We started off with a deep focus on the pedagogy pieces (or andragogy as it is referred to for adult learning), and that has helped us craft out a unique NextLeap learning experience that is social and hands-on.
Learners have loved the peer-led learning models, the case-led approach, and the tangibility in learning outcomes via the capstone projects. And a little gamification has worked as a fantastic nudge to keep them motivated throughout the learning process.
Next, if you think about PMF, you need to think about four key elements, as Brian Balfour puts it in his 🔗 fantastic 5 part blog series :
Market-product fit
Product-channel fit
Channel-model fit
Model-market fit
Leading with the market first (instead of product) allows you to go deeper in the following areas:
Category: What category do the users put you into
Customers: Who are your customers
Problems: What are the problems your customers are facing
Motivations: What are their motivations to get the problem solved
In this edition, we wanted to throw a bit more light on one aspect of Market-Product fit – the category.
As a start-up, if you are defining the category, you need to focus on whether you are playing in an existing category (e.g. online learning) or creating a new category (e.g. a learning network). Category creation requires more than a game-changing product or an exciting tagline – it takes a powerful consistent vision that you drive through all aspects of the business across product, sales, marketing, content, and, in our case, community and learning experience design too.
Here are our top learnings if you are thinking about category creation:
Think of it akin to a political campaign: Based on our learnings, we have started to think of category creation similar to a political campaign – you are trying to rally like-minded individuals around the broader movement.
Let your customers drive the message: Take, for example, the NextLeap Learn in Public challenge we instituted for the APM Fellowship program – more than 2M impressions served with learners sharing their learning in public on social media. Just like a political campaign, you start seeing the impact when the community as a whole starts talking about it.
Play the long game: If you are truly trying to create a new category, don't expect short-term results. It requires a considerable amount of effort across the board.
At NextLeap, we believe professional learning is becoming decentralized and continuous, which leads to the emergence of a new category of learning platform that is participatory and many-many unlike universities (access controlled and one-many) and MOOCs (tech-enabled, one-many). We are calling it the learning network.
Professional learning is becoming more decentralised and continuous
As the name suggests, learning networks comprise elements of learning and networks. And the best way to visualise it would be a university in the cloud. Your learning in your college/university was not just limited to the classrooms – you learned from your seniors/alums, via society/club events, participating in competitions, or listening to industry professionals. You built relationships.
The network there was complex – consisting of professors, students, employers, alums, and more. Now imagine building out a university in the cloud for professionals – without a limitation of a three or four-year period. More continuous and more decentralised. That's what we are building at NextLeap.
We are still early in our journey, and every day comes with many learnings. As we learn ourselves, we will continue to share our learnings with you in the same spirit of Learning in Public.
After all, we envision a world where each of us shares our learnings with each other on the NextLeap learning network!
Regards,
Arindam Mukherjee
Co-founder, NextLeap