Have you ever taken corporate training for a new product or service and learned very little, or almost nothing, afterward?
A Macedonian startup aims to change this by introducing a platform that allows companies to provide much more effective training to their employees.
For Conceptual and its co-founders Alexander Ackovski And Kalina Trajanoskathe idea for the product came while they were previously working on a project for Italian luxury car brand Maserati.
“One of our clients was Maserati and we worked with them to digitize their training. Before that, they did training on paper and very old technologies like Flash. They used to gather their employees for a seminar every time they had a new Maserati model and give them booklets with information and details. However, their salespeople did not master the car specifications contained in these booklets right away, but rather when confronted with a specific question from a customer about the new Maserati model, which affected satisfaction customer and actual sales,” explains Ackovski, CXO of Konceptiva. The recursive.
Soon after, Ackovski, an architect turned UX designer, combined his knowledge and experience with the skills of software engineer Trajanoska to come up with a unique solution.
This is how the idea for Coach was born, the microlearning platform that detects and corrects knowledge gaps. Essentially, the platform allows companies and their HR departments to offer their employees interactive training with gamification elements. Kind of like Duolingo, but for work.
“Through the example of Maserati, we saw all the challenges that most companies face in this process: firstly, they do not have an overview of their salespeople’s knowledge on a subject and particular knowledge which they miss, because after the training, they only test them once. Another problem is that most brochures are very difficult to navigate, and the third problem is that the salespeople themselves are not really motivated to go back and review these trainings,” says Trajanoska, CEO of Konceptiva.
According to Trajanoska, Coach solves these problems by allowing employees to use the app for just three to five minutes per day.
“Coach uses quizzes to continually test employees’ knowledge, even after initial training. This allows them to improve through regular play, as demonstrated by the proven methodology of spaced repetition. Additionally, the algorithm is personalized, so for example if three employees follow the same training, each of them will receive specific questions tailored to their existing knowledge about a product or service,” Trajanoska tells The Recursive.
“The product uses gamification in a way that engages those who use it, affects their motivation, makes the learning process interesting and brings fun to the process,” adds Ackovski.
New funding round and expansion plans
Ackovski and Trajanoska had been working on the concept since late 2019, creating a comprehensive platform suitable for large enterprises.
After officially launching the platform in March this year, Konceptiva already has three large clients from the pharmaceutical and electricity supply sectors in North Macedonia four months later.
“Before our first investment of €100,000 in December 2021 with the XFactor accelerator in Veles, we have started. We have also received an investment from FITD (North Macedonia Fund for Innovation and Technological Development) to support us over the next 12 months. However, we are now launching a financing round because we have big plans to expand and conquer new markets,” Trajanoska told The Recursive.
Additionally, Konceptiva obtained further validation of the methods used by Coach after being tested by a private Macedonian high school with a group of students.
“They only used Coach for 5-6 minutes a day and got great results: students were competing with each other, it was very engaging for them and their knowledge increased by 30% in average, and in some cases up to 80%,” emphasizes Trajanoska.
Although this shows that Coach has huge potential in the Educational Technology industry also, at the moment, for Konceptiva the main focus is on HR technologies, Sales Enablement and how to help companies reduce the so-called “knowledge gaps” of their employees.
“Knowledge gaps about a given product could mean a significant loss of potential sales, and it could also prove dangerous for the workers themselves – for example, if they don’t know how to use a certain machine, they could injure yourself or cause an accident. error in a batch of products – so all these gaps are critical for companies and their business operations, and Coach helps them avoid them,” concludes Trajanoska.