Pitch Please

00:03.50
mike_flywheel
Welcome back everybody to the pitch please podcast this is Mike here again and today we've got duraj from learn it on the show welcome to the show garage.

00:12.39
Dhiraj Hariramani
Thanks! Thanks! My pleasure to be here.

00:16.97
mike_flywheel
Duage the best place to probably start I'm curious I want to little learn a little bit more about you maybe give us a little bit of your background and your role at learn it and everything that sort of brought you to this moment today.

00:27.79
Dhiraj Hariramani
Absolutely not happy to do that. So I so I spend most of my life growing up in Uganda a small country in in West Africa and so I remember when I was growing up. You know I I had a very different high school as compared to a north american high school. We would spend a lot of time. Outdoor. We spend a lot time playing football and then I remember you know I spend my whole life going there. So culturally I'm very connected to Africa and 1 of the days I remember my mom well at the time I was a kid you know so she forcefully took me to the orphanage because she wanted me to do good deeds and at the time I was a kid so I was like no I want to play football I don't want to. Go go to the orphanage but I went there regardless of maybe you know mom pressure but also my my love for her ah took me there and I think you know when I went there first thing I noticed was that the smallest things to those people were so valuable right? I would go there and take juice. And they would act as if they got a pot of gold and so when I was very young I think at that point I realized that what I had was really really good, right? It wasn't something that everybody had and um I really wanted to help these kids even more because I saw that they they were so excited by by my presence. And they really wanted more and so the next time I went there I actually taught them about computers and that was my my first taste at teaching I'd never done it before I was not a smart student in high school I was an average student and I you know I decided to tease them about computers because they kept asking me because at that time computers are new. They.

02:01.86
Dhiraj Hariramani
They didn't know what they were but they they heard a lot of cool things about it. So I taught it to them and that was my first time I ever taught and at that time I didn't know how much I loved it. But I guess there was a reason why I kept going back there every single week sometimes every single month to teach them another topic at another topic and another topic so fast forward I came to Canada. In 2018 I you know I studied at uvc and I did my degree in finance and in my second year so my first ever paid job in Canada would say was to teach people again. It's kind of like full circle. It always kept coming back to me and so I was what they call a peer assisted study session leader. Would teach students in their first years in usually the most challenging courses at first year students take so like math and statistics and i' would essentially host weekly sessions for them and I spent a lot of my time at Ubc doing that and slowly just kept getting more and more into teaching and education and I found myself doing a lot of tutoring. And I never promoted myself because I never honestly I never had to because people always kept coming people were like oh I heard from this person I heard from this person. Can you help me and I always wanted to help because I loved the feeling of helping people and so naturally I transition more into the education space and that's that's when learned started I started. Trying to help more and more students in more ways and in ways that I understood that they needed help and at learned my role is founders like Ceo and I spend I tell my I tell people my team like I think my job is just to make sure you're happy. That's all that's my full time job.

03:34.54
Dhiraj Hariramani
I Make sure my team is happy I Make sure that everyone's doing what they really want to do and that we're driving towards a positive direction and actually doing impactful work while also helping students in in University because I think they're often ignored but where a lot of companies focus on high schools.

03:51.51
mike_flywheel
So servant leadership. Um I want to go back to some of those experiences you were talking about. So um, before you came to Canada you said you were teaching and and you were mostly teaching with technology um were there any specific courses that you were teaching and. Tell me more about like how that experience maybe shaped your love for teaching or maybe you love teaching before that. But do you think there was like some pivotal moments there that um, that shaped your love for teaching because you're super passionate about it. So I want to understand that a little bit more.

04:21.26
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah I think so so my so when I was teaching them about like technology right when I was teaching about computers. My first topic was about hardware because there was something I physically took my pc and I was like here is what a computer looks like and let me tell you how it works. So I used you know it's it's hard to explain to someone who has no context about technology. So. The first thing that I loved about it was that I had to think of a way to teach someone something that they had no clue about and I and I loved having to think about that. And so I thought about body parts and cooking and I used a lot of metaphors metaphors to explain to them how a computer works. So for example I would say like okay your ram your room for example, is your fridge and then you when you're cooking you have to take certain vegetables out so that's your Ram because you can only all of a sudden memory. And then you get your chopping board and your knife and so you chop it up and your motherboard is your knife and then you cook it in your pan and so on so I use a lot of references like that and so firstly I loved doing that I really enjoyed trying to take something that was so complicated make it seem so easy and explained to someone in a way that they really understand it. And the second thing I really love about teaching is that I always found that those students had the most interesting questions despite having the least context and I found that very interesting. They would ask me more questions about okay so how is a computer going to change the world versus someone who might have more context who's going to ask me.

