New Graduate Degrees Descomplica

Descomplica is writing innovation directly into the course, prioritizing quality and immediately applicable content and logistical and financial access.

Descomplica is a learning system which helps students to clear life’s major hurdles with video classes, top tier teachers, and an unforgettable brand experience, providing financially accessible learning at scale.

In 2012, the Company began preparing students online for the Brazilian national university entrance exam, the ENEM. But since 2016 Descomplica has begun expanded its operations to match its lifelong learning aspirations with resources for professional life. For an idea of the size of the Brazilian education market, see the estimates below:

8M Brazilians are currently enrolled in higher education. This number accounts for a very low penetration of 16% (total pop.).

In 2015, there were 2,364 Higher Ed establishments Brazil, according to Sinopsis of Higher Education 2015 published by the Ministry of Education of Brazil (MEC).

Despite the recent deep recession in Brazil, MEC data shows that the number of new students is constantly increasing: 4,5% YoY growth.

The government’s goal is to increase by ~50% the number of students enrolled in Higher Ed by 2024.

Distance Learning has emerging as the definite affordable solution to meet this demand for Higher Ed in Brazil. 

Descomplica knew it wanted to be part of the solution for addressing this unmet demand for high-quality, affordable Higher Education. And the best way to test its platform and pedagogy was via shorter-term, more practically based lato senso graduate degree courses. So in the first quarter of 2018, Descomplica launched new graduate degrees in the Pedagogy/Education and Business, in partnership with Universidade Cândido Mendes (the oldest private institution of higher education in Brazil), with hundreds of students paying for all course an average ticket size of R$ 1.210,93.

The company is developing these products focused on aspiring  teachers and educators of lower social classes, who have made a great effort not only to finish high school, but also to enter and complete a university course. Both financially and logistically (these people usually live in regions away from the downtown and transportation in Brazil is a serious social problem), the digital nature of the course opens up new possibilities. 

After undergrad (the dream of so many), many of these people arrive in the labor market and find a reality quite different from their expectation: despite their undergraduate degree, employers bemoan the students’ lack of experience, offer low salaries, and blame the financial crisis. Descomplica Graduate Degree courses are designed to help navigate this reality: they are financially accessible, they prioritize real-world, quality content and immediately applicable with digital examples as teaching cases, and they focus on immediately relevant job skills for the student completing them. The result: classes that promote expertise in a practical way and help this target audience gain recognition in the educational areas or transforming executives into teachers, as an important source of complementary income. Our graduate degree courses have a main objective to providing resources to clear each of life’s major learning hurdles and to train people, disseminating our main skill: to teach.

Education systems have not changed much for the past centuries: traditional classrooms, with the unilateral pedagogy. Additionally, in Brazil quality education is very expensive.

Descomplica has the mission to train teachers and educators on a learning system scalable video-based learning, top tier teachers and an unforgettable brand experience.

•       Social, Mobile, Digital: Make learning more fun, with a unique pedagogy, through a complete educational platform and teachers community.

•       Much cheaper than a conventional: The traditional in-person Graduate Degree courses cost at least R$800 per month, while Descomplica’s monthly subscriptions can start at R$119,90.

Descomplica is a scalable online classroom, that was born digital and as a startup. Its speed to implement and innovate are second-to-none. And its proprietary Learning Management System, build at the principal product and not a complement to classroom-based learning.

With the average session time of one hour, graduate degree students (aspiring teachers and educators) use technology through the platform to get questions answered by teachers and engage with each other to create study groups, ask questions, and send hundreds messages a month.

In the Graduate Degree category specifically, the growth effort itself are summarized in 2 key components over the next 12 months:

•       Continually develop the to make the learning process smarter (recommendations) and more social (study groups).

•       Invest in media to launch at scale this new 100% online education category in Brazil.

To support this plan, Descomplica has developed a Business Plan grow strongly the customer basethrough development of current channels (desktop, mobile, app) and new channels (telcos/broadband providers and retailers and e-commerce sales).

