在“不利市场”中打造教育巨头 | ClassDojo 的故事 | 山姆·乔杜里（联合创始人兼首席执行官）

这是我们首先要做的事情。

That's the thing we have to do first.

我们两个人都挺偏执的。

And we're both pretty obsessive people.

所以接下来的六七年里，我们公司只做这一件事。

So that became the only thing we did for the next, like six or seven years in the company.

那么问题来了，网络是什么？

So then the question was what's the network?

就在这时，我们恍然大悟。

And that's when the penny dropped.

我们想，等等，老师。

We're like, well, hold on teachers.

我曾经当过老师。

I've been a teacher.

对吧？

Right?

所以对我来说，这个方向还挺熟悉的。

So it's kind of familiar where I come on.

老师处于一个非常特殊的位置，首先，他们真正从事教育工作。

Teachers are in this very interesting position where every teacher, first, they actually do the education.

其次，他们每天都面对大量的孩子和家长。

Second, they're in front of lots of kids and parents all the time.

因此我们想到，如果我们能服务好老师，或许也能间接服务到孩子和家庭。

And so the thought was, well, if we could serve teachers, maybe we'd be able to serve kids and families as well.

也许他们会把我们带到孩子和家庭那里。

Maybe they'd take us to kids and families too.

于是，我们开始了对老师进行大量访谈的专注时期，试图深入了解他们超越‘利亚姆的第一个朋友’之外的真实需求。

And so that then started this obsessive period of talking to teachers and really trying to understand their needs beyond Liam's first friend.

利亚姆参与了一部分，但大部分工作都落到了我身上。

Liam did a bit of it, but mostly came to me.

我想在最初的七十五到九十天里，大概七十五天左右，我们进行了数百场与老师的对话，只为弄清楚他们真正的问题和需求是什么。

I was like, okay, well, I think in those first seventy five to ninety days, probably seventy five days, We had like hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of teacher conversations to try and understand what their real problems and real needs were.

那么，你和所有老师交谈时，对话都是怎样的？

So what did the conversations sound like with all the teachers?

很多内容都是纯粹的调研和事实收集。

A lot of it was just open of fact finding.

我有一个喜欢问的问题，虽然不是最有趣的问题，但它能直击核心，那就是：你一天中最糟糕的部分是什么？

I had this question I like to ask, not the most fun question, but it really got to stuff, which was what's the worst part of your day?

是什么让你在工作中想哭？

Like, what makes you cry about your work?

于是我们会有一些有趣的对话，他们会说，你知道，我们一直在努力接近老师，因为我们在美国根本没人脉。

And so we'd have these funny conversations where they'd be like, you know, I'd say we were doing everything we could to get in front of teachers because we knew nobody in America.

这一点怎么强调都不为过。

It's hard to overstate this.

在头一两个星期，我们住的是六号汽车旅馆，因为我们别无选择。

We were staying in a Motel six for the first week or two because we had nowhere else to stay.

后来我们在帕洛阿尔托找到了一个单间，我肯定我待在一个角落，而利亚姆待在另一个角落。

Then we found this single room place in Palo Alto that we were sure I was in one corner and Liam was in the other.

这真是非常 humble 的起步。

And it was very humble beginnings.

就像当时在美国根本没人认识我们，我们以前从未在这里生活过。

Like when you nobody in America, we'd never lived here before.

我们得到了 Imagine K12 那些人的资金支持。

And we had like this, you know, the the the Imagine K12 people had funded us.

我们和 YC 的人有些交集，但也就仅此而已。

We had a little crossover with the YC folks, but that's kind of it.

所以我们就在自己那个小房间里孤军奋战。

And so we're just like on our own in our little room.

于是我开始直接打电话、发邮件，问朋友，朋友的朋友。

And so I just started like cold calling, cold emailing, asking friends, friends of friends.

我们去了当地的学校，比如帕洛阿尔托的贡高中以及其他学校，直接去恳请老师和我们聊聊。

We went to the local schools like Gunn high school in Palo Alto and others, just like soliciting teachers basically to talk to us.

我实际上还在贡高中教了几天暑期课，作为交换，让老师们更愿意和我们交流，总之我们什么都愿意做。

I ended up teaching summer school for a few days actually at gun high school in exchange for the teachers talking to us more, you know, whatever we could do.

但对话真正转向了：最严重的痛点是什么？

But the conversations really went to what is the worst pain?

你知道那种止痛药和维生素的区别吗？

You know that whole painkiller over vitamin thing?

我们真的把这一点看得非常认真。

We're just like, okay, took that very seriously.

我们想，最严重的痛点到底是什么？

We're like, is the worst pain?

你一天中最糟糕的部分是什么？

What's worst part of your day?

我们不断深入挖掘下去。

And we just kept getting deeper and deeper.

起初，冒出来了很多听起来不错的说法。

So initially there was all kinds of good sounding stuff would come up.

他们会说，比如，抄作业很烦人。

They'd be like, you know, it's mocking homework.

这真的太烦人了，就是抄作业。

It's just so annoying, know, mocking homework.

我们就会说，哦，好吧。

And we'd be like, oh, okay.

你知道，但你也基本上能自己决定布置多少作业。

You know, but also like you, you kind of decide how much homework you want to set roughly speaking.

那么，这里到底真正发生的是什么？

So like, what what's really going on here?

他们说，是的，其实根本不是批改作业的问题。

And they're like, yeah, you know, it's not actually the marking homework.

其实是，我回到家时已经精疲力尽了。

It's it's actually, I get home and I'm just exhausted.

我们说，这说得通。

And we're like, that makes sense.

每个人，都是一天很长。

Everyone, it's a long day.

每天十个小时，你知道的，但也有其他人每天也是十个小时。

It's ten hours a day, you know, but there's other people who are ten hours a day as well.

那到底是什么让你这么累？

Like, what, what get, what, like, why are you so exhausted?

你知道吗？

You know?

他们说，其实是我自己感到精疲力尽。

And they're like, well, know, it's actually something I'm exhausted.

就是这么回事。

It's, it's like this.

我遇到了一个孩子，或者一个家庭，不管怎样。

I just had this one kid or one family or whatever.

我和他们之间出了点大问题。

I'm having a real problem with them.

归根结底，这其实是个人际关系问题。

It basically boiled down to like a human issue.

他们遇到的是课堂管理问题，因为有个孩子给他们制造麻烦，扰乱了课堂，或者是一家人对他们不满，双方在邮件里吵得不可开交，你知道的。

They're like classroom management because some kid was causing them issues and disrupting the class, or it was a family that was upset with them and they were like having like a flame war with them, you know, and over email or something.

