I was doing a little search on school management Portals available here in Nigeria, that’s all the locally made ones, and I couldn’t help but notice a trend: bad design!!
Really, not putting anybody down but,
Portals like: http://stpatricksmodelschools.com/
and whatever company that created them should not be allowed to operate unless they clean up their act, and get their sh*t together.
That’s not the only poorly designed portal out there, there are lots and lots, but this is the one that pissed me off the most.
What do you guys think? Are mediocres taking over? I know there is talent in Nigeria, but I can’t see it.
I think the low entry barrier in the space made it easy for anyone with any form of software development skill to put out anything out there.
Most players in this space are interested in selling scratch cards to students and making some quick cash. Bad product design with existing players was exactly the reason why we started klipboard.com.ng early last year. It’s not an easy space to be in given that everyone is building a “me too” product and customers hardly know the difference.
20+ schools and a few thousand students. It’s harder pursing the schools so we found an interesting model where we focus of vendors with no so good solution.
So far, it’s been great with 10s of schools coming on board. We brand the product for the vendors, put it on their servers and charge them using a SaaS model per school bases.
@henryC - That’s a great product. I entered this space at some point (website: https://arcube.com.ng - didn’t get around to finishing it). It’s challenging, especially when you’re trying to convince gray-heads with limited understanding of modern technologies.
Henry, heard of NAPPS? It’s an association of private proprietors and they have chapters in every state. We were in talks to go into a partnership, rolling out a school management suite across multiple institutions but the deal never pulled through.
Yeah I have heard of NAPPS. The schools under NAPPS umbrella are mostly low end schools with low capacity (in terms of cash). I did have an encounter with them at some point though and we got a few schools from them.
Well done @henryC I love how your product is dispelling the notion that are mediocres taking over.
Of course you’re right that there’s low barrier to entry, but with the hustle and ability to execute that you’re demonstrating, it will be interesting to watch Klipboard over the coming years.
What is the allure of the “school management software” space?
It seems that every technical person straight out of school has built or wants to build one. I don’t understand it. Yes there are many schools but they are fragmented, largely technophobes, and not particularly conditioned to spend loads of money on software.
When I was in school, we has lecture notes on departmental websites, an area to upload your work before the deadline, and of couse school email. There wasn’t much need for a lot of sophistication and nobody In compsci was thinking - if only we had better school management software.
Is this a case of solutions looking for problems? I honestly don’t know. Perhaps someone can shed some light on it
The allure you ask? Innovation is one of them. The school management suite we offered made use of an RFID attendance tracking module. The ID cards we issued to students emitted an electromagnetic field, each assigned a unique identifier, while a device was placed at the school gate to read this card when in close proximity. Once captured, the device communicates with a server where the software is hosted, marks the attendance and dispatches an SMS to the ward’s parent informing them of entrance and exit times. This was a major selling point for us in Abuja as the security situation made a lot of parents concerned.
Instant access to academic performance, e-assignments, integration of payment gateways and holiday exams were among the numerous benefits schools enjoyed. It’s an interesting space and you’ll succeed if you’re able to offer value to the institutions you approach.
For us, the attraction here is exactly what the OP posted out. A simple analysis of the school software space in Nigeria and Africa will quickly tell you that there is hardly a well thought-out and comprehensive school ERP out there.
A huge chunk of the market is controlled by players with cut and join solution that WORKS until after a few schools have come on board.
Part of our mission is to develop a well thought-out school ERP solution and make it available to interested vendors/players to use for their businesses while paying us the funds they would have spent building and maintaining a different software.
@HenryC I am really impressed with what I saw on your site.
//There is a small typo on your MAIN home page (http://klipboard.com.ng/). A heading there reads “EVERYTHING A MORDEN SCHOOL NEEDS”. I believe that should be MODERN.
Marketing and pushing this out is all that is needed. Weldone guys!
