See how this Swedish Startup is making bite size learning frictionless

Bite-Size learning is the “in thing” when it comes to enriching learning experiences. Bite sized pieces of content are easy to consume, enable us to learn more in less time and often enhance our learning experiences by using the right combination of images, graphics and text, all in the technology enabled milieu.

Harnessing the potential of bite size learning using the right blend of technology and making learning fun is Dailybitsof, a Sweden based Startup. Founded in 2015 by Niklas Laninge, Björn Henriksson and Mathias Eriksson, dailybitsof was created as a ‘tool to help people create a daily habit of learning something new.”

“We founded the company based on the frustration that most online learning outlets weren’t designed to fit our lives. We rarely got around to spend 20-60 minutes a day on classical e-learning so we set out to create something that would be so frictionless that everyone using it would have a hard time not to learn something from it. Email was the natural format for this since most people check their email obsessively during the day. Our first version quickly got traction and soon external experts wanted to create courses for our platform.” said Niklas Laninge to Times of Startups.

Initially relying on the emails for sending information nuggets to the subscribers of the courses, dailybitsof soon realized the potential of messaging apps and how they can be integrated with their platform to make bite size learning even more seamless.

“Björn, Mathias and I were amazed by the potential of messaging apps for years. During a trip to Zimbabwe in 2013, I was stunned by how crucial WhatsApp was for entrepreneurs in that region. Mathias had a similar experience from Telegram during his many visits to Iran. And we all had heard about Wechat and how that messaging-app was sort of the new operating system for smartphone-users.

This is why in 2015, we set out to be a message-first company since that would be a great way to make learning even more frictionless. We started out with experimenting with Slack and Telegram but as soon as we learned about Facebook opening up Messenger, we decided to focus on that platform for two reasons: 1. Facebook being Facebook. 2. Looking at who uses our service and who uses Messenger told us that the platform would be a perfect fit.” added Niklas.

Last year, Facebook announced Bots for Messenger at F8 , its annual developers conference. Facebook Messenger bot allows users do everything from asking for News updates to receiving shopping notifications through Facebook messenger. Dailybitsof was one of the earliest platforms to adopt Messenger bot.

“When we started out there were some 300 developer in the messenger community. As of now it’s close to 50 000 of us. Looking at what bots people are developing it’s clear that the best usecase for a bot is still…unclear. We see a lot of ecommerce bots but I’d say that content delivery is one of the best applications of bots.”

Talking about the challenges associated with the bot feature, Niklas said that discovery has been a real challenge. “Still”, he says that “around 20,000 people have tried the bot. About half have converted into active users taking courses and we are retaining +30% of them. Facebook have helped us by driving traffic to the bot but that traffic have sometimes been irrelevant so we’re really looking forward to see their new discovery feature.”

However, the way dailybitsof have integrated bot in their platoform makes it useful for the learners who belong to a younger dmography. Talking about the user profile of dailybitsof, Niklas said that most of the users are either email or Messenger users. The messenger platform is being used by the younger audience (18-25 years old). Some users enjoy both the formats; they use email for more work-related courses and the bot for courses that are more personal.

“With our bot we are trying to emulate a teacher. So it’s not just content but you will also get a simple for of a teacher nudging you to reflect, apply and think about what you are learning. This is really were having a bot is amazing!” he added.

When asked about the future of bite size learning, Niklas said that, the whole idea of of bite size learning to him is to make learning frictionless.

“When I hear about Elon Musk’s new company that will wire up your brain, I instantly think that we are getting closer to learning new skills the way they do it in the Matrix, upload it straight to your context!.

In short term I think we’ll see more innovation when it comes to when and were you will get your learning delivered. This of course needs to be highly personalized to avoid friction. I’m not too fond of videos, I think what people at Blinkist are doing with audio is really inspiring. And imagine when you can connect services like ours, with audio, to Google Home and Amazon Echo. It will be like having a private tutor next to you at all time ready to share bite-sized knowledge that will help you live better.” he added.

Some courses worth considering on Dailybitsof.

Hacking Human Nature For Good written by Professor Dan Ariely. So far close to 10 000 people have taken his course Another success, from a less known author, is How to beat procrastination by researcher and psychologist Alexander Rozental.