我们就会说，哦，这真是个有意思的问题。

And we're like, oh, like, that's an interesting thing.

这确实是个真正的人际问题。

That's like an actual human issue.

这才是你真正担心的事，因为对面是个活生生的人。

That's the thing that you worry about because there's a human being on the other side of it.

其余的那些都更像是流程和某种事务性的工作。

The rest of this is kind of like workflow and whatever transactional in a way.

但这些问题都伴随着情绪。

But these things have emotions attached to them.

你能从他们的眼神里看出来。

You could see it in their eyes.

你能感受到它。

You could you could feel it.

然后你会进一步深入，你会发现我其实能感同身受，因为老师们会说，我当初没想当老师是为了做这些事。

And and then you'd get to you'd go even deeper and you'd get and I I could empathize with this because I'd I'd told they'd say things like I didn't get into teaching to do this.

于是他们心中对自己的期待，却始终无法实现。

And so there was this vision that they had of themselves that just wasn't coming to light.

那时你就会开始有一种微妙的直觉，觉得这里有什么东西值得挖掘。

That's when it started to you get that like tingly sense of like, oh, there's something here.

所以我们的第一个产品创意就是从这里来的，我们意识到教师面临的一个大问题就是课堂管理。

And so that's kind of, that's kind of where, where our first kind of product idea came from, where we realized one of the big problems for teachers is it's called classroom management.

对。

Right.

你面对一个班上三十个孩子，该怎么维持一个积极良好的学习环境呢？

So you've got 30 kids in a class and, and how do you keep it a positive and good learning environment?

而他们当时主要依赖的技术手段，基本上就是惩罚。

And that the main technology they had was basically punishment.

就是等着事情失控，然后给学生留堂，或者提高音量、大喊大叫，你知道，这些做法根本不像在设计一个理想的环境。

It was like, wait for things to go off the rails and then give kids detentions or like raise your voice or yell, you know, all these kinds of things that just like, you just wouldn't do if you were designing like a great environment.

于是我们开始思考，有什么更好的方法。

And so then we thought a bit about what a better way would be.

我们的第一个产品，只是为老师提供一种非常简单的方式，来给予学生正面反馈。

And, our first product was just a really simple way for teachers to give kids positive feedback.

这几乎像是一种游戏。

So it was almost, it felt like a game.

它感觉像一个小玩具，但老师可以登录一个网站，注册后输入班级名单，并添加你希望在班级中认可的价值观，比如互相帮助、善良、好奇心等等。

It felt like a little toy, but as a teacher, could sign up as on a website at the time you'd sign up, you'd put your class list in, you would add the values that you want to recognize in your class, like helping each other, kindness, curiosity, whatever it is.

然后在课堂上，你可以这样说：‘布雷特，你问了一个非常好的问题。’

And then during class, could say, you know, Brett, that was a great example of, asking a great question.

比如，为提出好问题加一分。

Like here's a plus one for asking a great question.

你会得到一个小贴纸。

You get this little sticker.

现在，其中非常重要的一点是，我们当时大多是面对面进行的。

Now, one of the things that was very important was we were in person for a lot of these.

我们也打了很多电话，但很多情况都是亲自到场，因为这些事情主要发生在教室里。

We did a bunch of phone calls too, but we were in person for a lot of this because a lot of this was happening in the classroom.

所以我们去观察老师们是如何在课堂上使用这个早期产品的。

So we'd go and see how teachers were using this early product in the classroom.

于是你就会看到这些零星的喜悦时刻，如果你只是躲在电脑屏幕后面观察，是绝对不可能发现这些的。

And so you ended up getting these like little sprinklings of delight, which you totally wouldn't have done if you just stayed behind a computer screen to look at it.

所以，当一个小贴纸出现在孩子的个人资料中时，我们会播放一种非常悦耳的提示音。

So one thing we did was when a little sticker would, would appear in like a kid's profile, we had it all like ping sound, like a very pleasant kind of nice sound.

利亚姆花了一些时间来设计这个音效。

Liam spent some time on it.

当时你并不担心这算不上一项生意。

At the time you weren't concerned that this isn't a business.

这就像一个小游戏。

This is like a little game.

有几点原因。

There's a couple of things.

第一，我们知道我们想要触达家长。

One, we knew we wanted to get to parents.

所以我们是清楚这一点的。

So we knew that.

但在此之前，前提是YC的信条：打造人们想要的东西。

But the precondition to that was the YC mantra is make something people want.

你知道，我们心里的步骤是：先做出老师想要的东西。

You know, the steps were in our minds, make something that teachers want.

第二步则是个问号。

Step two was like question mark.

第三步就是赚钱。

And then step three is like money.

但第二步是想办法让产品到达孩子和家长那里。

But step two is like get it somehow to, to, to kids and to parents.

然后第三步，我们想，总有一天我们会打造家庭真正想要的产品。

And then step three, we're like, one day we'll build things that we think families want.

但一切的起点是我们需要构建一个网络。

But the starting point for everything is we need to build a network.

是的。

Yeah.

这个网络需要教师、家长和学生。

And the network needs teachers, parents, and students.

这就是我们的理论。

That was our theory.

这就是我们的理论。

That was our theory.

当你在与教师交谈、讨论时，你actively试图弄清楚这个网络中的价值单位是什么？

And then you were actively, as you were talking to teachers, as you were talking about, you were actively trying to figure out what is the unit of value in this network?

网络是什么？

What is the net?

对。

Yeah.

我们一开始根本没有网络。

Like, well, we didn't have a network to start with.

我们只有一个工具。

We had a tool.

我刚才说的那个工具，对吧？

And the thing I just described as a tool, right?

你可以说教室里有一点点交流，老师和学生之间之类的，但那根本不是你所理解的网络。

You could say there's a little bit of communication inside the classroom, teachers with kids or whatever, but it wasn't like a, like what you think of as a network.

接下来发生的是，我应该说这个产品突然大受欢迎。

What happened next was, so I should say this product exploded in popularity.

你就直接把它带给了那些

And you just took it to the people that

你认识的人，你知道，我认识的三分之一都用了，他们都很震惊。

you've And spoken like, you know, I know a third of them used it and they were blown away.

我们可以把一部分成功归功于一个好产品，我们在这方面确实做得不错。

We can ascribe some to a nice product and we did a good job with that.

另一部分是我们选择了一个被严重忽视的客户群体，因为根本没人关心老师，对吧？

Then the other part of it was we picked a customer that was massively underserved because no one cared about teachers, right?

因为他们没多少钱。

Because they don't have that much money.

那为什么你要为他们开发产品呢？

So why would you ever build products for them?

