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Who doesn't love seeing all of the amazing innovation happening in Canada's Startup world? We connect with Canada's best startups to learn about their business and the amazing people behind it. Follow along and hear some of the most interesting ideas and top elevator pitches from across Canada!
00:03.34
mike_flywheel
What's up everybody. It's Mike we're back here on the pitch please podcast and today I've got summit from pensium. They're an ai powered platform to help students with learning and studying. I'm interested to learn a lot more about pensium. But I'm also interested as always to learn a whole bunch more about summit and everything that brought him to this moment today. Welcome to the show sammit maybe give us ah a little bit of background about yourself based on your experiences and things kind of leading up until what got. Pensium kicked off and.
00:36.50
Samit
For sure. Thanks for having me Mike it's always great hopping on. Ah, but yeah, that was a great introduction I think you you you kind of already gave my elevator pitch out there? No, but it's okay, um.
00:44.58
mike_flywheel
Oh no, okay.
00:49.91
Samit
Tell you a little bit about myself while I have been in the tech space for a while now. Um I started off as a us designer then got into creating my own tech service company right? out of University worked on that a little bit. You know we did websites here and there then we we got bigger contracts started building apps. Um, and then we got to a point where you know we spoke with the shareholders and the people and you know who we contracted with and you know being someone in tech and understanding the market. There was always you know friction between where their product needs to go and to be honest, we worked in a lot of like. Traditional fields such as Construction. So There was always friction there who's interesting but that kind of sparked an idea in my head is like if I know where to take a product. Why don't I start something myself and that's kind of where we caught like that entrepreneurial Bug We were like okay we need to start something we need to start a company. Um, well me and my cofounder cam and that's kind of where we were like okay that was the beginning of pensium or at least the idea of getting into our head that we need to start something ourselves. So yeah.
01:59.99
mike_flywheel
Interesting. So you started like by background. Um I like to call you the unicorn technical founders are people that start with the technical knowledge are far more rare. You oftentimes have a lot of people the idea seeking the technical help on their teams but you actually started by not. Maybe you you were kind of entrepreneurial at that moment right? because you were servicing other people's needs around design and web design and Ux and ui um, and you you obviously created some frustrations of like hey like there's advice that I'd love to give you.
02:31.40
Samit
For sure.
02:34.12
mike_flywheel
But I can only provide it as advice you're going to steer it whichever way you want and then from there. Um, you started your own agency that that does this before pensium too right? So you brought together the the team and then started doing that as an entrepreneur before that like when you. Went to school or even before that did you think that you were going to want to go do this independently be an entrepreneur like was that the path you saw for yourself.
03:03.48
Samit
That's a good question ah, to be honest I didn't know what I wanted to do in university um I was well I went to university for engineering and you know I would sit there not being really engaged in class. Ah you know I used to apply for like so Everyone's like oh let's do summery internships. It gives you good experience and like I used to apply I did a couple of internships but you know I never felt like it was something for me like the whole formal process of creating a resume you know, ah sending a resume and applying for jobs things like that. Just felt so like mundane to me I was like there has to be something better than that. Um, and honestly I got lazy in university I'll be very honest I didn't have anything lined up right? Um, and it just happened to be that you know we graduated during covid. And I was sitting there and seeing like this whole struggle with people trying to take things online and kind of seeing that need for it I was like okay I'm I'm good at designing my my cofounder cam who we I also started the first business with was also. Really good at coding and a few other friends as well. So I was like well a lot of people are struggling to go online. We can start with the least doing websites and like I said I fell into it by mistake like that started taking off that.
04:26.44
mike_flywheel
Yeah, but even like as you're talking through it like you had the skill set So it's interesting that like just because you know how to do these things doesn't mean you start to say Well let's create a product out of that an offering and help others do it and and do that together so it almost sounds like it.
04:36.83
Samit
To the.
04:43.73
mike_flywheel
You call it like lazy or not sure what you wanted to do but you you owned it. You had this skill and you brought it to people in a packaged way. Um, and then it continued kind of rolling so you started with websites and I guess at that moment you're like I guess I'm working for myself now and that sort of led.
04:44.55
Samit
It.
05:02.35
mike_flywheel
1 thing to the other but that doesn't mean you're going to start ah a startup and I think what's interesting is those were you were an entrepreneur and you'd started a business um in those moments but you hadn't start a startup. It was like you having a frustration of like I wish I could own the roadmap. It sounds like that.
05:09.27
Samit
Um, exactly yeah.
05:20.77
mike_flywheel
That piqued your interest in creating a startup was that like it was just that frustration of wishing you could own the roadmap is that sort of like what was the catalyst really or was there something else that sparked this idea for you.