05:52.26
Dhiraj Hariramani
So can you tell me more about this agb versus 16 gb or 4 core versus 16 core which are most specific questions. But I really like the fact that every student would have a very different range of questions and the fact that someone. Believes what you're saying and trusts in your knowledge to answer those questions I felt like that was something that I had to value a lot and I think it goes very undervalued, especially teachers in high schools and universities people ask them so many questions every single day and we depend on their knowledge to shape our our understanding of things. And I think that I just wanted to make sure that when I had that responsibility I was I was doing it faithfully and I was doing it to a way that was respectful to the other person I was making sure that I was providing them and I was sharing my knowledge in a way that would empower them because it seemed like every time I shared something they got more excited by it. So every word every explanation I gave had a lot of impact when it came to learning and I and I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

06:57.34
mike_flywheel
Do you think that fueled your love for teaching like I I see a couple things that you're talking about part of it being um the need to to simplify things that may be very different. Or challenging or abstract to somebody and you got excited and energized by the um by the challenge of trying to simplify it and that the challenge of simplifying complex problems became something that you were attached to simultaneously you talk about the aspects. Of genuine curiosity and you know bigger questions. Do you think that you still would have been as in love with the concepts of teaching and you would have developed a similar style of teaching if. Students hadn't been as curious and hadn't had these larger bigger abstract questions and got super focused on things like you were saying like Ram and and and the details or do you think that the abstractness of the questions and the complexity of the teaching is something that sort of.

07:57.17
Dhiraj Hariramani
Act who.

08:08.71
mike_flywheel
Brought you further down into shaping your own style.

08:10.55
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah I think the first thing I'd like to say is that the greatness of a teacher is defined by the students not by the teacher and I think this if if you have a group of students who will never ask questions. You might be the best teacher but you'll never get there and if you have students. Who always ask you questions you will become. You could be an average teacher but you would become the best teacher and I think for me I always try to encourage students or try and shape them in a way that made it okay to ask questions and I think that was the first step that it is good to ask questions that we are co-learning. We're both learning from each other and I think that it's very obvious to say that a teacher is always learning too and everyone says that but it's about how do you actually see that happen in real life right? Like you don't see a teacher sit down with this and say like okay, let's learn together right? That doesn't it doesn't work like that right. So I think first in our life say it's a student's curiosity that shapes the greatness of a teacher and the second thing for me I think you need both, you need really specific questions because that validates your your knowledge in that topic I think the higher level questions. Val it's it's sometimes becomes more opinion based or sometimes becomes more objective and I think there's two sides to it right? There's one That's the the defined knowledge which is this is the answer and that's how we've been taught. It's the answer and that comes from more specific questions and there's more like opinion based.

09:41.31
Dhiraj Hariramani
Opinion-based answer which comes from higher level questions. So I think a combination of both is what helps a really good teacher help their students as well and helps the students stay curious helps the student ask more questions and if you usually see even um and a lot of business professionals in consulting and a lot of business professions. It's so driven by asking questions right? You will never you always you spend if you have a 1 hour meeting with a client you'll spend 50 minutes asking questions and 10 minutes getting to the solution right? So that 15 minutes of asking the questions is what really shaped your own understanding of the topic I can recall so many times when a student asked me a question. And I understand it while I'm explaining the answer to them so I have no clue what I'm saying but as I'm explaining it to them. Okay, this makes so much sense. You know like so I think it's that ah one the the comfort to take a question that you have no answer to and just figure it out together. But to also have a combination of those high level and specific questions to shape ah to shape your greatness as a teacher and and to project that to your students.

10:46.58
mike_flywheel
That's a great perspective sometimes people always assume that people have all of the answers. But the idea is sometimes you can work through it together and it's the approach to solving a problem that is sometimes most important and I think you'll teach them those. Aspects to an approach to solving a problem. Um, when you do it together now talk to me about entrepreneurship. Did you ever imagine You would become an entrepreneur was that something that you thought about at a younger Age. Um. During any of this teaching or did this sort of happen by chance.

11:24.15
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah I think it's I think it's a little bit of both. But here's why I when I first started teaching I had no idea this would become a business this I did it because I liked it. That's it purely because I liked it and I liked topping students. That's it that was my only reason to do it and still is to some extent. Um. Entrepreneurship I think I always knew I wanted to do it but I didn't know when and I think um, if I go back like 1 mistake maybe I made is I didn't fidget earlier on I wish I fidgeted really earlier on but I fidgeted late on and that you know my my dad's an entrepreneur and I always looked at him and. He inspires me a lot because he came to Uganda he bought a family that but when he came alone he came with I think it was $200 in his pocket and he built something amazing and when I look at that and even if I compound that $200 in 19 whatever to today? Maybe I even give you 20 grand. There'll be. Very very few people that can make something huge out of 20 right? And so for me, it's that one there should never be an excuse that I don't have enough of this or enough of that I don't have this resource I think you should never have an excuse to build something great and I I always looked at my dad and I was like I would love to have a life like him. But I never thought that you know one thing I think I'm grateful for was that my dad always told me that I have built this It's not you you haven't built this so I think a lot of the times when you have a family of entrepreneurship usually flows down right? like okay your dad and then your son takes over and then their son takes over the business.

12:55.45
Dhiraj Hariramani
But for my dad he was like you're going to go to Canada you're going to build your own thing because this is not your thing. This is my thing right? and then you will figure it out together. So I think my dad always pushed me towards taking more risks towards entrepreneurship I just wish I did it a little bit earlier.

