ESCP ALUMNI MAGAZINE - #192 - NOVEMBRE/DÉCEMBRE 2020 - 41

CAMPUS ❙ École

has grown to six people. Now that we are
working on the solution together, it is a
completely different story. Their motivation, discipline and excitement is doubling up amongst us, motivating everyone
further still. I would have had to quit if I
wasn't able to find such a great team.

I think the team really helped me get
past that. We are able to have honest and
transparent discussions internally and
that helps us understand weaknesses as
opportunities rather than failures. It has
been a big challenge and a big learning
experience.

What are some of the challenges
you've faced in developing
your solution, and how have
you overcome them?

Lastly, I would also say a major challenge
in the beginning is delaying decisions,
always saying " now is not the right time, "
for: approaching people, test runs, or
applying for x or y. If now is not the right
time, when will it ever be? Things do not
always need to be at a 100%. It is more
about learning than trying to be perfect
and impress others.

There are a lot of challenges, pretty much
on a daily basis. I would say, especially in
the beginning, the big one was not listening enough to critical feedback. I would
show the early versions of the app to students, and being trapped by confirmation
bias, I would only look for supporting evidence, which would result in only slight
improvements. I didn't really consider
changing the approach in general and that
has cost us a lot of time. We could have
progressed far quicker if I would have
been more open and honest about the
feedback that we got.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic,
and in particular its effect
on education, impacted
your business?
While there has been extreme suffering
globally because of the pandemic, we are
very lucky to have not been hit too hard.
We've been remote since the beginning

and have basically grown during the pandemic. In the short term, the pandemic
has clearly had a huge impact on the market and especially on universities. There
is a lot more work and expenditure to
put everything online. In the medium to
long run, I believe there will be increased
acceptance of tech solutions. This period
has been an eye opener for the role of
digitalisation and innovation in education.

What is up next for Clay?
Over the next year, we want to test and
iterate our product as much as possible
to serve the needs of students, professors
and universities equally well. We plan on
launching publicly with higher education
institutions around Europe in one year.
On a broader scale, we hope to contribute to make learning a collaborative and
connected experience by enabling students to interact with each other as well as
with professors to create a shared learning
experience that benefits everyone.
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ESCP Alumni Magazine numéro 192 ❙ NOVEMBRE/DÉCEMBRE 2020
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ESCP ALUMNI MAGAZINE - #192 - NOVEMBRE/DÉCEMBRE 2020

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