Revolutionising Teaching and Giving Good Feedback, Nihad from Vibbl | Founder Sessions 40

Speaker A: Hi and welcome to Founder Sessions, the podcast that gives you a real glimpse into the lives of startup founders. This week I'm speaking with Nihad from Bibble. I managed to sit down with Nihad after the big first launch of his app which helps teachers give better feedback and more efficient feedback to their ah, pupils. It's a great conversation and thanks to Nihad for being a top notch guest on the show. We touch on the specific challenges of being a non technical founder in a techies world of product as well as investigating the personal origins of vibl. As always, thanks to Hamish from Flow Workspace and Northstar Ventures, as always for their ongoing support. Hi Nihad.

Speaker B: Hi Alex. How you doing?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm good, thanks. So you are co founder of vibl, huh? Current Ignite cohort and also winner of the regional Rising Stars competition run by Techn if I'm correct. You are pretty good current accolades collection.

Speaker B: Yeah, it sounds like you've been reading my LinkedIn heading.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, of course. Um, so how are you doing? How's everything going at the moment?

Speaker B: Good, it's going really well. We've had, so we Launched um, on the 13th of February, just a day before Valentine's Day. And we've had a really good take up from schools since then, um, now in over 70 schools, 17 countries around the world. And the feedback has been really positive from people when we're showing them the app and how it works. So that's all really good. Um, what I'm really looking forward to now is the great thing about having an edtech business is you have breaks. So the Easter holidays are coming up now and there's going to be most of them. Most of our customers will be off. So that gives me a bit of time to just have a look, take stock, evaluate and to do larger pieces of work that needs to take place. So yeah, I'm just looking forward to that. And obviously some time with the family as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, some bricks so that you can do loads of work in them.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Family time is going to be me, uh, you know, doing loads and loads of stuff on my computer for the next couple of days. Sorry, um, no, no, hopefully going to be able to spend some time with, with uh, my wife and daughter as well.

Speaker A: What's the process of building VIBL been like for you?

Speaker B: Slow, quite painful in places. Um, the challenge that I had is with me not being a tech founder, I understand the market really well. My experience um, is really strong for, for the product that I've developed in terms of understanding the market understand the problems that people in that market face, understand what kind of product might work. Um, but without having that technical expertise it's meant that I've outsourced a lot of the build and um, I've had to do it on very low costs, um, as well because I haven't had lots of money. So that's meant to be that it's been a very slow, laborious process. But the advantage of going, doing it in that way has meant that I've got a lot more equity. Um, I still have created what I think is a good product and we're getting great feedback on it. So there's lots of positives to it. But yeah, certainly sometimes when I wish, um, I'd had a technical co founder from the beginning just to make things a lot easier.

Speaker A: Yeah, I guess. Um, so do you have any advice for people who are non technical founders in your position as well?

Speaker B: Try and find a technical co founder? I mean it's really difficult. So I say sometimes that there are things out there that help you to find a technical co founder, like co founders labs and um, tools like that. But honestly, you go on those tools and there's like 100 founders all saying, I've invented the best thing since sliced bread. And you've got one tech co founder on there looking for a founder. So it's a bit like being a bloke at uh, 3am in a club in the naughties and they're being like one woman on the dance floor and like 30 dudes. Um, it's, yeah, it's difficult. There aren't that that many people in that infrastructure. So if you can find someone, great. If you can't, it's not the end of the world. You know, like I've managed without one and I've still moved forward. The important thing with your startup is just moving that needle forward every day and you can do that without tech co founder. It just comes at slightly more cost in terms of pain, but you can still get there.

Speaker A: Uh, could you maybe give me a bit of background on how you ended up coming up with the idea of fitbull as well?