13:10.53
mike_flywheel
I Love how your experiences to where you are today. You know you've been inspired around becoming an entrepreneur with a role model around entrepreneurship from not much from your father and then you've had these. Experiences of humility and understanding others shaped by things that you did with your mother and together you've sort of merged those 2 things where now you're an entrepreneur in the space of learning and teaching and so it's really cool to see how that's come to Fruition. Um. Maybe ah, let's talk a little bit about how actually learn it and so to do that I'd love to start with a pitch so garage your pitch please.

13:56.78
Dhiraj Hariramani
Absolutely so learn. It is an e-learning platform that's focused on providing personalized experiences for university level courses and we do that in 3 key ways. The first way in which we do that is we take into consideration a student's learning styles. And incorporating that into our matching method with our student tutors the second way in which we are able to reach that is that we provide a lot of videos and resources for students in those specific courses. So we stray away from providing the answer but we focus more on the approach. So if you watch our videos. 90% of the video is the approach and the 10%'s the answer versus if you go to other platforms. You might see that here's the answer. Thanks for the question here's the answer. Thanks for the question so we focus a lot on the approach less than the answer and the and the last thing that we do that we love a lot is ah learning global where we try and impact more international areas. Rather than focusing in canadara so doing some work in Africa and doing some work in India to create impact and to genuinely help students gain knowledge that they wouldn't have the opportunity to gain with their environment and their surroundings so learn it I think is a culmination that's a lot of things but I'll say at a high level. Our focus is on really understanding student learning styles matching them with tutors and student tutors who can adapt to those styles and provide them with experiences and relationships that would help them in their most challenging courses in university.

15:26.64
mike_flywheel
And so how did how did you get started. So I know you were teaching at Ubc you were you were um, doing like ah I forgot the exact term you used, but like a learning assistant type type role and um, you know you.

15:35.70
Dhiraj Hariramani
Um, yeah, yeah.

15:42.58
mike_flywheel
Kind of wanted to be an entrepreneur. So what was the tipping point. How did this really start. Did it start out of you just got so consumed teaching people that you're like I need to scale and replicate myself or was there something else that sort of tipped the boat for you.

15:53.90
Dhiraj Hariramani
I think the biggest thing for me that started by mistake I did not start it like okay here's a company and here's how it's going to work it started as you said because it got to a point to add too many students and I had this urge that I really wanted to help everybody and so. I got 1 more tutor with me just 2 of us and that's how it started and I was like okay I'll I'll keep matching with students because I keep getting the students but I will train you and I'll help you understand how to teach students because that's something that's very challenging and so as you said I wanted to replicate 100 more dears and I wanted all those dudes to be teaching. And so I I started it because it was an overwhelming number of students and I remember I always wanted to do something my first year second year and I did have a startup with a really good friend of mine in my second year that that was really fun but it didn't work out at the end but it was a fun experience and so when this one came along I love the fact that. It came naturally I didn't have to make a business model canvas and a whiteboard and try and figure out what my business is I love that I had something already and I had to put that into a canvas and had to create a business out of that. So. That's how it initially started and I remember talking to my dad once. And you know I was like yeah, there's so many students and I have my own exams and it's just getting stressful and and the first thing he says like so just get another tutor and and pay them That's it like and and I was like okay yeah, that seems like it would work and so that's how it started going off and then I always I started to grow it and now we are at about 15 people.

17:24.62
Dhiraj Hariramani
A couple of folks in marketing and and about 5 tutors teaching almost every single course at Uvc that you could think of so that that's how it initially started.

17:33.29
mike_flywheel
That's amazing. Where was the shift from you know a group of mentors and and teachers to this platform-based approach what was sort of the tipping point there to help.

17:46.49
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah I Think what happened was that when you think about helping students right? There's 2 ways to do it The the first way is the students come to you and the second way is you good to the students now when the students come to you? The volume is a lot lesser because students will only come to you when they really need help Or. Or when they know about you and the second approach is you create a platform where any student who has no idea about you can find you no one could find the edge unless someone told them about the urge but someone can find learn it because learn it is a platform that provides the same experiences that diridge does. Provides the same learning. Ah you know outcomes that the edge does So for me, it was like I wanted to be able to scale it and just having me and getting tutors and doing it very ad hoc was not a scalable way of doing things and that's when we move to more platform based where we started to you know. Shape the brand of learn it as focused on on the student focused on their learning style and focused on helping them succeed in their most challenging courses and that's the kind of approach that we wanted to take as we continue to scale across Uvc.

18:56.74
mike_flywheel
And so who's that's that's a great segue who's who's using learn it platform today.

19:02.87
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, so I think I'll say almost all our users are our students and usually we see that they're students in their first and second years because we find that the transition from high school to universities by the first challenge comes because you're completely shifting your learning so you're completely shifting courses. You have the choice to go to class and so people love the freedom yous see students be like I don't have to go to class. There's no attendance I could just stay home and I can chill and so you know people have these sort of new things that come about when they move first from high school to university so you find that a lot of our users and students are. In the first semester right out of high school moving into university and that's when they they need help you know, adapting to that style they need help supporting them and you know coupled with that is in the first year I think there's a bit of pressure to perform well because your first yet university you want to start off while and you want to make your parents proud and so we want to help students do that. We. We really want we. We don't want to have a situation where someone is imagine someone coming out of high school first year university and you failed your first few courses. That's that's mentally very detrimental for your next four years not just for that one year right? and so we never want to have a scenario where people have to you know. Have to go through that so earlier on in their university career right? out of high school when they're first learning how to use a longundry machine living thousands of kilometers away from their family The last thing they want to worry about is you know they have so much emotional ah things that they're going through that we don't want them to stress about. Okay, this course and.