因为他们根本付不起钱，你知道的？

Because they can't pay you anything, you know?

但我们意识到，等等。

But what we realized was, well, hold on.

这里存在着巨大的痛点。

There's a huge amount of pain here.

而且实际上，他们是值得信赖的人。

And actually they're a trusted figure.

如果我们能服务好他们，就能接触到更多的人。

And if we could serve them, then you get access to a whole lot more.

所以我当时在看别人忽视的地方，也许在商业模式上也有类似的平行情况。

And so I was kind of looking where the people weren't looking, maybe there's a parallel to the business model side of it as well.

所以这并不明显，但我们发现，过度服务教师这一做法带来了爆炸性增长。

So it's not obvious, but we were assessing, over serving teachers that exploded.

你知道吗，我们的一位投资者其实和我上同一所大学，来自Superhuman的Rahul就说过，真正唯一的增长渠道就是口碑传播。

You know, I think, so one of our investors, we actually went to college together, Rahul from superhuman who was like, you know, there's only one real growth channel and that's word-of-mouth.

而口碑传播来自于打造一款卓越的产品。

And that comes from making a remarkable product.

真的是卓越到极致的产品。

Like literally remarkable.

让人忍不住想要谈论它。

Like people want to remark on it.

而这款产品就是那样的产品。

And this, this was that product.

我的老师们会向他们的朋友推荐它。

My teachers would tell their friends about it.

当时就像是，他们面对了一场疯狂的野火，你知道的？

And it was like, they came at this crazy wildfire, you know?

所以每一期YC的创业公司里，总会有至少一家公司呈现出那种漂亮的指数增长曲线。

So every batch of the YC companies, whatever, there's always at least one company that has that kind of like nice hockey stick.

我们一开始进场时放弃了原来的点子，大家都觉得我们完蛋了。

So we, we were the one that started, threw away our idea when we turned up and we're like, everyone's like, they're toast.

他们根本不可能成功。

They're never gonna gonna make it.

但到了演示日，我们展示了一个看起来异常疯狂的指数增长图表。

And then we turn up a demo day and we had this like crazy looking hockey stick chart.

我们从零迅速增长到大约一万名教师在使用它，

We'd gone from zero to like, I think it was like 10,000 teachers using it out of

就在那短短时间内。

the gate.

在发布产品之前，你有没有想过这真的会火起来，人们会如此痴迷，还是只是想看看会怎样？

Before you shipped the product, did you think this, this is really going to catch on and people are going to be obsessed or it's like, oh, see what happens with it.

我们强烈感觉到这里确实存在一个真正的痛点。

We had a strong sense that there was a real pain here.

我不认为我们预料到会如此迅速地传播开来。

I don't think we expected the spread.

这真的让我们大吃一惊。

It really took us by surprise.

我想我们之前没意识到教师群体被如此忽视。

I think we hadn't realized just how underserved teachers were.

有很多令人惊叹的特质。

There's lots of amazing characteristics.

我们意识到，教师们并不是为了钱或名声而投身这一行。

We realized teachers don't get into it for the money or the fame.

是的。

Right.

他们投身于此，主要是因为认同这份使命。

They get into it largely because they care about the mission.

当他们找到帮助自己实现使命的人时，就会想告诉其他人。

And when they find someone that helps them on their mission, they want to tell other people about it.

所以他们会向其他老师推荐。

And so they tell other teachers about it.

我们还可以聊很多其他与教师相关的具体事情，但这些都是我们在深入之后才逐渐了解的。

There's lots of other things we can talk about and like the specific to teachers, but we learned a lot of that as we got into it.

我之前提到过他们的应变能力。

I talked about the resourcefulness thing.

你可以从不同角度看待一种情况，当你观察教师时，可能会觉得这是一个非常糟糕的商业模式或收入渠道。

There's something to looking at a situation with different lenses and you look at teachers and say, oh, it's a very bad business or revenue channel.

但你也可以换个角度，看到他们是一群有真实痛点、并且能影响大量他人的用户。

We can look at them and say, hey, it's a user with real pains that influences a lot of other people.

你对这一点有什么感受？

What was your feeling about that?

你当时感到失望吗？

Were you, were you delated?

我的意思是，我们欣喜若狂、难以置信，简直像在掐自己一样，这一切都出乎意料。

I mean, elated, amazed, like pinching ourselves, all of it was unexpected.

记得在演示日那天，大家都非常激动，因为保罗·格雷厄姆要来。

Remember on demo day, the big, everyone was very riled up because Paul Graham was gonna be there.

而且传言说他打算投资这家公司。

And, the rumor was he was gonna invest in the company.

在所有演示结束后，保罗走到我们的展台前。

And Paul comes over to our booth thing after the after the presentations.

我当时展示了一个指标，关于用户反馈增长的速度。

There was some metric I'd showed about how quickly the, you know, feed points giving was growing.

他转向利亚姆说：‘嘿，利亚姆，你能给我看看这个指标在过去两周左右的变化吗？’

And he kind of goes to Liam and is like, hey, Liam, can you just show me that metric over, like, you know, two weeks or something?

利亚姆心想：‘天啊，保罗·格雷厄姆居然让我展示一个指标。’

And Liam's like, oh god, Paul Graham's asked me to show him a metric.

他立刻冲到终端前，试图找出正确的数据。

Like, he's like, dives into terminal to try and, know, pull up the right stuff.

莱姆说，这得花点时间。

And Liam's like, it's it's gonna take a minute.

我当时觉得，放一盒甜甜圈在那里会是个吸引人的点子。

And I had thought it would be great to have a box of donuts there because that would be like a draw for people.

保罗说，没关系。

Paul says, that's fine.

我就吃个甜甜圈，等着吧。

I'll just have a donut and wait.

压力一下子上来了。

It's like pressure is on.

总之，他最后决定投资。

Anyway, end up investing.

你觉得呢

What do you think

关于那个甜甜圈？

of the donut?

这真是很棒的甜甜圈。

That's excellent doughnut.

不。

No.

不。

No.

我真的很喜欢选择高品质的甜甜圈。

I really really like went for high quality doughnuts.

是的。

Yeah.

这发生在那时候

This is at a time

我还没有对你下注。

when I had no bet into you.

你筹款的角度是让我们准备一些甜甜圈

Business that your angle on fundraising was let's have some doughnuts in

不。

No.

当时的想法是，这是一件目标导向的事情。

Was like, look, it was a goal oriented thing.

我觉得，你参加演示日并不是为了坐等融资。

I'm like, you're at the you're you're not like sitting at the demo day hoping to fundraise.

你是坐在那里，吸引别人来找你。

You're sitting there to get people to come to you.