05:29.87
Samit
Yeah,, that's like that's a great Question. You know I actually sat down and thought about it Myself. Of course you know the frustration of not controlling the roadmap was one I like the way that you put it but the other thing was like even though I ran a business. And it was like a tech service company I still felt like I was holding myself back in a way right? I was still scared to make that leap of doing a startup because it still felt scary to do because even though like I'm consulting other people with my business and you know servicing other people. I'm not taking the risk of building the product and going out there and I felt like the minute I understood that I was like oh my God like that's I have to take that leap now I have to challenge Myself. So I think that was the biggest reason that I wanted to kind of shift and do a startup. Um, but another reason was also in University itself. Um, well specifically why we got into education space was because in University even though I did engineering I felt like you know I wasn't really engaged in my classes I wasn't really learning.
06:40.30
mike_flywheel
To you.
06:43.67
Samit
Very relevant things at the time and I just felt like I was left to fend for myself which is fine right? But I feel like you know, a lot of students don't make it out of that and honestly a lot of the people who work with us today at pensium and my cofounder. Always had that bug that we wanted to do something in education because I'm like okay there has to be something better in this way and somebody has to make that change. That's why you know like this whole culmination of okay, we're kind of like feeling scared to do a startup. And also having this bug of like oh we need to do something in education kind of aligned itself with the idea that we had and we're like okay we have to do this now.
07:28.94
mike_flywheel
Interesting and so I think what's interesting there is like while you were in school the thing that led you down the path to entrepreneurship was your kind of frustration with how you were learning and you were becoming disengaged. Ah. And then you became an entrepreneurneur and then you brought a full circle because you're like actually maybe I could solve that problem and learning actually. Ah I want to learn more about this from you and understand the industry but generally like I remember my education experience like it's pretty structured. There's no choose your own adventure based on your learning style like this is the syllabus I think that's what there's called right? like here's the learning syllabus. It's broken out of like 4 assignments 3 tests, 2 group projects. That's it.
08:06.83
Samit
That Silvers.
08:18.31
mike_flywheel
The learning is I'm going to digest a bunch of information as the professor I'm going to give it to you I might create a couple of things that you learn in class and ideally those work. Well for you. But if they don't like that's just how we're going to learn here and so you're saying that you want to add some additional layers. To that to augment the learning experience and help students.
08:38.23
Samit
Yeah, for sure you know like you mentioned, um, you know there are like a lot of systems that are in place that haven't been changed right for a long time like why do you have semesters in university why do you have midterms. Why do you have finals. Things such as that. Ah, but they obviously have key aspects to it but there needs to be a better way to do it right? Why do you take midterms and finals because then you can get feedback on where you stand with these subjects and how much you understand but are those finals or midterms correct way to measure how much you understand, maybe not right. And that's why we kind of wanted to change that as well and the main thing is when you're studying for a subject. Well I would say specifically in university when you get in a lot of like learning practices that you aren't taught like for me, it was like something such as. Ah, pomodoro technique right? where you take 25 minutes to focus 5 minutes break and 25 minutes of focus something as small as that could have helped me focus a lot more on what I was studying at the time or you know like a common misconception about learning is people like I'm an auditory learner or I'm a visual learner. No, but.
09:44.31
mike_flywheel
And.
09:53.83
Samit
Actually knowing that that's something called dual encoding and what that means is ah you're actually learning more because you're visualizing it. But you're also reading the text. So if you just watch something You're not going to learn as much if you actually read the text and watch it so things such as that right. And it's why like if you watch a Youtube video with subtitles. You'll probably remember it more than when you don't so yeah, things like that is what we want to incorporate exactly? um.
10:17.43
mike_flywheel
Interesting. So it's like the the actual science behind it is partly partially what you're including here. Well let's take ah ah take a step back. Let's let you do the pitch because I guarantee your pitch is going to be way better and then I want to I want to start to learn a little bit about um the.
10:28.61
Samit
Fact.
10:35.58
mike_flywheel
Industry of like what other elements are there. What other ways are people studying and like where are you trying to to revolutionize that. So so maybe if you want to kick us off. Um you're on a show called pitch. Please so summit your best pitch please.
10:38.49
Samit
For sure.
10:50.49
Samit
All right? perfect? Well ah, thanks for having me Mike well you put me on the spot here. But anyways I'll say well pensium is a ei educational platform that helps students learn better. So essentially what we do is we take students material and they upload their study material whether it's like Youtube. Videos lecture slides written notes anything that they have and it creates personalized modules for them. So what that means is a personalized study guide for them to learn from from the main points could be flashcards questions and even an Ai chat that you can ask any questions that they have for further understanding. Honestly, what we're just trying to do at pensium is make learning a little bit more fun and help students. You know, really hear out their lack of confidence when it comes to learning a lack of motivation and their time management. So yeah, that's Ben some for you.