20:35.78
Dhiraj Hariramani
All the assignments and all of that we want to help them through that and so we find that most of our users end up first in second year and and a new to university.

20:44.10
mike_flywheel
So teach me a little bit about this industry because you're obviously not the first person um to be tutoring or being a teaching assistant and so teach me a little bit about the industry what it looks like from like platform solutions finding your own tutor through some job board.

20:49.69
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah.

21:01.99
mike_flywheel
What does that look like and then where does learn it start to create a differentiator versus the others in this space for.

21:07.23
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah I love that question because I spent a lot of time trying to understand what these students were doing and I remember just to prefax that I would ask some of my students and I and I genuinely ask them I'm like why do you keep coming to me. Why don't you just leave and go to use a cheaper platform or another platform and just. find find a match like our schedules. Don't match sometimes and why do you wait? and so I think that was my epiphany right? They told me that we wait because you're not just a tutor to us right? You're like a friend like I went to dinner with one of my students and their families and that's that's not what a tutor usually does. That's what a friend does right. And so when I looked at a lot of the platforms and and and these these matching platforms that were out there. It was mostly like here's a page here's some beautiful pictures of some tutors here's all their ninety plus grades just pick one right and I was like how do I pick one out of 10 I don't know anything about these people and I expect to trust them. for for the next one year for the next six months to help me succeed and so I realized that every single platform was just replication of this some of had a better ui experience some were um, you know some were like call us right now and we'll match you right now right? But there was nothing where the decision fell upon the student. To get to understand the tutor to make that decision for themselves and that's where we saw the gap right? So we wanted to make sure that we're not just matching students with random tutors who are smart. We're actually taking into account who are they? How do they like to learn how do they like to interact do they have a gender preference.

22:45.90
Dhiraj Hariramani
Sometimes they do right? and so we we want to take into account all of those and then do the matching and that's why we have found that with learn it. We have I would say almost a 90% plus retention rate I can't even think of 2 students that we have lost in terms of them switching to other platforms. But as compared to other platforms. They would leave us in the first session they're out that I didn't like this I'm never going back to the platform for us. It's like after your first session. Let's talk. How was that what could have been better did did the tutor work if not, we'll match you with someone else. We'll find someone else that will work right? So we never let go of our students very easily because. I think at at our core we have this genuine urge to help them. It's not just to make money. It's not just that it's it's not just about the volume right? It's about generally helping them in their courses and that's why we see that really high retention rate with the students.

23:38.17
mike_flywheel
So it sounds like another big piece is a lot of other platforms focus on getting you matched with 1 individual primarily based on like their grades. It sounds like what you're doing is a little bit about um, more.

23:53.53
Dhiraj Hariramani
Um, yeah.

23:53.90
mike_flywheel
Fluid matchmaking because you might you know you spend a lot of time finding the right person. But if they're not right? You can kind of through the platform get to a different person that maybe is a better match for your learning style and the other piece it sounds like you're doing and if if this is right? I'd love to explore it more. It sounds like you're doing a lot of work to help articulate the learning or the teaching style of your tutors So that students can look for what maps best to their learning style and it sounds like you're doing that it. Is it manual is that something you're doing actually let me just kind of before we go any further is that what you are doing those like kind of aspects of like more fluid matching and this aspect about learning and teaching styles and trying to create a match on that premise.

24:34.59
Dhiraj Hariramani
Ah.

24:45.21
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, So so that's very that's a very interesting topic I Love I Love talking about that because if you ask any Student. What's your learning style I promise you that 90% of them will say visual. Okay, and here's why because most of the courses we do are math and quantitative so they're like every student will say the same thing right? They want to see examples and they want to. And and they want to you know? Oh. Let's do an example together that that's what everyone's going to say whether uniqueness comes is how do you want the session to go right? So Everyone wants to do the same thing. But how do you want to do it is what's different. So don't you can categorize that as a learning scholar if if you wanted to. But. For example, I'll give you an example just so you can visualize it a little bit some of our students. Um, love to do the example twice they will do it once together and then they will do it alone while we watch them right and we Trans we try and validate their understanding So for a student like that you can't have a tutor that will keep into that you know.

25:22.82
mike_flywheel
Yeah, that'd be amazing. Just.

25:41.70
Dhiraj Hariramani
Tutors I love talking and that love always interrupting as soon as you go wrong. You need a tutor. That's very patient that will wait that will ask the right questions right? to to help them identify their own path to the solution rather than interrupting and be like no do it like this and versus some students who are like we'll just do it once you tell me how to do it. But we'll do the example but you tell me how to do it and you walk me through it and for that kind of student. You can't have a tutor that will keep asking the student a question. How do you think to do it. You know like do you think this is the right approach because the student will get annoyed and that's not right for their learning style so you need someone who will be like okay, let's work through this together here's how you do it here's why it's like this. And here's how we get to the solution. So do you see what I'm saying they both want to solve the same question but 1 of them wants to do it a bit more differently than the other person and because they want to do it differently. The tutors need to be different to be able to adapt to the way that they want to do that example and in terms of how we kind of It seems so hard to incorporate into into actually the matching process. That's where the challenge comes to but the way that we do that to some extent is that we allow the student to get to know the tutor a little bit more because when you interact with someone when you even like if someone teaches you for even five ten minutes if you even watch a video of someone teaching you. You can understand can I learn with this person right? if I watch this video am I engaged can I learn do I enjoy learning so we try and incorporate really short form videos like that we're trying to incorporate a lot of introductions where a student really has the opportunity to get to know the tutor because even in a ten fifteen minute conversation I guarantee you.

