ROYBI: From Idea To Becoming Time’s Best Invention

This inspiring story is of a rising startup called ROYBI started by Elnaz Sarraf in the education technology space to provide a personalized learning experience to highlight every child’s ability and interest rather than one-size-fits-all. Here is the story of ROYBI in Elnaz’s own words.

We provide an infinite learning opportunity to set children apart for future success through gaining language skills.

Named by TIME Magazine as one of The Best Inventions in Education in 2019, ROYBI Robot is an AI-powered educational smart toy robot for children 3+ in language learning & basic STEM. It comes with over 500 lessons, 70 categories & topics as well as over 70,000 vocabularies. ROYBI Robot is the best educational toy for homeschooling and remote learning. It makes learning fun by reducing screen time especially now that is most needed by kids and parents.

What’s your strategy story? What led you to start ROYBI?

I came to the United States when I was in my early twenties to start a new life. Knowing English and the American culture helped me adjust to American culture and excel in my studies. So I experienced firsthand how learning a different language early on in life can help reach your goals later in life.

We know that exposure to multiple languages at an early age is significant for children’s future success. Still, not every family can afford to hire private tutors or sign up their child at a language immersion school. Parents I met at different research groups also often told me about their interest in an affordable and smart technology that can expose their children to multiple languages.

During a discussion I had with my co-founder, Ron Cheng, I learned about his shared interests as an engineer and a parent for a smart toy that can help his children with self-guided learning with fun stories and engaging lessons. Together, we decided to work on an education toy robot that can address this need for parents.

With Roybi Robot, we chose to utilize AI early on in our planning stage to ensure that teaching with the robot is interactive rather than passive. We want the experience of learning and interacting with Roybi Robot to interest children more in STEM topics and curious about innovations.

What marketing, operation strategies are you adopting at Roybi?

We use a lot of different strategies from email marketing to affiliate marketing, social ads, lead generation, and public relations. The best way to stay on top of the strategy is to continuously test and see what works and what’s not working. We also check our campaigns’ performance on a daily basis to ensure we monitor the cost as well.

Any strategy mistakes you have made and what were your learning?

When we were planning to launch our product, we spent 3-4 months gathering leads. We spent a tremendous amount of time and money on this. The idea was to have these leads to convert immediately at the time of launch.

Unfortunately, only less than 2% of the leads converted because we realized that we targeted the wrong audience. The lesson learned here was that you need to make sure you do your research before you spend a lot of money on lead generation. This is something we learned and actually helped us do much better in the long run. 

My only advice to your entrepreneur reader is to surround yourself with people who believe in your mission and your vision for your company.

Disclaimer: The information in the above story is provided by the startup and The Strategy Story takes no responsibility for the authenticity of the product and services offered by the startup. Reader’s discretion is advised.

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