11:38.72
mike_flywheel
I Love it now. The word pensium like what is I don't believe my vocabulary is not as vast as probably many others but I don't think Pensium is an actual word. So How how did pensium as ah, as a. Name for your company come to B and then we'll learn about the company but I'm always curious about the name.
11:59.92
Samit
For sure for sure. Well I can't take credit for it. It was my cofounder that came came up with it and for the first time. Ah, we came up with a name that we can get the domain and it doesn't exist and we can actually get good seo So I was glad with that I was happy with that. Ah, but. Precisely The name comes from pensarre which me is the Spanish word to think right? So and the second section which is em Penseum comes from a it's like saying like a museum like a museum is a place of you know history so pensare And. Em So Pensium is a place of thought that's where it came from. Yeah.
12:38.91
mike_flywheel
Wow, that's deep I like it and the fact that you were able to get.com get all the properties locked down the seo. It's hilarious because I think so many startups or entrepreneurs start with that. You got like you got the idea but it doesn't have a name yet.
12:54.48
Samit
Exactly.
12:56.13
mike_flywheel
And then as you start going down the naming path. You just start scribbling on a piece of paper or a whiteboard and then you check that domain like tip it. Someone's got that up. Someone's got that too and then you just start getting frustrated. You go back. It's pretty cool that you were able to like come up with this this deeper meaning and it kind of just worked out.
13:03.71
Samit
Exactly.
13:12.48
Samit
Yeah, it did it it honestly maybe that was when I knew it was it was the right product because me and cam have like sat down and thought of so many ideas try to come up with names and it's always taken and the first time in our lives that it wasn't so I was happy with that. This is the 1
13:14.21
mike_flywheel
Like that. So.
13:29.15
mike_flywheel
This is the one This is the one. Well let's talk about the space then um, study help I will call this category I think that's that's sort of it right? which is like.
13:31.39
Samit
This is the one for sure. Yeah.
13:41.29
mike_flywheel
Studying help and support I imagine like it goes to the likes of tutors to the likes of self-guided to to practice tests talk to me about what's out there that way we can start to you know define for people. What's different about pensium.
13:51.11
Samit
Dip. of course of course you know I mean education is like a like a very very very old industry as the tale is oldest time right? anything that starts with anything beginning of anything is learning about it. So it's education right? so. You know there's a lot of tools. A lot of things out there when it comes to the educational space like you mentioned you know there are tutors. There are also other other like you know, Ai tools and things of that sort that help you know people study or as they say they try to help people study. But what we're trying to do differently is you know, especially with like a lot of like the Ai tools out there right now. Um, they're all focusing on helping students get better grades and that's not what we're trying to do. We're focusing on the actual. Actual material is understanding a concept or understanding a subject that you're trying to study because our main goal is well as I mentioned as well. There are a lot of tutors out there but tutors cost money and tutors are expensive and you know I'll give you a little bit of background of myself. Ah.
15:09.23
Samit
I'm from India as well and I came here to study so is my cofounder where we are immigrants to this country so you know we've seen the whole landscape of students that can't afford you know a tutor whether it comes to a university or even in high school. And you know there are students that can't afford that and then it's like if somebody wants to learn. They should be able to learn and that's essentially why we want pensium to go out there is because we want to make learning equitable. So if somebody wants to learn they can and they don't have to be able. They don't have to go through or tutor. They don't have to have like be that financially strong to just learn what they want to learn because I feel like that's the best tool right? to become exactly exactly.
15:54.47
mike_flywheel
So you're trying to democratize that element of like a tutor concept which is learning styles helping you truly learn. Not just you know regurgitate and get the better Mark you're trying to truly help with the learning experience and democratize tutors but tactically. From what you're saying I want to learn more as we go through the product. This could be a companion to tutors they could use this tool with students but you're also making this up more available for every other individual to use if they can't afford a tutor to just use pensium which is which is kind of cool.
16:19.14
Samit
Shark.
16:28.70
Samit
Exactly I'm glad you actually brought that up is because we're looking at it from both sides. Um, you know it's important for teachers to be able to teach and it's important for students to be able to learn and we also are working on an educator side as Well. That helps educators. Um, create ah lesson plans create questions create exams using the material that they have too so that they can save more time with the administrative task that they have to do and they can spend more time teaching students. So our goal Well at least for me.