27:17.38
Dhiraj Hariramani
That 99% of students will know right? Then if that tutor is going to be right for them or not.

27:23.43
mike_flywheel
It's interesting. You're talking effectively about unconscious learning or teaching habits that you're trying to get to because to your point if you ask most people they say I'm a visual learner. No one's gonna say hey I like to do the question twice and like they just they don't get to that level. So.

27:28.12
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah.

27:41.20
mike_flywheel
As you go through this. Um, how are you identifying those needs so it sounds like you're you're creating the collisions between tutors and students but is there anything you're doing specifically or thinking about doing over time that's helping better categorize. These types of subconscious learning styles to create matches more effectively and efficiently first.

28:05.46
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah I know I would love to do that. But we aren't doing that right now and the reason that we aren't doing that is that almost like it's hard to it's hard to bucket these right? It's really challenging to be like here's 10 students that like to do it this way because it's so specific right? So we. We try and do it to some extent more ah like not formally but more like I I know that that tutor teaches like that and I know that that student is similar to this student. So yeah, we can that will get a long wall right? So there's there's sort of unconscious matching that goes on but it's really challenging to create a formalized way of saying heat. Ah, you this type of learner because it's so vague and and it's when you get to the specifics that you really identify the differences. So for us. That's something that we haven't explored yet, but it's something that we also notice that and and accept that every single student that comes our way at its core is going to be very different at its core. They're going to have. Ah, you know, even in the smallest ways things that annoy them and things that they love right? and so we have to identify those and those to some extent can only come after you've interacted with the student and not before that and and you know that's maybe a bit where the challenge is too right? because you need to. Have that initial interaction to understand the student's learning style rather than just being like ah your visual learner. Okay here you go here here. You are with one fifty other students that are visual learners. Good luck. You know so it's a little bit more challenging in that sense but we haven't explored a more.

29:39.50
Dhiraj Hariramani
As you say like kind of grouping or or any sort of thing like that.

29:43.22
mike_flywheel
So How does it work do the teachers or the the tutors and the students meet in person and just find a match on your platform or do they actually connect through the platform in some way where like transactions happen payment. Um. The actual teaching and whiteboarding where where and how does that work.

30:00.18
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, a great question. So so to help you visualize it if people come to our platform and on our platform we don't like explicitly share a large amount of detail about our tutors. We literally just have their picture and their name. So what the student has to do is just talk to us for 10 minutes right that's the first interaction. The student has with us.

30:19.29
mike_flywheel
So like like a bit of like an intake process I Guess you guys have okay.

30:19.97
Dhiraj Hariramani
So they talk to either me or exactly like ah yeah, like an intake process like okay who are you right? like can I can I talk to you for 10 minutes because if I talk to you for 10 minutes I'll immediately know even through and a very simple interaction. How who which tutor would you get along with right away right? So we don't want to. Go on our platform and write like 1 paragraphs 2 paragraph about a tutor because no one's going to read that right? So we we have that initial interaction with a student ten fifteen minutes and that's done by me or someone else who's not who's not going to teach that student so we don't have the tutor do the first interaction with the student. It's mostly just someone else. Who does that first interaction who understands just the the has the understanding that that student might be matched with a multitude of different tutors and so we have that initial interaction we talk to them and some of the things that we talked to them about is you know who's your favorite professor because we know all the professor uvc and. That that helps us a lot because the answer to that will tell us how they like to learn right? because you sometimes usually your your best professor is not the one who looks the best. It's the one who you enjoy learning with the most right? So we ask them who is the who is their favorite professor at uvc and. Immediately we understand. Okay, that's the fair professor. This is how they teach because we have all done those courses so we know how they teach and therefore we also know that which one of our tutors teach is similar to them because we have trained our tutors. We know how they teach and they're all very different so. That's the first interaction the sector interaction we have is we get their preferences.

31:54.32
Dhiraj Hariramani
So some students actually have preferences in terms of I don't want to learn from another second year because it it will hurt me right because I'm in my second year I don't want to learn and from another second year because it will feel too young I want to learn from a fourth year or a fifth year or new or a graduate right? So so versus some they're like you know it doesn't matter to me, you give me a first year you give me a second year I don't have it. Don't have a preference so we get those preferences even gender preferences are prevalent. Do you want to learn from a male. Do you want to learn from a female and or or you know other but we have to understand their preferences because we have to make sure we're respectful of that and so we get all of that we make our decision and usually it's just and immediately. After that whole process. We'll see that there's only 1 tuor. That's a perfect match for them. It's never going to be like oh I'm confused between these three it somehow just becomes one and so what we do is we then match the student with that tutor through our platform and we say here's ah, here's a tutor that we think will help you the most we'll help you succeed in the best possible way. And have your first session and we'll chat after that. So we never. We never asked them to pay before their first session because we want them to tell us that there was value in it right? So we we set them up. They have their first session either in person or virtual. Whatever the student wants right. And we talk to them right? after the session maybe like a few hours whenever the schedules on so we talk to them and we say how was that was it helpful to you right? and ah, almost all the time everyone is flowing with positivity that that was such a helpful session I really liked the tutor. They were so nice right? and and they really understood me.