Speaker B: Yeah, so me and my wife were just having a discussion in our kitchen about um, the biggest problem that she faces as a teacher, which is for her is marking. And she was just saying, oh, wouldn't it be great if, you know, I could just speak into my phone and then send that to students as feedback. And then I thought, oh, that sounds really good, let's have a think about that. But then how would the students be able to know what the feed, what feedback, what the feedback is related to? So then I was thinking about when I used to do a lot of work in business development. And, um, I'd go off to a conference somewhere like Japan, for instance, and then come back three weeks later and have like 45 receipts, all in Japanese, and have to do an expense claim. I have no idea what each thing related to. And there are tools now, um, like receipt bank and um, Genius Scan, I think receipt banks called Dext now, which allow you to take a photograph of receipts and then log them instantly into Xero. And that's become quite a standard process for people that use Xero for accounting, despite the fact that people for years used to do it in a different way. And marking is a very similar kind of arcane process where you've got teachers coming home from school with 30 books in a hessian bag, in the rain, with a glass of wine on an evening, scribbling through all these books, hating their life, and then finishing that piece of work, like really late at night, not having time to spend time with the family or with the children, and then contemplating leaving the profession. So what I wanted to create was something similar to those apps which allow you to visualize that work and also send that verbal feedback, but do it in a really like, quick, simple way. And I think we've achieved that with, with our first iteration of vibl. Um, it's a really like, quick and easy interface for teachers to use. They can literally just send feedback in seconds. And yeah, ultimately we wanted to create something that would help a lot of people stay in the profession and also hopefully help to give me, my wife back on an evening and a weekend as well.

Speaker A: Some good intrinsic motivation. Yeah. Did you also teach as well yourself?

Speaker B: I did, yes. I taught for, um, only a year. I wasn't a, uh, very good teacher, but I taught, uh, English. And I also worked as a teaching assistant in a pupil referral unit for um, for a year as well. And then I spent the last 10 years or so of my career in kind of educational, kind of roles in business development, kind of roles in ed tech companies and uh, and other organizations. So I got that education bug early when I was at university and kind of have stayed in that sector ever since.

Speaker A: Yeah, did I see you also taught some street dance at one point?

Speaker B: Oh, no, you're not gonna make me bust that street dancing, are you? Thank God this isn't videoed. Um, yes, I did. Yeah. When I was at university. Yeah. So the thing is, back then when I was so I'm like in my 30s now, when I went to university, the kind of stuff that I was doing then would probably be okay for me to teach street dance. The kind of stuff I know now is like what every single 11 year old child can probably do because they're on TikTok all the time learning. So the standard of dancing is so much higher now than when I was um, at university because obviously because of things like TikTok and Instagram Reels, everyone is learning routines.

Speaker A: Yeah, the bar's completely moved now.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would just be like, well I would, I wouldn't even be able to teach now. There's no way.

Speaker A: What do you think initially drew you towards the profession of teaching?

Speaker B: Um, so I did a volunteering ah, course when I was in university, um, called um, Kids Camp and I did a number of other things. I was actually thinking of going into the military. So I was in the Office of Training Corps at university. And I wanted to go into the military mainly because I just wanted to go into something with a strong like purpose I think. And I found out that obviously teaching has got a strong purpose as well. And I always was put off about teaching because I thought, uh, I have to work with children, that's not going to be fun. But then I did some volunteering with some kids um, on this thing called Kids Camp. And we basically took like a group of kids to do like loads of fun things that have been referred by social services as being in desperate need of a break. And we took them like to this theme park. We like played games with them, we did all this kind of stuff and literally like at the end of it I was really surprised because I'm emotionally a bit dead inside like a, like a robot or like Captain uh, Holt from Brooklyn nine nine but literally like burst into tears. All the kids were crying. Like it was so emotional and I just, I was like, wow, this is deep.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: And it really like changed my perspective and I just knew I wanted to work in education after that. And um, yeah, I think the thing about education is it affects you deeply. You always remember your best teacher, you always remember your worst teacher and it sticks with you your whole life. Doesn't matter if you end up becoming the prime minister or whether you end up being homeless. Those memories are so embedded in who you are because of that reason. It's uh, a career with a very strong sense of purpose and it's why people get quite passionate about it and everyone wants to leave it But a lot of people end up going back because it's. They become institutionalized because the purpose is so strong.

Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Who was your best teacher at school?

Speaker B: So there's a teacher called M. Mrs. M. Brigley. I'm still friends with her on Facebook. She's my English teacher.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, in for A levels. And yeah, she was just really cool, super passionate about her subject. Um, she gave me really excellent feedback, actually, that changed my perspective. So I was generally quite good at school. I got good grades. But like most teenagers, I didn't really think I was that good. You know, I was just like, bobbing along, doing what you do, trying not to get too much attention. And, um, she, like, sat me down once and gave me some amazing feedback face to face. And it was like the way that she gave it to me, it was a bit like that scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams is like, it's not your fault to Matt Damon. And, uh, she just really made sure that it went in. And that just stuck with me. And it just gave me that sense of intrinsic motivation and belief, um, with my work. And, um, sometimes it's just little things like that, the pastoral elements that can almost make a much, much bigger impact than knowing where to put a comma or, you know, or how to do a type of equation. It's the connection that you build with the students. And that's why we wanted to take that element into VIBL and have student perception assessments as part of the product so that teachers can understand that pastoral side of the student, you know, as well as just that pedagogical side of giving, um, feedback to move learning forward.