17:04.30
Samit
Would feel like if a teacher can teach 1 more student because of our tool that'll be something that'll make me happy or if 1 more student can just take more interest and actually learn something new through our product. That's an accomplishment for me. No.
17:18.62
mike_flywheel
That's cool. So talk about the challenges in learning today. Um that you're seeking to solve you. You mentioned some of them earlier like and I'm sorry I forget the term but you had sort of like approaches to studying and breaks. And approaches to the way that you see content. You know you talked about the concept of like a Youtube video or a show with subtitles and your ability to remember being a little bit higher. What are some of these gaps ah from a fundamentals perspective that you're building into the product capability.
17:50.41
Samit
Yeah, for sure you know there are a lot of techniques where we work with like a cognitive psychologist to look to implement these learning techniques to help students learn better but essentially a lot of the techniques. A lot of simple things. Students aren't really taught right. It's like you know professors I set out there to teach the content but they're not really thinking about how the student is receiving the content. So like I said um, one of the techniques is dual encoding where you you use multiple facets of learning to to. Um, help with memorization and understanding. So like I said watching a video and actually reading about it is much better than just doing each of them individually. So that's 1 thing that we're trying to implement in our platform. Another one is interleaving so what that means is you know when you study something or when you're reading something. Learning something when you go after you learn it right? and in a real-life situation. You're not going to access that piece of memory until you have a test or let's say in a like. Let's say you're working in corporate right? You learn something new and you let's say you learn. You know stock market or something like that right in an actual situation. You're not gonna implement it until like okay I want to sit down today and buy this stock. What was what did I learn so the the whole concept of interleaving is you have gaps and you change what you're studying because then you.
19:23.69
Samit
Put yourself in that real life situation of when you need to access that memory so you break down each subject maybe focus studying on 1 subject for 1 hour and then you focus on another subject in another hour because that way you can improve your memory when you need to access that specific information.
19:39.85
mike_flywheel
You're not just regurgitating it. You're practicing thell learn it completely. Don't use it and then use it again which is what we generally do in life because you're not just doing the snare that I think you're talking about which is like let me just ingest all but really fast and then.
19:42.64
Samit
Exactly.
19:47.42
Samit
Yeah.
19:53.47
mike_flywheel
Regurgitate it all out and never remember it again. Probably Calculus for most people right.
19:53.94
Samit
Yeah, and that's why like? yeah yeah, and exactly and that's why like probably a course that you studied and you crammed the night before an exam. Maybe you'll remember it when you're writing the paper. But then if I ask you a question maybe a week after you like wait I have no idea.
20:09.63
mike_flywheel
Yeah, especially if it's like a history exam. It's like you remembered all the dates all the people and then you never remembered it again, but you were good for like 48 hours after you, you jammed it so how does like the the platform then work and then I guess we can connect it back to some of these concepts and themes is it.
20:12.43
Samit
That exact match.
20:28.95
mike_flywheel
Web-based app base and like walking me through a little bit of helping visualize this for people.
20:29.92
Samit
For sure. Yeah, of course as I mentioned what students do is they upload their study material. So whether you know it could be what they're using the written notes maybe is Youtube video lecture slides even any content that they use. To learn even like you know recordings of of the lectures that they've sat in and what it does is it takes all that content figures out. What's like the main important points from it right and breaks down all the content into manageable chunks to different lessons right. Once you have that you can click into a lesson and it creates a specific tailored guide to your learning level and the subject that you're learning and it also has questions that you can you know answer once you've gone to your study guide and also flashcards for you know rote memorization. Like yours you know, studying like more like medical terms or if you're like studying biology obviously flash guards to help. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
21:32.82
mike_flywheel
Guys. So it's actually learning from from your content. So your own notes I guess they could be your own handwritten notes from class they could be course materials. Um, what happens if it's like a but I mean.
21:43.68
Samit
Yeah, Pep. Yep.
21:49.87
mike_flywheel
Maybe everything is digital now. But like what happens if you have a textbook Can you reference that textbook as piece of this.
21:54.21
Samit
Yeah, for sure. Yeah for sure. Um I mean you can obviously upload a textbook What we do is you can also choose the pages that you want to upload so it doesn't have to be a whole huge textbook because sometimes in your courses you don't have to upload like all of it. It's only a specific section of the textbook right.
22:11.25
mike_flywheel
Got it cool and so like if it's man I'm even imagining like so if it's like math I Guess it's using like maybe getting into too much detail. You're using like ocr to extract the symbols because that's a little bit harder to like can't type out symbols.
22:12.23
Samit
So yeah, can do that as well. Yeah.
22:24.27
Samit
Exactly.