33:28.30
Dhiraj Hariramani
And we know that we know that before we're setting them up but we need to get that validation to make sure that we're doing it the right way and so after that that's when it becomes more consistent and then we leave it to the student and tutor to set up their own sessions to do it and because we have such a tightknit community. Our tutors come to us and they're like you know here's how many hours I did here's how it worked and and the student directly interacts with learn it as a platform and ah in terms of their payments or in terms of if they need resources and those sort of things and then for their own tutoring personal tutor. They'll just interact directly with the tutor. They don't have to go to the website every time to book another session with the same tutor. You can just text the tutor and be like hey when are you free. So it's more hopefully that provides more of a visual explanation of how the whole matching and how the whole process works.

34:13.41
mike_flywheel
Yeah, it totally does So How do how does learn it make money and and I assume you charge the student that gets brokered through the platform. But maybe it's something different walk walk me through that a little bit and when you're going through it. The thing that just jumped out in what you said?? um. I'm sure is on a lot of people's minds if they're listening is how do you make sure that the student and the tutor don't leave learn it and and just continue to do these things outside of the platform now that I found my perfect match of of teaching style.

34:40.28
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, yeah.

34:48.19
Dhiraj Hariramani
You know Mike I thought about that so much when I first started and I would always ask myself every tutor is going to leave and they're all going to go with their students because it's like as you said it's a brokerage right? So we take a certain cut the student pays us we paid a tutor. We found that no one left no one and and here's why. Because we were very transparent we told the tutor here's how much you're charging the student here's how much you're going to get and if you if you're not okay with that then you can leave and and the and the good thing is that that initial interaction. That's why it's never done by the tutor. It's always done by someone ah like as learn it as an organization. Because a student thinks of learning not about Mike the tutor right? That first interaction is is learned so we we found that 1 having transparency and honesty. Ah, ah like just being very transparent with how much we're charging and we're not ripping people off really helped their tutors be like okay that's fair. I understand that and we help our teachers get more students and they stay with us because if they go off for that one student I'll give them all my blessings and I'll say go ahead as long as you can help them and you don't want to come back. It's fine, but they're not gonna get any more students like that's it. It's just one and so you they need to understand that. They they also won more students after that one semester what are they going to do. They're going to come back to us right? So yeah.

36:06.64
mike_flywheel
Got it the demand the fact that learn it drives the demand and the fact that you can't be a tutor to just 1 individual and make that work most likely it keeps them coming back because if you were to burn that bridge then you just that you'll have that one path but especially because. Students run through courses graduate out over time. There needs to be a constant flow of of demand. That's that's pretty cool and so the students pay learn it learn it pays the tutors what percentage of your.

36:28.61
Dhiraj Hariramani
Are.

36:43.38
mike_flywheel
Of your tutoring. Do you think happens virtually versus in person. So.

36:48.77
Dhiraj Hariramani
That's that's an interesting question I'll say actually this year we're seeing a lot more in-person that we did last year. So I think when covid first you know finished I like to say finished and covid was over ah and and and universities started going inperson people were still learning virtually. Um, there's a tendency that oh they liked it. They just they liked being home and learning now I think a year later people like no I really want in-person sessions I can't like I want to meet the tutor I want to sometimes I want to go over by 5 minutes I don't want to hop of the Zoom call I want to talk to them I want to sit with them when I'm leaving the session I want to walk with them to grab coffee on the way.

37:14.88
mike_flywheel
Um.

37:25.96
Dhiraj Hariramani
There's such small things and we find that those in-person sessions actually help build a more meaningful relationship that we actually encourage it and we we say okay, you've been learning online for a while us our tutors at uvc you're at uvc just try an in-person session and and most of the time they actually like it more so we're seeing more and more in-person sessions come up as compared to before. And we actually enjoy that more because it allows our students to have ah build a better relationship with their tutor and to some extent It's also better for their learning because if they're learning in person. They also want to get tutored in person. There's a better alignment rather than learning online. You know you, there's distractions. You can. You know if you ask a student some students have this sort of nervousness that they always have to be right? You know if if a tuor asks student a question. The tuor knows that it's fine if they're wrong because that's what they're there for They didn't help but you know some students will always be like oh no I can't be I can't show that I'm wrong or conscious I don't know so they'll Google it right? But when you're in person. it's a lot more ah it's a lot more honesty there's a lot more transparency okay you don't know let's figure it out together and that's those sort of vulnerable moments are what builds a strong relationship.

38:29.68
mike_flywheel
That's amazing. You've mentioned Ubc A Few Times um where where is learn it in its journey of building this this startup are you canada-wide mostly at Ubc Today um yeah maybe maybe where you're at what stage.