Speaker A: Because it strikes me as quite a difficult area to work within technology because I love, uh, you know, I'm passionate about education as well. Um, but it is so personal. Like you were saying, someone giving feedback, it's often the moment that you receive it as a teenager, because a lot of teenagers don't receive a lot of that positive reinforcement. And, uh, the more personal it feels, the more impact it has.

Speaker B: Often, yeah, I think it's understanding, like, the bigger picture and context of feedback with students. Because often a lot of schools will have, or they used to have kind of marking by frequency policies. So teachers would be told, you need to mark all your books by the next day. In some schools, in some schools will be the next week. In some schools will be two weeks. But there's always like, that kind of target. And what that creates is a panic on a weekend for a teacher to get all their books marked. And that means that the feedback will often just be quite perfunctory or simplistic. And that means that students are getting used to seeing feedback that's really perfunctory or simplistic on their work all the time and therefore devaluing that whole process. Or you know, thinking, you know, what's the point of me looking at this carefully? Because hundred times before when I've had feedback in my book it's just been like a tick.

Speaker A: Yeah. Just like good in margins or something

Speaker B: and you're just like okay, fine, it's kind of pointless. Right. But it's not pointless in that uh, it's costing that teacher hours of their life every single week. So it's that kind of like madness that exists in the education sector. So that means that when you do get that personalised feedback it can be really impactful. What would be interesting is seeing if you're always getting that personalized feedback, whether you know, you've just become desensitized to that. And it's hard to know because there's very few schools where they have that kind of practice. But certainly with vibl, what we're trying to do is give people a faster way to give feedback no matter what type of feedback it is just, it's quicker. But also have mechanisms in place that encourage the um, the principles of good feedback. Um, so we've, we've built in mechanisms that allow students to respond to feedback after they receive it. So you've got like a conversation rather than like a one way tunnel of you just saying you need to do this and then not knowing what happens with it. So you can actually see what students are doing with feedback and have that conversation loop. The ability to have coaching um, and the ability to um, have that like kind of deeper ah, uh, dialogue with colleagues about what, what the feedback that you're giving is doing and how it's pushing learning forward. So yeah, uh, it's, it's a really interesting and personal space to work in. But I find it fascinating.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, because what would you say is the biggest challenge facing education at the moment?

Speaker B: I think it's retention. Teacher. So nearly half of teachers want to leave the profession by 2027. There are far fewer teachers um, going into the profession now. And that's for a number of reasons. Um, the first is I think there's just a lot more options for people at university now to go into careers that give you more flexibility. So it's quite common now to go into a big grad job. And in the past, if you were teaching, it'd be like, I either go earn lots of money or I get a job with purpose and teach. But now there's other things to consider. Like if you're working in an office job, you can work from home, you know, and you don't have the cost of needing to commute to work all the time. Yeah, Teaching is a very rigid profession. You know, my wife will often be really sick and still going to work. Uh, I'll say, you know, take a day off and she'll say, I can't, I've got these assessments that I've got to do. So like, it doesn't matter that my kidney's hanging out, I'm going to go to work. You know, it's very difficult to, to have flexibility in that job because the

Speaker A: ramifications are very real if you don't show up. And.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, and a child isn't learning something that's. Yeah.

Speaker B: You feel personally connected to every child in your class. That's what makes it such a magical career in many ways, but also just a monster in many other ways. It's like the best and the worst job in the world. Um, so you got less people going into it, more people are leaving because the conditions are really tough as well as the package pay. Um, and then you've got longer term risks like chat GPT, which we were just talking about before this podcast, which could potentially disrupt that whole sector and create challenges. Um, so, so yeah, I think we're already in a situation where if you have a child and you send them to a high school, there's a, there's a chance that they might get taught physics or maths by someone that is not qualified in that subject because there's just a shortage and in those kind of areas. But as the years go on, you might start to struggle to find someone with a specialist in geography and a specialist in French and you'll end up just getting curriculum that's dialed down and students, uh, getting less specific instruction.