22:28.42
mike_flywheel
And then bring that back to life in a real terms for you. So it's it's ah it's very specific because right you know people have talked Obviously one of the the key stories that a lot of people Tell is oh my my son or daughter started using chat gpt as a study buddy.
22:34.42
Samit
For sure.
22:47.63
mike_flywheel
And that works for broad content that exists out there but it doesn't relate to the things that you're being taught in that class in that course it might have general knowledge on history. But maybe it's not that chapter and maybe it's omitting things so you can contextualize it with.
22:48.58
Samit
That that.
23:07.50
mike_flywheel
Starting point being your own material does it augment that material with things that are outside of like what you've provided it or it helps keep you kind of in in the swimlands of the things that you're specifically supposed to be studying.
23:19.57
Samit
Yeah, So it's highly dependent on on. Obviously what you upload, right? What we want to do is um, not use outside sources because um, again like things that you're doing in your specific course might not be. What it? What's online there So That's why we want to keep that right? but not to say we can do it. It's just that we'll probably have an option to use the web or not yeah yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
23:44.43
mike_flywheel
Got it like bring in external learning f I Really want to learn a subject that's beyond what? Ah what I've immediately got in front of me is cool. So um, web-based Ah, it sounds like.
23:53.94
Samit
Yeah, so it is web-based right? We are releasing an app next month. Well with a new year so that'll be good. Um, and yeah, we actually have we've added an interesting feature to the app specific which is called our step by step. So essentially what you can do is you can take a. Image over question that you have mainly I would I would think people who are studying math would use this right? So you can take a picture of like let's say a question and then break it down step by step on how to get to the answer. So yeah, but.
24:25.13
mike_flywheel
So that's cool. That's super cool and I think it's interesting because you gave math as the example and people probably for the general listener that is following Ai from the outside they might or might not have heard but like if you just ask. Complicated math questions to Ai broadly. It's not always ideal at getting you to the answer. But if you ask it in certain ways and you ask for its logic. It'll get the answer right? It has a challenge going from just a broad equation to an answer. So. It's actually I'm just.
24:48.69
Samit
Um, yep.
25:03.20
mike_flywheel
Fanboying I Guess as for anyone listening but I'm impressed by the fact that you're taking an image of math and most problems and building in the logic that allows it to get to the right answer because that's way harder I think for people that are listening like just so you know that is actually like far more challenging than it sounds.
25:12.94
Samit
For sure this is difficult.
25:21.46
mike_flywheel
Because it's not just hanging out chatting with chat gpt like there's some real mechanics behind this that are really impressive.
25:28.34
Samit
Yeahp yep for sure. Ah, it did take us a while to kind of figure out how to do that I will say um as you mentioned right? if you just throw a calculus question to Chad Gbt it's not going to answer it in in in the perfect manner and it's not going to give you the right answer all the time right. So figuring ways around that um, figuring out how we can get an accurate answer and then also figuring out how to actually deliver the steps of how to solve it I think that was the most difficult but um, well we did it and we're excited to launch it for our for.
25:58.39
mike_flywheel
Yeah, yeah.
26:05.55
Samit
You know our students learning.
26:06.87
mike_flywheel
That's that's super cool now students ah clearly but today maybe not always but is your audience primarily helping students learn or is it. Is that your audience that you're reaching o to but the way it's built it sounds like it's anybody trying to learn anything like if I had technical documentation for work say repositories from an Ms. learn you know thing on learning azure devops something like this I could bring that content into here even though I'm not a student and it it would.
26:26.83
Samit
That have who.
26:40.81
mike_flywheel
Within the construct still help me but it sounds like your focus is students but broadly you can impact learning generally with with what you're building.
26:45.74
Samit
Exactly exactly. So I mean right now the platform will accept anything that you upload, right? and teach you that but our main focus right now is Twelfth grade to second year university students because. You know we've felt like that's a very underserved market right now. Um, and you know k twelve has always been a lot of help because you know parents are very proactive when it comes to theirs their kids learning so there's always people looking for solutions and then people paying for solutions in that area. But when it comes to university when students are. Set to learn on their own It's kind of an underserved market and that's why we're starting there. Yeah.
27:29.60
mike_flywheel
Got it here's starting there meaning you're going to proactively seek them out. But if people are in grade 5 and want to use this as a companion or in fourth Year university or completely in the industry. There's nothing stopping them now. How is so so ah, the distribution.
27:39.40
Samit
No, no, no.
27:46.91
mike_flywheel
Is this a b to c play ultimately like the everyday consumer or do universities or schools make this accessible to their students sort of who's your your primary audience. Not just the end user but your primary audience for bringing this to market.
