Prempreet Singh, Founder and CEO of SkillBytes, believes the next phase of India’s EdTech growth will come from understanding student behaviour more deeply rather than simply building more content. While the sector has made education more accessible over the last decade, Singh says the real opportunity lies in reducing friction and meeting students where they already are.
“The industry assumed the problem was content. It was never content. It was friction,” says Singh, explaining why EdTech penetration across Tier 2 and Tier 3 India still has immense untapped potential despite rising smartphone adoption.
According to him, the biggest learning for the industry has been understanding how students engage with digital platforms in their everyday lives. “Every edtech company of the last decade made the same bet. Download our app, create an account, show up every day. That works for the top 20 percent of students who have broadband and the motivation to change their behaviour. The other 80 percent never made it past the app download screen. The misread was not about what to teach. It was about where to show up.”
This insight shaped the foundation of SkillBytes, which built its learning experience directly on WhatsApp instead of asking users to adapt to another app ecosystem. Singh believes the future of learning lies in integrating education into platforms students already use daily.
“MOOC completion rates globally sit under 15 percent because users sign up with intent, hit friction, and leave. App fatigue compounds it. Every new app is a new interface, a new login, a new habit most people never build,” Singh explains.
Having spent 14 years scaling consumer products, Singh says one principle consistently stood out to him. “The moment you ask users to change their behaviour, you lose most of them. Build inside a behaviour they already have, and adoption stops being a problem. WhatsApp is not a distribution hack. It is the only honest answer to where Indian students already spend their time.”
SkillBytes’ product philosophy revolves around making learning simple, accessible, and easy to complete. Instead of long-format lessons, the company delivers five-minute learning units directly inside WhatsApp chats, reducing the need for extra effort or additional onboarding.
“In product terms it means one thing. Make the unit of learning small enough that the student finishes it before they have a reason to leave. A SkillByte is five minutes. It arrives inside a WhatsApp thread they are already in. They tap, they learn, they are done. No context switch, no willpower required.”
The company measures success through engagement rather than downloads or registrations. SkillBytes has already recorded 1.7 crore interactions across 5.2 lakh students, averaging 32 messages per student. Singh says the most encouraging signal is that interaction density continues to grow faster than the user base itself. “Students are not just arriving. They are coming back without being asked.”
Singh also believes Tier 3 India represents one of the largest opportunities for the future of digital learning. According to him, students across smaller towns already have the ambition and motivation to learn, but require products designed around their realities.
“A student in a Tier 3 town with a basic Android phone and intermittent connectivity gets the same learning experience on SkillBytes as a student in South Mumbai with broadband and a high-end device. That is an architecture decision we made on day one.”
The company has also observed strong engagement trends during weekends and holidays, periods when most learning platforms typically witness lower activity. Singh sees this as a sign that learning can become a natural habit when friction is removed from the experience.
On monetisation, Singh says the company remains committed to keeping its free learning layer accessible, while expanding paid offerings such as Daily Practice Papers, SAT, and IELTS preparation. He adds that operating through WhatsApp significantly lowers infrastructure and acquisition costs, allowing SkillBytes to build a sustainable model while continuing to serve cost-sensitive users across India.
