Welcome to Season Seven of Edtech Insiders, the show where we cover the education technology industry in depth every week and speak to thought leaders, founders, investors, and operators in the edtech field. I'm Alex Sarlin.
And I'm Ben Kornell. And we're both edtech leaders with experience ranging from startups all the way to big tech. We're passionate about connecting you with what's happening in edtech around the globe.
Thanks for listening. And if you like the podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review.
For our newsletter events and resources. Go to edtech insiders.org Here's the show.
In this episode, we talked to two CEOs who are both making pioneering work in audio for learning Maia Glikman is a Los Angeles based producer whose body of work spans numerous areas of the entertainment industry. She was an executive at ABC network Lucasfilms and Sony Pictures and she's the CEO of GoKidGo and Never Ever Productions, female led ventures developing exceptional intellectual property for children and
adults. As a producer. Maia's mandate is the production of high quality content that resonates with today's audience, especially those champion female and underrepresented voices. Most recently, R.L. Stein's Story Club produced by GoKidGo was selected as a best of the best finalist for best podcast at the 2022 Cynopsis awards. Matt Hamersley is the co founder
and CEO of Novel Effect. Novel Effect is an award winning mobile app that follows along during story time with interactive music, sound effects, and character voices creating magical moments when you read aloud with your child. They're on a mission to empower educators, parents and kids to connect and engage with each other and with books. Their unique form of storytelling brings a story to life engaging and capturing the imaginations of children and they're
grownups. They believe every child is full of potential and then more well read children in the world will create a better future for us all. Matt Hammersley Maia Glikman, Welcome to Edtech Insiders.
Thank you so much, Alex. It's a pleasure to be here.
Thanks, Alex, really happy to be part of this conversation.
I'm really looking forward to talking to both of you about audio. You know, this podcast is obviously audio only. I love thinking about audio. But I don't think we think about it nearly enough when we talk about Edtech. So Maya, let's start with you, as CEO GoKidGo, you are really all about creating really strong audio intellectual property for children and adults. Tell us a little bit about what go could go is and why it is educational technology?
That's a great question. So with go kid, go, which is my kid company, and never ever productions, which is my adult company, we really aim to create content that will excite each audience member and provide content that I feel like really isn't as much out there as it should be. And I think we really aim to champion diverse and inclusive voices. As much as possible, we have this power of deciding who can be those
storytellers. So through both companies, we want to create content that's really accessible for listeners and very little dependency and behind the paywall content, so we can reach the masses no matter what their situation is. And we use a diverse stable of writers with a focus honestly, on women and people of diversity. The goal truly is to have every person find some way to connect with our content, feel seen and heard
no matter how they identify. So we aim to bring as much flavor to the table across the board,
as well as fun characters and you know, interesting storylines, and all the things that keep people captivated. And Matt, you know, novel effect uses audio in really interesting ways as well, you have an interactive app, it is all about making storytime, enriching and engaging children and their families during out loud reading sessions. So tell us about what novel effect is and some success stories that you've had from your users over the years.
Yeah, so you know, it's a really cool experience. And essentially, the app will hear you read aloud from your favorite children's book and synchronize theme music, sound effects, characters, voices, basically like a whole movie style score that goes along with you reading the book to your kid. So it puts the effort and focus on what we want our kids to do, which is read, write and then incentivizes that behavior with
these interactive effects. So it's really at the end of the day, it's about making reading fun, and doing it in a way that connects the storyteller and the listener, which is typically a parent or teacher with the kids.
And for success stories. My gosh, it's one of my favorite parts of my job is that we get daily, what I call love notes from teachers and parents that are just telling us about their, you know, incredible experience with the app, reluctant readers can just instantly turn around and have fun and enjoy reading all the way to kids on the autistic spectrum where, you know, music really resonates with them. And having this experience allows them to join in these shared group
storytimes. So we get them almost like I said, every day and it's multiple tears happened during our team meetings as we go over these things.