28:01.19
Samit
For sure for sure you know I think with with startups trying to validate it It's always good to start with b two c so that's what we did. We went straight to the students because it's easier to access them so. That's what we did. We went to students we we went. Kind of viral on social media with Instagram and tik to and we've hit about 100000 users so far 100000 students globally. So that's ah, that's been our approach with b to c but how we see it being more beneficial is going through institutions and going through actual universities. And providing it to these students because how we look at it is you know like I said we we want to build out both facets of it whether it's the educator or the student. So if we can alleviate the whole classroom experience and the experience outside the classroom. Think that's where we can give the most amount of value because for universities keeping students engaged making sure that they don't drop out right and having them complete the full full fourth year and get good future outcomes is what they're looking for whether that means you know they're doing. Better in their grades or better in their classes. It doesn't matter as long as the future outcomes are there and their students are staying and that's what we want to do right help universities in that aspect with educators. We want to help them because we want to give them more time to focus on being able to teach more right and also focus on their research because a lot of.
29:31.65
Samit
University Profs are therefore that and then from the student side. We just want to help them learn better because again, they're always focusing on their future outcomes and to be honest, like a few grades and a few courses aren't going to take you very far right? It's more about what you understood in that course and what you took out of it.
29:48.50
mike_flywheel
Got it and so where are you at in the in the journey like am I able to purchase pensium today or let's let's actually talk under the guise of this will probably go live in about a month so when someone's listening to this recording. Can they purchase pensium is it just on a per user per month like if I'm a student I just access it if I'm an institution that wants to provide it. How does that pricing of of pensium work. Yeah.
30:16.88
Samit
Yeah, for sure. So right now we are free to use but a month from now we'll be adding premium features right for our b two c customers so they could subscribe to it. Um, and then in terms of institutions. We're currently having those conversations on how to introduce it. To their classrooms and specifically with professors. Um, again, it's it's it's it's a known fact that speaking to anything with b to b or institutions have long sales cycles. So really looking forward to the new year so we good. Yeah.
30:52.33
mike_flywheel
Definitely definitely and so today and in in the new year it will be still. There's a freemium version call it freemium because there's obviously a lot of value in it and then you you said you'll be introducing premium features what type of.
30:57.56
Samit
Pleasure. Yeah.
31:05.20
mike_flywheel
Features are the the premium paid version going to going to have over the freemium version.
31:10.14
Samit
Yeah, for sure I mean that's a that's a great question. We are adding new features such as study pods which is where students can live collaborate on their study guides with other other students. Um, and also well where educators can. Create their own study pods and provide all that content to their students so that'll be a premium feature another feature that we're adding and that we're currently working on is um, I'm not sure if you if you saw the when Google announced geminite right? where they have real time feedback so something that we're working on is if a student. Able to open the camera onto like a question that they're solving to give them real time feedback as to where they need to go with the question. Yeah, exactly.
31:54.70
mike_flywheel
But interesting. So it'll like real time watch what they're doing and then be able to to guide super cool. Um, and so you've been working on this what like six six months or something like that. Okay, so.
32:05.32
Samit
Well we incorporated August fourteenth and we launched our Mvp September Third so yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah I mean we we? Well we work fast but again like I feel like with the ai space.
32:13.16
mike_flywheel
Wow, That's some quick work. Um, so.
32:23.10
Samit
Everyone is innovating so quickly and it and you need to you need to go fast if you want to if you want to you know, really make a change. So yeah, exactly exactly.
32:24.50
mike_flywheel
Yeah, yeah.
32:32.64
mike_flywheel
And you definitely didn't want to miss the first half of the school year I Guess that timing was very relevant to what you were doing. What's been the the most challenging piece of this for you So far, you guys obviously have pretty strong technical chops. Um, you've. Fresh out of school. It sounds like a pretty good access to your your target customer. Um, and it sounds like you've had some great success from a marketing perspective and virality on it but like what's been like the biggest challenges or hurdles and in bringing this to life.
32:53.57
Samit
The.
33:05.63
Samit
Yeah, um I think being a startup founder or just not. You know it's people think that you know when you do your own business or anything of that sort that you don't get that imposo syndrome. But you do a lot right. I think the biggest challenge so far with the startup isn't actually you know the things that we've been doing but more of like a mental challenge for someone as myself being a founder right? It's like being able to trust your decisions being able to know that you made a decision failed and then tried something else. Right? Because at the beginning like it's okay, like when you don't have any traction or you're not doing it like when you're first trying to get your first customers. It's it's okay, like ah like you can keep trying new things and then you're really try. It doesn't matter as much as as well now when we have so many users. And it's at a point where you know decisions just just get a lot more bigger and a lot more crucial and to have that confidence in yourself to be like okay I need to take this decision now is is probably the biggest challenge because. You know, a lot of my friends that I've talked to like startup founders and now that I'm in it I see what they mean is like they always said like the 1 thing that they wanted to do is go faster right? They like the 1 thing that hold held us back was the self-doubt that we had.
