C1DO1 ("See one, do one")

Currently, there are no good alternatives to train practical skills remotely. Unlike transferring knowledge through traditional eLearning platforms, teaching practical skills on platforms like ZOOM is not scalable or feasible, it generates teacher-student burnout and the skills are not transferred. A good example of all this was brought forward by the Covid-19 pandemic, where institutions and organizations had to stop holding their classic in-person workshops and training sessions and therefore stopped transferring practical/technical skills to their students or employees (e.g. university students, gastronomy students, faculty, nursing providers, surgeons, electricians, motor vehicle mechanics, programmers, etc.). As a result, just in Latin America and the Caribbean, over 165 million students were out of school and over 26 million jobs were lost. It is clear that learning to “do” something is not achieved just by “watching”, but by “doing” and receiving feedback. Our solution allows trainees to practice and train on their own, and are then tutored by experts who provide digital feedback in a remote and asynchronous manner, via our web and mobile platform. An analog training session becomes digital, and practical skills education becomes scalable.

C1DO1 (See one, do one) is a digital platform to provide remote teaching for technical skills. It allows trainees to upload a video of themselves practicing a skill. The video is received by a trainer who provides highly personalized feedback. The platform allows for multimedia feedback, including text, drawings, videos and audio. Then, the student reviews this feedback and trains as many times as s/he wishes and the activity is recorded and uploaded again, receiving new feedback and thus completing a learning curve, until s/he achieves a minimum level of competence for that procedure. While the process repeats, data is harvested for machine learning algorithms and A.I. to complement learning and improve the learning experience. Our customers currently use C1DO1 to teach basic and advanced skills to over 10,000 trainees in more than 70 skill-based disciplines.

We are serving five different types of institution-customers from whom we are learning SO MUCH. They are using C1DO1 to teach many different skills, and they all have in common that they need to train either their personnel/employees, or users/clients (e.g. university students, gastronomy students, faculty, nursing providers, surgeons, electricians, motor vehicle mechanics, programmers, etc.), and have been unable to do so effectively and sustainably. In order to understand their needs, we also offer an advising and consulting service, where we delve deep into each of our customers' needs, pains and current capabilities, to complement their processes and provide a customized solution. Then, we provide our expertise in the remote transfer of skills to help our customers provide training to their users and obtain tangible results (e.g. learning analytics, diagnosis on their instructors, feedback analytics, etc). Just as an example, Catolica University from Chile,  is now training over 350 surgeons a year through C1DO1 in 8 countries, 3 different languages, and these surgeons will impact over hundreds of thousands of patients' lives every year. Another example: Christus Health (Texas, U.S.A.) is using our methodology in several pilots to train their employees in motivational interviewing for nutritional education. If feedback is needed, C1DO1 makes it digital.

Early in my career as an educator in surgery I was challenged with a problem: is it possible to teach technical skills remotely to a surgeon in another country? As a medical school faculty member, I have experienced the needs and pains of teachers, when tasked with the challenge of transferring practical skills. Today, as CEO and founder, I have been researching how to transfer skills for the past 12 years, with over 30 peer reviewed publications in high-impact journals. We have a multidisciplinary team made up of surgeons, researchers, education specialists, finance experts, designers, engineers and developers working together on a top-of-the-line solution to transform education through technology and innovation. Each one of them has vast experience and skills to perform at their best at our different positions in the company. This mix of expertise allows us to manage all the different aspects needed for our startup to thrive, including strategic, research and education, commercial and technological aspects. In addition, our team members come from a variety of countries and backgrounds, enriching our day-to-day working experience and our vision as an international company. Also, we rely on a variety of consultants who provide support and guidance in the following areas: contracts, legal, intellectual property, accounting, strategy & growth.