That's the best feeling for anyone in education is when you know you are making an impact and really transforming people's lives. It's really exciting to hear. So you know, you both really focus on creating very high quality
content. I've done the novel effect experience and you know, the sound effects, the music, the voices, the everything in there that sort of enhances what's going on it sounds you know, incredible and my you come from a production background and obviously care enormous ly about great story and great entertainment. So you both sort of work in the intersection of entertainment and education. So how do you see those two fields really coming together? It can be an apps it can be in
podcasts? How does entertainment and education combine to enrich the learning experiences for the families? You work with? My let's start with you.
Yeah, that's a great question. Honestly, everything Matt just said to just our companies are so similarly aligned. And I think probably how the companies even just came to be had the same mission at hand. I was seeing the podcast market for kids, being so nascent, there were just particular focuses that I think weren't enhancing children's lives, which led us to really discover how important it is to use audio storytelling
to educate. And we found a lot of, you know, sleepy bedtime stories for kids where they they were just being read, you know, very quiet books. And I love the fact that Matt is really focused on adding more energy to that experience. But it really is staggering, that literacy is down so so intensely across the world, I grew up voraciously reading my memories, mostly our being at the local library, which I don't see that happening a lot with the kids these days.
And that's how go could go came to be specifically was me telling my sister, why isn't there something that's stickier for kids like Pixar for your ears where you really are getting a bit of a workout for your brain and your imagination. And that's what's so exciting with this storytelling driven content because it's edutainment, in my opinion. It's hidden veggies, it's a way to really get kids to really ask to be educated to learn more things, but they don't even realize it's happening in the
moment. You know, these narrative podcasts helped develop children's imaginations, because they have to picture the scenes and the characters described you Matt mentioned getting letters from teachers and parents. And we get the same thing where kids will say, this is how I envision the character that I'm listening to. And they're so drastically different
in the funnest way. But you know, narrative podcasts are really important, they actually get your brain to develop because of that workout with the imagination. They promote better vocabulary and understanding of words, their meaning and how they work. Children are encouraged to read stories, which correlate to the podcast, which is how our company's me and Matt, they sort of enhance
each other to that degree. And, you know, we have publishing partnerships, like ILP, which has international literary properties, and that's material beyond revenue generation, by way of creating books. We is an effort to get kids back to reading and excited about reading and we're finding parents with their testimonials of kids will listen to podcasts and then ask to read a book, they won't go on YouTube or another moment where their brain is kind of shutting off in this
going into. So you know, the ability to have children understand complex language, inequality, storytelling, where they learn punctuation and enunciation and all which bring up the meaning of text and improve speaking and writing skills in them to hit their milestones as they should be. And, you know, the reading levels really matters for them
to be engaged. And I know managing kids on the autism spectrum, but we've also discovered it's an excellent book for anyone who's dyslexic or has a reading disability or attention deficit disorder. And I just wanted to call a couple of statistics because it really was mind boggling to see these numbers but percent of Americans read below the level needed to earn a living wage. 50% of American adults can't read a book, Great Britain at an eighth
grade level. Children's daily reading levels are currently the lowest ever Corbyn just a little bit over 25% of children saying they read daily.
To me this intersection is really all about engagement at its core, right? If you can engage a kid in any of these experiences in any way possible, you get that engagement and the learning outcomes just naturally follow. And that is what I think we're both really trying to do is to make these experiences, ones that are engaging for the kids and engaging for the parents or teacher, yeah, in an effort to create these shared experiences that will result in that educational outcome that we're
striving for. But how do you do that? You make it fun. Yeah, right. It's got to be fun for the kids and the parents. And if it's fun, they'll pay attention. They'll be engaged and to learn.
That's right. That's right. And that's why I kind of mentioned Pixar for years, because they're so smart at having jokes and content that the adults feel seen and heard. But the kids aren't losing out on like the high energy aspect of the storytelling, the comedy, and you're spot on. I mean, our data showcases that 75% of parents co Listen, the podcast
with their children. And so we've to enhance that bond, we've added in, you know, free downloadable resources that go can go.com, which parents can use to instigate conversations and activities around that shared content to facilitate relationship building I'm in this is having this happen at the youngest age possible is just setting up kids to be successful in all aspects of their life, and in my opinion, and it's really exciting to see
the level of engagement. And I could not agree more that our companies really have the same mentality about how to navigate these waters.