我当时想，那我们再吸引一些关注吧。

And I'm like, well, let's draw some more attention.

如果增长曲线不够吸引人，那甜甜圈就能做到。

If the hockey stick doesn't do it, the donuts will.

那么，好吧，你当时有一个应用，这个应用允许老师给予虚拟奖励。

So then, okay, so you had this app and the app allowed teachers to give virtual rewards.

然后我们开始分析一些用户群体，发现有一组用户非常忠诚。

We're then looking at some of the cohorts, and we started to see that there was a set of users that were incredibly sticky.

他们每天都回来。

They'd come back every day.

我们进一步深入查看，发现他们到底在产品里做什么并不明显，于是我们打电话给他们，和他们聊了聊。

And we clicked a bit further into it, and it wasn't obvious what they're doing in the product, but we called them and and spoke to them.

结果发现，他们把所有的奖励都截取下来，转成PDF发给家长。

And, basically, it turns out they were taking all the rewards, like, as a snapshot and turning into a PDF and sending it home to parents.

他们是在和家长沟通。

They're, like, communicating with parents.

这显然是一种非常……我们原本不确定这是相关性还是因果关系，但似乎印证了一个模式：沟通本身确实非常能留住用户。

And and this was evidently like a very we didn't know if correlation, causation, whatever, but it kind of fit a pattern of like, oh, well, actually communication is like a very sticky thing.

你 probably 也经历过和朋友的微信群吧，想退出可真难，对吧？

And you've probably been in like WhatsApp groups with your friends, very hard to drop out of them, you know?

于是我们意识到，我们真正打造的其实是一个沟通应用。

And so that then turned us on to, oh, actually what we're really building is a communication app.

有几件事突然就清晰起来了。

And a few things like snapped into place.

我们意识到，这提供了一种从教师扩展到家长和孩子的途径，真正开始构建一个网络。

We're like, okay, that's a, that's a way to expand from teachers to, to parents and kids and really start to build a network.

第二，我们还发现了这种模式的留存率和参与度有多高。

Two, we discovered just how, how high retention and high engagement that is as well.

因此，我认为找到这类黄金用户群体非常重要。

And so I think finding those kind of like golden cohorts was, was really important.

这对我们来说几乎是第二次产品市场契合的时刻。

That was like almost like a second product market fit moment for us.

于是，Dojo 开始扩展。

And so Dojo then expanded.

我们开发了家长账户和孩子账户。

We built parent accounts, kid accounts.

家长的典型体验是：我不知道孩子在学校里发生了什么。

The median experience of a parent is I don't know what's happening at school.

我可能每六个月才参加一次家长会，有时只能从书包里拿到一张纸条。

I maybe go to a parent teacher conference once every six months And sometimes I get a piece of paper home in a backpack.

但这个人却是我在这个世界上最在乎的人。

And yet this is the person I care most about in the world.

所以，从这一点转向这样一个看似微不足道的事情，对吧？

And so to go from that to this seemingly very trivial thing, right?

就像，布雷特今天问了一个好问题，但知道这一点后，就能在家开启一场对话：那是什么问题？

It was like, you know, Brett asked a good question today, but knowing that then starts the conversation at home of like, what was that?

你问的是什么问题？

What was that question you asked?

你们聊了什么？

Like, what did you talk about?

你知道的。

You know?

这对父母和孩子来说都是一个很棒的时刻。

And that's like an amazing moment for the parent and the kid.

但我觉得，我们分享的是课堂上的积极时刻，而不是负面消息，比如你孩子被罚留校了。

But I think that then I teach like, well, we're sharing these positive moments from the classroom instead of like bad news and your kid got detention.

我们现在分享的是正面消息。

We're now sharing positive news.

所以这对每个人来说都是一种极大的鼓舞。

And so that was like a great lift for everyone.

然后这变得非常自然。

And then it became very natural.

比如，我们其实就想聊聊这件事。

Like, well, actually we want to talk about that.

我们想发送消息。

We want to send messages.

老师们说，现在教室里已经开通了Dojo系统。

Teachers are like, well, we now Dojo was open in the classroom.

他们说，现在我们想拍下教室里发生的事，捕捉一些课堂瞬间，比如孩子朗诵诗歌的视频，或者其他类似的真实、可爱的小片段。

They're like, now we want to take pictures of what's happening in the classroom, little snapshots of moments in the classroom, like a video of this, you know, the the kid doing a poem or whatever, you know, just like real, real, like, cute kind of stuff.

还有更小的孩子。

There's younger kids.

因此，从那里发展出来的Dojo贝塞尔曲线，最终成为了我们最早构建的这个通讯应用。

And so that Dojo Bezier from there expanded into, I think, what the the first part that we ever built was this communication app.

它对孩子们、老师和家长都非常有用，因为它让整个社区保持了紧密联系。

And it was very useful for kids and teachers and parents, because it kept the whole community connected.

它也实现了扩展Dojo网络这一目标，我们可以稍后讨论。

It also served this goal of growing like the Dojo network, which we can talk about.

是的。

So yeah.

再多讲一点吧，关于基于贴纸产品衍生出的第二款产品的第一个版本是什么样的。

Share a little bit more about what was the first version, I guess, of the second product built on the back of the stickers product.

是的，它只是一个简单的扩展。

Yeah, it was just a simple extension.

我们为家长创建了账户。

We built parent accounts.

现在，你有了一个连接家长的渠道，孩子也包含在其中。

So you can now, you now had a channel to the, to the parent and the kid was in there as well.

作为老师，你可以给学生发消息，当然，学生和家长的账户是关联的，你们可以互相发消息。

You can message the kid as a teacher, obviously, but the, you know, the kid and parent accounts were attached and you could you can message back and forth.

接下来的版本增加了摄像头功能。

And then the next version added a camera.

我们当时的想法是，现在可以在教室里拍照了。

And we're like, you can now take pictures in the classroom.

然后我们又加入了视频功能，于是它逐渐从仅仅分享贴纸，演变为用来分享教室里那些美好的瞬间。

Then we added video and, you know, so it kind of progressed from just sharing stickers to basically communicating about really nice moments in the classroom.

那么当时这个业务的规模大概是多少？

And so what, what were the numbers of the business at that point, roughly?

你们看到了什么样的情况？

Like, what were you seeing?

增长速度有多快？

How fast was it growing?

有多少人在使用它？

How many people were using it?

天哪。

Oh my gosh.

真的很难说，但你看，在种子轮阶段，我想我们大概有大约一万名教师在使用它。

It's really hard to say, but I mean, look, think at, at, the seed round, I think, I know we had maybe some of that, like, maybe like 10,000 teachers ish using it.

