u/pratham123K

We got 10,000 users and crossed 3 lakh/month in paid revenue. Hard to scale though, since most of our manpower goes into building the product.

We also got backed by IIT Mandi through a government grant.

Two days back I started reaching out to VCs. I mailed 100 partners with the subject line "AI that reads emotion, raising seed at 10,000 users." Sent them all around 2 AM. Got 0 replies.

I did this same cold outreach manually 4 months back at the pre-MVP stage. Back then I booked 1 meeting out of 15 cold emails.

The difference is in how I structured the mail. Earlier I shared a few points on the idea and asked if they wanted to see the deck. This time I attached the deck directly.

Maybe mails with attachments land in spam. Maybe they just need time to evaluate. I don't know.

This VC outreach process is new to me, so I'll keep testing different permutations. But I wanted to ask what has worked for you, given a situation like mine.

Completing a lecture gives an extended sense of achievement, while the real learning happens when you put your brain into solving problems.

YouTube one-shots and quick-solve videos (even our shorts) feed on your desperate desire to feel like you learned something. To an extent it's needed, but when consumed in quantity, you undergo brain rot.

Only 1% of students watch one-shots out of sense; the rest watch out of wanting to feed the desperation.

Escape this trap of validating yourself by watching lectures and reading notes, and get to solving problems. That's what we built Solve Arena for, and it's FREE, so there are no excuses now.

https://preview.redd.it/xf6ug4hzs87h1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=fec39276cca5ea5d62f1d77ca611dc651666b35a

Across my last few intern cycles, the same story keeps showing up.

At the same average stipend, the IITian joins with more skill on day one.

The Tier 2/3 intern joins with more discipline.

By the end of the internship, the discipline is usually what stays with me.

The part I keep thinking about: at the same skill level, the average Tier 2/3 intern shows more discipline than the average IITian.

The gap is widest in the middle of the skill range.

I don't think this is about the people. The same stipend pulls different things from each group.

From IIT, it pulls the skilled but more relaxed ones. The skilled-and-disciplined IITians are genuinely top notch, but they cost much more than an average stipend can pay.

From Tier 2/3, it pulls the hardworking ones, because that's what they're offering at that price.

Other founders who hire interns, are you seeing this too, or is it just my experience?

I've been into ed.tech since past 5 years, got around 500k followers combining all socials, Initially I went into course business.

after creating 2 courses, we stopped, released one of them for free, as we really wanted to do something innovative, to solve a bigger problem.

50 out of 100 students never attend the 2nd lecture if not reminded, I realised that learning infrastructure is broken, it knows how to sell but not how to engage.

after 1 year of spending time with students I realised a gap and came up with an innovative idea, A platform that Makes learning socially rewarding, because students are under-appreciated, in fact exposed with fear of being average.

good quality lectures that develop curiosity and a platform that appreciates effort when learning gets tough! we wanted to solve for these 2 pillars of learning, starting with the 2nd one.

Pilling up courses and building profits is easy if you know how to crack distribution but solving for these deeper problems is a tougher challenge.

and lately, after having a few vc meetings and learning about ed.tech infrastructure, it feels like people generally bet on winning horses here, education is no-where in top 10 sectors that gets funded and in that too we are trying to chase innovation ( substantially lowering the odds )

nevertheless, students love what we are building and that's our primary drive for now, will keep on bootstrapping and giving more pitches, and certainly we'll hit a good number giving hope to possibility of innovation in education.tech.

I've been into ed.tech since past 5 years, got around 500k followers combining all socials, Initially I went into course business.

after creating 2 courses, we stopped, released one of them for free, as we really wanted to do something innovative, to solve a bigger problem.

50 out of 100 students never attend the 2nd lecture if not reminded, I realised that learning infrastructure is broken, it knows how to sell but not how to engage.

after 1 year of spending time with students I realised a gap and came up with an innovative idea, A platform that Makes learning socially rewarding, because students are under-appreciated, in fact exposed with fear of being average.

good quality lectures that develop curiosity and a platform that appreciates effort when learning gets tough! we wanted to solve for these 2 pillars of learning, starting with the 2nd one.

But lately, after having a few vc meetings and learning about ed.tech infrastructure, it feels like people generally bet on winning horses here, education is no-where in top 10 sectors that gets funded and in that too we are trying to chase innovation ( substantially lowering the odds )

nevertheless, students love what we are building and that's our primary drive for now, will keep on bootstrapping and giving more pitches, and certainly we'll hit a good number giving hope to possibility of innovation in education.tech.

https://preview.redd.it/yytiadi2vn5h1.jpg?width=1542&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12d145c5f78aba96e803e97468fe785c76c6cd9b

He attended coaching every single day.

He wasn't the kid who studied at home, but he showed up, sat in class, and listened. Over a thousand hours.

That rank probably means he got 1 or 2 questions right on the exam.

A thousand hours in a classroom, and the system extracted so little from him that he could barely solve a handful of problems. That is not his failure. That is the ecosystem's failure.

Six lakh students show up daily, sit through lectures, go through the motions and walk into the exam hall solving 5 to 10 questions. Not because they are incapable. But because the system never once made them feel like they could.

And then it hands them a rank, and sends them home carrying a quiet, devastating belief that they are existentially dumb.

Willpower is not something you're born with. It's a product of conditioning. It's built by environments, by small wins, by being seen.

Every resource being built today is built for toppers. Nobody is building for the kid who used to believe in himself, and doesn't anymore.

That star student who started calling himself average, not because he lacked intelligence but because systems failed him, he's still there, waiting.

That's the student we are building solve arena for.