We are applying to Solve because we are in a process of restructuring ourselves to be ready to scale. We need to understand how to serve our clients in an ordered and efficient manner, because they hold the key to understanding how to scale to many more customers and users. We are constantly trying to learn about their specific needs, and their willingness to pay for our product/service (Product market fit). We are also trying to figure out how to be able to absorb more clients. Internally, we are learning how to grow, and how to develop the minimum scaling units (amount of personnel needed to attend a big client, streamline the processes, etc), to be able to scale easily and smoothly in the near future. 

We believe that Solve can really help us overcome our current barriers, connect us to new networks of experts and key players in the industry, enabling us to scale up and accelerate the expansion of our solution through all of the Americas and the globe. This step will allow us to reach an ever growing number of people who will recognize the methodology, and who would want to benefit from it.

What makes our solution innovative, is the fact that we understand the importance of FEEDBACK within the learning process. eLearning has forgotten this key ingredient; without feedback we simply cannot identify our mistakes and learn how to improve our practice. Just imagine watching a Youtube video to learn guitar lessons, but then not knowing what you’re doing wrong or what to do to improve your skills (Wait! This is actually how things are happening nowadays :(, sad).

As an example I was doing a Masterclass on wine tasting in a classic learning platform, and after finishing my course, I had NO clue if what I was doing was ok or not. I would’ve paid much more money to have feedback from someone, to improve my mistakes. I was also intrigued by SkillsShare's value proposition (they raised over $136M D series), but it was surprising (and a bit disappointing) to learn that they consider “likes”, or a “good job, thumbs up” as feedback input! This is why every skill gets over 1000 “feedbacks”! But this is not really feedback. By now, Alexa or Siri should be the best teachers in any skill! But we are so far from it yet….

Not understanding the key value of feedback is the reason why the learning process has not changed over time. Whoever improves learning and makes the transfer of skills more efficient (and better), will for sure thrive in the future of any education business. With C1DO1, we have the key to achieve this. We developed a way for networks of teachers to provide personalized feedback, enabled by technology (i.e. a web and mobile platform), where each trainee is supported 24/7 by a network of teachers, who remotely and asynchronously, assess a video of the student with interactive multimedia tools included in the platform. The student achieves his/her learning curve at e.g., a workshop at the institution, on the field or at his/her house, depending on the characteristics of the course. With the data we are collecting, we now can start understanding and identifying learning problems, and, most importantly, start figuring out evidence-based solutions. We are already doing this and accumulating important data that no one else has access to.

Our overall impact goal is to transform the way practical skills are taught and acquired. This will benefit millions of people who, for different reasons, do not have direct access to educational institutions or expert-teaching networks, key elements when thinking about practical skills training. In addition, we want to understand the educational process, and as a result, improve the learning experience. To achieve this, we recently closed a follow-up project with Duoc UC, the largest and most prestigious professional institute of Chile (and also our business partners), with more than 108,000 students. This project will allow us to incorporate our methodology and technology throughout all the hard and soft skills courses available at the institution, which will drastically increase the number of active users of our platform. Subsequently, we hope to close deals with at least five institutions of the same size or larger, within five years, reaching even more users globally and impacting the future of education around the world. With a higher number of users, we will be able to obtain large amounts of data to measure and analyze learning and education, complemented by A.I.

Measuring progress is essential at our startup and we have indicators to measure goals at several levels. At the company level, our main indicator is annual revenue, which has increased exponentially in the past three years. Continuing on this trend would mean that we have reached more people and that we are making an impact in the digital education field. 

At the educational level, first we measure our impact in terms of the number of active users, and hours of training these users spend in the platform, and number of courses created in C1DO1, which will give us a better idea on the impact at a more global scale. To measure specific aspects related to the quality of the educational process, we are already measuring the number of feedbacks provided from teachers to students, amount of time spent by teachers assessing video-responses, number of students that approve those courses, among other metrics, so that we can characterize the interaction between students and teachers, have an idea of the quality and effectiveness of the learning process, as well as measuring the successful transfer of practical abilities. 