Speaker A: Yeah. Do you think teaching has an image problem? Because it strikes me that you kind of might not have become a teacher unless you'd stumbled across, uh, that experience that you had. And I know a lot of people that probably feel similarly that they wouldn't have become a teacher unless they'd had this experience.

Speaker B: I think it has an image problem in that teachers, uh, are very vocal about how hard it is. So you see like the government doing adverts and stuff, like get into teaching and they Focus on, like, a kid being inspired and about how you can earn 30 grand a year on Twitter. And then, like, there's hundreds of comments below just saying, don't do it. This is like. So, I mean, I was actually encouraged by all the negative stuff because I like a challenge. I'm a founder, right? So I'm drawn to big challenges. Um, so I found that actually exciting that it was a big challenge, um, you know, wanting to go in and hopefully try and make some kind of impact. Turns out I was crap and I didn't. But I think, like, that excited me, um, to kind of, to do that. But a lot of people see the reality of it and just think, actually, that's a really tough job and the pay is not great, plus it's going to be really, really, really challenging. Do I want that? So, yeah, gone are the days when people thought they could just go into teaching and get, uh, really long summer holidays and just rest. And the reality is you're often working in most your holidays, um, just to. Just to keep afloat.

Speaker A: On that point of you being a founder and being attracted to challenges, does that come from anywhere in particular?

Speaker B: Um, I think. I think it's just my natural personality. I mean, if I was to really philosophically introspect, probably, you know, like, I. I was a refugee when I first came to the uk. Grew up in a council state. Um, you know, growing up from that kind of background, you do get, uh, you do have to learn to adapt a lot and be very adaptable. And being put into, like, difficult situations is kind of just part of growing up. So you get desensitized to that a little bit. Also, my baseline was so low, so, like, anything I do is kind of a win, if that makes sense. So it reduces the risk of failure. Because if, you know, when you were a kid, you. I didn't even have a TV till I was seven. And then I had to get a job to buy my own TV when I was, like, 13. And it was like a black and white TV. I remember playing Mario Kart, My Friends, and we couldn't tell the difference between the red shell and the green shell. So, like, when you grow up in that kind of environment, you know, just, like, being able to buy a coffee is a win. Being able to, like, you know, uh, go on holiday, go abroad is a win. Like, everything is a win. So it then reduces that risk of those big challenges and allows you to kind of take those leaps and it also motivates you to get there. Um, yeah. So probably a Bit of that. I think coming from that background, it inspires you to take those leaps because you want more. And it also reduces the risk threshold because even if you fail, you're still kind of winning compared to your original baseline.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's kind of impressive, actually, to hold on to that grounding as well, though, because a lot of people, I think they kind of inflate, uh, what is good with just like, you know, they stand, normalize something, and then something good might happen on top of that, and then they can normalize that as well, and then. Yeah, I guess that's kind of a form of complacency, though, which I don't often see in guests of this podcast. They've got to say, like, it doesn't really feed into complacent people.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I would say I'm more the opposite. I'm just never satisfied, you know, like Alexander Hamilton.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Just constantly. Just thriving for more all the time.

Speaker A: Um, yeah. Is there a down? I guess there's probably a downside to both ways of life, you know, because contentment kind of sounds like you're content and happy with something, but that kind of always striving for more. Do you feel that ever gets in the way of you just enjoying, like, the things you've got right now?

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, definitely.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, it can. But I just always feel happiest when I'm, like, in the middle of, like, a process and kind of of improvement. I just love making things better and adding value and that whole process that comes with it. M. So, like, I obviously, you know, I'm a father and I've got a toddler who's two and a half, and that whole process of baby to toddler is just fascinating. You know, it's just constant failure, um, for me as a parent, but also, you know, like, just things like learning to walk, you know, just falling over, constantly getting back up that grit and determination and then like, learning without having that much structure around you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, um, it's just a beautiful thing to witness and. And like a really fascinating experience and starting a business. It's like a watered down version of that, I guess. It's not quite as amazing, but it's. It's still like that kind of journey. And I think that's what makes it appealing to start a business. And that's what's the fun bit of it, is it's that whole creation and learning process is so exciting.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I think, um, becoming a parent does seem to kind of change a lot of people's perspectives on risk.

Speaker B: Also my waistline as well. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Do you think it's changed your perspective on risk at all? Like, you know, in founding a business or.

