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Edtech Insiders
How Boddle Turned Classroom Math into a Game Kids Choose to Play with Edna Martinson
00:49:49
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Innovation in pre K to grade learning is powered by exceptional people. For over 15 years, edtech companies of all sizes and stages have trusted higher education to find the talent that drives impact. When specific skills and experiences are mission critical. Higher education is a partner that delivers offering permanent, fractional and executive recruitment. Higher education knows the go to market talent you need. Learn more@higheredu.com that's H I R E
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B
edu.com we're actually going up against the AAA games that kids are playing that have no educational value. And we want kids to know like games can be as fun as that and educational. And we just stumbled on this. We were like, wait, people are making YouTube videos about bottle? And there's all these YouTube videos like POVs of kids, you know, playing the game, answering questions and look at my pet characters and my bottle character and and they're like fully immersed into it and really see it as one of the games that they would play outside of the classroom, not just because the teacher said get on bottle. It's math time. Which is exactly the direction we want to go.
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A
Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry. From funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood, K12, higher ed and work, you'll find it all here at EdTech Insider. Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter and also our event calendar. And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events, and backchannel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoy today's pod. Welcome to EdTech Insiders. We have a fantastic Fox founder with us today. Edna Martinson is the co founder and COO of Boddle Learning. That's B O D D L E, a gamified learning platform helping millions of kids build confidence in both math and literacy and I think science as well. We'll talk about that. She's passionate about making learning feel joyful, motivating and effective for every child. I've wanted to talk to her for quite a while. Ed Martenson, welcome to EdTech Insiders.
- [02:23]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
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A
I'm so excited to speak with you. You know, I have been watching the rise of bottle learning. It's this amazing platform. You combine incredibly fun 3D game characters and experiences with really effective learning and now in multiple subjects. And I've wanted to have you on forever. For those who may not yet know about bottle learning, tell us what you do and what the bottle learning story has Been like so far?
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B
Yeah. So Bottle learning is a gamified platform for kindergarten through sixth grade kiddos, and it helps them practice and master skills in math, English and science through interactive 3D gameplay. And we've got a teacher and parent portal as well that helps educators facilitate learning, better track student progress, help to differentiate the learning on the back end as well, while kids get to really dive into a really engaging platform.
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A
Yeah, and I feel like the engagement is the hook and then you go, but you do so much else as well. So, you know, one of the things that's been interesting about Bottle is the growth has been driven largely by teachers discovering the platform, sharing it with colleagues, telling people how much their kids love it. What do you think has made Bottle resonate so strongly with educators so far? And how has that momentum from grassroots, from teachers finding it and spreading it, helped Bottle's growth?
- [03:44]
B
Yeah, I think Bottle hits the pain point that teachers had in one we launched in 2020. So as all ed tech folks know, that was the year everything turned upside down and classrooms went remote. Teachers were struggling to find the tools that were going to compete with all the other things catching students eyeballs at home. So looking for engaging tools that kids can really connect with. And so when they found Bottle, it was an immediate like, okay, this ticks the checkbox on student engagement. And then we built the teacher tools as well to help save teachers time in creating those assessment items as well. So that's definitely the one thing that really resonated with teachers. And we knew that because so we launched in 2020. I remember that year before actually we were in Kansas City and before Kansas City schools shut down, before a lot of the US shut down, we have a live chat on our website and we were getting messages from teachers in Luxembourg and we're like, what is happening in Luxembourg? They're like, we're going remote. And then the messages just kept piling on. 1am in the morning and this is going to our cell phones. 1am in the morning, 3am in the morning from all these different areas where like something is happening. So even before majority of US schools had fully shut down, it became very apparent to us, like, okay, well this is bigger than, you know, just a short term, week long shutdown and we better prepare for it.
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A
Right. And that, that sort of engagement, I mean the Bottle characters are these sort of little, I think they're glass bottles that fill up and you know, your co founder is a game designer and you've really baked that sort of engagement that it truly feels like it can compete, as you said, with professional gaming and apps and Netflix shows, which is very unusual in edtech. Actually, everybody wants that to be true, but not that many have achieved it. Tell us a little bit about how you build your games to really drive that engagement and motivation and keep kids just excited about being on the platform. And then we'll talk about the other side of it, about how it's actually teaching and creating practice.
- [05:47]
B
Yeah. And the bottle characters, as you mentioned, are a very central part to it. As we were thinking through the company, we really wanted to center it around IP that we know would be really strong in our minds. Like how do we create something that's going to be nostalgic for this younger generation when they grow up. That's why we named the company Bottle, actually around these bottle headed characters. And as kids are learning, their heads are filling up. Some send the message to Philip on learning they can do really cool stuff in the game with the knowledge points that they collect in their bottle heads. And so we had a really great story. We saw kids were resonating with it and then the next thing was in the game mechanics. So just like you said, the goal was how do we make this as fun as the AAA games in the market. So a lot of it is in the game mechanics and what we decided to kind of like focus on that we knew would, would help drive engagement loops with kids, but still make sure like we capture the heart and intention of it, which is like around the learning.
