"Further training for teachers is not up to date"

A quarter of all German teachers use the services of the start-up Fobizz. In this interview, founder Diana Knodel explains how she achieved this - and why the market is so attractive.

Diana Knodel has always had a passion for education. The current founder once studied educational psychology, then went through various stages before finally founding Fobizz. Initially very small, the number of employees has multiplied during the corona pandemic and turnover has now reached seven figures. The start-up actually only offers what teachers would get for free from the federal states: Further training. So where does the success come from? Knodel tells us.

Ms. Knodel, you offer training courses for teachers. Hasn't that been around for a long time?

The federal states do indeed offer training courses. However, these are often time and location-dependent. Training courses for teachers are therefore often not up to date. We, on the other hand, have focused on an asynchronous model, which means that teachers can access the content on our platform anytime and anywhere, whether in a free period or on the sofa on a Saturday. That's what makes Fobizz so attractive.

According to your own figures, you have 200,000 users. That would be a quarter of all teachers in Germany. How many actually use the platform regularly?

Everyone who is registered with us has completed at least one training course. Of course, nobody uses the portal as frequently as Whatsapp, but usually two or three times a year. In addition, there are of course "power users" who undergo further training very often and are extremely committed.

Our aim is to ensure that teachers don't have to pay for training themselves.

Diana Knodel, Fobizz

How did you get teachers to sign up to Fobizz in the first place?

After all, the federal states offer training courses themselves - and unlike Fobizz, they are free of charge. We started very small a few years ago, but with a very digital-savvy target group: IT teachers. They then took it to the schools. We are now talking to a large number of schools and federal states who buy the training licenses for their entire teaching staff from us. Of course, there are also teachers who buy the training courses themselves. However, our aim is for teachers not to have to pay for this themselves, but to have it financed by the schools or a state license.

How expensive is that?

With larger deals, it's always a matter of negotiation. The federal states certainly get a certain discount because they buy the corresponding number of licenses. For individuals, training usually costs between 20 and 50 euros, depending on how complex the training on the website is.

They don't produce the videos on the website themselves, but have teachers do it. How does it work?

If you want to create an online training course with us, you first have to apply to us. In it, the teachers present what exactly they want to show, how they imagine the training and what experience they have. In the next step, they then go through their own training course, which focuses on the technical equipment and requirements for good Fobizz online training. For example, the training should be interactive, not just a video, it should be short and snappy and yet precise.

This can be worthwhile for teachers in monetary terms.

Diana Knodel, Fobizz

Sounds time-consuming. Most teachers don't work all day. But they don't have that much time either.

It can be worthwhile for teachers in monetary terms. We give them a share of the revenue from their training courses and some of the most popular ones have 30,000 to 35,000 views. That's really a lot. Most of the teachers who contact us don't do it for the money, but because they are very motivated and committed and want to share their knowledge with others. And thanks to our reach, they now also gain a lot of visibility as experts in a particular field. At the same time, we help those who don't get as many clicks with suggestions on how they can do better. Most teachers are used to giving feedback and are happy to do so. So we get a lot of feedback on every online training course, often in great detail. And if something doesn't go so well, we find out quickly and can correct it.

How much has the pandemic helped you grow?

Extremely. Before the coronavirus pandemic, which has now been going on for 2.5 years, we were maybe five or six people. Then everyone had to work from home and suddenly everyone wanted to know: How can I work with iPads? How do I organize lessons digitally? What tools are there for organizing entire classes? That drove up demand and we now have over 30 people and a seven-figure turnover.

Is there any money left over?

We are profitable, but are currently investing the profit primarily in growth and new products. We want to offer even more, currently only for teachers, but possibly for other target groups in the long term. Then a VC could also be interesting, but so far we are financing ourselves out of our own pockets.

What other sectors are you looking at?

Generally speaking, all sectors are interesting for the time being, we are not committing ourselves. We tried to set up a platform for other sectors some time ago. We had already built everything and had a few users. However, we quickly realized that we couldn't do both and shelved the project. Maybe we'll get it out again in a few years' time.

Thank you for talking to us.

About the person: Diana Knodel is a co-founder of Fobizz. She has a background in computer science, psychology and educational research, worked as a research assistant and product manager at XING and as a team leader in the IT industry before founding Camps in 2014 and Fobizz in 2018.