In terms of user engagement and retention, we have implemented NPS for our main product at different levels (trainee, teachers, customers), which is measured bimonthly. In addition, we want to implement these metrics in the following weeks: Time-In APP, counts of features usage, and session frequency and duration.

To present some early results, our dropout rate once the courses start is less than 20%, which means we have an average course completion rate of 80%. This is impressive if we consider that the “eLearning MOOC world” has less than 10% completion rate. For instance, in courses imparted by the Catholic University of Chile to train “Covid related procedures” to nurses in different regions of Chile, 60% of 1800 trainees completed the courses, and received a minimum of 3 pieces of feedback per session.

The way our methodology works is simple, which is why it is easy to identify its theory of change. We make digital feedback available for a trainee to improve their performance. 

At the activity level, the C1DO1 learning cycle goes like this: a student, who previously watched an instructor’s video explaining an activity, uploads a video performing that practical activity or procedure to the cloud, and a teacher remotely and asynchronously provides digital feedback. Then, the student reviews this feedback and trains as many times as s/he wishes and the activity is recorded and uploaded again, receiving new feedback and thus completing a learning curve, until s/he achieves a minimum level of competence/ proficiency for that procedure. While the process repeats, data is harvested for machine learning algorithms and A.I. to complement learning and improve the learning experience.

At the output level, these activities result in a digitally stored (and analyzable) interaction between a trainee and a trainer. This means recordings of procedures, a large amount of multimedia feedback from the instructor, labels at precise moments where a mistake is made, improvements in performance because of the feedback provided, trainees’ learning curve development and the eventual transfer of a practical ability. 

At the long-term outcomes level, these results allow for the characterization and understanding of the learning process, especially when related to practical skills. We will be able to define the ideal number of pieces of feedback and the moments within an activity, where the best learning happens. We wil be able to identify how a student learns best. Eventually, in the long run, we would expect a global C1DO1 community, where practical skills are delivered and acquired without geographical and time constraints, where students in one country can be assessed by experts residing in another country, and where educational institutions can offer their courses globally expanding their reach and growth.

The core technology that powers our solution is based on software. C1DO1 is focused on feedback literacy and how to enhance it with technology, creating a digital community around feedback. It consists of a mobile and web-based platform, which allows for traditional, face-to-face courses to be adapted and optimized so that they become digitally available anywhere and at any time, thus exponentially reaching more students. We have developed peer to peer feedback, group-to-one feedback, group to group feedback, and many more features.  When a traditional, in-person course is made digitally available through our C1DO1 technology, it becomes a continuous and personalized training, with remote expert feedback and self-optimized learning, leveraged by artificial intelligence. As an example, we have already managed to create an A.I. that assesses trainees with over 95% correlation to a human expert in laparoscopic surgery courses from one of our customers.

On the one hand, we have been developing an academic record to provide scientific evidence that our methodology works. We are academic leaders in the area of digital transfer of skills and have published more than 30 papers in high impact scientific journals, won 5 times best international work at world-class congress, like, SAGES, and have participated in over 30 webinars & podcasts, including a TED Talk. We have helped our clients to provide evidence and publish their results in academic journals regarding how it is that learning is taking place. Some of these high-impact examples include:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00464-019-07024-1

https://mv-ezproxy-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/doi/full/10.1002/bjs.11923

https://journals.lww.com/simulationinhealthcare/Abstract/9000/Implementation_of_Distance_Based_Simulation.99385.aspx

On the other hand, we also know that our technology is working from a commercial standpoint. C1DO1 is already being widely used at the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University of Chile, in disciplines such as physical therapy, nursing, odontology, medicine and surgery, audiology, and nutrition. In addition, successful feasibility studies were performed in a variety of non-health related disciplines at Duoc UC professional institute, including carpentry, electric circuits, script programing, risk prevention and gastronomy. Companies like Johnson & Johnson are also using our technology to teach their clients how to use and handle their surgical equipment and products throughout Latin America. All in all, we have over 11K users actively training in our platform.