Yeah, you know, what I find really interesting, as well as that, in our experience, you know, we built this company seven years ago, from the first kind of idea to now and what's still blows my mind is that we're really actually training the parents and teachers more than we are the kids. In these experiences, you know, honestly, being a parent, myself with two kids, five and eight, I need help, I need help to understand what to do and how to do it, because
life is busy. And things don't like you just default into this, oh, yeah, you're just gonna watch YouTube, right? And do that, where if we can reach the parents and reach teachers in a way that we can give them these tools and teach them how to use them. That is really where I see the biggest outcomes, because if you get a parent that is engaged in this experience with their kids, they're going to want to do it more often, because they're going to see the outcomes
100%. So just to piggyback off of what you just said, Matt, Alex, the first question you had asked me was kind of leaning a bit more of how we can enhance diversity and, you know, female focus, and just a different level of creators being involved in our company, we really made a point of being one of the only companies to have, you know, a
free model. And that's because I didn't want to alienate anyone in any community and the lower income communities, I felt like this could be a really exceptional resource to even just let a parent have a couple minutes to themselves, if they know this is a safe space, that I can really let my kid have a good time. And I don't need to be watching over them to make sure they're not accidentally stepping into some content that would be just really uncomfortable and not
appropriate. So I love the fact that, you know, we are really trying to give something to parents to allow them to feel like they have, you know, an in house babysitter or just help. Yeah, it's really just a little bit more help.
I love hearing this back and forth conversation between the two of you, there's so many commonalities, and so many really insightful ideas in what you're doing. You know, you're bringing families together around stories, you're bringing, you know, adults and children into the same space. And as you said, Matt, training the adults, training teachers and parents to be able to sort of engage their learners against their kids are learners in
different ways. You also both care a lot about reaching audiences that aren't always reached by different media, including autistic, dyslexic, and other special needs
children. One other thing I find just very interesting about both of your companies, and you sort of touched on this is there's this concept in media theory of like hot and cold media, the old Marshall McLuhan stuff and hot media, like absorbs all your senses, like a movie, you're just like in it, and cold media allows you to be in it, but also sort of have your own brain working at the same time and things like speech are called
Media. And it strikes me that you know, both of you are really taking advantage of the cold media environment. You're allowing the parents and the kids to really come to you sort of meet you halfway with these amazing stories. And that I think, is core to both of your philosophies about how audio really encourages education. I'd love to hear both of you talk about that. Matt, can I start with you?
Yeah, and you know, couldn't agree more. It's kind of built into how we think about the experiences that we create and going back to like the high quality nature of what it is that we do. Like, for our interactive soundscapes like we're hiring, you know, musicians, composers, foley artists, sound designers folk, you know, because you want to make it something that they walk away from that or like, wow, right, that was really cool. And I love your example there of this blend between hot and cold
media. I've never actually heard those terms before. But after hearing you describe it, yeah, I mean, that is kind of what we're doing and the way we built our program, you know, you can stop reading at any point in time and have a conversation with the kid, you can ask questions, they can ask questions, and the interactive experience just waits for you until you start reading again. So we've thought about that day in and day out of like, meeting our customers
where they are. And for us, you know, they're already reading books, how can we fit inside of that behavior that they already do, and just make it that much more magical of an experience.
And just to make sure our listeners understand, you know, novel effect has 1000s of children's books, the most popular children's books for many, many ages, they have created unique soundscapes for each book. So when you know, parents sits down to read a book, almost any book on their shelf, there is a novel effect soundscape to sort of enrich my please, I'd love to hear how you think about this as well.