- [06:45]
A
Yeah, you really feel it when you look at the platform, when you engage in it, that it is built with a real game design aesthetic in mind. It is not just a sort of thin layer. It's really deeply thought through and it's really interesting to look at. You know, I did my master's thesis about Club Penguin. You know, when you talk about nostalgia, it's like I think we've had generations of people trying to break through and create learning experiences that truly can compete with AAA games. And again, it has been a little bit of a white whale. Right. It's been something people have been trying to do but have really struggled with for many, many years. I love this idea of nostalgia that you're building in nostalgia. This is something that students will resonate with so much that they'll remember it later and say, I remember my bottle characters. I remember when I was using that for learning. Tell us more about that. Building nostalgia in. I've never heard anybody say that as a design principle.
- [07:37]
B
Yeah. And a lot of it is, I think Sometimes we underestimate like the power of character. So when you really focus on IP and thinking through like what does, you know, for us it was like what do the bottle characters represent and is it something that kids would resonate with? I remember when we were first designing the first, we went through so many iterations of this. The first few couple of bottle characters looked very ugly and now we have these very cute bottle characters. But continuing to show that to kids, seeing the reactions and then building the, you know, the story around it. Like not just having random character that you just play within a game, just to call it a game, but rather like what does it mean? What does your bottle character mean? How are you allowing kids to customize the character so they, they have more of an, like an affinity to it. And then for us this was also like the deeper meaning behind, you know, the filling up with knowledge points, filling up on learning and point back to help others, like really baking that deeply into like how kids saw the character so that it's something that would be really memorable for them.
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A
And it obviously has been really memorable. You know, after that 2020 explosive growth moment, I think for the entire edtech sector, you've maintained a connection to teachers and students, you know, over. We're now here in the end of 2026, mid-2026, and you're continuing to grow. You're continu inputs from around the world and teachers saying my kids love this. I'm curious how you, you know, sometimes with, with edtech companies, as they scale past a certain point, it becomes hard to maintain that connection with your, your end users because it feels like just numbers on a dashboard. How do you make sure that you stay connected to teachers who are loving bottle, to students who are loving bottle and get input from them and make sure that the game is developing or the platform is developing in conjunction with what they're looking for.
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B
Yeah, so earlier I mentioned the live chat. So we use Intercom, which, you know, I've never met the Intercom founders, but thank you Intercom founders, like for your platform. Because when we implemented that we started again, we were getting messages from teachers around looking for a tool just like this. We Also, through 2020 and 21, we're getting messages from teachers like this platform does not have, like these are all the reasons the platform is bad. It doesn't have this feature, that feature. And so we just started to collect this feedback and, and it was so great because it's real live feedback. I'm chatting with an educator sometimes. I'll Be like, here's my number. Can we just hop on a call? And so jump on a call with them? And so the teacher portal looked a lot different back in 2021 than it does right now. And all of that was through the feedback that we were collecting from teachers because teachers knew what they wanted and they were very open to sharing exactly what it was. And so the more we got that feedback, the more we were able to iterate and, and that's still something we do to this day and try and keep that close contact. I think the live chat for us has just like been a game changer. I would rather let's just talk live rather than sending an email. And so, yeah, live chat is still
- [10:29]
A
the biggest way, so open door policy, sort of keeping those live feedback loops coming in from teachers and as you say, some of them saying, this is exactly what we need. Another saying, you're missing this, you're missing that. I need that. This has got to be on our dashboard and being able to collect that feedback and use it and put it on your roadmap is very valuable. So tell us a little bit more about what the teacher dashboard looks like. Because I think this is one of the interesting features of products that have game environments is that, you know, from the student side, it feels incredibly engaging and fun. It feels like a AAA game. The teacher gets all of these data driven insights about what the students are doing, how they're doing on particular concepts, how much time they're spending, how that time is translating into learning, what, what does the teacher dashboard look like and what is sort of some of the main pieces of information that you're giving to teachers about what students are doing on bottle.
- [11:17]
B
Yeah. So one of the first feedbacks we heard from teachers was, hey, I'm a fourth grade teacher, I have 20 kids in my class. Not all of them are in a fourth grade level. I've got kids that are still on the second grade, you know, math and reading level, the third grade math and reading level. Some are like in between some skills, they're really mastering it on fourth grade, but others they're not. And I need a way to be able to see where all my kids are at and give them the right content without them seeing that on the game side. Because I don't, you know, you don't want a fourth grader going in and seeing like, wait, why did it say I'm on second grade? And so that's one of the features that we give teachers is to be able to see like, okay, here's your classroom roster. Kids get to take a placement test in the beginning and here's where they're placed. Teachers can go in and do targeted practice. Meaning, okay, great bottle, you've placed them here. But right now I need this group of students or maybe all students focused in on this specific skill. And so I'm going to go in and deliver that skill. We're also state standards aligned, which is really great for our Texas and Florida teachers that have like, you know, Texas teks math standards in Florida best and a couple other states that are different to where they can just go in and it's mapped to their state standards so they can go in and pick the specific skills. And then the two other features that teachers found very valuable. One was the live feed to see like in real time, if class just started and kiddos get on bottle, we can see live feed of what questions they're answering, how much time it's taking them to answer. And then game locks, that was a big one too. It's like yes, we want kids to have this really fun game experience, but we want to give teachers the control to facilitate the learning in the class, how they see fit. So we have game locks also. So if a teacher says we only have 20 minutes until recess or whatever, get on bottle. I need you all on the fractions assignment. They can go in and lock out certain parts of the game. So kids only go into the specific area to complete the fractions assignment.
