Our conversations with parents in low income communities had revealed that moving children away from government aided schools to affordable private schools was a high priority in their wallet allocation. Affordable private schools all over the country are typically set up by local entrepreneurs with limited resources and hence, beyond a point, struggle to scale.
Elevar’s early investment in Varthana (in 2013) had addressed the critical need for providing capital to schools to build infrastructure and expand capacity, and enable greater ‘access’ to education within low income communities. Elevar had looked at numerous opportunities in education before partnering with LEAD. Two aspects specifically stood out with respect to LEAD. First, a ‘comprehensive solution oriented’ approach, vis-a-vis a product led sales approach, that was steeped in the learnings of the entrepreneurs having personally run schools in remote areas for several years. Second, a concrete plan to build out distribution into these markets, and to own the distribution at meaningful scale.
LEAD’s proposition aligns well with the Elevar Method and our vision for companies that create and thrive on momentum.
LAhWSTM Proposition: LEAD aligns to LAhWS as the typical owner of an Affordable Private School (APS) is sensitive to the price paid by its service providers. However, an integrated platform such as LEAD School is not just a service vendor, but a partner that plays a central role in enabling the school to deliver its core “education oriented” value proposition. So even though LEAD’s price point is quite low at the per-student level (low ARPU), the total spend on LEAD constitutes a fairly high percentage of the school’s wallet share – and a high share of mind as well. That makes the APS school a LAhWS customer.
Customer Business Value: LEAD’s systemic approach to school management including curriculum, content, administration, assessments and delivery, enablement of fee collection and parent engagement, helps drive up the Customer Business Value substantially.
The Twin Flywheels: LEAD’s solution orientation improves school outcomes, which in turn increases school enrolments, pushes down prices, and builds high parent and child stickiness and loyalty, all of which helps affordable schools grow.