I think story driven content that's high quality, is going to just really impact especially a kid's life, and how they navigate the waters as they reach adulthood in a significant way. And I'll get
into specifics in a second. But, you know, we, as a company made sure that we got stem accreditation, and really kind of wanted to tell the EdTech market that you should be providing content for kids that they want to be asking for I was in a situation throughout school where I had a lot of teachers who I could tell were not passionate about educating they did it because it was a paid
job. And they had to, you know, make sure that this test scores hit these numbers so they could get more money from the state, whatever those specifics are. But I'll give you an example. My sister had a physics teacher who made physics so fun. And so under sandable, for her that she's an astrophysicist right now, I'm an entertainment desperately trying to tell stories because I was thrown textbooks told to memorize
facts, I aced the test. And then I can't read I do not have one single memory of retaining that
that information. But you know, for example, because we have a STEM focus, and the social and emotional learning desire to get kids to really just feel seen and heard on that level two, we have shows that end up teaching you about science, history, and social emotional learning, without you even understanding that it would be identified as like an educational play, we just launched two shows that teach you history lessons, by way of one is, you know, the lyrics of the song kind of teach
you specifics about a moment in history. The other is like a time traveling experience, where there's music to enhance it. But you don't even realize, Oh my gosh, I just learned about this really significant thing that I'm probably going to end up remembering for years to come. Because the story itself is what resonated with me. It's not being thrown a fact. And I really, really, really have been having so many conversations.
Like Alex, when you and I met with people in the EdTech world trying to really understand how can we get the principals and the superintendents and the people who have the power to purchase the curriculum, to understand that you really need to be storytelling driven. It's so incredibly important. And I don't know if if a lot of people really are understanding that's a really significant way of kids retaining the information. Yeah.
And adults. There's a lot of amazing research about Yeah, yes, stories, just stay with us. I mean, if you can ask people about, you know, what, I've done some instructional design trainings, where we talk about how story is one of the most the sticky things you can do if you tell a story, people will remember it, you know, a month later, where if you say all the same things as like a list of bulleted facts, they won't remember three minutes later. And I think there's something
really powerful about that. You have mystery stories. You have, as you say stem and history time traveling, Tanya, I think you're talking about, wow, Bobby wonder all of these, you know, intellectual properties. There are characters that actually do things in every different podcast, but it's very, you know, the kids are at home imagining that the character is doing all these things. And that makes it very, very sticky and exciting, and they can put all the facts and ideas in context.
It's really cool. There's a bunch of things about inventions. Yeah, man. I want to ask you about the storytelling as well, because it's really interesting when another thing you both really, really have in common is that you really care and nor Honestly, about when you say engagement, it's not just like the kids not looking away, it's like the kid is wrapped, you know, the learner is like, absolutely locked on to what is
happening in the room. And one of the ways you both do this is by working with some existing authors. So you know, Maya, you work with RL Stein, very famous children's author. And Matt, you know, as we mentioned, enormous catalogue, any kind of book you can imagine, you're sort of building on top of I'm curious about that model. That's something I don't think we see that often. Tell us about how you how both of you came to that. Let me start with you, Matt,
you know, where we kind of had the thought, and we went back and forth? Do we create our own IP to sort of create our own stories? How do we get the technology that we created to work in the right way for the customer for the user. And for us, what we realized was that, well, parents have such a nostalgic value to the books that they read as a kid, and want to share that same experience and story with their kids. And so they're already
going to do that. And it's the easiest pathway for us to reach them if, hey, you're already reading dragons love tacos at this, and it's gonna make it awesome. So is that pairing with their the known IPs and it goes back to what Maya said before about, like giving content that kids are going to ask for.
Right. And if you want to, as a startup, and as a business, you know, you really have to struggle or it'd be really hard to get them to fall in love with an IP and then fall in love with your experience and story as
well. Right. So taking that kind of shortcut, meaning the customers where they are, and then giving them what they are already using in their lives to enhance was was our thought process and utilizing this now, we're super excited as well for all of the new opportunities for new IPs to develop throughout our ecosystem of interactive content. So I think it's just a matter of time before we get to all but that was the best way for us to get started.