从那以后，到A轮融资时，我们基本上看到了教师用户的持续增长，以及家长用户开始出现。

I think from there, this series a, we basically just showed continued teacher growth and the beginnings of some parent growth.

这个国家大约有280万教师。

There's there's about 2,800,000 teachers in the country.

所以我想我们在美国的用户达到了大约二十分之一左右。

So I think we got to like maybe one in 20 or something like that in The US.

一个有趣的现象是，我们也开始看到国际用户以完全自发的方式增长。

One interesting thing was we'd also started to see international growth completely organically.

在2012年，我想我们已经覆盖了大约40到50个国家，至少每个国家都有几位用户。

So we were actually at the 2012, I think we were in like 40 or 50 countries with at least a few users.

所以你当时有没有想过

And so did you think

我们一直在思考如何让这个产品增长得更快？

a lot about how do we get this thing to grow faster?

我们确实这么做了。

We did.

是的，我们确实这么做了。

Yeah, we did.

所以最初，就像我说的，我们只是在打造一个出色的产品，人们非常喜欢它，并且会告诉他们的朋友。

So initially, like I said, it was just, we're just building a great product and people love it and they tell their friends about it.

我想那是某一个夏天，就是之后的那个夏天。

I think it was, I forget now, it was one of those summers, that summer, the summer after.

我们开始更深入地了解这个产品是如何增长的。

We basically got a bit more involved in trying to learn about how this thing was growing.

然后发生了一些事情。

And a few things happened.

首先，我意识到自己曾去城市里的一所中学进行用户调研，当时我坐在一位科学老师旁边，她叫詹娜，我们心想，哇，她真是个好老师，她在使用Dojo。

One, we realized I actually went on a user research visit to a middle school in the city and I was sitting in with this science teacher, her name is Jenna, and we're like, wow, she's a great teacher, she's using Dojo.

我们当时只是去了解什么有效、什么无效，然后回办公室。

We were like, you know, just just there to learn about what's working and not working and go back to the office.

我想一周或两周后，我收到了Jenna的一封邮件。

I I think a week or two later, I get an email from Jenna.

她发消息说：嘿。

And she was like, hey.

你知道，她打算暑假期间暂停教学。

You know, I'm, like, gonna take a break over the summer from teaching, obviously.

她问：我可以来Dojo实习吗？

Like, can I come and do an internship at Dojo?

我们当时想：我们真不知道她能在这里做些什么。

And, we were like, we don't really know what she would do here.

我们那时候只有四五个人左右，但还是说：好啊，当然可以。

Like, we were like four or five people or something, but we're like, yeah, sure.

来吧，也许可以帮忙做一些客服工作。

Like, come by, you know, like maybe do some support.

我当时负责所有客服工作。

I was doing all our support.

我可能当时说：‘这些客服工单都交给你了。’

I was probably like, please do all support tickets here.

但她在实习一个月后，拿出了一个她一直在做的秘密项目。

But, like a month into her internship, she comes back with this secret project she's been doing.

这个秘密项目是她对我们通过学校扩展情况的看法。

And the secret project was her view of how we were growing through schools.

她所展示的基本内容是，在我们拓展的所有学校里，我们都找到了一位非常热情的老师。

And basically what she was able to show is that in all the schools that we're growing in, we found one really passionate teacher.

后来我们发现，大多数学校其实都遵循这种钟形曲线分布。

And every turns out we found out later on that most schools follow this kind of bell curve distribution.

我们有非常热情、充满激情的老师，一堆模棱两可的人，还有一堆滞后者。

We have, like, you know, really passionate, excited teachers and a bunch of module news and a bunch of laggards.

但她却说：‘这些热情的老师，就是像我这样的人。’

But she was like, these passionate teachers, these are, these are people like me.

这些人真的渴望站在前沿，做酷炫的事情，追求卓越，发现最好的东西。

These are people who like really want to be on the cutting edge and do cool stuff and do the best, find the best things.

她说，我觉得这些人其实是我们的倡导者，我们应该帮助他们。

And she's like, I think these people are kind of our champions and we should help them.

于是，她基本上成为了我们的第一位社区领袖。

And so she basically became our first community leader.

她再也没有回到教室。

She never went back to the classroom.

她建立了一个社区，让我们能从每所学校邀请出核心用户。

And so she built this community where we'd get the power user from every school.

他们彼此见面后，都会说：天啊。

And they would all meet each other and they'd be like, my god.

世界上居然还有这样的人。

There's people I mean in the world.

这又是一个重要的转折点。

And that was that was like another big inflection point.

你们是面对面做的吗，还是

And you did that in person or

我们最初在地区层面组织了一些线下聚会，但后来就变成了一个Facebook群组。

was We we had a few in person meetups because we did it regionally first, but then it became a, like, Facebook group.

他们每个人都和詹娜建立了非常深厚的关系。

They all had, like, really deep relationships with Jenna.

他们了解整个团队。

They had they knew the whole team.

所以，你知道，这种体验真的无可替代。

And so that you know, there again, there's really no substitute for that.

你无法假装关心。

You can't really, fake the care.

你知道的吗？

You know?

他们会发短信，而且会收到回复。

Like, they would text and they'd get a text back.

你没法假装这个。

Like, you can't fake that.

所以我觉得这是一件非常重要的事。

So so I think that that was like one very important thing.

还有哪些其他因素促进了增长呢？

What are the other sort of things that helped inflect growth?

我们开始意识到，在美国，我们现在虽然已经扩展到全球，但最初有一个‘先渗透再扩展’的模式，我们需要先在一所学校里用Dojo接触到第一个团队，也就是我们的第一个教室。

We started to realize in The US, we had this like around the world now, but we had this like land and expand dynamic where we had to like get to our first team basically using Dojo in a school, our first classroom.

然后就有了向整个教室扩展的路径。

And then there was a path to expanding to the classroom.

现在我们的业务中有一个令人难以置信但确实属实的奇怪数据：直到今天，我们还没有为用户获取花过一美元。

Now we have a weird stat in the business, which is hard to believe, but it's true, which is that to this day, we still haven't paid a dollar for user acquisition.

我们的所有增长都完全来自于口碑传播、病毒式传播、社区运营之类的，就像这些是你的边际成本项目。

So a 100% of our growth has been some combination of word-of-mouth, virality, you know, some community stuff, like, this is your marginal cost programs.

但我给你举个例子。

But I'll give you an example.

我们会找出哪些方法有效，然后加以放大。

We would find how what was working and then amplify that.

我们发现老师们会在学校里参加专业发展培训。

So we found teachers were sitting in school doing professional development sessions.