38:47.20
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, no great question so we actually right now only at Ubc. But this summer we're moving towards other universities across Canada and replicating a similar model. So currently, we are focused on Uvc and the reason that we do that is because our platform the the videos the tutors. They're always going to be university specific. So if if you know someone wants a tutor that tutor has done the same course as them with most likely the same professor and has done well right? So it's so specific so I won't match a ubc student with a Mcgid tutor. Because they don't understand the professor. They don't understand does the professor usually have an easy exam or hard exam. They don't know the answers to those questions does the professor usually ask about this chapter in your exam. They don't know that but someone who has done the course will know that better. So that's why it's a bit. It takes a little bit longer. But I think now that we've got comfortable with our model. Starting to move across different universities over the summer and we'll start offering similar services to sfu which is another university closer to uvc and to University Of Toronto most likely and that will start in September of twenty twenty three.

39:56.80
mike_flywheel
Yeah that's awesome. Do you see I'm I'm curious now that most of the startups that I'm talking to and there's always the use it build it break it as sort of the concept that I talk about which is how do you implement it to accelerate your business and the work you do as an entrepreneur. Are there ways to integrate it into things you're already doing or the service you already offer and then break it which is build out completely different disruptive business models. But where do you see? um, are you using Ai today in any aspects of learn it and if not um. Where do you see yourself using it either yourself to be more efficient or within the platform itself. Okay.

40:38.39
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, so right now we're not using it actively but we we have thought about it a lot and the reason we have is because there's ah in the last six months as everyone knows there's a strong sort of surge in this ai and everyone sort of throwing it into their business and everyone putting it in there right. And that's it's fine, but we're actually seeing in the education space. A lot of companies are throwing in like Chad Gp into their platforms are throwing in some sort of Ai model where where they focus more on just spitting out the answer. So the reason that we are a bit hesitant to integrate Ai in. Into our education system in ah in a learns education sort of story is because in doing that we'll shift our focus towards here's the answer right? and and here you go take the answer right? here's your question here's the answer. Thank you and we we don't want to do that. We don't want to go to that file so we want to focus more on the understanding. So I think we're trying to explore ways in which we can focus less on the here's the solution and more on the process like you know, applying Ai but in education focused more on the process of getting to the answer rather than just the answer itself. It's something we've definitely thought of and um. And hopefully we'll get to you know, try something. You know, try and prototype something with a small group of students but we are working with another company in the states and we're great partners and they use Ai very heavily but the way that they use it is they help students build study planners. So what they do is that you know we work with them and and.

42:02.70
mike_flywheel
So.

42:07.60
Dhiraj Hariramani
We work with our own students and integrate a lot of their platform and essentially a student just to imagine it. You have a syllabus that your professor ah provides you hit upload. It uses a natural language processing to just pick out the topics after it's done its natural language processing it. It actually uses its algorithm to. Kind of create a sort of video playlist for you and it takes videos from different sources. So from Youtube from tiktok from learn it itself and so it uses that sort of algorithm to create a place of videos and the algorithm is based on a multitude of factors such as the views the likes the comments is it useful. Is it not. And helps you sort of build out that video playlist for your own ah courses.

42:49.92
mike_flywheel
But as you were saying that it almost just struck me another amazing opportunity to maybe leverage Ai um, earlier in the show we were talking about this concept that I think you've tapped into in a unique way. But you're mostly doing it manually today which is. The the subconscious learning preferences and it's harder to cluster or categorize them. But I think an interesting thing is if you had recordings from your video calls or recordings from the in-person tutoring sessions on aggregate you may actually be able to call out. Some interesting trends and then find ways. Um, after any 1 session to actually start to cluster a student's learning style with these new identifiers that only you have found and these learning styles with these new identifiers or teaching styles as well. It's it's interesting like as you're talking about the use cases. Not wanting to jump to the answers I I instantly went to well there's this aspect that Dora is talking about which was there's this thing that people don't even know that they like yet but it would come out when you talk to people or when you transcribe.

43:58.30
Dhiraj Hariramani
Um, the.

44:03.30
mike_flywheel
Way that they're learning and you can probably cluster it so it might be an interesting thing to keep in your roadmap um over time but talking about your roadmap what sort of the next six to twelve months look like um, look like for for learned and you know if people are looking to find out a bit more where should they be going to find out more or maybe.

44:22.54
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, no, absolutely so answer the first question in terms of the next 6 to twelve months I said we're we're trying to focus on replicating a lot of what we're doing in different universities because we're seeing that more and more students are looking for help and looking for more in-person help so we want to try and.

44:22.68
mike_flywheel
Sign up for for learn it first.

