Our client, a well-known robotics businessman in Japan, wanted to take care of the educational sector in his country and provide an EdTech accelerator solution. He came to us with the idea of launching an Ed-Tech startup – a platform where students could ask questions and certified teachers would answer them. A platform is an e-learning vendor with a major focus on the Q&A format.

We began by launching MVP. Despite the basic feature set, the platform quickly began to grow and engage the audience. Students were excited to get a platform where they could get an expert opinion on any question. Tutors, on the other hand, began to build their community and attract new students to their universities.

But let’s go over it one by one.

This is a Japanese educational Q&A platform for students and tutors. It’s localized for the Japanese market with English and Japanese language version.

There are 3 user roles on the platform: students, tutors, and super admins. The latter ones manage all the information and profiles on the platform, as well as track the statistics. 

Students can post their questions or assignments, and set prices, and due dates. They can also book 1-1 sessions with an educator right from their personal account.

Tutors, on their part, can bid money for the opportunity to complete a student’s request. They also track the analytics in their personal account, see a list of students and a handy calendar for planning.

A built-in chat room for discussing assignments and sharing materials;

Multiple rounds of reviews for completed assignments;

Several subscription packages with advanced features;

Built-in payment for completed assignments;

Opportunity for tutors to sell learning materials and more.

Ed-Tech Q&A startup has become a unique educational solution for the Japanese market. Before starting development, we closely researched the target audience of the project in order to create a product that would really make their lives easier. And we succeeded.

We launched the MVP just 3 months after development started. This allowed the client’s business to quickly enter the market, gather an active audience and customize the platform to their specific needs.

Moreover, the platform became an additional source of income for Japanese tutors, quickly gaining popularity in educational communities.

The development of the platform proceeded dynamically and fast. We aimed to launch the platform as quickly as possible and start attracting the first users. Therefore, together with the client, we defined a scope of key features for launching the Ed-Tech platform:

This solution was inspired by project search websites, where freelancers offer custom terms for completing a job. Taking this as a basis, we developed a new process for students to choose tutors. And our client supported this idea.

To get started with the student’s request, the tutor sends their proposal with price, duration, and additional information. Then the student selects a tutor from the list of those who applied and opens a chat with them.

Users of the platform can chat with each other about different questions or requests, and share documents or images. They also receive notifications about new messages.

Users can work on the platform for free or purchase one of the subscription packages. Each package gives the user access to an advanced set of features. For example, students can post more questions or see more information about the tutor.

Students can also pay for assignments completed for them on a one-time basis using the built-in payment feature via Stripe.

Some student questions require a personal consultation. For this reason, we created a feature for students to select a tutor and book a consultation with them directly in their personal account.

We’ve connected Calendly to the booking process as well to make it more convenient. Tutors select available time slots, which students can then choose from.

There are some requests that require several rounds of completion and review. Therefore, all students can return the assignment for improvement if it lacks information.

The feature is free but is only available to users who have paid for a subscription on the platform.

One more additional earning opportunity for tutors selling services online. They can add learning materials to their personal account and sell access to them to students.

All learning materials for sale are published in a special section available to students. Buying and paying for materials is also possible right from the platform.

The tech stack was chosen due to easy customization and speed of data processing. Therefore, we used this tech stack to create the Japanese Ed-Tech platform:

PHP 7.4+ for all platform

HTML 5

jQuery/VueJs for the Front End

MySQL for relation data

Additionally, we used such tools as Twilio, Gmail, Zoom, Slack, and Google Spreadsheets.