I mean, that there truly is some lines that you just said, Matt, that I will repeat kind of verbatim because very similar mentality is, you know, we add an extra challenge of we have to teach kids how to listen to a podcast and have that being now a routine of their life because most kids weren't immediately you know, podcast listeners who, every Monday listen to the show, it was trying to get the parents to enthusiastically have them pivot from you know, the YouTube
plays, listen to the podcast. And the best way to do that is get the parent excited to have this bonding experience because they are co listening. And the
Nostalgia's is key. That was really what you know, you're putting more of the business hat on, it was sort of thinking, if you know, the lovers have goosebumps out there, all of a sudden saw RL Stein came out with a different idea by way of a podcast, that would be the first show that they introduce their kid, because they could then enhance the storytelling by sharing how they listened or read the stories from the same author as at the same age. And it really it's such a bonding
experience. But it also allows for you once you get that that child to be a listener who just starts to really enjoy having this a part of their life to then say what else is does this company have? I don't care if it's known IP, that's an original idea. They already have me as a fan as an audience member. It was just really, really smart. You know, we don't have it on our website yet. But we have it sold out to an of a
particular ed tech market. But Winnie the Pooh is a podcast that we have, right now for a preschool play that each episode is complete storytelling, but all the learning materials are stem focused, where you know who's on a seesaw on one episode, all of a sudden, parents can say, Hey, do you know how to how a seesaw works? Let's talk about what gravity is like, let's really understand the mechanics of how this shared character that I loved as a
child. And now I'm getting you to love can really help you understand the world to a deeper degree, which is really cool.
Yeah, it's really amazing to hear you both talk about this, because it sort of combines the business hat you both mentioned, this is a way to get users to stop and notice you and try your product and then be really into it and then try other things. And this sort of nostalgia is baked in. But it's also really useful for engagement. You're building on the expertise of existing storytellers, you know, that can be really rich and then using it to help enhance your own IP or
your own stories. It's really, really interesting. One thing I also want to ask about my let me start with you here. It's like is the the length of time I think this is something that may not be clear to listeners yet, but both of your products are very clever about the amount of time that one single Experience takes because kids because of YouTube for, among other things have quite short attention spans
are relatively short. So talk to us about how you think about what one session of listening looks like and how you sort of get to the right timeframe for it.
I mean, it's a great question, honestly, because the last thing you want to do is get a kid excited to listen to something, and then have them drop off a few minutes in or not, like have a fulfilled experience, which what we're hoping to provide. So depends on the age range, truly, that's the first question of who we're trying to reach. If it's a preschool play, where Matt knows this, he mentioned it earlier on where music is a little more important to get kids engaged.
And storytelling should be short bites that we hope to listen to multiple episodes. But if it's just you know, we have a quick car ride to the to the grocery store, we can knock out one strong episode, but they won't lose their attention span, because you're spot on, technology has created the inability for kids to sit still,
these days. But if we're aiming for, you know, the six to 11 Market, we kind of leaned towards around 1517 minute episodes, it really, really is helpful to have the ability to check the data of where retention is. And we use all these resources and try and be flexible, because if we're finding that a certain age range is asking for more or hungry for this type of sticky content, we want to be able to deliver it. So we're flexible in that
regard. But those are kind of the buckets and models of how we function given you know, the amount of time that we spent really canvassing the engagement of our first launch of shows, but you're spot on, it needs to be sticky, that's the biggest thing, the sound design needs to be high quality, it needs to be not all just talking, you really need to hear the the beauty of the mixing of you know us using people who aren't just the run of the mill editors, which what they do is great, but it might
not be perfect for what I'm trying to achieve with go kid go. But music is incredibly important to across the board.
I love that my you know, we have a kind of unique view of time, because our experiences, archives, you know how, however fast or slow you want to read and tell the story is how long have you experiences, but you know, it's bounded by the length of the book, right that you have. But what we found is like that seven minute experience is typically the sweet spot. Once you get around seven minutes, you almost always like my head completed, right and have a full experience
that you intend. And usually, for us, you have an opportunity for the kid to ask for another. And that is the feedback loop that you want your your parents or teachers to hear. I did this, and they want to do it again. Right. And if you keep it shorter, you can get to that kind of Nirvana moments a little bit quicker. And I think what we have seen from the comments back from teachers, especially is that like, once they start, they'll continue for hours, like
an hour or two hours. And like they try it for the first time they did a book that they you know, no one like try with that. And then all of a sudden, they're going into their bookshelves and pulling off every single book that they have that that has a knock Lapak soundscape. And it turns into this, you know, much longer experience together. But it's formed from this basis of seven minutes.