44:41.20
Dhiraj Hariramani
Ah, get more tutors in different universities and try and replicate a model across Canada and possibly even in the states depending on where the market takes us and so that's really what we're we're honing in on in the next six or twelve months at our core we we still hope to focus on this idea of. Personalized. We don't want to get to a point where we're just matching people randomly and just you know just going hawire with it so we want to still keep that at our core but find a more scalable way to do that a more faster way to do that I think that's what's going to be a focus for the next 6 or twelve months to crack that and to replicate that across different universities. And in terms of where people can find more well our our website is learn learn hyphen it online or they can also look at our Instagram it's at learn at and escoubc so they can definitely find more there they can book a session through either of those ah kind of streams and they could also definitely reach out to us and just to learn more chat chat about their learning needs. Sometimes youngrians I just want to talk and they' like I hate this course and we're like we hate it too and we know it suck and that's it they don't want to get tutored but you know they just want to talk to someone who understands them and so if you want to do that. You're you're more than welcome to it. We're here to help we're here to listen to you. We're here to help you in every way and sometimes you last that I only have 1 question. Promise I don't need a session and we'll be like yeah tell us what's your question here. It is okay here here's how you do it and and let's do it together. Let's ho on a call 10 minutes we'll do it we you don't to pay us for 10 minutes we'll do it together right? So I think we we try and build a very positive relationship. We try and help people as much as we can to succeed in their classes in in in the most unique ways possible. But.

46:10.52
Dhiraj Hariramani
They can you know people folks that are listening can definitely learn more about us reach out to us to learn more and we're happy to to share our experiences.

46:18.42
mike_flywheel
That's amazing. You're super purpose driven and and I love it. The passion just shines through so it sounds like your next twelve months is really about scaling. Um, what was I guess you were a little bit past and Mvp. You've got paying customers but you were sort of in an isolated market and now you're going to expand Canada -wide maybe us over the next twelve months and really try to figure out. How to crack the code on. Um you know, supporting a higher volume of tutors and learners together if there's people listening that are interested in helping learn it in any way I I don't know what your major call to actions would be or what type of help you would be looking for but have you thought about what those.

46:38.46
Dhiraj Hariramani
Um.

46:55.38
mike_flywheel
Things would be for the next six to twelve months they could help you you know accelerate.

46:57.95
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, so I think you know from 2 perspective one we are actively kind of talking to folks to help us in our expansion either financially or through a stronger network as we haven't you know we haven't been to the states or we haven't looked at that market yet. So if there's. Ah, you know investors who are who are looking for early stage companies. We're definitely open to that and we're looking for very early stage investments to help us make those expansions and replications of models and in terms of students that are listening I think if if you want to help us then then you know reach out to us and and we can talk and we we'll definitely be happy to help you. Through your courses share share about us if you if you like what we do and also if you want to get involved. You can definitely reach out to us. We're happy to we do a lot of work internationally with learning global you want to maybe make an impact you want to impact students across the globe reach out to us will help you make that impact right? So I know a lot of people want to make impact. They just don't know how. You know, reach out to us. We'll we'll make that process easier for you well help you you want to get a taste of what teaching looks like reach out to us. We'll give you a shot of it and and if you like it then you never know you can be our next tuer.

48:05.29
mike_flywheel
That's amazing before we close out I there's something you just said which I know we didn't get to go into maybe today but tell me a little bit about learning global.

48:07.27
Dhiraj Hariramani
Are. Yeah, so learning global is kind of a nonprofit side to to what we do. So we we work with schools in in Africa and and and other communities that don't usually have access to to like a lot of education. Lot of a strong education system. So it's usually in smaller remote villages or remote places and so what we do really depends on what the students need the most right? So for example, if we are doing some work in Ghana then they need momential education so we'll work with another nonprofit who has more subject matter expertise in that topic because we don't. But if that's what they need then we'll help them with that in in the best way that we can just learn it and if there's another school maybe in India that needs more entrepreneurship education. We'll work with maybe another nonprofit that has more subject matter expertise and help them learn it in terms of you know, helping them understand those things so we we just try and ah. Help out as much as we can and I think there's another thing that we're looking at right now is in a lot of remote villages in Africa. It's actually like people don't even have a roof over their heads people don't even have desks to write on people don't even have books to use so the most simple things to us that we think are like we just go to muji and buy a book.

49:24.57
Dhiraj Hariramani
People don't have that people don't even have a route people have to stop learning when it rains imagine that like if you live in Vancouver, you never be learning if it's raining all the time right? So I think it's that first you build a fundamental the the environment to learn and then second you actually help them learn in the best way that you can. So. That's what learning global is all about.

49:46.93
mike_flywheel
So much I love it. We might have to do a whole other episode just on that. But I love how you are building a social enterprise right alongside based on the exact same core principles which is helping others learn, um and and excel so diage.

50:02.97
mike_flywheel
Thank you so much for joining us today. Everyone I hope you really enjoyed the story and background on learn it and the amazing work they're doing um any closing thoughts on your end before we wrap up and.

50:14.41
Dhiraj Hariramani
Yeah, no thanks Thanks! a lot for having me Mike it's so it's always a pleasure to talk to you? Um I really love I love sharing about education and all those sort of things and I'll say that you know if you're a student your learner help people around you. You know your if your friends need help help them too. And I promise the feeling of of being able to help someone I think is beyond anything else. So make sure to help people every time you see that you can have help and add value and just remember that sometimes if you're not doing well in a course it might not be you. It might just be the course and so don't don't be too hard on yourself and yeah, thanks for having me mike always a pleasure.

50:47.56
mike_flywheel
I Love the passion I Love the passion. Thank you so much Again, garage everybody who tuned in. Thank you again and catch you on the next episode.

50:48.93
Dhiraj Hariramani
Talk to you.