- [13:18]
A
We'll be right back. This season of EdTech Insiders is brought to you by Cooley LLP. Cooley is the go to law firm for education and edtech innovators offering industry informed counsel across the pre k to gray spectrum. With a multidisciplinary approach and a powerful edtech ecosystem, Cooley helps shape the future of education. Yeah, I mean all really powerful. I hear adaptivity, I hear teacher control. This targeted practice gives the teachers the ability to use the platform for targeted remediation. It could be for a group, a single student. I mean it's really powerful. One of the things that I always find so funny about the ed tech world. So I love gamified ed tech, I love education technology where it match with games. Anytime you look at the sort of top sites used in schools, you always see this funny site. Cool math games come up and cool math games, no shade on cool math games. It has all sorts of little fun HTML5 games on it, but it has so little control, it has so little insight. It's really something that as when you mentioned the 20 minutes before recess. It's like teachers use it to be like, let's take a fun break, go do something that's sort of pseudo educational and play on some math games. They're not just games, they're math games. But there's very little closed loop. They're very little insight into what's actually happening. There's almost no control. And I feel like Bottle is like the remedy for the cool math games, you know, phenomenon, which I don't think is very effective for learning. I'm curious how you see that in the classroom. When teachers are using Bottle, there's this live feed. So sometimes it's these live environments. They might be assigning it for homework, they might be using it in, in after school environments. I'm curious what are some of the use cases you see and how you see yourselves positioned against some of the more loosey goosey sort of unstructured game sites.
- [15:09]
B
So in terms of use cases, and we've heard this from teachers, early finishers is one. Right. So you have a group of students, they're finishing early. You can get on Bottle. We've also got during like rotations. So if teachers are doing okay, here's their math rotation. I've got these kiddos on Bottle. We've also got something called the learning gaps report. And so if we are both in the same fourth grade class again and maybe the teacher has assigned a specific skill and it's determined that like I'm struggling on that fourth grade skill because of a prerequisite second grade skill that I haven't mastered, you're struggling on it, but actually because of a prerequisite third grade skill, it will adapt us that you down to the third grade, me down to the second grade skill. And then the teacher gets that feedback. And then if the teacher wanted to do small groups or different rotation stations, they can pull kids apart into those small groups. So it's helpful for that as well. And then of course for homework. And then we do have it's launching again. We launched this and then we had to like take it down to work on some stuff. And now we're relaunching it for this back to school year. But something called Bottle racers, which is math facts, like whole classroom engagement. Really fun. They get to like race with their cars and Bottle characters as they're practicing their math facts. So that's a fun one to like get all kids together.
- [16:27]
A
Absolutely. That's powerful. Right? And that's another model of edtech that's been very successful. The live class Everybody together, just creating this sort of sense of incredible excitement in the classroom. And kids, like, beg to play on those games. Teachers. And it's really good practice. So I want to ask one more question about the sort of engagement side and then let's flip a little bit to some of the learning because you've been doing some interesting evidence studies and, you know, obviously the learning outcomes are key. But one thing that sort of differentiates Bottle from many other platforms in the space is your sort of 3D nature. It's really like a sort of immersive game for those who have never seen it. Why did you make the choice to go 3D? And what downstream effects do you think that's had on student engagement and usage in the classroom?
- [17:11]
B
Yeah, that was a very intentional decision from the start. It also was quite painful in the beginning because the 3D environment, 2D would have been a lot easier. 2D environment works on these very old Chromebooks that are being used in classrooms. We decided to go 3D because we're going up against, in our minds, we're not going up against all the other educational games. We're actually going up against the AAA games that kids are playing that have no educational value. And we want kids to know games can be as fun as that and educational. And so 3D was the way to go. It also opens it up for in the future, AR VR. But the challenge with that is we spent like 2020, 2021 portion of 22 before we really nailed it, optimizing it for the web for really slow Chromebooks to make sure it can run. So there was a lot of resources put into that. But that was the bet that we were taking was like, let's go 3D. It's just going to be better for engagement. Yeah.
- [18:11]
A
And you know, you're talking about games like Fortnite and Minecraft and Roblox and League of Legends that are the games that pull students in. Do you think the bet has paid off? It feels like it has a major impact on people's perception of the game in relationship to AAA games. What do you hear from students about whether how game like it truly feels?
