Laitum

Online education in applied sciences.
Batch: 2020 Winter
Status: Unsuccessful

Laitum

Online education in applied sciences.
Batch: 2020 Winter
Status: Unsuccessful

Company

Laitum is online education in applied sciences.

We are building a community and an online educational platform for science and engineering students and professionals, where they can learn or relearn the basics of their careers and find advanced courses in their multiple branches of specialization, along with content for their personal, academic and professional growth. Initially, we will sell individual courses and move to a subscription model when we achieve a sustainable course production per month.

Progress

– We have a fully functional educational platform, but we are having difficulties in the courses production due to covid. Although this delays the launch, it also gives us time to learn more about the problem and talk to potential users and teachers.

– Right now we have successfully spoken with 7 teachers to produce courses, and have a database of useful information about the problem from more than 100 potential users.

– I’ve been solo working on this since April to August 2020 (when I start putting together a team), and as I’m finishing my chemical engineering career this month, it’s going to be full time from now on.

– But I can’t speak for the others, since we haven’t launch yet, some members have to work as a freelancers, but they’re compromised to turn it all into Laitum when we reach revenue/funding.

I haven’t applied in the last batch, but the idea has matured and has had small pivots in recent months, going from being a platform for basic science courses with students as teachers, to one that has (or will have) a whole educational ecosystem, ranging from vocational guidance to branches of specialization by career.

I haven’t participate in any program with Laitum. But I have experience participating in incubator programs at my university’s incubator (1551 UNMSM), and more recently I have participated in an incubator manager program offered by the alliance of 3 major incubators of my country.

Idea

– I chose this idea because it brings together 4 of my main passions: startups, science, education and sustainability. Everything is wonderfully combined at Laitum.

– As a chemical engineering student, I understand the relevance of developing sustainable thinking, especially for those who are going to make the big decisions in manufacturing, and this applies to all other science-related careers.

– I never stopped wondering why non-software students have to resign themselves to receiving a mainstream education in a classroom. Education has begun to transform for many areas of knowledge, but it remains the same for science students in Latinamerica. That is why at Laitum we are going to provide students and professionals with the tools for their general growth so that they can apply what they learn in the development of our countries and the world.

– I think everything is new, there is no platform in Spanish with courses in basic and applied sciences. The ones that exist offer a segment of what we want to offer and don’t care about creating a community or in the social learning experience.

– And we know that because students take courses from independent professionals and from very specific niches institutions.

– YouTube works for basic knowledge, but when the knowledge becomes more specialized, you only have what the university gives you.

– The big ones that have courses about almost everything: Udemy, EdX, Coursera.

– Other competitors: TareasPlus, KhanAcademy, Mayugo, aprendiendo.la, among others.

– The bulk of our competitors: Institutes, universities and consultancies with education programs mostly live and at high prices.

– What I fear most is the one who may become a competitor: Platzi, a technology education platform. Although the physics and calculus courses that they have on their platform could have been produced to help science divulgators or as a marketing strategy, they could be a great competitor if they get into other areas of science.

I understand the importance of building a community and providing a social learning experience where students can be part of the learning process. Doing this right and with a great culture, word of mouth is not a dream.

Selling courses in a first stage, to then move to a subscription model as soon as we have a decent number of courses.

– Using our dissemination channels (YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instragram mainly), and the social channels of the university incubators in our country.

– That is why we will focus on enriching our course catalog to develop both hard and soft skills, motivating our students to create and disseminate what they learn with a focus on sustainability.

– Regarding the social learning experience (our chicken-and-egg problem), everyone on the team will be our first students, creating content of additional value to that offered in the courses and motivating other students to do the same. We are truly focused on creating such a great product for our students that they will not hesitate to share their experience with others.

Equity

Others

– I discovered that the state of the art in this sector is so bad (at least in Latin America), that I got to receive recommendations for courses taught with zoom with organic compounds drawn freehand in PowerPoint.

– Combine good content + good production and it will be mindblowing.

Curious

A Steve Jobs video in which he commented that as a child, he called Bill Hewlett to ask for spare parts and he ended up giving him a job. With that I learned that if I want something, having the initiative to ask is, many times, enough.

I was always interested in Silicon Valley.

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