Strive is an online learning platform that teaches kids to code, but wants to do more than that. Developed with an active learning model that allows students to take the lead in classes, Strive wants to instill in them a lifelong love of STEM subjects.
The Singapore-based startup announced today that it has raised a $1.3 million seed round led by Y Combinator (it’s an accelerator program alumnus), with participation from Soma Capital, Goodwater Capital, and individual investors including Crimson Education CEO Jamie Beaton, co-founder of WestBridge Capital and founding member of Sequoia India KP Balaraja, and co-founder of Segment and former CTO Calvin French-Owen.
Strive, which offers individual classes for children ages 8 to 16, has plans to expand across Asia, with the goal of 3.7 million students in international schools.
Founded in 2020 by Tamir Shklaz and Pulkit Agarwal, Strive was founded on the idea that the development of AI technology and automation means that anything you learn could be obsolete in a few years.
“The most important skill that we can give to children or to anyone is to learn to be adaptable,” Shklaz said. “If you want to inspire adaptable learners, learning must be fun. Learning should be joyful. So we really started Strive with the core intention of equipping children to thrive in the 21st century by making them fall in love with the learning process.”
What makes Strive different from many other online coding learning platforms for kids? Shklaz said Strive’s goal is to create a learning experience that is more effective and engaging than its competitors.
“We have really amazing teachers, but we don’t hire teachers based on their technical ability,” he said. “Of course they need to be able to teach programming, but what is much more important is their ability to empathize and engage with the student.”
Classes are “hyper-personalized” so students can choose the projects they want to work on; For example, they might code a game like pong, a math quiz, or a physical simulation. Projects are visual and have instant feedback. Once a student solves a problem and completes a new line of code, she sees the results immediately on her screen. “We use circles, colors and movement, and that’s what makes it really appealing to kids.”
Agarwal said that while more parents and education systems are beginning to emphasize coding, its teaching methods often leave children feeling disconnected and frustrated. “Most of the time, students are still introduced to coding and then tuned out. They come to the false conclusion that coding is too hard, coding is dry, or coding just isn’t for me.”
Active learning means that instead of lecturing students during a class, teachers ask them questions and guide them through coding exercises, letting them take the lead.
Agarwal gave me a short sample lesson, which was an interesting experience for me because I’ve never studied programming before, so I’m starting at the same level as the kids they teach (or even lower, to be honest).
First, Agarwal asked me if I was interested in learning averages. I said no, so he asked me if he wanted to draw art instead, which I did. He walked me through the steps of coding a gridded art sketchpad, but I was leading the class, choosing the outcomes I wanted, like making the background of the sketchpad my favorite color.
Instead of telling me what to do, Agarwal asked me to change a number and then asked me what I thought that action had resulted in (moved one dot to the corresponding number on the grid). In the end, I was able to draw shapes with the dot using my cursor and managed to code my first sketchpad. I don’t think I’m describing the experience very well, but it was fun to find out what happened every time I entered a new code. The lesson was interesting and something I would consider enrolling my daughter in once she is old enough.
When Strive launched, I had 16 students, and each day Shklaz and Agarwal spent six hours teaching so they could test different content and standards. Strive employees, including its founders, still need to teach at least one student. For example, Strive’s head of operations doesn’t know how to code, but she is taking programming classes with her teachers to prepare her to take on a student.
One of the challenges Strive may face when executing its growth strategy is the scalability of its model. Shklaz said they have two solutions. One is slightly increasing the number of students per class, from one to one to one to four. The second is that Strive has a large pool of potential teachers, as it hires a lot of college students who are studying programming. Shklaz said that Strive will create a training process and infrastructure to ensure that the quality of teaching remains consistent.
Strive’s current customer acquisition strategy consists primarily of word-of-mouth referrals from children and their parents. Part of their new funding will be used to develop their code editor, adding additional concepts and a curriculum that is customized to different children’s interests. One of the first people Strive hired was its director of learning, Nick McIntyre, whose experience includes running a K-8 makerspace, teaching high school math and computer science, and mentoring college students through Google Summer of Code. . McIntyre and Agarwal are responsible for creating the majority of Strive’s course content and plan to take it beyond coding to other STEM topics.
Teaching kids how to code “is one of the desired outcomes, which is to be able to think and problem solve and code in the same way that you would develop language fluency,” Shklaz said. “But much more important than that is confidence and the joy of learning.”
