Building a European EdTech Unicorn from Vienna, Austria: Felix Ohswald, CEO of GoStudent (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You said you talk to parents to map out a journey. Can you double-click down on that a bit? How much tutoring does a family require?

Felix Ohswald: On average, a family consumes eight sessions per month. That’s two sessions per week. One session is about 50 minutes in our case. On average, one kid has about two teachers. Over the whole learning journey of the kid, the child uses up to two teachers. Most of the time, this is in one particular subject. In a market like Germany, the number one reason why families take tutoring is that a kid struggles in a subject.

In the US, it’s more exam-driven. In Germany, there are no real standardized exams. There, it’s about getting the kids from below average to average. This is how it looks like in most European countries. In terms of spending, we have an average price of €25 in Germany. When they take eight sessions per month, it is in the range of €170 to €200.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of numbers are we talking at this point?

Felix Ohswald: We are booking about 1.5 million lessons per month. In a market like Europe, Europeans spend about €35 billion on tutoring. Globally, it’s about €120. We have a market share of not even 1%. We are still the market leader in most of countries. In terms of overall market share, we are below 1%. That is a good sign for us because there is so much more room to grow.

Sramana Mitra: What happened in 2019 when you pivoted to working with parents? Talk a bit more about the specifics of that pivot.

Felix Ohswald: It was tough. One thing to highlight is when we pivoted to targeting parents. We created Google ads and Facebook ads so when a parent searches for tutoring, they can click on our page, they can sign up, and tell us what time works best for their trial classes. We send them the teacher and they can do everything on their own. The reality was, it didn’t work properly. Why? Because people didn’t understand what online tutoring is.

That was before the COVID pandemic. Things like Zoom and Google Meet were very niche products. Most of the parents had no clue what online tutoring really is. Is this a video? Is this asynchronous? Out of frustration that so few parents converted, we started to call parents. Then it worked. We were able to create trust, achieve much higher conversion rates, and sell longer-term packages. This is atypical for an online business where you use sales calls. It helped us build a sustainable business model.

Sramana Mitra: You continue to have that?

Felix Ohswald: Yes. It will be less in the future. The more you build out the brand, you can reduce the touch points. Since education is such a personal topic, you want to talk to somebody when it’s about your child.

Sramana Mitra: Can you do this profitably?

Felix Ohswald: Yes, markets like Germany and Austria are mature markets. You can be profitable.

Sramana Mitra: Is Germany your largest market?

Felix Ohswald: It’s 30% of revenue. It’s the largest.

Sramana Mitra: What is the second market?

Felix Ohswald: France. Then we have UK, Italy, and Spain.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Building a European EdTech Unicorn from Vienna, Austria: Felix Ohswald, CEO of GoStudent
1 2 3 4 5