- [18:31]
B
Yeah, it definitely has paid off. The best way to tell actually is. And we just stumbled on this. We were like, wait, people are making YouTube videos about bottle. And there's all these YouTube videos, like POVs of, like, kids, you know, playing the game, answering questions and look at my pet characters and my bottle character, and they're like, fully immersed into it and really see it as one of the you know, the games that they would play outside of the classroom, not just because the teacher said, get on bottle, it's math time, which is exactly the direction we want to go.
- [19:02]
A
Yeah, I mean, and that's the Twitch culture we're in, right, where people could are streaming or recording themselves playing games. And I mean, the fact that, yeah, this is a game that people see as in that category says a lot about, about their interest in it and their understanding of how other students see it as well. So let's talk about the learning side, because this is obviously the combining of incredibly motivating, engaging software that kids want to use, that teachers know their kids want to use, that teachers want to use is a big piece of the EdTech puzzle. But there's another equally big piece which is, does it work? Is it actually moving the needle? Is it actually helping students build both their understanding, their fluency, their knowledge base and their confidence and their belief, especially when it comes to math, that they can actually accomplish math problems? Tell us about what you've seen in terms of results. I think you have a third party study out now about this, but tell us about what you've seen.
- [19:52]
B
Yeah, we did a tier 3 study alongside learn Platform by Instructure and we're doing another one as well this fall, which I'm very excited about. And we did see that we saw use of bottle tied to lower math anxiety, which is great. We also saw like higher performance on like end of year IRD scores also associated with higher scores on bottle. And so being able to do the study and see those results was very encouraging. We've also had a lot of anecdotal. So if you go to our website, we always put case studies out from educators especially. We love the different use cases too. We've had special ed teachers come in and say, oh, this has been really great for my kids. I see them improving. I see the confidence. And for us internally, something we love to say is confidence drives comprehension. And so you get kids who were first just very demotivated. I don't want to do math like, this is too hard. Now get into an environment where it's like, actually this is fun. Oh, I got this wrong, but it's okay, I'm going to try again. And then teachers giving us that feedback of like, oh, wow, yeah, they're going through a lot more math practice and assessment items or English and science practice assessment items and seeing that transformation with their students, I think that's really powerful for us as well. And we want to continue to do these Studies too, both on, like, how it impacts student outcomes and then also how it helps support educators in the classroom too. I think on this study also being very transparent. And I loved working with Andrew from Instructure because we really looked deep into this. There was like, majority positive findings and there was one negative finding in the study around higher performers. And I should have pulled this out, actually. It's on our website, but for us, that's like. It allows us to ask the question of, like, okay, higher performers and maybe like, a little bit of, like, anxiety and like, tackling new problems or something like that. I might be saying this wrong. I need to go and look at the actual study on the website. But for us, from a product perspective, it also allows us to say, okay, is there something in the design? You know, like, because the way we adapt, we adapt down, but we adapt up also. Right? Student is doing really well. Let's make this more rigorous. So it helps us ask ourselves the right question also as we continue to, like, explore and learn. And one thing Andrew from instructor says, which I really resonated with is evidence and efficacy is a journey. Right? It's not like, oh, we have a tier three study. Like, we're, you know, that's it. We're good. It's like, no, there's always more to study and to learn and to improve in the platform to help support educators and students 100%.
- [22:25]
A
And when you're. You're working with millions of students in thousands of schools, you have a wide variety of different student use cases. You're everything from special ed for students who are years behind to students who are years ahead for students who have high math anxiety to students who, you know, maybe math Olympiad winners in their free time. And you have this hugely diverse population, and I'm saying math, but you obviously are moving into other subjects as well, which is why what my next question is about. So I'm curious about the decision to start with math. That is actually a pretty common decision in the edtech space. Math has a lot of factors as a subject that make it sort of particularly amenable to technology solutions. But you're now moving into ELA and science. Tell us about the decision to start with math and the decision to expand.
- [23:08]
B
Yeah, so math was, I mean, one. It's quite universal. So that, that helps. But then also was really targeting a specific problem which, you know, the proficiency scores that we're seeing nationwide and like, how do we create a platform that helps? Like, is. Is a supplement to the work that educators are doing in the classroom to help increase math proficiency scores. So that was like the genesis of like, this is a way to help as a supplemental tool. Then we realized, okay, this is awesome. This works great with math. We always build the platform to where we are able to deliver other types of content. So we're not limited to just being a math tool. And ela, this actually was from educators as well. The three most requested, ela, Science and social studies. We do not have social studies yet, but ELA we put out. And then a year after that we got the science content in as well. And I think what's great also is I think about how long it took our team to kind of put together state standard aligned math curriculum into the platform and then how much faster it was with ELA and science now with AI has been amazing. And just also so in the game, one thing too, it's not just like question, answer, right, wrong, move on. We add learning tools in there. So there's text to speech for kids who are struggling a little bit with reading or need that additional support. There's a sketch tool and then there's also instructional videos. And it's been fun also with AI, like how easy it is to put together really creative instructional videos on the science content that we have. And so, yeah, we're really excited to continue to make sure the platform has a lot of really great rich educational content that's beneficial for students.
