How Classplus Reached Millions of Online Students During the Pandemic

The Challenge: Growth at Scale

Classplus is an ed-tech start-up company transforming the world of education by powering educators in India with the digital tools and resources to help them become future-ready. With an industry-first unified platform, Classplus enables teachers and students to achieve their true potential across the country on a streamlined platform with video technology. While Classplus started with a primary focus on test prep exams in India, and then more generalized learning, the startup has seen a huge growth in the past year and is working to expand their course offerings.

When the pandemic temporarily halted in-person learning and drove new users to online education, Classplus was prepared for a surge in consumption. With a growing roster of 1,800 schools and educators using Classplus for online learning, the online education platform now hosts over 5.6 million videos. At the beginning of 2020, Classplus hosted just over 200,000 videos related to online learning, but the pandemic caused a rapid increase in demand. Classplus needed a tech partner to handle the huge surge in growth, specifically a customer base that grew 4x in just a matter of months.

The Solution

As online consumption of video grew dramatically in the early months of the pandemic, Classplus’s library of videos, streaming capabilities, customers, and revenue grew at a similar pace. Needing to provide their services at scale, Classplus began using JW Player for its reliable video player. As an online learning provider, Classplus needed a strong tech solution with built-in features such as high quality playback, bookmarking, and an intuitive user experience for pause and play.

By providing a basic free platform as part of their offers, Classplus was able to rapidly increase their reach. And because JW Player’s online video player dashboard was so easy to use for so many teachers going online for the first time, some of Classplus’s biggest advocates were its users. “It was easy to use for teachers who then spread the word because it was so easy to use,” Agarwal said.

Doing the most with the least amount of resources has allowed Classplus to succeed in the online education market. With JW Player’s dashboard analytics, Classplus’s tech team is better able to understand how to increase engagement among their rapidly growing user base. Nearly a third of Classplus videos are watched at more than 1x speed; and that kind of insight has enabled them to better provide for future students.

Agarwal said during a JW Player webinar, “95% of Classplus consumption is mobile. The experience has to be smooth from the first frame, and if the video is paused, if I exit the app, do I come back to the same place when switching apps?” Using analytics to better understand their audience, Classplus is able to provide an uncomplicated and seamless experience for their growing user base.