Lido Learning is an Indian ed-tech company that is revolutionising the online tuitions space in India by making live, online tuitions accessible to every child in the country. Interaction with Sahil Sheth, CEO and Founder of Lido Learning. The company currently offers classes in Maths, Science, Coding, and English, for students from KG to Grade 12.

Q1. When did the idea of launching the Lido app strike you?

I would have loved to answer this by singling out an exact date and time, but truthfully, the core idea behind Lido had been a long time in the making. It started with a seemingly simple objective – to make quality holistic education accessible for every child in the country. As an early member of India’s edtech revolution, I’ve always felt strongly about the gaps in India’s traditional education delivery system. Of course, technology was the glaring answer to solve a lot of these issues. But it wasn’t much later that I realised we needed to do more. Simply integrating education with technology can help you enter the now-coveted edtech sector, but to what extent are you truly helping students learn better? This question, coupled with some key insights on students preferring real-time interactions and exchange of ideas with friends and batchmates, led to the launch of Lido. Our chief USPs like small, same-level batches and the blending of personal tutor attention with social learning, all reflect these observations. This was in early 2019. In less than 3 years, Lido has emerged as one of India’s top small-group tuitions platform. But all of it can be traced back to the founding team’s itch to make education more accessible and democratic in India.

Q2. Did you face any difficulties in your endeavour? If yes, how did you overcome them?

Launching a business is never easy, least of all in the case of a nascent market. During the initial period of Lido, we had to resolve several concerns from skeptical parents. E-learning was a largely uncharted territory then, and as anticipated, many parents were worried about factors like tutor attention, regular assessment, homework & progress tracking. We made note of every query raised, diligently addressed them, and put our best efforts into designing a transparent ed-tech platform with features that solve these concerns. We were also clear on only hiring India’s top 5% tutors, which wasn’t an easy criteria to abide by at the scale we were trying to achieve. Varying levels of familiarity with technology was another challenge. While some parents were comfortable with using tech on a daily basis, many others weren’t. This gave rise to the need to integrate both traditional and digital approaches to customer acquisition. Along with perfecting an uncomplicated UX design. Yet another task was consistent student and parent engagement.

Over these last 3 years, we’ve managed to overcome all these challenges. We’ve used omnichannel engagement strategies and designed a 10-point selection criteria for tutors, along with user-friendly real-time apps for both students and parents. We’ve also focused extensively on Lido’s non-academic offerings like events, mentoring, and leadership sessions for better engagement.

Q3. What are the features in the Lido app that would attract parents as well as students?

I think what makes Lido stand out to parents and students, is our persistent focus on maximising learning outcomes. All the unique features we’ve developed in our apps reflect this emphasis. We want students to be well-versed with their subject textbooks and ace their exams, but we also want to help them translate this theoretical knowledge into practical, problem-solving skills. Our visual, relatable subject curriculums have been designed keeping this in mind. We leverage gamification to keep students excited and engaged in the learning process. We set weekly goals, use badges, and rewards as incentives, and assign customized homework that targets an individual student’s progress. Another huge hit with our audience is the Lido Gems Store, which gives a student daily points for every positive step they take. At Lido we firmly believe in the philosophy of “only carrots, no sticks”, and our positive rates of student improvement indicate we’re doing something right. We also go the extra mile to ensure 360* development of all Lido students through free events, hobby workshops, expert-led leadership seminars, and platform-wide talent hunts! By painstakingly ensuring all batches have a maximum student-teacher ratio of 1:8, and every student in a batch is at the same level of aptitude, Lido offers something other platforms don’t – the guarantee of improvement using a blend of personal tutor attention and peer learning.

Q4. Is there any fee structure or can anyone register for the app?

Yes, and yes. Lido uses the freemium customer acquisition model, so anyone is free to download the app and access features like booking demo classes, or browsing through the 85k+ academic videos and practice questions we have on the free Lido content library.

To unlock advanced features you would have to choose a subscription pack. Our pricing system is flexible and loaded with options for the customer. Chiefly there are 3 packs to choose from – Master, Superstar and Grandmaster. All these packs offer the same features, but at different per class rates.

Q5. Do you have any expansion plans? Have you tried Lido Learning’s flagship coding programmes outside India?

Yes, the next year is going to be all about expansion. Not just internationally, but also at a hyper-local level. In 2021, Lido launched in multiple geographies abroad, including the USA, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. We’ve started with our flagship Coding, but plan to introduce Maths, Science, and English soon as well. The curriculum for these international courses will be mapped to region-specific syllabus, much like our CBSE and ICSE-based courses in India.