这是老师们必须做的事情。

Now this is the thing teachers have to do.

他们需要完成一定的课时。

They have some hours they have to cover.

于是他们就会说：‘我要做个关于Dojo的专业发展培训。’

And and they were like, this I'll do a professional development session on Dojo.

这太棒了。

This is great.

这是我今年发现的最新事情。

This is the latest thing I found this year.

我们旁听了其中几次。

And we sat in on a few of these.

我们想，干脆直接给你一个非常棒的PowerPoint演示文稿。

We're like, we could just give you, like, a really good PowerPoint presentation.

我们可以在结尾放一个二维码或者链接，让你在屏幕上一展示，大家就能加入。

And we could probably put, a QR code at the end of it or a link that you could, you know, flash up on the screen and everyone would join.

结果发现，这个词用得简直太妙了。

Turns out that word, like, magnificently.

这真是个典型的例子，回头一看，你如果不深入到细节，根本不会注意到这一点。

That was it's such a, like, you know, in retrospect, like, you don't get that unless you go right down to the detail.

对吧？

Right?

我们意识到的第二件事是，听起来虽然很荒谬，但教室之间根本没有互动效应，所以相邻的教室完全可以各自使用，互不知情。

Second thing we realized was that as silly as it sounds, there was no interaction effect between classrooms, so you can just use it next door to each other and not not even know.

于是我们构建了这样一个概念：你可以加入一所学校，只要在同一所学校里，大家就能互相看到。

So we had this built this concept of a school, like you would join a school and now you could all see each other if you're in the same school.

这样一来，你就相当于成了学校的通讯录。

So you kind of became the contact book for the school.

这显然是一个非常粘性的功能，你在WhatsApp、Discord以及其他许多平台都看到了。

And that was obviously a very sticky feature, which you've seen in WhatsApp and Discord and a bunch of others.

所以这些至少是几个关键点。

So those are at least a couple of things.

由于我们是做产品的人，所以我们关注世界上有哪些成功的产品和功能。

There's a comp of like things that are working in the world and product because we're product people.

我认为，思考如何为我们的产品构建网络，对我们来说非常重要。

I think thinking about how you create network of our products was, was important to us.

因此我们开始注意到，如今Dojo已经应用于全国90%的学校，国际上的使用量可能是这个数字的两到三倍。

And so we started to see, and if you look now, Dojo is used in nine out of 10 schools in the country and maybe two or three times as many as that internationally.

很多情况下，这仍然是一个‘先渗透、再扩展’的动态过程。

A lot of it's still been this land and expand kind of dynamic.

是什么让你

What gave

有勇气在多年里只专注于发展这个产品，而完全不考虑商业模式？

you the confidence to just grow this thing for many years without thinking about the actual business?

第一，我们很早就做了变现测试，大概在一年后。

One, we'd done that monetization test early on, maybe a year in.

我们对此非常紧张。

We were pretty nervous about it.

我们其实没有什么可以卖给家长的产品。

We didn't really have a product to sell parents.

我们心想，嘿，我们什么都没做出来。

We're like, well, we haven't built anything.

所以我想我们创建了一套虚拟形象。

So I think we we created like an avatar set.

因为孩子们都有这些小怪物。

Because kids have these little monsters.

我们觉得，哦，你可以自定义你的怪物，给它戴顶帽子之类的。

We're like, Oh, you can just like customize your monster, give them like a hat, whatever.

这花不了多少钱。

This is very cheap to do.

我们就把它添加到了家长账户里。

And we just popped it in the parent account.

说实话，我都记不清当时的转化率是多少了。

And you know, I don't even remember what the conversion rate was.

低得可怜。

It was like abysmal.

但我们还是惊呆了，天啊，有人真的在给我们付钱。

But we're like, Oh my God, people are paying us money.

这是公司收到的第一笔钱。

It's like first dollars in the company.

这太不可思议了。

This is incredible.

所以我们觉得，肯定有什么地方对劲。

So we're like, There's gotta be something.

但我们还不知道那是什么。

We don't know what it is.

可能不是这个，但总有一天我们会发现其中的关键。

It's probably not this, but there's gonna be something here one day.

我觉得这更多是我们自己建立信心的过程。

I think it was more like just a confidence building thing for ourselves.

真正的答案可能是，那时我们已经没有退路了。

The real answer might just be, we had kind of burned our boats at that point.

当我们来到美国时，我们有一个非常明确的理论，基于这个理论筹集了资金，我们仍然相信自己是对的，这个理论依然合理，我们也在持续取得进展。

Like we turn up in The US, we had this very specific thesis, we'd raise money on that thesis, we still thought we were right, the theory still made sense, We were still making progress.

每年我们都会带来更多的教师和家庭。

Like every year we turn up with like, you know, more teachers and more families.

现在孩子也越来越多了。

Now more kids now as well.

以前只关注教师，后来才扩展到其他群体。

It used to be just teachers and expand these other groups.

所以，当我们进入第六七年，也就是2018年、2019年的时候，我们突然意识到：天啊，我们似乎正在形成一个网络的雏形。

And so, like we were like six or seven years in six years, 2018, 2019 when we were like, oh my God, we think we've got the beginnings of a network.

我觉得我们一直看到一些相近的行为或涌现的行为。

I think we kept seeing adjacent behavior or emergent behavior.

我认为这实际上在消费类产品中是一个非常重要的信号。

I think that's like a really important sign actually in consumer products.

我认为在企业领域可能没那么重要，但在消费端，我们非常谨慎，避免过度设计，也不严格规定用户必须如何使用这个产品。

I think there's a lot of probably not as important in the enterprise world, but in the consumer side of things, we are very careful not to overbuild and really tightly specify how you must use this product.

我们实际上保持了开放性，看看会涌现出什么。

We actually kept it kind of open to see what would emerge.

因此我们看到了很多涌现的现象。

And so we saw a bunch of emergence.

其中之一是国际增长。

One was the international growth.

这完全不是我们主动做的。

Nothing we did.

我们并没有翻译这款应用。

We didn't translate the app.

最终我们开发了一些软件，让用户能够自行翻译它。

Eventually we built some software which allowed our users to translate it.

但我们开始发现，嘿，人们真的很喜欢这个产品。

But we started to see like, Hey, people love this.

他们告诉在假期认识的老师，然后这些老师就开始在荷兰的国际学校里使用它。

They tell that teacher they met on holiday about it and they start using it in their international school in The Netherlands.

接着又有其他几位国际学校的老师问：那个有怪物的工具是什么？

And then there three are other international school teachers like, what's that thing with the monster?