Speaker B: Um, it's made it more challenging for sure. Like, it's a lot harder when you've got a child because you can't just throw yourself into your work like you, you could before that happened. You know, not having child's like life on easy mode.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, we were talking about Stephen Barlow earlier in his podcast and he often talks about how like, he could just work the evening for ages and ages and ages and he has that luxury because he was 20 something when he started up his business. And um, he's right. Like it's, it's different when you've got, you've got other dynamics that you've got to manage. But like anything in life, you know, you just have to manage your strengths and your challenges and your weaknesses and just keep moving forward.

Speaker A: I'm kind of interested in, um, this process of you deciding that you wanted to possibly be in the military and then being steered away from that potentially into teaching. What was that process like of you trying to find your career that you wanted to settle on initially? Because it sounds quite difficult in a way.

Speaker B: Um, I think it was just like I just wanted to do a career with impact. I always thought I'd quite like to make a lot of money and do that, but then when I looked at the grad schemes which had offered me that, they just seemed really boring, um, and not interesting. And I did dabble with the idea of being a founder because I won an entrepreneurship competition when I was at university. But because of my background, you know, it's difficult to think of becoming an entrepreneur. You don't like when, you know, no one in that space who's. No one who's become an entrepreneur, the idea of just starting up your own business without any capital behind you is quite daunting and wasn't something that I even thought was, was really possible. So I just, I just thought that, you know, being in education, being a teacher was, was the perfect route for me.

Speaker A: How did you win the competition, out of interest? What was it on?

Speaker B: Oh, uh, it was called the Pitch. So it was me, my wife, who's the co founder of Vibul, and a friend of ours, Steph, who's funny enough, her husband is now a tech co founder as well. So, um, and uh, we had to put together a business plan for a new, um, Like a shop that was going to be on a new part of the university campus.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And we did like market research and everything and none um, of us had like a business degree or anything like that. And there's quite, quite a lot of students entered had. So we weren't like expecting much. Um, but we just really did a lot of work in the market research part of it, understanding what customer, what the customer wanted. Uh, remember we, one of the other teams had like a 25 page Excel that they put together for the modeling and we, ours was like only one page.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So we were like thinking, oh. But actually um, we'd spent a lot of time surveying customers and understanding what people actually wanted. So we pitched for like a green grocers with like um, like a smoothie making shack attached onto it because there wasn't like a supermarket facility near there and also next to a gym. Um, and that was the idea that, that had the most traction. And the good thing was some of the other ideas that we'd thought of, um, we'd put in the surveys which got less likes and some of the other um, groups that were pitching, were pitching some of the ideas that got less likes in our survey. So I think that probably, that probably helped. Um, so yeah, we won £600 and like, uh, and had the option to like potentially make it. But none of us were interested in running a green grocer so we didn't.

Speaker A: Sounds like quite an entrepreneurial like group though. M. Do you think you kind of formed that early and.

Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean like when I was a kid I was like going out washing cars, you know, Um, I remember going out washing cars and making money, doing that and buying like a, like a bottle of wash and wax and then charging £3 for a wash, £4 for a wash and wax. It was exactly the same. And then £5 for wash, wax and internal clean.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: And I remember making like 200, 300 quid a day, like doing that for, for a little bit. Wow. Um, and then we. I did um. What was. What's that entrepreneur thing when you're a kid? Young enterprise. I was, yeah, team leader for that in school as well. We did that. So I did a few like entrepreneurial things. But again it's like, it's just not knowing. It's that lack of knowledge. No. When you don't have someone who's done it before in your family or in your friendship group who can just say, just go for it, like do it now when you're young. These are the risks Just go live with your parents and just try and make it work and um, hopefully, uh, get a return. And if it fails, it doesn't matter because this is what might happen. Um, there was none of that. And school and university very much sets you up to go down that graduate route pathway, doesn't it? M. You're kind of pushing. It's the tide.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you've always struck me as someone with a great business brain and that makes a lot of sense because I saw you also worked in business development for a while. And how was that, uh, working in business development?

Speaker B: Um, yeah, really good. Like, I really enjoy being in business development. Um, and I think being a founder is like business development in its purest form, isn't it? So, yeah, the real challenge is if you can do it for an established company, can you do it for your own company?

Speaker A: Yeah, you've really got to walk the walk.

Speaker B: Yeah. So it's kind of like. Yeah, it's like, I guess if you're, if you're working as like a football coach your whole life, you probably always have the aspiration of becoming a, an actual footballer. And you know, that's. I think business development is kind of like being a founder with stabilizers on, isn't it?

Speaker A: So, yeah. Because I'm curious what pushed you over the edge to say, like, fibble, this is the one.

