Egypt's Eduudle makes it easier to find the right Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
Bassem Fayek is a man on a mission to "make MOOCs more
popular.” A former consultant in the process of getting his MBA,
Fayek launched Eduudle (beta) to
be a “Trip-Advisor meets Spotify” for Massive Open Online Courses,
also known as MOOCs.
For anyone looking to find a new MOOC, Eduddle currently offers
searchable listings of free online courses offered by Stanford,
MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Harvard and over 70 other world-class
universities. Descriptions of each course detail the topic and
format, and reveal user reviews. Users can pick and choose and save
their favorite courses to a "Course Wall," which essentially works
like a MOOC playlist; they can then head to the official site of
each MOOC to actually take the course.
Fayek, who is based in Cairo, first got the idea for the
platform last November, when he first tried to search for the right
course for learning how to develop on iOS. He quickly realized that
there wasn’t a popular website that ranked the various courses he
found or gave comparative feedback.
Building the right team
Once he decided to launch the site, Fayek faced his first (not
uncommon) challenge: he didn’t have a technical background, and
it’s difficult to recruit an experienced technical co-founder (an
issue discussed heavily on
Quora,). However, Fayek was intent on not completely
outsourcing the development of his product – “a mistake several
entrepreneurs in the Arab world fall into” – so he set out to
find a technical co-founder.
Through a mutual friend, Fayek finally managed to meet one with the
technical breadth and knowledge he needed, who also shared his
passion for education technology. However, he quickly realized that
convincing somebody with a comfortable job and significant
technical experience to join a startup is also hard work! He had to
demonstrate value and commitment and do so quickly if he was going
to convince Zaid
Marji, who he describes as “a tech guru with 10 years of
experience in search, big data, and web development,” to join his
venture.
To launch his startup, Fayek began using the very product he was
hoping to promote: MOOCs. After completing a Udemy course on
rapid
prototyping and a Coursera course on Human Computer Interface,
he flew to London to participate in an education-focused Startup
Weekend. With no technical support, and a bias towards “presenting
results, not an idea,” his single person team won second
runner-up.
Pitching investors - for advice
He then turned his demo into what he called a “Minimum Viable
Pitch,” a 10-slide presentation and a website mockup, and spent the
rest of his time in London “pitching to VCs to get advice rather
than raise money.” He did the same in San Francisco and Cairo
and was able to quickly tap into some valuable feedback. With this
approach, Fayek realized that it was much easier to access the
knowledge of experienced investors than if he were actually seeking
funding, a lesson he believes more “entrepreneurs in the region
should take note of.”
With the feedback he received, Fayek brought on board Mostafa
Menessy and Ibrahim
Gharabawi, two self-taught developers from his Alma mater, AUC,
to help build the first prototype. Fayek then applied to MIT’s Arab
Startup Competition and made it all the way to the final round in
Doha this April, with an idea that was only five months old.
Although Eduudle didn’t win any prizes at the end of the
competition, Fayek had finally managed to convince Marji and the
rest of the team that the startup had potential. He explains, “the
toughest part about startups is building a winning team. If I’m up
to building a Cairo-based one billion dollar company, I better be
headhunting the best talent in the region – people who share the
same passion and are better than me at what they do.”
From the 427 courses they currently list, the team’s objective
right now is to increase the number of courses to over than
1,000. This month, they’ve just made it to the top three
finalists at the London Business School Startup Competition. It’s
too early to tell if Eduudle will be a success, but if any of this
hype about MOOCs is true, Fayek and Marji might just be on to
something.