- [24:54]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. You know, you mentioned starting the company in 2020, right at the height of the pandemic. And we all know that late 2022 we got the beginning of this sort of amazing AI revolution that has affected every ad tech company and I think pretty much every school in one way or another. You just mentioned, you know, that AI has expedited your content creation, which makes a lot of sense internally. I'm curious if there are other things that you've changed or decided to do because of the introduction of AI into the sector. Are you thinking about offering AI features for students or for teachers for analyzing that data or for adapting? I mean, just curious how you're looking at it.
- [25:31]
B
Something we've been talking a lot about internally as a team and some really good ideas that are like brewing internally too. We haven't fully landed on that. What it has been able to do, like I mentioned, is kind of like accelerate our ability to deliver really great rich content. And now we're thinking through the next steps. A lot of our use is like internally and how internally as a team, we're using it to help Accelerate our production and delivery speeds. And now we're thinking through, all right, and starting with the teachers, like what tools makes the most sense for us to deliver to teachers without replicating if there's something out there that's already really great that teachers are already using and resonate with. So we're trying to be intentional about that rollout.
- [26:11]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that sort of trajectory of internal use, then thinking about how it could support teachers, and then thinking about maybe at some point how it might support students, I'm seeing that as a pretty common trajectory of how people are using AI in the edtech space. Obviously some companies are starting in the AI era and they're trying to go right to the end. But I think for the people who are adapting it and moving it in in a very sort of thoughtful, step by step way, that that resonates. So one of the things that's interesting that you've mentioned a couple times is the sort of adaptivity piece of this, and this has always been one of the big dreams about games and education is that games really can change the content. They can change the pacing, they can change the structure, they can adapt to how students are playing at an individual level, at a group level, a class level, or even, you know, the entire school or district. Like you're saying in Texas, it's all aligned to the teks. I'm curious how you think about adaptivity sort of writ large because it could adaptivity or personalization, differentiation, however you want to define it. You know, it's a little bit of like a catch all term that everybody wants to address in ed tech, but you've been thinking about it since the very beginning and you do it in a number of really nuanced ways. Tell us about your philosophy on adaptivity.
- [27:22]
B
So every child learns differently and being able to meet a child where they're at and deliver just right content and content that also is delivered in a way that matches how that child likes to learn. That's what the focus should always be on. And for us, I remember even when we started, back when we launched in 2020, we were like, we were using AI, like AI powered platform. And now, you know, with just where we are with generative AI, I'm like actually I would just say adaptive platform because now that our understanding of AI is like okay, generative, but I think where we can go with this, it's not just, you know, right now, machine learning algorithm that's adapting sort of like a decision tree that maps all the skills out and can adapt up or down based on where kids are at. But when we talk about, like the power of generative AI and where we can take this to where it's more like the type of questions that kids are getting, like, maybe you are more visual and so, you know, you need to get more of like picture questions. And I'm more of a, you know, story word problem kind of learner. I think, like, starting to really deeply adapt to, like, how each individual child learns. I think there's a lot of magic and power in going in that direction. And, and those are some of the things that I'm really excited about as well. Like getting the personalization really to the individual level and not. I think one of the things I've seen, like, I saw a post about this on LinkedIn in terms of how AI kind of puts students in buckets, like black and brown students were delivered certain kinds of questions or like female students were like general buckets, like, that I don't think is helpful. But when we talk about, like, really understanding how an individual person likes to learn. I don't know if you've been playing a lot with like cloud or codex, but how you can build in the harness layer your ear cloud MD files to really understand, like, who you are and making sure it's like learning and has the memory loops to understand, like, how you like to work. Imagine that. But for like, each child, like, how does this child like to learn and what is successfully delivering content to this child mean so that they really understand and grasp the concepts and build that confidence that drives comprehension. I think that's stuff that I think about all the time in terms of, like, the direction that we can go.
- [29:42]
A
Yeah, I mean, that combination of learner preferences and sort of AI enhanced memory feels like a very rich vein for the entire sector figuring out, okay, you know, if we are learning more about every individual student and what they're, what they prefer, what they're looking for in a solution, and then bake that into their structure at a deeper level inside the platform. It can become even more engaging. It can come even more exciting. And potentially what we all hope is those learner preferences then translate into meaningful outcomes that you can actually see. The students really, you know, they're saying, oh, wow, these questions are really, I want to do even more of them. I want to try even harder things. My confidence is raised even more because of how the system is adapting to me. Like, I love hearing you talk about this. This is, I think, some themes in edtech that have been around For a few, a number of years, but we've really never fully had the capacity to execute on them. You know, games that look and feel like AAA games. Adaptivity and personalization at a level that actually makes sense and truly can work. Combined with, I think it's important to say combined with those teacher overrides that all of that teacher instructional structure, the teachers can say, nope, you, you're only doing this thing. Or this small group is doing this during the rotation. And because that's an interesting tension, actually it's something I'd love to ask you about. That tension of true personalization, quote unquote, where every student is doing something that looks very different than the student next to them. Combined with collective action, right? Students all working on problems together, collaborating, teachers saying, hey, today is a day where everybody want it should be working on this particular concept in science. That's, that's sort of the opposite of personalization. Right? How do you think about that? Interesting. I think this is another topic for everybody in the sector. How do you think about that? A balance between personalizing to individuals and keeping that sort of shared context and opportunity for collaboration.