Speaker B: M. I think it was just like a really good idea. So, uh, I'm not like a very. I don't take massive risks a lot of the time. I'm quite a cautious entrepreneur, I would say. So I've had ideas in the past where I thought, oh, uh, this could probably make a lot of money. You know, I could do this kind of business. But would that excite me? No. And I think with vibl, it was. The idea was so strong. I had a lot of domain expertise and I really believed that it would work. And I got some really instant validation when I went out and started speaking to teachers and head teachers. The feedback was really, really good, even though I was doing mom test style questions with them. And then we got, uh, like a friends and family raise with, um, evidence based education who gave us some investment and they're experts in terms of feedback and assessments of. From a validation perspective. That was huge for us. And it like really gave me the confidence to, to go for it, um, full out, full on. So, yeah, I think it was just the timing. The, the idea was so strong and also it was just felt like something that I'd be really excited to front you Know, because you've got to be passionate about your business. Because it's hard starting a business, so if you're not passionate about it, it's difficult to motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning if you doing something that you don't care about.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I suppose this is a big moment now, having launched, you know, VIB 1.0 to the world, it seems like it's gotten some amazing initial traction as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, the traction is really exciting, but, like, I'm always thinking, how could we improve? How could we do the next thing better? Like, I'm happy with it, but, um, like, I have this grand vision, I guess, of where we want to get to, and I just want to. To kind of get there as quickly as possible.

Speaker A: Yeah, I totally understand that. And it's, um, it's tough because I think always as the founder, you have to believe in the perfect version of what you're building.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's, you know, very rarely, if ever, even close to perfect.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker A: So it's a, uh, it's definitely a testament to your determination and tenacity so far how, how good it looks and how well it works.

Speaker B: Thanks. And you've seen it up front because, uh, up close because you even helped me out with a bit of the code once, didn't you?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I don't know if I actually helped. I just sort of, you know, looked at it and sort of tried to play around with it and give you more of an idea.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I really appreciate that.

Speaker A: No, it's, it's a really. I mean, it's, you know, it's a great code base.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So it's. I think it will turn into something really special.

Speaker B: I hope so. I hope so. I mean, I think, I guess we'll feel successful if we get, um, lots. When we get customers coming back to us saying that they love using it, or, um, you know, when we get people, you know, saying they've changed their policy to, to interpret VIBIL into it, then that's the kind of thing that really excites me. And then obviously, the. That value creation then leads to, uh, revenue creation. And so that's the end goal.

Speaker A: Yeah. So what would you say is Vibul's, uh, grand vision? The five to ten year, uh, horizon idea for vibl?

Speaker B: Yeah. So ideally, what we're aiming to do is to scale VIBL up to be a business which has between 6 to 10 million annual recurring revenue and then, um, hopefully look for an acquisition, uh, at that point in terms of the value creation, you know, we just want to change the way that people are giving feedback. There's so many people that are still marking on their evenings and weekends, you know, who are working in schools, and they just don't have to be. Uh, there's a better way of doing it. Vibla is one of those ways. There are other ways to do it as well, but we want to try and make that do our bit in terms of changing that dialogue around workload in teaching and learning and hopefully helping more teachers to stay in the profession. Because one of the things that's so interesting, when you look at the data around people that want to leave teaching, the numbers are massive. But when you actually interview teachers, a lot of them really enjoy their job. And the one. A lot of the ones that leave don't want to leave. They're leaving because they want to start a family and they just can't envisage having a child and being a teacher at the same time. Or they're leaving because they've become a carer and it's just not possible to teach and to do that at the same time. So, you know, there needs to be a shift in that sector and workload conditions need to improve, and if we can be a small part of that, then that, um, might be very happy.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a fantastic vision. I mean, it's not something that's just going to add value to teachers as well. I think it will add value to society in a very direct way.

Speaker B: I hope so. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. Fantastic work and thank you very much for coming on.

Speaker B: It's been a pleasure. And I, um, will one day make that lasagna for you as well.

Speaker A: Oh, yes, I love that. The home recipe.

Speaker B: Yes. I promised you a lasagne, haven't I? And I've yet to deliver, so I apologize.

Speaker A: Well, I know you're busy. It's fine. Uh, thanks.

Speaker B: Cheers.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to founder sessions. There's no episode next week, but the week after, uh, we will be back with another fantastic conversation with the fascinating founders every Friday. Thanks and see you then.