他们互相推荐，于是我们开始看到这种模式在全球范围内传播。

And they tell, you know, and so we started to see these spread patterns around the world.

我当时就想，这真是太棒了。

I was like, oh, that's like really cool.

现在它已经覆盖了大约160个国家。

Now it's in like 160 countries or whatever.

对。

Right.

但那只是其中之一。

But that was one.

我认为第二个阶段是我们开始看到其他群体的孩子使用这个应用。

I think the second was we started to see other groupings of kids using the app.

除了教室之外，还有体育俱乐部、课后俱乐部和日托中心。

So beyond the classroom, sports clubs and after school clubs and daycare.

我们当时就想，哦，原来这不只是在教室里使用。

And we're like, oh, so this isn't just classroom.

结果发现，孩子们在很多群体中都会使用。

Turns out kids are in many groups.

这潜力也可能非常巨大。

That could be enormous too.

一旦我们达到一定的规模，比如在美国，大约每四个或五个家庭中就有一个每周使用Dodgina，我们就开始收到大量来自教育机构、学校、学区、州政府，甚至有些联邦政府的主动联系。

Once we hit a certain level of scale, like in The US, you know, something like one in four, one in five families in America use Dodgina every week, we start to get a ton of inbound from the institutions, from schools, from districts, states, in some cases from some federal governments.

所以我认为，有时候这些时刻更多是一种感觉，你会觉得你已经达到了某种临界点，是谁说的来着？

And so so I think there's these moments where maybe it's more of a feel thing where you feel like you've who said this?

就像你感觉自己跳进了一个泳池，然后游到边缘时才发现原来是个湖，再游到湖的另一端，才发现那根本就是一片海洋。

Like, you feel like you've got into a pool and then you, like, get to the edge and you realize you realize it's actually a lake and then you get to the edge and you realize it's actually an ocean.

然后我们不断感受到我们正在构建的这款通讯应用中，可能性正在持续扩展。

And then we just kept feeling the sense of like expanding possibilities in the communication app that we were building.

所以我觉得，那种感觉就是我们似乎抓住了什么关键的东西。

And so I think that like kind of just felt like we were onto a thing.

继续前进。

Like keep going.

那么，推出第一个业务的背后故事是什么？

So what's the story behind launching the first business?

是的。

Yeah.

到了2019年，我们更多是凭一种直觉在行动。

So we got to 2019 and basically it was more just like a, like a feel thing.

我们觉得，看，我们似乎已经初步建立了一个网络。

We were like, look, like we think we've got the beginnings of a network here.

我认为当时我们和Roblox是最大的两个，但我们觉得，对于年幼的孩子来说，我们是全球最大的两个网络之一。

I think it was us and Roblox was bigger, but we're like, there's not, we're one of the two biggest networks on the planet for younger kids.

而这只是

And this is

到目前为止有数百万用户了吗？

millions of users at this point?

是的。

Yeah.

肯定有数百万。

Millions for sure.

你知道，美国有大约两千五百万个家庭有13岁以下的孩子。

You know, think there's 25,000,000 families in The United States with kids 13.

我假设这个

And I assume the

产品也非常具有用户粘性，这

product was also highly retentive, which was

超级，超级。

super Super.

是的。

Yes.

非常高。

Super high.

所以，让我们更有信心的另一件事是我们拥有极高的留存率和极高的参与度。

So one of the that was maybe one of the other things that gave us confidence was that we had incredibly high retention, incredibly high engagement.

直到今天，我的意思是，它一开始就很髙，随着我们的发展，它变得更高了，但这是一个极其粘性的产品。

So to this day, I mean, I mean, it started high and it's got even higher as we've grown, but it's an incredibly sticky product.

人们非常喜欢使用它。

Like people love using it.

另一点是，所有使用都是自愿的。

The other thing was it was all voluntary usage.

我们从未强迫任何人。

Like we haven't twisted anyone's arm.

不是你的学区会来检查你。

It's not your school district is gonna check up on you.

就是我自己选的。

It's just like, I I chose it.

所以我认为，当你看到这些迹象时，它们非常罕见，每次我们向消费者投资者展示时，他们都很震惊，但B2B投资者就是不明白。

And so I think when you see those signs, they're so rare, you know, and every time we show them to a consumer investor, they're and the B2B investor just didn't get it.

他们会觉得，这到底是什么东西？

You know, they're like, what is this thing?

消费者投资者会说，天哪。

The consumer investors were like, oh my god.

这真的吗？

Like, is that real?

你知道的？

You know?

那个每周到每月的比率是真的吗？还是留存曲线是真的？

Is that, like, weekly to monthly ratio real, or is that, like, retention curve real?

而且我们只需要展示一下，你知道，通常拥有消费者应用的公司，其30天后的留存率在5%到15%左右。

And and we could just show, like, you know, you see you see companies with consumer apps usually have five to 15% retention to 30 later or something.

而我们六个月后的留存率却是那个数字的六倍，你知道，这太惊人了。

And we were at like six X that, like six months later, you know, and it was wild.

那前六年大部分时间是不是只是在逐步改进核心产品？

Was most of that first six years just incrementally making the core product better?

除了你之前提到的那些业务增长方式之外，那六年里还发生了什么？

Like what was going on for those six years other than working to grow the business in all the ways you discussed?

说实话，很难形容那几年有多艰难。

Honestly, it's hard to convey how hard those years were.

我们熬到了第七年，那时团队只有30个人。

We got to seven years in and we were 30 people.

我们在只有30人、零收入的情况下完成了C轮融资。

And we had done the series C at 30 people, with $0 of revenue.

我们坚持的依然是完全相同的理念。

And we had the exact same thesis.

实际上，公司在成立一两年后，我就写了一份战略文档，试图清晰地阐述这一点，以便我们能直接拿给投资者看。

Like, so I actually wrote a strategy document like a year or two into the company, tried to articulate this so that we could just give it to investors.

直到今天，每个人还在读这份文档。

Everyone still reads that document today.

文档中写道：我们的使命是让全球每个孩子都能获得他们热爱的教育。

It read like our mission is to give every kid on earth an education they love.

我们认为，这是进步的根本所在。

We think this is fundamental to progress.

这是推动全球进步的最重要因素。

It's the single biggest enabler of progress on the planet.

问题是，如何实现？

The question is how?

第一步，我们要服务教师。

Step one is we're going to serve teachers.

第二步，我们要从教师扩展到整个教师、学生和家庭的社群。

Step two is we're going to expand from teachers to this whole community of teachers and kids and families.

第三步是，我们要为家庭打造产品和服务，帮助他们的孩子以他们期望的方方面面学习和成长。

Step three is we're going to build products and services for families that help their kids learn and grow in all the ways they want.

