PIC CAPTION: Meg Faure, founder of Parent Sense, an all-in-one app that takes the guesswork out of parenting is eyeing the global edtech market. Image: Supplied / Parent Sense.
The covid pandemic upended many facets of society, especially education, which should, in an ideal world, be readily accessible to everyone. At the time, while many businesses were not online or had not transitioned to the digital economy, the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies across the board as corporates, small and medium sized businesses and startups adapted their business models to stay relevant. As businesses pivoted, so did Meg Faure, founder of Play Sense and Parent Sense, as she realized she needed to adopt digital strategies to ensure her startup’s success. She speaks to AfricArena Wired’s Jabulile Sonya Ngwenya about her desire to make information accessible to parents.
“The covid pandemic threw a cat amongst the pigeons for education businesses and forced many businesses to pivot to the digital realm. As we were already positioned as a digital company, we could offer solutions for parents and teachers in their hands/homes. Our schools, which were in homes, had to pivot to digital and screen based offerings but because our schools were small, when lockdown lifted, the bubble concept worked well for our teachers. So overall we were well positioned for the pandemic,” Faure says.
“However, on the negative side, with the shift to digital we have seen an exponentialised increase in digital marketing costs, making the cost of acquiring customers onerous. This has led to a pivot over the last 12 months to a B2B2C model of delivery.”
These challenges and opportunities Faure shares are just one of the many variated scenarios entrepreneurs faced during the pandemic. With the acceleration of online education across the world, in 2019 before the pandemic, the global edtech market was valued at just over $58 billion and in the space of just four years, it has more than tripled, and is expected to reach over $200 billion in market value this year. The edtech market shows no signs of abating anytime soon, and it is expected to reach a market value of over $600 billion by 2030.
Faure, who is a qualified occupational therapist, parenting expert, infant specialist and accomplished author shares the moment she knew there was a need for what she offers in the market when an influencer told her she would not read her book. “I had always tried to offer content at scale through my books and workshops but one day when I took a book as a gift to an influencer, she told me she would not read it and please could I create an app,” says Faure. This both confounded and challenged Faure, and together with her co-founder and CTO, they worked on coding an app. A year later, Parent Sense launched in the market.
Chuffed about how her brainchild is helping many parents, Faure says, “Parent Sense provides a holistic suite of digital solutions aimed at enhancing early childhood development from pregnancy through preschool. Our platform includes intuitive mobile and web applications, a sophisticated AI chatbot named 'aiah', and comprehensive educational platforms, including the Play Sense explore program.”
All these tools, Faure says, offer parents “tailored daily routines, meal plans, and educational activities, all underpinned by expert advice, and ‘'aiah" utilises advanced natural language processing to deliver real-time, personalised responses to diverse parenting queries, ensuring support is always at hand.”
Acknowledging how content drives demand, Faure notes that Parent Sense’s content is “enriched with insights from paediatric and educational experts, and supports optimal child development. This integration of technology and expertise makes Parent Sense a pivotal resource for parents and educators, empowering them to foster crucial developmental skills in children effectively, ensuring they have the best possible start in life.”
Faure who in July this year was mentioned in EliteX Media’s list of Impactful Female Entrepreneurs to Watch, 2024, says that it wasn’t always easy as she initially bootstrapped her startup for the first few years before raising funds from a VC fund and from angel investors.
In addition to this achievement, Parent Sense, Faure says “on the product side, we launched our Parent Sense web app with Vodacom and launched the pregnancy version of the product. We have over 90,000 monthly active users in July, which is a record for us across the various digital products.
“The largest amount of funds we have raised so far is $480,000 and we used it to build the Play Sense tech system - an edtech platform for teachers and parents to nurture their little ones,” Faure says.
