In less than a year, Gradely broke through and disrupted the educational space with a technology that closes students’ learning gaps in real time.
In this Founder’s session, Co-founder & CEO of Gradely, Boye Oshinaga shares with Founder Africa how the idea came to life, the challenges he encountered, and the milestones he is looking to achieve. If you enjoy the entrepreneurial spirit, stay tuned to learn more about what it takes to launch and run a start-up.
Please can you briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Boye Oshinaga, I am the CEO and Co-founder at Gradely. Prior to starting Gradely, I had co-founded Riby Finance — a fintech that helps cooperatives automate their transactions and helps people save, borrow, and invest. My professional experience has been in Edu-tech. Recently, I worked with Venture Garden Group on an online MBA program for some of Nigeria’s top universities where we converted their programs from physical to become online (digital) degree programs. This explains where my expertise lies: from learning systems to content and helping teachers or subject-matter experts convert their content to digital format.
I schooled at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife where I studied Computer science and economics. As an undergraduate, I was involved in several educational projects and learned the practical application of technology alongside the business aspect. I am highly passionate about education because I believe it is the top ingredient in the economic transformation of the continent. The future of the next decades will be determined by how many people will be able to climb the social mobility ladder due to their ability to acquire new and advanced skill sets. I also presume that crude oil will soon become a thing of the past in terms of its contribution to GDP for Africa.
How did you get into the world of entrepreneurship?
As a teenager, I thought the only thing I had that was truly inborn was my use of words and writing skills. However, I started learning about entrepreneurship when I joined a club in high school called the junior achievement club where I spent ample time reading through materials that talked about company structure, shareholding governance, raising capital, etc. The information was completely new to me back then, but I became really fascinated by it. With the junior achievement club, we tried to practicalize, and so we built a proper business around a product and I caught the bug after then.
This inspired me to start a book club in my pre-university year which turned out to be a massive success as I made ten times the money I invested in a year. It was at that point that my passion for education dawned on me. I had always wanted to impact people. The business became a great vehicle for that impact because I helped people that wanted to read novels to actually read novels. I was making an impact, but it was through the vehicle of business, and they gladly paid me for it. That was how my entrepreneurial background was formed.
What is the story behind Gradely?
Prior to Gradely, I left Venture Garden Group as Vice President to start Riby Finance, that’s when the inspiration hit me. I invested in an education company that had cracked the code and the code for me then was how many schools could sign up on your platform. When I tried this, I discovered that it was difficult to scale because we had an offline solution and it had to be installed in their computer labs. We didn’t go beyond 20 to 30 schools. Then I saw a player who had done 300 schools sign up because they were linking parents to schools and since schools wanted to acquire parents, they were signing up for free. I figured this was a great idea and so I invested some money and started hiring staff for the company. Essentially, growing it from 300 schools to 3000 schools in one year. While I was doing that part-time, I came to be CEO for about 3 months. While occupying the position of CEO, I had the opportunity to interact closely with proprietors of schools who opened up about certain challenges they had. Some complained about a lack of technology, others about a lack of content that could aid their teaching methodology. However, I wasn’t prompted enough until an incident happened.
One fateful day, I sold a proprietor our premium offering, and while we were very happy, a parent was totally displeased. The attention of the proprietor was drawn to the situation, and we realized that she wasn’t happy because her daughter had failed twice in a row. The girl’s teacher was invited and questioned but he kept emphasizing doing all he was required to do. Prior to this, I have always believed that with proper data analytics, one can understand and discover where the learning gap of their child is and intervene in real-time. I asked the teacher; do you know where the gap was? Do you know which topics she was struggling with in particular? He didn’t know. She was mapped in with other children. It was clear that the teacher wasn’t empowered enough to do anything to make that ‘F’ go away.
Right there, I proposed a solution to the proprietor stating that the solution has not been developed but if done, he had to buy it and he gave a go-ahead. I explained that it would be a solution where they would track those gaps, help them discover where the problem is and then propose ways to solve it. Today, they are one of our schools and you know, that prompted me to go and build this thing. It was like June/July 2019. By August I had built something. By September I started piloting like 10 schools. By December/January the number of schools that joined was an additional 50 by themselves. We then evolved that digital homework tool to what Gradely is today.
How did you come across the name, Gradely?
It was a complete process of iteration. I already had one initial investor and so, the investor and I alongside my friends and other people were deliberating on a name. I got suggestions and everything went through a process of elimination because the name had to be something unique and wasn’t owned by another company in Europe, US, or Sweden. And so, Gradely was one of those great ones. In fact, it was the greatest of them all and so we ran with it.
What Is the motivation behind running a start-up?
I think most people who are trying to run start-ups or who are founders of start-ups, are innovators. They are trying to find a new way to solve an old problem that makes things easier, better, or more effective for people. So, they are true entrepreneurs. They are not just business people because if it was business there are many ways to make money as a business person. For a start-up, you’re trying to scale a certain kind of impact. You will say this thing is going to be used by thousands or millions of people and it will change the way they do things and make the world a better place. That is the motivation to really start, and you are aware that your personal fortune is tied to it. It is also a form of employment, so if you succeed, you can become rich. Generally, that’s the motivation.