- [31:31]
B
I think it's so important because you also don't want to be in, in your own personalized learning bubble. And I kind of think of, I think of social media all the time. Like, my Explore page on Instagram looks completely different from my co founder, who's also my husband, but he is like, notorious for like DMing me links to the things he finds funny, which I'm just like, this would never pop up on my Explore page, but I'm glad you sent it to me because now I get to see like, what, what's happening in your world. And that's where I think, like, it is good to give teachers that control to say, like, okay, this is great. It's personalizing for how a student wants to learn. But also, okay, let's now get together as, as a class. Like, let's look at these concepts together. Let's all try and learn this thing in this one specific way. And it's good. It's. It's a great way to like, challenge kids. Agree with, challenge ourselves to like, get out of the norm of like what we're used to also. And like, okay, now let's explore doing things a different way, which is great.
- [32:28]
A
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think that's a really interesting balance. Especially, you know, you mentioned being aligned to state standards. And it's like, you know, the state standards are, are. They're both a guideline, but they also often work as a sequencing and a scope and sequencing. So if a teacher is saying, I'm a, you know, I'm an ELA teacher and I'm teaching context, you know, I'm teaching a particular concept about character or about setting in reading comprehension, you could still adapt what the students are reading in some ways, but they need to be doing the same core skill and they need to be doing it at the same time. And collaboration is really important. So one of the things that's incredibly exciting about this time for AI and gaming is that games themselves are getting AI tools to enhance the content of the creation of the games. And something I'd love to ask you about, you know, you already mentioned using AI to support the acceleration of educational content. Are you yet using AI to accelerate the game assets and the costumes that the bottles are using or the settings? I'm curious if you're doing that yet. And just sort of what. Where the state of that field is so internally.
- [33:27]
B
Yes. So similar approach we're looking at like, how can we get the team optimized, how can we leverage AI internally in our development cycles to give us more horsepower, if you will. And then once we can really nail that down, thinking through, is there a world actually where we can allow some of that customization to flow through to what students can do on their side?
- [33:51]
A
Yeah, that's an exciting vision. So that students could actually maybe someday say, I want my next bottle adventure to take place in a, you know, supermarket in Paris. And they say, go for it. We can make that for you on the fly. Wouldn't that be cool? So you have a couple of really unusual and exciting things in bottle One is the actual gameplay. You have multiple modes of play in different sort of areas, which I'd love to hear you talk about. And also you have a really unusual and interesting business model, which is, I think, infrequent. But a couple of other game based companies do it where your customer is actually the parents. You don't charge schools or districts, but the parents at home buy bottle access for their kids, even though they're usually seeing it within a school environment for the first time. Talk through both of these. Tell us about the play modes and then your business model.
- [34:37]
B
Yeah, so with the gameplay, we didn't want to build a single genre game. What we wanted was sort of like a multiverse where kids have their bottle character and they can go from different games. They're these mini games where, you know, they've got a soccer game, a basketball game, the Most popular one is a pet collecting game called Pet Battles. And their character can move from game to game. Kids kind of choose their own adventure and their learning progress follows them as well. And so I mentioned, like, filling up on learning, collecting knowledge points in the game. They could use those knowledge points to defeat baddies. We're working on how do we allow kids to also use those to gift stuff to their classmates as well, which I think will be really fun. And then, yeah, our business model, we don't sell to schools and districts, we sell to parents. And it's interesting because essentially we have to provide teachers with the tools that they need to properly facilitate that engagement and learning in the classroom. And then we have to make it fun enough. The kids would say, okay, I'm leaving the classroom and I'm going home. And I'm asking mom, grandma, auntie, you know, dad, whoever's there, I want to get on bottle and get me premium. So the free version, all of the educational content is on the free version, which is also very intentional, just so that we know it's accessible for all kids. And then premium gets them additional really fun in game items. And we have a battle pass that we call bottle pass. So it gets them like really fun bottle pass items also.
- [36:09]
A
That's adorable. I love that bottle pass. That is a really interesting needle to thread where you say, you know, we've talked about the teacher dashboard and the administrative tools and the teacher can lock down or do targeted practice, all of these features that you've built for school environments which they need and are asking for. And yet at the same time, at the end of the day, you're also trying to support the students going home and, and the parents feeling really excited about buying this for their students. And that sort of cool core to your, to your business model and growth. It's a really interesting model to balance. And it forces you, I think, in all the right ways to make the game exciting and engaging and so much fun and so built out that students aren't like, this is this game I play at school and that's it. They say, I really like playing this and I want to keep playing it on my own at home at night. Last question for you on this topic, which is about the social features. So you mentioned earlier on just in passing, you know, the students can fill their bottles, they can use their knowledge points, they can bring their questions and they can help others. You just mentioned that they're going to be able to gift things potentially in the future. But are you building any collaborative features into the game or ways for students to be able to support each other in their learning journeys. We'll be right back. Tuck Advisors was founded by entrepreneurs who built and sold their own companies. Companies frustrated by other M and A firms. They created the one they wished they could have hired but couldn't Find one who understands what matters to founders and whose North Star KPI is the percentage of deals closed. If you're thinking of selling your edtech company or buying one, contact Tuck Advisors now.