Passionate about ensuring parents receive the right information they need, Faure says, “as an occupational therapist and a mother, I was inspired to start Parent Sense and Play Sense out of a desire to bridge the gap between expert child development theory and practical parenting solutions. My professional insights and personal experiences revealed a significant need for accessible, science-backed guidance that could support parents and educators in fostering early childhood development effectively. I recognise the challenges parents face in finding reliable and actionable advice tailored to the unique needs of their children. As a serial entrepreneur, I saw an opportunity to leverage technology to deliver personalised, expert-driven support. This led to the creation of comprehensive platforms that not only offer practical day-to-day guidance but also empower parents with the knowledge and tools to enhance their children's developmental journey from infancy through preschool.”
Information is empowering. “The first 1 000 days of a child's life are the most critical for lifelong potential. And yet children are born to adults who are generally at a complete loss as to what and how to raise their little ones. Information is unreliable and conflicting and this confuses parents. I am obsessed by this parenting problem,” Faure says, citing that this drives her passion for what she does every day. “I feel a mom's pain and insecurity viscerally. I believe this makes me good at what I do - I have started with the problem in mind. To be able to deliver good advice at scale excites me.
Speaking of scale, Faure and her team, who are based between Cape Town and Jersey, Channel Island, are embarking on a new fundraising round in September, and are looking at raising £1.5 million. “These funds will be used to scale the business globally. We have achieved proof of concept in South Africa in the medical insurance, retail and mobile network B2B2C markets and want to expand globally now.”
Expansion during a funding winter is not always easy, but not impossible. Faure shares that while they were already positioned digitally during the pandemic, the funding winter meant an intense focus on slashing costs, pivoting for success and sharpening one’s focus. “I have an incredible partner (my COO, an experienced entrepreneur, who keeps us focused on delivery. In the near future, we will break even and be poised to scale. In the old mentality, it was all about scaling at all costs and spending investment to grow, now it is very different.”
Faure highlights a point here, that doing things the old way in an old mindset when everyone else is already adapting to new circumstances doesn’t help - it is necessary to shift into a new mindset, or a paradigm shift in order to stay ahead of the competition.
An early riser, Faure starts her day before the sun rises and during the first hour of her day, she meditates, prays, exercises and focuses on the day ahead. “After that first hour, it’s a 12-hour work day for me. Luckily my kids are older now and I do not have the daily juggle I used to have,” she says. “I try to have 90 minutes in the day for deep work - usually on product, strategy or new horizons. Then it's mainly zoom meetings and operational noise, like email.” A strong believer in separating work from home life, Faure says, “I close my computer by 6pm and do not go back in the evening. Having older kids has allowed this free time at night. When my kids were little and in my first business, I would work at night. Now I take some downtime.”
Leading a startup and an ever-growing team is no mean feat, and at times, challenging. “Managing the demands of capacity and growing a team against the constraints of a runway that may run out is a massive stress,” Faure says. Candid about the challenges of hiring the right people, she admits she hasn’t always got it right. “I have hired badly in the past, and I think I need to learn to move on quicker. Managing the cost of acquisition against lifetime value is always top of mind and I think we need to try new things more, but it can be scary. But amongst these challenges, we have learnt that failing fast is good - if you never try, you won't fail but you also won't learn.”
In the midst of all these lessons and learning curves, Faure shares one of the best advice a mentor gave her is to focus. Focus is integral to a business, she says. She mentions that understanding her personality type has helped her immensely as when she learnt that she is an enthusiastic, optimistic go-getter who loves new things and bright horizons, she understood focus is key in keeping her grounded and helping her achieve her goals.
She advises founders who want to enter the edtech sector to “build a sustainable business that achieves product-market fit with paying customers before you look to raise and scale.” Sound advice.
As Parent Sense and Play Sense continue to grow in the parent-driven edtech market, Faure says she’s optimistic about the future. “We are extremely excited about the upcoming year! We are currently onboarding a few really big corporates and that is exciting. We plan to get to breakeven in the next quarter and parallel with that are raising to fund the global growth plans. We have a new pregnancy product launching too. I also plan to roll out our chatbot in community projects so that all mothers have access.” Watch this space as African born, African bred, now Jersey based Parent Sense dominates the global parenting edtech market, and this is a big deal as parents are primed to become edtech’s next big users.
For more information about AfricArena and our upcoming events, visit our website at www.africarena.com
Comments