For me, my passion and interest in education are the motivation for the start-up. After the start-up, I will still be in education trying to change the system and improve it at scale. Now, I am using the vehicle of a company, or a business to
With Gradely, the journey has been challenging yet rewarding. For example, we started out and by the time it was March 2020, the pandemic hit, and people were instructed to stay back at home. The pressure from schools and parents to help deliver online learning drastically increased. Some parents depended on us as their school and that continues till today. So, meeting up with that demand fast and efficiently with a young team was a very interesting thing. It is very rewarding yet challenging. But it is exciting when you crack a code, and you know that now it’s working and if it delivers value, you can scale that value. What gets us excited every day is when we see that we are cracking these codes of what is required to scale the impact and reach the 20 million children we want to help significantly improve their outcomes by 2030.
What are the challenges you faced in the earlier stages?
Some challenges are still persistent. For example, fundraising. However, one can overcome this challenge as there is a pathway. There is also the challenge of finding great people. When Gradely started, we just had a very small tech team, and everybody was amazing. However, as you scale in terms of your customers, you scale your staff, and then you face the challenge of meeting the level of quality that you require especially if you’re not heavily fundraised because at that stage, we cannot match Microsoft on people’s salaries. As a result of this, you have to cost-effectively hire the best people who can deliver on the job. It was fundraising on one side, scaling the team cost-effectively on the other side, and just adapting to a very fast-changing market.
Looking back at the journey, what mistakes could you have avoided?
The things I would have done differently? I still don’t know. However, we know that hiring senior people is super important as it is what prepares us for that next level. When you hire people with mid-level experience, it is great because you’re just a start-up and you’re just figuring out the market. But when you figure out the market, you need the heavy lifters.
With Fundraising, we haven’t done badly at all but one thing I think we could have done better is maybe fundraised more aggressively. But it is still an ongoing process. The fundraising aggressiveness is now for us because as a start-up, you need more money than you think you do to really grow that kind of company that will make an impact across the world. It is very clear now that the market exists. It is validated. We validated it. So, now it is time to scale it up.
Who are the people who have been instrumental to your growth?
One is my Long-Term mentor, Bunmi Akinyemiju who is the CEO of Venture Garden Group. I met him when I just graduated from University. Literally, he was the first person I worked for and maybe the only person I worked for officially. Essentially, I learned by talking to him as early as 10 years ago now and that helped me broaden my perspective about what was possible. I saw him invest N500 million into a school project with hope, and a leap of faith, that he will get returns on his investment. I caught that spirit and with that the wisdom around how to navigate the early stages of a company.
In the early days when I started, I was on Dragon’s Den and I met Ms. Tokunbo Ishmael, John Momoh, and later, Mr. Leke Alder. I learned a lot from the small sessions I had with them. These people shaped how I started my entrepreneurship journey.
Recently, I have been inspired by founders themselves, people who are in my circle like Iyin Aboyeji, whom I talk to about their own companies and how they are executing and solving their own problems. I rub off certain things when I talk to them.
What is the goal for Gradely?
Our mission is to make students successful learners; they do not have to be students who are in school. They are people who are determined and dedicated to learning whatever it is they set their minds to learn. We help them do it in grand style with Gradely.
Our vision is to do that for 20 million people. Children in primary and secondary schools. To improve the outcomes that they get in the process of learning. Whether it is in Mathematics or English or Sciences, we will help them get better results in terms of their ability to think, understand the concepts, and to apply them. That’s the vision of Gradely.
What are the milestones you are looking to achieve in 2022?
We are looking to grow to about a million users by early 2023. That is our next big milestone as we are now a sustainable fast-growing start-up.
What are the numbers like at the moment?
We are at about 20,000 users. So, it really looks like a long way off. But we are growing really fast, and we expect to do a 100k early next year and then do that more in the next year. It is not just a 2022 target as it spills into 2023. But the goal is to have that number of users across Africa and to empower their learning.
How would you rate the start-up ecosystem in Africa?
I think it is very advanced now. It is competitive, compared to any other ecosystem in the world. So, we used to talk about its potential. Now we are living its potential.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
I am working on a novel. I can’t give away the story now, but it is a fiction novel. I love the young adult genre, which refers to teenagers. Also, I love political thrillers, especially as regards nation building, nations in crisis and nation builders, etc.
When you are not running Gradely, what else are you doing?
I am either swimming, visiting the beach, writing, or trying to write, watching movies, listening to music, or going to the gym.
What piece of advice would you give your younger self?
My younger self was very inquisitive and always thought that he had potential. However, because it was vague and unclear, we kept procrastinating. My advice would be, don’t wait for anything to act on your dreams. Act on it like you could succeed next year. You could become successful in a heartbeat with the right effort, determination, and ingredients in it. Work as hard as if you’re not waiting for five or ten years. It can happen now, and it doesn’t matter how young you are.
What three tips would you give to other start-ups?
Tip 1: Raise more than you need.
Tip 2: Ensure you get the right co-founders on board because that is where everything rises or falls. If you miss it there, you have missed it for that start-up mostly.
Tip 3: Your first employees should not look like contract workers or just people that are doing a 9-5 job. Don’t hire those kinds of people. Hire entrepreneurial-minded people in the first 20 talents.