Right? You know, you mentioned the length of the book, you have everything from Goodnight Moon, which is a quite short book with very few words to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's. That's a very long book. But even within that parents and children can decide how to sort of, you know, stop and have conversations. And you can do that in the middle of a book or make it quick because the child is already falling asleep, for example, it's interesting.
Well, it's smart, right? There's no reason why they wouldn't have the opportunity to engage with that platform. Because you can choose the amount of time even if you have two minutes, you can get a couple pages to listen to. So it's really, really smart to just have that flexibility.
We even have little bite sized poems that are like, a minute long, right, but fun little poetry things. And that really adds to the options for you.
That's really cool. 100% So I have to ask, because we're sitting here in summer of 2023. You know, we are in a different world where there is AI in our world right now. And one of the things that AI does really well even though we don't talk about it quite as much as some other things is audio. I can make its own music, it can make its own voice that can turn voices into you can give it a clip of a voice and it can make the voice continued.
There's some really amazing audio techniques that come out of AI. I'm so curious how both of you are thing Thinking about, you know, what does this mean for go could go? What does this mean for novel effects? You're both really want very, very high quality content. Do you see AI as a potential partner in creating any of this content?
I think that is a fantastic question. And what I really want people to understand, because I don't like the black and white, if at all, like, this is bad, and this is good. What got me to really think of go could go as a viable company is we have iPhones and iPads and these screens that they're never going away, they are part of our world and part of our life, how do we engage with them in a safer way that enhances, rather than, you know, leaves us not hitting the milestones we need to hit and
feeling behind? And I think AI is a similar situation, it's now in our life. I can't imagine, you know, us not utilizing it to some degree, we just have to think how can we use in a way that people find it's helpful, it's a useful tool, it's not dangerous. And so we definitely strive to use AI to enhance the storytelling to provide a different unique experience for
kids in different aspects. So one way is, you know, we actually have plans to take our content library to the next level, moving into 2024, with a commitment to utilizing immersive AI, education, resources, animation, and other tools to drive deeper engagement with our stories, but while maintaining an audio first commitment, and one example of that is we would have some of these characters come to life in a way that kids can go on, you know, our website and potentially have a conversation
with Winnie the Pooh, for example, and ask him, Hey, can you explain to me how a seesaw works. And we would have the character, be able to, quote unquote, educate or teach. But the kid is not realizing that they're feeling closer to a character that they're starting to love, and getting to really have a deeper experience with a creative. And that's just one way. But we also feel like there's there are interactive
museum exhibits. And we can incorporate our content in an AI fashion where people can really interact and be immersed into an experience where it just enhances what they were able to do with just the listening of the podcasts. But if I were an educator, I would be really excited about that, that development and not feel like oh, you know, this is going to be dangerous for the kid. No, it's going to have them like Matt and I discussed earlier
asked for another cake. And I have another five minutes with this character, I have some more questions. And them talking to me about themselves is more exciting than having some random adult trying to tell you what their experience is, if that makes sense. Yeah.
My I think we should talk about like, partnership opportunity.
It's all thanks, Alex.