34:32.81
Samit
If We had just like believed in the decision that we thought of and just went and Executed. We got to the place that we were so much faster so that's probably the biggest challenge right now. Um for me specifically for the company. Ah well again, you know pivoting to B to b. In terms of revenue and hitting institutions and speaking to them I think that will be the biggest challenge for us because obviously it's a conversation that um, you know we haven't tackled before so excited for it for sure because I'm going to learn a lot but also. It will be a challenge.
35:10.98
mike_flywheel
Is is there any? Um I guess on the guise of learning is there any tools or methods you're using to help keep yourself in check and power through some of that because I don't think like you're talking about it and and many others on the show have talked about it either live or or after we wrapped up or before. But this like mental game of entrepreneurship. Ah and and always feeling like you're not moving fast enough because everyone just tells you you know you have to move as fast as humanly possible and you're like how many hours a day is fast enough. Is it like 22 21
35:32.10
Samit
Yeah, yeah.
35:47.97
mike_flywheel
24 no one really knows like so what? what have you found useful or have you found anything useful in trying to keep you in check? yeah.
35:58.34
Samit
Um, it's a good point again I feel like you know I've run businesses before but with this specific startup. You know the last three months I will say we've been a little crazy I've been working some crazy hours. But you know just. Reading about you know self-help reading about like self-improvement things such as that um is very important but also taking your breaks because what I found is ah well we had to go really quick, but it's really easy to burn out and you need to be careful of that and very mindful of that. Because of course you know it I wouldn't say it's unrealistic to have like a 21 hour work day. It's fine, but it it doesn't matter what you did that day what it matters the next day because you're not going to be able to function at what the way you were working at 21 hours so understanding that okay you need to go quick. But to perform your best in the and to also take care of yourself. So at least make some time to go to the gym eat healthy. Keep those in check. Um, so that's important but in terms of resources I would say well my cofounder just having someone you can talk to who's in the same boat right. And also having a good community of founders around you because everyone's being through some sort of journey in that sense and just talking to them knowing that they're there in the same boat helps a lot and also it might just have some advice for you. So yeah.
37:26.82
mike_flywheel
Yeah, yeah, and I like how you related it to like you mentioned going to the gym but you also like I think the piece there is like imagine working out 24 hours a day and then trying to do that again the next day without proper rest and recovery your brain. Your body are all muscles and and like. You need to to rest them so to your point if you run a marathon on Monday you're not running a marathon Tuesday Wednesday Thursday right? you train for a year to run that and so otherwise your training in between there is more sustainable you put in a regular day of work. You make sure they get proper rest and recovery and you come back the next day to be in top form each and every day because it's the marathon and ultimately you are moving fast in a startup but you're not a hundred meter sprinter because you're not going to become a successful entrepreneur or startup in a matter of three or six months you're just not.
38:18.58
Samit
Exactly exactly.
38:21.59
mike_flywheel
It's a sustained energy that you need to be bringing So I love that you touched on that there. Um, so.
38:27.18
Samit
And it's ah and to your point. Um I think it's very cyclical. It's like when you're starting a startup. That's when you have to put the most amount of time and I feel like if you can sacrifice maybe like a month of your time just to work hard and get it out there. Then you understand like the hours that you need to put then and what you need to do every day because in the starting you don't so you have to try everything and anything and if you can just give let's say a month of your time of a year right? to figure that out right? and then after then you can you know introduce all the things you need to do and. Feel like it's a cycle right? So you you work hard. You get everything you need out there right? and then you can relax and do it Well not relax, you still need to run your business but you know you refresh yourself and then you get back into it right? So I think that's some more.
39:13.49
mike_flywheel
You can refresh yourself.
39:21.13
mike_flywheel
Yeah, you gotta hit control f 5 every once in a while it's tech joke anyone listening that means refresh your screen. Um well I think definitely a lot of interesting. What's been like.
39:23.74
Samit
Exactly.
39:29.52
Samit
Refreshers getting there exactly.
39:37.73
mike_flywheel
Those are the challenges but in everyone's journey. There's like a moment. Um, that's like most memorable something that like really stood out to you in this in this journey was it shipping your first. I owned the roadmap product or was it something else like what? what's sort of like their most memorable experience so far. Well we kind of building and and running pensium. Yeah.