The organization is over-delivering in scalable pedagogical content and standardizing its legal terms in order to grow in a sustainable way. Descomplica has had incredible success signing dozens top-tier professors to join its online faculty. The professors see Descomplica as a great platform to test new pedagogical innovations, to divide their knowledge into the training of aspiring new teachers, and refine their techniques of reaching and engaging students via camera.

This scenario predicts a change in the level of training of teachers and educators, guaranteeing high quality professionalism, easy access and low cost - all in a scalable way.

The Company is preparing to excel at the next level in graduate degree courses based on the know-how in other categories.

Explanation and current data:

- SEO, Web Conversion, BI/Analytics, Demand Generation Sales, Community, Market Research, Customer Success (Retention, Renovation & Expansion).

Satisfaction results: solved 83% of problems and answered 100% within 3 hours.

1.2MM students watched our biggest online live lesson.

Descomplica Blog: traffic of  500,000/month, 80% organic, lead capture rate of 2,5%.

- Plataform: open APIs, social and recommendation.

45k students enroll every month in small study groups.

Insanely engaged users: 10 sessions/month.

100% proprietary LMS.

The graduation degreee courses has a total of 572 students and aspirants to teachers and educators studying in our platform.

Atualmente, a nossa plataforma oferece os seguintes assets: VOD, Live Classes, Tutoring, Essay Grading, PDF material, Content Library

Assessment and Social interaction.

1year – 8,5K people:

Portfolio composed by different courses and partners.

Offline distribution: Prepaid cards, direct sales in kiosks.

2-3years – 170K people:

Expand in regulated markets.

Solutions of employability.

Integration of content and technology partners and acquisitions, unbundle certain functionalities.

Despite the recent deep recession in Brazil, MEC data shows that the number of new students is constantly increasing: 4,5% YoY growth. The government’s goal is to increase by ~50% the number of students enrolled in HigherEd by 2024. Focused on training of education professionals, Descomplica has a technology able to solve this demand for Higher Ed in Brazil.

Multidisciplinary product team working with Scrum process and agile development methodology, using 75% of time focused on build and release new features and products, and 25% of time focused on improvements and optimizations in Social, Platform and SRE. This way they spread information, responsibility and knowledge, avoid bottlenecks and minimize risks.

Content Development: Video production and editing team and pedagogy and teaching team working in 8 in-house studios and with the best of breed teachers & educators, building solid pedagogical base. Not least, proprietary technology for content distribution.

Descomplica is the for-profit company which generates revenue. Currently, the platform serves hundreds of thousands of active paying subscribers. The organization is based on the startup model and has just completed its equivalent to the American Series B investment round: U$ 20 million led by Invus Opportunities.

As detailed in item 3 about Vision, Descomplica’s strategic plan is based on an expansion of the platform to other categories to be present and relevant at all moments of the student's academic life. Based on the potential size of the markets (Hight School, ENEM, Higher Ed, The Bar Exam, Civil Service Jobs and Workers), the company has developed a business plan based not only on capturing new students but also on increasing Life Time (and thus Lifetime Value) of the existing students. 

Descomplica understands that the award is an opportunity to join forces with Solve and MIT, the world-renowned reference for ethics, impact, and investment in technology and innovation, to ensure mentorship and support for the development of a differentiated Graduate Degree category. Focused on pedagogical and product/platform, we understand that the contribution of this award to our mission will be in challenging Descomplica to do more and better towards the democratization of education in Brazil, and opening doors to individual, research, and community that will help us executive our vision with integrity and excellence.

The main barrier is the strong Competitors in the traditional brasilian education market. The Company understands that the award is an opportunity to learn with Solve and MIT, the world-renowned reference for ethics, impact, and investment in technology and innovation, to ensure mentorship and support for the development of a differentiated Graduate Degree category. Focused on pedagogical and platform, we understand that the contribution of this award to our mission will be in challenging Descomplica to do more towards the democratization of education in Brazil, and opening doors to individual, research, and community that will help us executive our vision.