- [37:51]
B
Yes. And that's one of the most exciting features that's going to be coming out soon here as well. Just thinking through how does like because right now in the game individually I mentioned we have the one mode that's coming out next school year where bottle racers where the whole classroom is racing together. If kids are getting on they can. We can also battle each other. So if we're in the same class we can get in a pet battles competition and battle each other even though we are on different learning levels. So I'll get the just right learning content. You will as well. But we can still be in that same game environment. And then next. We've been thinking a lot about classroom collaboration towards like one central goal. I don't want to give too much away because it's still coming out, but that's what we're very excited about. Like building those game features in there as well, which is going to be very exciting.
- [38:39]
A
Amazing. One thing that's I think really unusual and interesting about Bottle as a company, you are founded in Kansas City. You moved to Tulsa as part of a sort of acceleration Tulsa campaign and you've done incredibly big growth, but really not from one of the what people consider the tech hubs. Right. You're not based right in the Bay Area. You're not in in New York. I'm curious what that experience has been like and you know, what you would say to other founders who are thinking about similar paths of taking a slightly less, you know, geographically road less traveled.
- [39:10]
B
So yes, we did move from Kansas City to Tulsa, which isn't that big of a move. It's only four hours south, so still, you know, Midwest slash plains. I guess some people say Tulsa is in the south. Debatable. But for us it was a really great move. It felt like so Tulsa, smaller city than Kansas City, but it actually felt like our national network got bigger when we came here. And it's because it's such an interesting town. There are some really great supportive funds that invested in bottle and support our growth. We were able to participate in accelerator program here in Tulsa that also helped support our growth. This was back in 21 and honestly that Accelerate program kind of saved us. We were like about to run out of money. And then we got into the program. It's like, okay, great, we have some cash in the bank. And so Tulsa has been a really great supportive ecosystem. There's also, I think for us during that like 20, 21, 22, a lot of funds around the country were coming to raise LP capital from Tulsa. And so I was like, oh, I actually don't have to book a flight to San Francisco or New York to like meet these funds. They're going to come to Tulsa and you know, I can book meetings just without leaving the city, which was great. And so we made it. We've made a ton of great connections over the past several years and generally it's just been a, it's been a fun place to live and grow up. Family and as well. Really supportive ecosystem.
- [40:33]
A
Yeah. Do you feel like it sort of gets you out of some of the, you know, you mentioned the personalization bubbles that we get and you know, the social media bubbles we're all in. I feel like there's a little bit of a bubble around all the San Francisco startups where they're all reading the same thing and talking about the same things. Do you feel like even though you continue to have a big national network, you sort of can see it from a different perspective?
- [40:54]
B
Definitely. So I mean, I love New York and I just feel like New York has this like energy and pulse. So I have to at least several times in a year go to New York and like get the energy and then I'm like, and now I'm going to go back to my like peace and quiet in Tulsa. But it does help you kind of get out of that bubble. Although I think there's a lot of. There's still so many advantages from just like being in those ecosystems. I just think Tulsa would be surprising to some people that it actually is a great place to build.
- [41:25]
A
Yeah, I can imagine. So one more question about the sort of future of where you're going with bottle and then we'll zoom out. And I want to ask you about sort of a trend you see in the landscape from your perspective. But one thing that I've always found incredibly interesting about the game based learning world and you know, we've talked to Prodigy Learning and Kahoot and Duolingo. You could consider maybe in that is it tends to be incredibly popular, very beloved, especially by students, but sometimes doesn't always integrate with the other systems in schools. Right. And you have gone a different way than that. You mentioned you're integrated with state standards. You mentioned having these feedback loops from teachers creating a really robust teacher ecosystem on top of the games. That isn't always true in game, in game based learning. I'm curious how you see the future of game based learning that especially in this AI age where games can get even faster, they can get even more engaging and immersive and 3D will be, will be less expensive to make versions. Virtual reality you mentioned you could have really AR VR experiences. Like games are going to get more and more and more exciting and adventurous and engaging. But if they start dividing from where schools are at, then they can't really be used in a school environment. They're only used in a sort of home environment. You have really avoided that. You're staying very close to the school environment. Where do you see these fields sort of evolving in the future? Do you think that game based learning will be more and more sort of intrinsic into what school learning looks like or will it continue sort of on a parallel path for some companies?
