An analysis of the opportunity to create a fun, interactive, game-based teaching system to stimulate coding interest in kids & help them learn the basics of real programming. Target age range 8-10 years. Part of the Venture Lab 2012 Technology Entrepreneurship Stanford course with Chuck Eesley.

1. Synerducate Team
Opportunity Analysis Project

2. Our idea
A fun, interactive, game-based
t e ac h i ng s y s t e m to s t i m u l at e
coding interest in kids & help
them learn the basics of real
programming.

3. Too many ideas
Brainstorming & first initial concepts
to be used in school but accessible from home
use code to create stories
share the code that is created
immediacy
little teacher intervention required
role play game
present a challenge
ability to “show off”work
reward badges
Narrowed down to 3 possible concepts:
“CodeAcademy” for kids: schools only, heavy community element, learn real code
from start.
Story-telling game: complete programming tasks to progress further in story &
create own narrative.
Simple game: use programming commands to control a character either as a
warm-up game or additional feature.

4. Show me the money!
The problems of trying to define our revenue model
Lots of competition already exists and a lot of it is free.
Even if it is run as a ‘non-profit’ we would still need an income
source to cover our costs.
Failure to define a successful revenue model is main
cause of failure in Educational start-ups.
Charge schools a fee per child, in which case the price
per child will have to be low.
Implement product as part of after-school club and get parents to
pay directly with possibility to offer financial incentives to teachers
to run clubs (but this means less revenue for us, and limiting it to
after-school club already reduces the potential number of
customers).

5. In the Headmistress’ office
Talking with potential customers
Paid subscriptions not popular: budget restrictions mean schools
prefer free alternatives even though quality generally inferior.
Disadvantages of competitors: Scratch has steep learning curve & is
not a game, Logo cannot be used for more than one term because
children become bored.
Interest from the school to incorporate programming in the
classroom.
Lack of interest in implementing our idea as part of an
after-school club, too much competition from other clubs mean
schools unlikely to offer this option.
Primary school teachers reluctant to teach programming
as many have no experience in this area.

6. Seeing it through a child’s eyes
Talking with potential users
Real opportunity: majority of 8-10 year olds do not have
programming experience BUT showed strong interest to learn.
Existing competitors considered too slow or requiring too much
effort.
Great feedback on what kids love about games (multiplayer options,
collecting objects, building stuff, survival element).
Got kids to play a simple programming logic game to see response:
they loved it, which showed us the ‘fun’ element is essential for our
product.
Need to respect intelligence of this age group: they are
particularly sensitive to anything which seems babyish or too
simple.

7. Back to the drawing board
Modifying the original idea
We have chosen to use a 2 stage revenue model, with the aim of
creating sufficient revenue in the first stage, which will then be
reinvested in the second stage.
Stage 1: charge schools a small fixed amount (irrelevant of student
numbers) per year for an educational version of our product.
Stage 2: charge a monthly subscription fee for a premium version
which is available for ANYONE to play and which includes facilities
such as creating own worlds, avatars, puzzles etc.
Tablet/Smartphone app for children who want to play around with
software outside of school.
The product itself will be a game and must have a gently learning
curve and immediate results, these are the elements found to be
popular with of target users and are missing from our main
competitors.

8. Round two?
Is this opportunity worth pursuing?
From the OAP we have seen interest in the product from both
schools and kids, which encourages us to continue.
There seems to be a market for our product and whilst we initially
are looking at introducing it in the UK, it can be scaled up to go
global.
By introducing a low cost educational version we are confident we
can achieve high market penetration, and by keeping the add-on &
app costs down we aim to generate large sales volume.
Lastly, we are all keen to develop this idea further