You know, we were an AI company before AI was cool, so to speak. Because, you know, this is what voice recognition was we used a neural net, five years ago to create, you know, speech recognition, that's all kind of the the very beginning stages of the of using AI and machine learning algorithms to get the best and best output, when you're getting kind of noisy data coming in. I'm super excited about all of the AI tools that are coming out, they're moving faster than
I can keep up with. From an audio perspective, what I've heard so far, isn't going to cut the mustard for what we're doing today. But I could see it inching its way more and more useful, bringing down the current cost of content development, and enabling us to do more with less, while at the same time, opening up the opportunity for these new
content categories. Because that example that you gave me right there, that would be crazy expensive to produce, without an AI to be able to have a conversation with a character and it'd be accurate is just impossible without these kinds of tools. So it's opening up the door to this whole new realm of interactive media and personalized content, that I don't know where it's gonna go. But I'm excited about it. Because what is those tools
going to do? It's going to heighten engagement in whatever content it is you're creating. And what did we say at the very beginning of this podcast when you heightened engagement, educational outcomes flow? Right, it's natural next step from that heightened engagement. So we're doing some pretty cool things all the way from, it's being able to create their own soundscapes and experiences for any of their own stories are once the apple off the shelf and customizing those experiences
though. Maybe this one is going to have a voice like you know Darth Vader if they want. So just opening up the creativity of the end users, because what it really does is it gives expertise to non experts, right? So a kid can come in and create a soundscape right now with our tooling, but they have to know how to design music. They're not there yet not to deliver the same quality of experience that
we have. But what if we could give them the tools that they could store description of what they want it to be, and it delivers something that is of higher quality. And so that's the really the way that I think about it, it's giving expertise to non experts, and then opening up the door to new content types that otherwise wouldn't be feasible.
Matt, just a real fast piggyback off that because I love again, such synergy. It's an Alex spot on that you've partnered with us on this chat. But you know, it's a little bit not focused on AI. But I love the fact that it's sort of like giving the kids the tools to take ownership of them wanting to be involved in the creative process that much more. We have kids and parents emailing us saying, We love this episode, my
kid just pitched this idea. And we're like, you know what, let's write the next episode and give your kid a writing credit. And we'll have a professional writer come in, but your child will feel so seen and heard to the degree that the engagement is going to be that much deeper, that much more passionate, and just enhances their life that much more, you know, oh, yeah, I think kids are so much smarter than majority of adults give them credit for and that drives
me nuts. Because I hate seeing things dumbed down for children. I think that they are just so savvy, they know technology better than us and dinosaurs at this point, right?
It's, you know, it's so funny, I couldn't agree with you more there might just, we do it as well on two fronts. Like, we have contests where people can audition, to star in a soundscape and be a voiceover artist and actor. And we also do it with teachers and ambassadors, right? Because give them that experience where they're a part of it, and they will scream it to the rooftops and share it with everybody
because they're in it. So having as many of those opportunities that we can to involve our community into the content creation process is right on.
Totally amazing. I'm so happy to hear that you're so much on the same wavelength, especially around some of these ideas about, you know, interactivity, bringing the characters to life, bringing the learners and students and users, you know, into the experience, it's really exciting to hear both of you pose ideas about what the future of this medium might look like. I have one more question for both of you that I think is going to be very interesting to the
listeners on this podcast. Both of you have exceedingly excellent reviews on your sites, unlike many of the other companies we talked to, you're competing with every other podcast, you're competing with apps for novel effects, you're out there in a marketplace that is very crowded, and really dense. And I'd love to hear both of you. Not that ad tech isn't dense. But there are more apps and there are ad tech companies, that's for sure. I'd love to hear both of you talk about how
you get found. Because you know that once people find you they really like what they're hearing, but how do they find you? And what techniques have you found useful in sort of breaking through the noise? Let me quickly start with you, Matt, I think we're almost at time here. But I'd love to hear your answer.
Yeah. And you know, the answer always changes depending on the day or the month, or the year depending on what customers are thinking into. And but we actually, we don't do any paid ads whatsoever. We rely on word of mouth, and we encourage our community to share with other people who may find it interesting. That is really it. And we have a really cool model because reading books to kids is the one thing that is universal between teachers and parents.