- [42:53]
B
So it really depends on the builders of these platforms. For us, we knew that the classroom is where we wanted to shape the experience around. Of course, kids play bottle outside of the classroom as well. But we wanted to make sure it was a easy, seamless classroom experience. And I think what's going to continue to be important maybe, I mean it was important back then too. But 2020, 21 was kind of like the wild, wild west of edtech. You know, so much ed tech coming out, so many districts didn't even really understand how they should frame their data privacy agreements. Like what should that look like? And now like 23:24 is like, okay, let's tighten this up, rightfully so. Because you know, we've heard of the breaches, we've heard of these things happen. And so now districts are more aware of like, all right, what are the tools that we are allowing into the classrooms? And so I think providers, edtech providers who are looking to really build seamless experiences like gaming experiences within the classroom need to think about like district concerns. Right. Principal concerns, school concerns around data privacy around sso. If you know, majority of the districts you're going after are using Google SSO or clever like better to make that integration so that it's easy for teachers to get their rosters in. Right. Versus having them use just what your platform provides. And so I think those are things that for us were very top of mind. We don't sell to schools and districts, but we have to know like what is really important to a school in the district. We're also going grassroots, so teachers are finding out about us. And our job is to provide teachers with the tools that they need so that when they talk to their tech coach or whoever is responsible for updating their iPads when Bottle has an update, knows that like, okay, yes, they're COPPA compliant. They signed the data privacy agreement. They, they are not selling any student data. They have the clever Google SSO integrations. Like, this is an easy yes. How do we make this the easiest yes for teachers to go and deliver to whoever, their principal, their tech coach at the district level as well. And those are things to think about if you're trying to make a seamless classroom experience.
- [45:04]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. And more generally, what do you see? I totally agree. It's wild west of EdTech 2021. Then there's been a tightening up of budgets, a tightening up of procurement, procurement policies. There's been a lot of thrash around AI policy, of course. What do you see coming next, you know, as you sort of set up your roadmap and think about continued growth for Bottle, continued expansion of coverage of subjects and states and all of that. What do you think is coming in the edtech sector over the next few years that other edtech founders or operators might want to keep in mind?
- [45:35]
B
Well, I think it's already come, which is like usage based pricing. Right. That's, that's something that a lot of districts are implementing a lot of conversation around that as well, which perhaps I am quite biased because we don't sell to schools and districts. But I've, I've also been in the situations where an educator is like, oh my goodness, I was using this and my kids loved it. And then somebody in my, my school says we actually can't use this because they already paid for this other tool, even though the kids don't like it. I don't like it. But that's just what they paid for, you know, and it's like, well then that tool sits stale for the whole school year and you know, and they've paid for a contract that essentially hasn't been used. So I think the shift to usage based pricing is something that I, especially if folks are selling into districts, need to keep a really close eye out on because I can imagine a lot more districts are going to be bringing that up in sales conversations. Yeah.
- [46:30]
A
In a world where usage based pricing becomes more normalized, how will edtech companies have to adapt to make sure that usage actually meets the requirements.
- [46:39]
B
Yeah, I think it's connecting a lot more with educators. So several years ago we were having conversations with superintendents, with principals, and we were always getting the question of like, well, do you have like a district dashboard? It was the dashboard they were always asking about. We're like, do we need to go create this dashboard? And then we talked to other like more veteran ed tech folks in the and they're like, yeah, they're going to ask for this dashboard and this dashboard is never going to be used. And once we shifted all our energy to like, let's have conversation with who's actually going to implement this in the classroom. What are their pain points? Back then we didn't have game locks. We didn't have like all these things that teachers are like, this is what we need. And once we shifted our focus to like the individual who's facilitating learning in the classroom, let's make sure they're having a great experience. Then you know, of course they're like, this tool has exactly what I need. I am going to use it in my classroom. And I sympathize with folks who do sell into districts because you are spending a lot of time trying to get to like the decision maker and who's. Who's holding the wallet. But you have to focus on who's actually going to be implementing that tool in the classroom.
- [47:48]
A
Yeah, I totally agree. It's been an interesting tension in edtech for a long time that people have, that edtech companies have to build out these really complex admin dashboards. And really, I think the core of that is visibility. I think one of the major secret reasons why administrators who, and procurement people who are buying software want dashboards is they want to have an easy way to assess whether it's being used or not. And outside of that, those dashboards aren't often used that much and they are a lot of product spend and all of that. So I think it's interesting approach and I think a very fair approach to say, yes, get that sort of basic stats that the admins need, but then really focus on the implementers, the end users, the next case, probably teachers, what do they really, really need? And those controls are key. This has been such a fascinating conversation. I'm a big fan of what you're doing at Bottle. Edna Martinson is the co founder and CEO of Bottle Learning. It's a gamified 3D learning platform helping millions of kids build both confidence and efficacy in math literacy. And now, science. Thank you so much for being here with us on EdTech Insiders.
- [48:54]
B
Thank you so much, Alex.
- [48:56]
A
Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more EdTech Insider, subscribe to the free EdTech Insiders newsletter on Substack. This season of EdTech Insiders is brought to you by. Stock StarBridge. Every year, K12 districts and higher ed institutions spend over half a trillion dollars. But most sales teams miss the signals. Starbridge tracks early signs like board minutes, budget drafts, and strategic plans, and then helps you turn them into personalized outreach. Fast. Win the deal before it hits the RFP stage. That's how top edtech teams stay ahead.