Keeping Up With Edventures: July 2024

Photo by Oscar Nord on Unsplash

This blog post was originally sent out via our newsletter and publsihed on LinkedIn last week. If you want earlier updates about our progress straight to your inbox and be among the first to test our prototype, join our Earlybird Community and make sure you sign up for our newsletter!

Dear Edventures community,

As August unfolds and we enjoy the final days of northern hemisphere summer, let’s look back at July’s accomplishments and updates.

If you’re just getting to know us, here’s a quick recap

Whether it’s your first or hundredth newsletter, I’m so happy you’re reading this newsletter and that you want to follow us on our journey towards becoming the global leader in entrepreneurship support, democratising entrepreneurship education and learning for all. You’re receiving this newsletter because we’ve been in touch for the past weeks, months or maybe years, and because your interest, skills, experience and/or professional focus aligns with our mission and values.

For those who are new subscribers, Edventures is an edtech and future-of-work startup based out of Sweden but with a fully remote and international team, spanning across two continents. Our mission is to develop a cutting-edge conversational AI that provides personalised coaching and learning experiences tailored to each entrepreneur’s specific business idea, needs, and challenges. Additionally, our platform supports entrepreneurship organisations, coaches, and educators who play pivotal roles in nurturing aspiring entrepreneurs.

Read on to discover this month’s latest updates and milestones, and stay tuned for the exciting journey ahead!

Best,

Alexander Zahari

Founder and Product Visionary

TL;DR

• Tail end of negotiations with one customer regarding the initiation of a pilot project. Decision expected to be made very soon.
• Restarted the recruitment process for a new Product Designer.
• Demos held with JA Malta, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Philippines, business incubator Prendho from Ecuador and Changemakers Lab based in Greece.
• Enhanced our AI by introducing the Socratic method for deeper engagement, as well as fixed bugs for more natural responses.
• Optimised cost structure to keep the app affordable and accessible for organisations and solo entrepreneurs.
• Streamlined user onboarding with improved support for Business Model Canvas and brainstorming questions.
• Upgraded platform with better organisational management, integrated Stripe payments, and added a statistics dashboard.
• Changed routing framework for improved in-app navigation and performance, and made UI more mobile-friendly.
• Shortlisted for the Eureka IRP delegation to Switch (Singapore Week of Innovation & Technology) in Singapore in October.
• Applied for Slingshot Singapore but didn’t make the selection.
• Applied to Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV programme.
• Applied to Frixos Foundation.

July: SO Close, Yet Not Quite There

July was a month of valuable progress and fine-tuning here at Edventures. Our primary focus was on enhancing our AI to offer a more engaging and responsive experience. We spent the month experimenting with various language models and prompts to improve how our AI interacts with users. By incorporating the Socratic method, we aimed to foster deeper, more thoughtful engagement instead of just providing immediate answers. The work with implementing the Socratic method in a comprehensive way has just begun, but we’re starting to see promising results in the way our AI is performing and interacting with questions from users. Additionally, we resolved several conversational bugs to make our responses sound more natural and conversational.

Another primary focus of ours in July was on enhancing the platform’s functionality and user experience for organisations and their administrators. A major update involved improving the management of various elements within an organisation, such as coaches, entrepreneurs, and teams, to ensure smoother collaboration and better oversight. We also integrated payment processing through Stripe, facilitating seamless transactions on both the frontend and backend. Additionally, we introduced a new payment page and a statistics dashboard, providing administrators with valuable insights into their organisation’s financial and operational data.

An admin of an organisation can now manage their internal entrepreneurs, coaches, and other teams, along with removing and adding entrepreneur and coach users to the organisation. An admin can also update the appearance and information about their organisation, along with managing their billing.

In our mission to make entrepreneurship accessible to everyone, we put extra focus optimising our cost structure to provide the app at an affordable price. We delved into different setups and cost structures to better understand and control the expenses that come with various language models and infrastructural setups. Our goal is to ensure that our app remains affordable and accessible for both organisations and solo entrepreneurs, making it easier for them to sign up and sustain their use of the app over time. Basically, our aim is to ensure we truly can make entrepreneurship accessible for everyone.

Many young and budding entrepreneurs are often unsure about various aspects of their business ideas and projects. For example, how do you answer questions about monetising your business or spreading the word, especially in the early stages when you might not have a single clue on how to approach this? To address this, we’ve updated and streamlined our user onboarding process. This update includes improved support to help users craft valid and contextually appropriate responses to the Business Model Canvas (BMC) and brainstorming questions. These improvements are designed to make the onboarding experience smoother and more supportive, allowing users to confidently kick-start their business projects while getting the support they need to address any uncertainties along the way.

On a more technical level, we transitioned our navigation system to Go Router, improving the platform’s performance and user experience. We also made several UI improvements, making our platform more responsive and user-friendly on mobile devices. For example, this included implementing a structured organisation-specific navigation and a side search function for easily finding coaches, entrepreneurs, and teams. Lastly, we began testing and refining these organisational features, addressing bugs to ensure everything runs smoothly.

In addition to enhancing our AI and platform, we’ve been actively engaging with potential partners. We held demos with JA Malta, South Africa, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines, along with Ecuadorean business incubator Prendho, and Greek-based Changemakers Lab. While we haven’t yet finalised any pilot projects, the feedback has been invaluable, and we’re optimistic about finalising a partnership soon. I’m particularly excited about my upcoming trip to Porto (22-25 August), where I’ll participate in the JA Alumni Global Summit and connect with more people from within the JA community and strengthen existing relationships. I hope this will help us secure more pilot projects and potentially a higher-level partnership with JA.

We’ve also been busy applying for various programmes, foundations, and business challenges. We heard back from the Eureka Investment Readiness Programme delegation to Switch in Singapore, and we are currently on the shortlist, awaiting to have more clarity this coming month. Our application to the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV programme, which is a programme designed to empower sustainability and social impact tech startups through strategic partnerships offered to Nordic and Baltic impact startups, is under review. We also submitted an application to Frixos Foundation, a Swedish foundation supporting people who have early-stage business ideas and projects that promote a sustainable society with small grants. The foundation was started by Greek-Cypriot immigrant Frixos Papadopoulos who founded Fontana, a big food producer that specialise in bringing the Greek cuisine to the Nordics. Although we didn’t make the cut for the Slingshot startup competition, a startup competition with grant prizes worth S$1.2 million, which had fierce competition with +5,000 applicants, we’re not discouraged by the experience and continue to seek new opportunities.

What’s in the pipeline for next month?

For August we expect to know more about the pilot projects as a handful of organisations we’ve been in touch with start their school year in August, for example in Sweden and the Philippines. I’m super excited to be going to Porto for the JA Global Alumni Summit EMERGE, which will be between 22-25 August. There I’ll meet up with alumni and directors from various JA organisations across the world. An important place to be for Edventures, but also for me as an alumn and continue to engage with the JA community.

By the end of August, we plan to start our focused fundraising efforts and expect this is something that will take us the rest of the year to successfully complete. Our aim is to raise €375,000 which will be used to fund our development for the following 24 months. To get a good start, we of course want at least one pilot project signed (and hopefully started) by the end of August as we start the fundraise. If you know someone who might be interested in investing in us at this stage, forward this email to the person in question, and feel free to make an introducation. We’ll need all the love and support we can get!

On that note, I want to thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon!

Stay foolish, stay ambitious!

Alexander and the Edventures team