39:58.49
Samit
That's ah, that's a that's a good one because I have a pretty good moment I will say um so like I said we launched our Mvp September third and well my birthday was September sixteenth and on that day we went viral on on social media. Ah. And I think that's the most memorable day because I remember we went from getting well we went from 300 users to a thousand users in in a cap in a couple of hours um and this was probably like a twelve at night you know of course it's my birthday so we had a couple of drinks. Right? And then we and my co-founder were sitting and we're like man we just hit a thousand users. Holy shit right? and then like from happiness. It told it went to like oh my god we're hitting a thousand users our platforms not going to be able to handle that right? and.
40:52.69
mike_flywheel
Panic.
40:56.70
Samit
Then like at three M at night me and him are just sitting there like I'm designing a new portal I'm designing like a new modal to be like where with close signups. It's only a wait list only and I'm implementing that so we don't blow up our whole platform. So I think that was probably the most memorable night because it went from like happiness to like. My god and then to be like okay we're good. Yeah.
41:18.99
mike_flywheel
That's awesome. That's a sweet birthday present if everyone could just get their start off to go viral on their birthday that would be a a good kickstart for everyone but I love that story and I love that you you know you enjoyed your moment of refreshing your birthday and got right back to it. Yeah ah coming soon.
41:26.10
Samit
Sure Pressure exactly.
41:35.38
mike_flywheel
I Love that Um, and and how you kind of quickly ramped up at the capacity to support more now if people are interested to learn more about Pensium. Um, and we'll link everything to the description. But what's the. Best place for them to go is it Your website is it the app store where should people go if they want to find out more and or sign up for pencm themselves.
41:58.60
Samit
For sure I mean the best way is to go to pensium.com you can find it you can go through our website see what we're about um and if you want to talk to me about Ai or education I would say just message me on Linkedin I reply pretty quick.
42:13.36
mike_flywheel
I Love it and you know you've talked about a few things you never know who's who's listening. It could be another startup. It could be a student could be an investor or could just be someone That's interested in the the ecosystem and willing to to help.
42:13.81
Samit
Ah, so yeah.
42:31.60
mike_flywheel
Create some bridges if you think about like the next 3 to six months ahead of pensium. What are some of the areas that you would be most interested in getting a helping hand advice or support to achieve your goals.
42:46.40
Samit
Yeah, yeah, like I said you know going to institutions having those conversations long tail cycles and they're difficult right? because you ah like they're institutions right? to get them to change and make a change will be definitely difficult right? so. In terms of advice. Of course you know just a perspective on how it is selling to institutions will always be very welcomed by us but more so you know just connecting with people in the industry. You know, figuring out what has worked with a lot of other. Tech companies and things of that sort. That's always helpful because I feel like you know Education is a very important field and there's always a lot of players in it. But in terms of giving value. That's that's that's the most important point right for me and if we can figure out how we can pitch that value to institutions would be the best. Yeah.
43:48.99
mike_flywheel
So I love it. Well summit. Thank you so much for for joining today. Um I learned a lot about just the education space I love how your tool like you've got a focus market. You're going after. But I mean I might start using this even for some of my own. Learning in the industry and it's cool that you can branch out in all those ways based on how you've built this and I'm excited to to watch the journey I'm I'm hoping and I'm sure that anyone that listened along today is at least curious whether for themselves or a friend or a family member I'm sure they know someone. That could use some support on learning and it sounds like it's worth at least giving it a shot and I'm sure that it will sell itself from there. Um, as we kind of come to a close summit. What's sort of like is there any final things that we didn't talk about or any advice. You'd like to kind of share before we close out to anyone else sort of starting their own entrepreneurial journey or getting something kickstarted.
44:43.13
Samit
Yeah, of course I think to any entrepreneur or startup or somebody thinking of you know, starting a startup I would say just go out there and do it right? That's the biggest biggest piece of advice because ah if you sit on it. Somebody's going to come in and somebody's going to start it right? like I feel like in a world like today where everybody's thinking of new ideas I don't think there's a very original idea out there right? So if you have the idea go ahead and do it honestly just go ahead and do it. What are you risking right? if it doesn't work out okay failed. To the next thing because I can say for sure like me and my cofounder cam we've probably started over 10 plus businesses right? And then we've only had well we have this one that's worked out right? So keep going at it right? until you figure out which one hits.
45:37.41
mike_flywheel
I love it? Well thanks again, summit pensium for anyone that is interested in learning. It's PENSEUMDotCom badass domain the fact that you got that's pretty wild. Thanks for joining us thanks to everyone I listened in again.
45:49.53
Samit
There you go.
45:55.57
mike_flywheel
And look forward to catching you on the next episode of the pitch please Podcast have a good one. Thanks.