On the TechTO stage ×1
First seen on the TechTO stage in 2017. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Rohan ↗
In their words
When my co-founder Alex and I got to the University of Waterloo, we said, why do these two things have to be such disparate experiences? Why can't learning math be as engaging, if not even as addictive, as a Pokemon-style video game?
We found out that even private schools wouldn't pay for our product, so we switched our business model to a freemium model where we could get a lot of adoption without making schools pay.
I'd worked for like six months to get into this presentation. We'd closed the school board. And I got to my car after that and checked our stats, and that day we had onboarded about 2,000 new students just organically. I remember that feeling of accomplishment sinking away.
Around the web ×1
Quick answers
What is Prodigy Education?
A Burlington, Ontario edtech company whose free role-playing game covers the grade 1-8 math curriculum in Canada and the United States, with a reporting layer for teachers and parents. It was founded in 2011.
Is he still running it?
Yes — he and co-founder Alex Peters remain co-CEOs, confirmed when the company named a new CFO in February 2024 after a 2022 reorganisation.
How did they find product-market fit?
They spent about eighteen months after graduating inside two private schools, Mentor College and Ridley College, testing with kids and teachers almost daily. That is where the freemium model, the Ontario curriculum alignment and the decision to build in HTML5 rather than native came from (TechTO stage 2017-12-13).