Veda: B2B edtech in Nepal
Nepalese parents complained about their communications with their kids' schools. Nirdesh Dwa built a solution.
This interview was conducted and transcribed by Timothy Motte.
Biography:
Nirdesh Dwa is the CEO and co-founder of Veda, an edtech startup based in Nepal. Veda provides schools in Nepal, Brunei and Japan with software that facilitates billing, scheduling, payroll and more.
Today, Veda serves 1,100+ schools and 1.6 million students interact with its product.
What was the genesis for Veda?
The golden path for launching a startup Nepal is to start working for an IT outsourcing firm. That’s my background. The first startup I launched was a SaaS aimed at restaurants. It failed, because local restaurants weren’t tech-savvy enough. I realized that if I were to launch another company, it would be in the healthcare or the education sector, two of Nepal’s biggest industries. I chose the latter.
The problem we identified was the inefficiency with which parents and schools communicated. It involved disparate SMS, hand-written notes… Parents were frustrated. At the same time, we witnessed the growth of mobile phones and internet penetration in Nepal (Veda was born in 2016). Our first product enabled schools to send notifications to parents via a dedicated app.
We started selling this solution to schools. The first school was weary of buying a product built by Nepalese, young talent. They were scared we would leave the country, as many youngsters do. But we stuck with it and after a while, schools started requesting other features, like digitizing homework assignments. Veda has since morphed into a comprehensive operating system for schools in the region.
What features were the trickiest to build?
Building a scheduling software for schools is delicate. There are absent students, substitute teachers, fluctuating timetables… It can become a headache.
We’ve also built a bus tracking system, for parents to verify that their children are on the bus and have gotten to school safely. This implies some GPS modules, which are technologically heavy.
We’re developing a feature where teachers can generate customized lesson plans based on the curriculum and their students’ weaknesses. This brings some AI/ML into the equation.
How do you price your product, knowing different schools have different budgets?