As a VC, we are always looking for startups that create products that are loved and widely used by users (a clear manifestation of Product-Market Fit). A product that achieves Product-Market Fit, especially in a large market like education in Vietnam, always comes with many investment and growth opportunities.
In the edutech segment, ThinkZone has invested in 2 such startups: viz eJOY and Edupia. eJOY and Edupia are still in the Top 3 educational applications with the highest downloads in Vietnam, and the remaining name, Dicamon, has attracted the attention of the ThinkZone team with an extremely impressive number of users.
According to Statistics for the 2021-2022 school year, Vietnam has about 8.7 million middle and high school students. Since its launch in May 2021, Dicamon has reached 7.7 million application downloads.
This means: if you ask children in your family at middle school or high school age, no matter what locality, they most likely have or are using Dicamon to study!
That is an impressive number that few startups under 2 years old in Vietnam can achieve.
Introducing Dicamon
Dicamon is a learning platform for middle and high school students in Vietnam. Students can use Dicamon to (1) take photos of exercises and get answers in just a few seconds using AI technology to suggest solutions to similar exercises, or (2) ask and answer questions on the Dicamon community.
With Dicamon, students can ask and answer a variety of subjects, from Math, English, Physics, to Chemistry, Biology, History, and Geography.
A good example of Product-Market Fit
We realize Product-Market Fit when our products are loved by users, used regularly, introduced to each other, and then the number of users continuously grows without having to spend too much money on paid marketing.
This is clearly shown in Dicamon. Every month, this platform is used by millions of students, with more than 100,000 questions and a question-answer rate of more than 90%. Question and answer content on Dicamon is all user-generated content, with a content quality moderation team consisting entirely of students.
With a large enough user base, Network Effect is clearly shown in Dicamon, helping the platform continuously attract and retain students. The team also does a great job in building community and organizing competitions for students to study.
A dedicated team
Behind the above impressive achievements is, incredibly, a small team of less than 20 people.
Dicamon's two co-founders, Mr. Tuyen and Mr. Hao, do not possess bright profiles from large companies or corporations or MBA degrees and certificates (which can be a disadvantage when calling for capital from VC). However, the Dicamon team understands better than anyone the most important factor for every startup: users.
Understanding users, the Dicamon team has created a platform that millions of Vietnamese students love to use every day. That, along with the vision and enthusiasm of the two co-founders about improving the learning style of Vietnamese students, convinced ThinkZone and TNB Aura to place their trust in accompanying the team.
A large market with many open opportunities
As a market where parents are willing to pay up to 1/3 of their monthly income for their children's education, education has always been a large market in Vietnam (with an expected scale of 3 billion USD by 2023). This market is still changing with the trend of digital transformation, and is looking for innovative new products to improve the learning process of students.
Although Dicamon has achieved many remarkable achievements, Dicamon's vision does not stop there. With the goal of becoming a comprehensive platform for teaching and learning, making Dicamon a daily companion for millions of students and teachers in Vietnam, the Dicamon team will have much more to do, and many more opportunities for development.
Summary
ThinkZone Ventures and TNB Aura are honored to be a part of the journey with Dicamon to realize that vision. Please follow Dicamon's development journey, and don't forget to download Dicamon for your children to study better!