As an example, Duoc UC dedicated one of their monthly newsletters to highlight the work we have been doing with them. It can be accessed here (in Spanish): boletin_ndeg51_observatorio_la_metodologia_c1do1_una_transformacion_paradigmatica..pdf (duoc.cl)

Teamwork and fostering a welcoming work environment are essential at our company. We constantly look out for each other and try to foster a sense of community, with team building strategies and fun activities. We strive to maintain  gender balance and we currently employ people from a diversity of countries such as Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela, foreigners making up 50% of the company. We additionally collaborate with organizations from the United States and Europe. We are aware that in today’s globalized world, anyone can be a potential user, customer or partner and we welcome organizations and collaborations from everywhere in the world. We keep a horizontal work-hierarchy, where everyone can have a say regarding the future plans of the company, and we value the potential in people by their merits and life goals.

We have five different types of institution-customers and they are using C1DO1 to teach many different skills. All have in common that they need to train either their personnel/employees, or users/clients (e.g. university students, gastronomy students, faculty, nursing providers, surgeons,  electricians, motor vehicle mechanics, programmers, etc.). So far our revenue comes from:

a) Direct sell to institutions (E.g. UCSF or Christus Health, who need to train their own surgeons or nurses): 

• SaaS (C1DO1 platform): Per student license/year (40% of our revenue)

• Setup, advice, training & consulting, support (30% of our revenue)  (Once we provide institutions with an assessment of their situation, they realize they don't know how to transfer skills, or their teachers need training, etc) 

b) Selling other’s content (E.g. Catolica University now wants to train surgeons all around the globe)

• C1DO1 resells other institutions’ content through the Platform (30% of our revenue). Once an institution learns how to train their own users, the skill can be offered outside of their institution, we then get paid for:

  • Per course license (similar to classic e-learning “Coursera-type” business models).

For educational institutions, offering their courses through the C1DO1 platforms opens up a new world of expansion possibilities, one in which it is possible to reach more and more students from different parts of the world. This has a positive impact not only on their revenue, but also on their prestige and recognition as a pioneering institution, disrupting education.

In our three years of existence, we have validated our business model with 5 large institutions willing to pay for our products and services, and we are already selling in more than 15 cities in 8 countries. We have raised a pre seed round ($USD400K), made 2 strategic partnerships with a potential yearly recurring revenue of $USD1M in Chile, and have had exponential sales growth since 2019. We now have an 18-months runway if we don't close any other customers or investment. We are currently with a positive EBITDA, with a closed contract for 2022 of $1M USD. 

Currently, we are understanding how to serve our clients in an ordered and efficient manner. We are constantly trying to understand their specific needs, and their willingness to pay for our product/service (Product market fit). We are also trying to figure out how to be able to absorb more customers. Internally, we are learning how to grow, how to develop the minimum scaling units (amount of personnel needed to attend a big client, streamline the processes, etc), to be able to scale easily and smoothly in the near future. 

If we achieve our short- and medium-term goals related to C1DO1’s growth, product market fit (to the very last detail) and active users, we expect not only to grow fast, but also sustainably.  

Revenue in USD: 

Q3 2021: $109,000 

Q4 2021: $236,000

Q1 2022: $200,000 

Also as mentioned: for 2022 we already closed a $1,000,000 USD contract.

The customer who is paying the most is Duoc UC, a Technical Skills Institute (occupational skills training institution), in Chile. They are paying $USD1M/year. We also have Johnson & Johnson (distributed in over 6 countries) paying approx. 250,000 USD/year.

Then we have: 

• Professional Higher Education Universities (E.g. Catolica University Chile, UCSF in San Francisco)

• Healthcare providers/hospitals (E.g. Christus Health in Texas, Catolica University Chile)

• Teleton (Institution dedicated to the rehabilitation of people with disabilities)