Here’s why more than a hundred firms signed up for Gnowbe’s learning app

Machines are coming for human jobs. A McKinsey & Company report predicts that machines will take over up to 30% of jobs by 2030, with 50% of today’s work tasks already “automatable.”

This means people will have to upskill and reskill to avoid being displaced, says Korean-American entrepreneur So-Young Kang.

Seeing how jobs are quickly changing, Kang founded Gnowbe, a mobile-first learning startup that helps enterprises train their staff to be better at certain tasks or learn new ones.

“Gnowbe means ‘grow knowledge into being.’ Our philosophy is all about helping people apply knowledge to develop skills for future work,” she tells Tech in Asia.

E-learning has taken the student and professional education sector by storm since the likes of Udemy and Coursera started offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) a decade ago. But the problem with MOOCs is that they’re mostly video-based content with long running times, requiring so much attention from users. That in turn results in low completion rates.

“You can also let the video sit. Whether you apply it or not, it doesn’t matter,” Kang points out.

Singapore-based Gnowbe addresses this by offering modules in bite-sized form that can be consumed in a few minutes – and on mobile. It’s part of a new trend for so-called “microlearning.”

The team / Photo credit: Gnowbe

In addition to the “learn” part, the app has “think,” “apply,” and “share” features, which help develop skills applied on the job and encourage learning by doing.

Explaining how it works, Kang cites the example of an employee who needs to master a new sales technique. “You’ll be asked to watch a video on the technique and at the end of it, think about the challenges you may be facing when selling. It doesn’t end there. You’ll also be asked to upload a video of yourself practicing your sales pitch for your manager or entire team to see. Then your manager or team will give you the necessary feedback.”

Kang says the whole concept is based on andragogy – the science of how adults learn. When adults practice what they’ve learned, retention increases significantly.

But can small chunks of content effectively explain complex topics? “The more complex the topic and the more bite-sized you make it, the more effective the learning is because people can digest it better,” Kang contends.

B2B focus

Since launching in 2016, 500 Startups-backed Gnowbe has grown to serve 130 enterprise customers in 22 countries. It has landed big names like automaker Mitsubishi and education provider Navitas.

The company’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform enables those clients to create their own microlearning programs across topics such as onboarding, product training, and sales enablement – the last example being its biggest use case. So if a company has staff across multiple geographies, using Gnowbe eliminates the need for costly face-to-face training workshops.

Crowded market

Leaving Silicon Valley