Keeping Up With Edventures: March 2024

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

This blog post was originally sent out via our newsletter 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 we approach the end of May, I’m excited to share that we’ll be moving to monthly updates, starting with this recap of March’s highlights. Our old bi-monthly schedule just didn’t give us enough room to capture everything happening, which is why this update is delayed, and let’s face it – shorter, more frequent updates are easier and more enjoyable to read. This new monthly format will help us stay consistent and give you a better insight into our journey.

Since there’s a bit to catch up on, I’ll send out each month’s update once a week, starting today with March, then April, followed by May, and finally, our June progress around the end of June or early in July. This way, we’ll be up-to-date with everything going on, and can be more consistent moving forward.

March: New Faces, New Website and an Improved Backend

I’m excited to introduce Abreham, our latest addition to the team as a full-stack engineer. Abreham’s tech journey began at 13, sparking a passion for coding that led him to co-found his first startup, “Enebla,” in high school. Despite encountering challenges with fintech payments in Ethiopia, this venture taught him the importance of perseverance. After working on another startup, an “Amazon for Ethiopia" project, and freelancing throughout college, he honed a diverse skill set in full-stack development and mobile app creation, particularly embracing Flutter. In 2020, he co-founded FIX, a gig-matchmaking app, where he led a team in developing both the backend and frontend. By the end of 2023, he left FIX as he was looking for a bigger challenge and journey. Abreham joined Edventures in March, drawn to our mission to provide AI coaching for entrepreneurs—a cause close to his heart, shaped by his lived experiences. His extensive technical expertise and passion for innovation will make him a valuable part of the Edventures team.

From the same hiring process that brought us Abreham, we are also pleased to welcome Hayat! Hayat is a passionate and dedicated software engineering student, just months away from graduation, who brings a strong entrepreneurial spirit to the table, being a part of a startup in construction in her native Ethiopia. She was a recipient of the Google Africa Developers Scholarship in 2022 and later that same year enrolled in the esteemed Africa To Silicon Valley coding academy. Hayat will do her internship with us until the end of June, during which she’ll contribute to our shared mission of empowering young entrepreneurs through technology and personalised support.

We’ve updated our website, and our sparkling new platform has been live since March! Special thanks to Catie, our Product Designer and Web Developer, for creating a sleek and intuitive site that beautifully showcases our features, company vision, and the impact we aim to achieve. Check it out and let us know what you think!

We’ve also been working to improve our prototype. One of Abreham’s first actions was introducing the BLoC (Business Logic Component) architecture, which separates business logic from UI components. This change enhanced our app’s performance, making it quicker, more stable and easier to manage. Our app is now more stable and less buggy, thanks to this comprehensive, yet quick, codebase refactor, although we have more to do.

When it comes to customer dialogues and initiating pilot projects, I rekindled some old connections in March with JA in Malaysia, India, and South Africa. These connections would lead me to connect with more organisations within JA and increase our pipeline, but I’m saving that for the April update.

What’s in the pipeline for next month?

Exciting developments are underway! We launched our first version feature for coaches and teachers, and there’s a major promotion within our team that reflects our rapid growth. We’ve also welcomed fresh talent, while also saying goodbye to some team members, and are exploring more partnerships across the globe. While we’ve faced some challenges, both technical and with regards to applications, we’ve made significant technical upgrades that puts us in a better position. Stay tuned for all the details in our next edition!

Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon. Here’s to a promising and entrepreneurial 2024!

Stay foolish, stay ambitious! Alexander and the Edventures team

If you are just getting to know us

At Edventures, we champion progress. Our mantra is ‘keep moving forward’ and we want to embody this mantra in our app, to simplify your entrepreneurial journey. It’s as simple as texting. Let’s keep moving forward, together.

PS. This blog post was originally sent out via our newsletter 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! 📝