The key but sometimes non-obvious Job-to-be-done in KidTech / EdTech for Kids is babysitting. As one founder put it, the more guilt-free the babysitting, the more valuable the product.
As a first-time founder in the extra-curricular kid tech space, our initial hypotheses was that parents want better outcomes for their kids. In many customer interviews, we received similar signals. Products in this kid tech space are supposed to be hired to improve chances for these outcomes.
We were targeting parents of kids between ages of 6 to 14, with the proposition of delivering gamified enriched experience. The learning pedagogy and courses were developed by experts in their fields of developing communication, linguistic, reading comprehension and analytical skills. The courses were delivered through a live-mode of teaching by teachers, proficient in these fields.
The classes has high engagement & participation, as seen through class participation and activity rates. Majority of the kids enrolled were in the age-bracket of 6-10, where they needed assistance from their Parents for initiating (e.g. asking doubts) or completing (e.g. answer to a quiz).
This struck at the heart of the JBTD for most of these parents, where the ‘babysitting’ attraction for the product was no longer viable. The competition in this “low parent friction high kid’s engagement” Segment is high with the baseline engagement from a YouTube, where auto-play and playlists can drastically cut down parent intervention.
A very minuscule section of parents wanted to be an “engaged parent” during these classes with post-class follow-ups on the child’s outcomes & progress with the teacher. Given that majority of the parents were hiring the product for “babysitting” and not seeing this parental outcome, the attraction for the product quickly dissipated amongst a given cohort.
KidTech and in general, EdTech in K12 is a “services” business and unlikely to be a business where product-led interventions are unlikely to lead the product to a PMF.