It's the one thing, right? So we target the teacher, we focus on that teacher and if you give a teacher an experience that they love, and Stacy works with the kids, they will scream into the rooftops to every single person who will listen. And so we encourage that we empower that. And those teachers share with their colleagues don't share it with their administrators because they don't want to pay
for it themselves. So let's get let's get the administration to buy it for the whole school, and then back to the parents at home. So it's incredibly expensive to have a customer acquisition cost to a family subscription digital subscription at home. I think the average is around $100 Cat cost for that segment. We've not
parsed the zero. We go through the teacher and if the teacher shares the parents in an authentic way, based on the success in their classroom, the uptake from the parents at home is just immense. because they're getting it from a trusted resource. Yeah. So we're really all about authentic engagement to our community, encouraging them to share via word of mouth, and then highlighting and promoting success stories of teachers and parents who have had these magical moments with the app. Yeah,
it's so again, it's freaking synergy. I mean, it's just so it's so cool to hear the similarities that Matt and I have. We also do not put money into marketing promotion, you can spend a ton of money. And for me, it's like, I'd rather put that money into production and more content. But we, you know, I said this multiple times in this chat, but I really want everyone to feel
seen and heard. And I talked to a lot of parents and teachers saying, what is the type of content that your kids loved, and you feel like might be missing out there? What are you missing in your curriculum that could be enhanced by way of me developing a podcast that can be spot on for what you and your students are looking for? We've grown from, you know, we're just a little over two years old, and we had 10,000 listeners, our first month, we just hit 1.2 million, all by word of mouth.
It's because when I think kids and parents and teachers all alike, feel, wow, somebody's really paying attention and listening to me, I really should spread the word. And I think parents, you always hear about the mom blogs and stuff online dad blogs, and parents, they really when they find something they love, they spread the word as if they're being paid to,
it's really funny. But also on the ad tech side, I believe success will come once, what you're delivering is really of the highest quality and you're doing it right. So that's not what I always lead with, which I think has actually helped us reach the level of success that
we have. So when I was navigating, you know, talking to a lot of teachers directly, I gave free trials for you know, three, six, however, months of content to help them see in real time that you will see a difference in how your students are reacting. And then you'll want to buy the content. And so it's leading with like the love and enthusiasm I have for wanting kids to feel the way that I did when I grew up, which was really, really just devouring books. And the audible
experience. We've seen it happen in real time as these kids are asking for their parents to read them a book after they listen to a podcast. So I feel like everybody's winning. If you're leading with let me just get you great stuff. Have you really feel seen and heard if there's something you're wanting that we don't have? That exists quite
yet. And yeah, word of mouth. I mean, I track how many people look at our website, and how many listener you know, every time we launch a new episode, new show, and it really is a community that's so supportive. Yeah, it's really lovely.
It's really inspiring to hear that you're really both focusing enormously on quality on content on continuing to sort of make the best experiences for your learner's and users and not throwing, you know, tons of money into customer acquisition. I think it's both a smart business decision, and really the moral decision. So we're at the end of our time, sadly, I have two final questions. And we do a little bit of a semi
lightning round on it. But the first question I want to start with you, Matt is what is a trend that you've seen in the Ed Tech landscape based on your vantage point at novel effect?
Yeah, AI is all the rage right now. But no one knows how to use it appropriately. So all the trends I see are that people are trying to integrate AI in one way, shape or form. But it's not, not quite delivering on the value yet.
Interesting. Yeah. How about you, Maya? What's a trend that you see from go could go?
I think the trend that I'm pushing for and seeing really is working is something that really can allow for learning materials and guides to enhance education. So it's really driving those STEM focus kind of shows, those shows that you have a plan of educating and, you know, not completely veering away from just the silly zany worlds that we have, you know, Bobby wonder is probably our biggest show at the moment. First one, we launched nine seasons. And I think that one's just so so entertainment
forward, which is great. And we want to continue having those types of shows. But I really want there to be an enhancement and an ability for kids to get something that much more out of the way that we're entertaining. So that whether or not that would be I clearly identified as a trend. I think I want it to be kind of more of a permanent trend. And not just a fleeting moment.
Yeah, that idea of sort of wraparound educational resources around a highly engaging and entertaining experience, I think is a very powerful combination and allows everybody to grab on and keep going. Thank you so much to both of you. It's been such an honor
talking to both of you. I think you really both focus enormously on high quality content and leaning into that audio media so that kids both at home and at school can really lean in and sort of find their imagination and get really excited about reading. It's been a blast to talk to both of you and Matt Hamersley of Novel Effect and Maya Glikman, GoKidGo. Thanks for being here with me on at Tech insiders.
Thanks, Alex. So nice to meet you, Matt.
Thank you, Alex. Thank you my have so much fun.
So much fun.
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