而这就是我们将要建立一些伟大企业的方向，大致如此。

And that's where we're going build some great businesses, roughly speaking.

你知道，这其中还有更多深层次的内容，确实非常艰难，对吧？

You know, there's lot more depth to yeah, so it was incredibly hard, right?

因为本质上，你头上顶着一把枪，银行账户余额一路下滑，而你却有着极强的信念，或许还有一群同样信念坚定的创始人，持有一个前所未有人证明过的理念。

Because you have this gun pointed at your head basically, and the bank balance is going one way and you have this really high conviction and maybe high conviction founders with a thesis that no one has ever proven before.

再强调一遍，我们别太纠结于细节了。

Again, let's not align eyes it too much.

我只是在想，当时我们正处于二十多岁的年纪。

I'm just thinking about like the moment in time where we were, we were in our mid twenties.

我们搬到了美国。

We'd moved to America.

我们几乎没有任何牵绊。

We had like basically no attachments.

我们每天住在一起，也每天一起工作。

We were living together every day and working together every day.

我们再次选择了破釜沉舟。

We, again, we kind of burned the boats.

这就是我们要做的事。

We're like, this is the thing.

我们一定要让这件事成功。

We're going to make this work.

那么在2019年，你们是怎么决定现在是时候创业的呢？

So how in 2019 did you decide now is the time that we're going to start a business?

我觉得我们刚完成C轮融资，然后就想，天啊，我们不能再做一轮毫无把握的融资了。

I think we had just finished the series C and we're like, man, we can't do another round with no brainer.

侥幸过关了。

Got away with it.

它

It's

很棒。

been great.

最大的消息是，我们有数百万家长在使用Dojo，这以前从未发生过。

The big news is we had millions of parents on Dojo and that had never happened before.

可以达到数百万，而不是仅仅几十万。

Could show like millions, not like a few 100,000.

我们当时想，哇。

And we're like, wow.

好吧。

Okay.

我们这里已经有了庞大的用户群体。

We've got a large audience here.

所以，我们觉得网络方面的进展让我们相当鼓舞。

And so, you know, we were like, okay, we're feeling pretty encouraged about the progress on network side.

但这从来不是业务的最终目标。

It was never the end state of the business.

这始终是下一步的前提，即开始构建能够以各种方式服务儿童和家庭的业务，帮助孩子学习和成长。

It was always a precondition to the next thing, which was starting to build businesses that serve kids and families in all the ways that that help kids learn and grow.

所以我们从那些看起来切实可行的事情开始，老实说。

And so we started with, honestly, like, what felt achievable.

有一个产品，我们至今仍在使用。

There was a, it's a product that we still have.

它叫Plus。

It's called plus.

当时它被称为Beyond School，我们观察到，家庭其实并不知道该如何花钱来提升孩子的教育。

I was at the time it was called beyond school that we had this, this observation that families don't actually know how to spend money to make their kids' education better.

我在想，如果你能有信心说，这100美元是我能花的最值的钱，会怎么样？

I'm like, what if with confidence you could say, this is the best $100 I can spend.

我们组建了一个小团队，负责这个付费产品，当时它叫Plus或者Beyond School，但很快就被重新命名为Plus。

We started a small team, which was working on the paid product and it was called Plus or beyond school at the time, then very quickly rebranded to Plus.

我们基本上添加了一些家长长期要求但我们一直没时间开发的功能。

And we basically put in a few features that parents had asked for for like a long time that we hadn't got around to building.

这下彻底爆发了。

And that just exploded.

其中一个功能是，不再只是滚动浏览，而是在Dojo应用中提供一个照片和视频的动态信息流。

One of them was instead of scrolling, there's a feed of photos in the dojo app photos and videos.

所以，与其让你不断向下滚动，查看去年或今年早些时候你孩子的所有照片，我们直接为你制作一些精美的数字相册。

So instead of scrolling down this feed of photos and videos to see all your kids' pictures from like last year or earlier in the year, we'll just make some nice digital albums for you.

我们称它们为‘回忆’。

We call them memories.

对吧？

Right?

你可以查看这些回忆，结果发现，这纯粹是个锦上添花的功能。

And so you can check out these memories and turns out, you know, total nice to have.

你并不非得购买这个功能，但很多人非常需要它，而且用起来感觉特别好。

You don't have to buy that, but a lot of people really want that and it's like a good feeling thing.

所以，这就是其中一个功能。

And so that was one feature.

另一个是老师发放的贴纸。

Another one was the stickers that teachers were giving.

你在家也可以发放这些贴纸。

You could give those at home as well.

有些家长希望有这个功能，这些都算是对产品核心互动循环的较小扩展，但它们是围绕我们多年来构建的核心互动循环设计的。

And some parents wanted that, you know, so like relatively small extensions to the core engagement loops in the product, but they were built around the core engagement loops that we'd been building for years.

于是我们开发了这个功能，它就这样逐渐发展起来了。

And so we built this and it just kind of started to grow.

但这如何

But how does that

能说明这是你花过的最值的100美元呢？

map to this is the best $100 you can spend?

还达不到。

It's not yet.

好的。

Okay.

但它正在朝那个方向发展。

But it's going that way.

对吧？

Right?

所以最初的想法是，让我们更好地让你与课堂保持联系。

And so it started with like, look, the value there was let's keep you better connected to the classroom.

它最初是从高级功能开始的。

It started with premium features.

一些高级功能。

Some premium features.

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

当然。

For sure.

但这个想法是，你希望在客户生命周期内，不断为这个产品增加越来越多的价值。

But like the the the idea was that you kind of want to start to add more and more more and more value to this over the lifetime of a customer.

你希望这个产品变得如此有价值，让人不买它都显得很疯狂，但我们现在必须从某个地方开始。

You wanna have so much value in this that it's crazy for you not to buy this, but we have to start somewhere right now.

我们不能一开始就直接实现整个愿景。

We can't start with like deliver the whole vision.

所以我们推出了这个产品，然后它就开始不断增长，不断增长，

So we launched this and that just started to grow and grow and

不断增长，不断增长。

grow and grow.

你指的是在不久的将来就能带来数百万的收入吗？

And you're talking about like millions in revenue very shortly?

是的。

Yeah.

第一年。

Year one.

是的

Yeah.

一开始是单个数百万美元。

One was like single digit millions.

是的

Yeah.

是的

Yeah.

那是2020年。

That was 2020.

但那之后增长得非常快。

But that's that just scaled very quickly.

我们用户中，有越来越多的人表示：我确实想要这个。

Like a growing percentage of our base was like, actually I want this.

而且它

And it