Overview

At 23, Nasim Khan, CEO and Co-founder of ED TREE is a rising startup entrepreneur and education enthusiast. Co-founding ED TREE with Yasmin Ali, their joint aim is to change the way students learn.

Living in a world where technology has revolutionised industries, the team felt the education system was still lagging behind. During university, the team spent two years dedicated to researching technologies and innovations before officially launching ED TREE.

“Our aim is to change the way students learn and for them to enjoy their education while building a positive and empowered attitude to learning”.

ED TREE offers a range of education services for students. Nasim explains, “we provide accessible and flexible online tutoring, a home learning platform for independent study. We create a story for each student through gamification so they can design and build their own character which levels up, the more a student learns.”

Challenge

Coronavirus completely changed the landscape for ED TREE
Before the pandemic, Nasim had a private investor ready to invest in the ED TREE vision. Sadly, due to the outbreak and economic uncertainty, the deal fell through and the investor pulled out.

With limited resources and funding, Nasim and co-founder Yasmin, decided to push through, launch ED TREE and bootstrap their way up.

“We weren’t going to let anything stop us, not even a pandemic. It motivated me to do more. The children stuck in this pandemic were missing out on their education. I told myself it is my responsibility to ensure these children still receive access to world-class education and that’s exactly what I did and I intend to continue”

Support

London Business Hub support – Tripling turnover and team size during a pandemic
The pandemic “completely changed our thinking and forced my hands as an entrepreneur to quickly adapt. I found the London Business Hub and met Raj Tandon, who opened my eyes to a new perspective to my approach to business.”

Highly experienced Business Adviser, Raj Tandon, worked one-to-one with Nasim, supporting the young entrepreneur with setting business goals and objectives, developing his business’ strategy and offering advice on product marketing and branding.

Raj Tandon also set-up a peer network for Nasim with other businesses in the education sector, “This experience helped me expand my network and learn from other people’s success and failures as well as share my own success and failures.”

One major issue Nasim experienced as a young entrepreneur was getting overwhelmed with his workload. Raj Tandon introduced Nasim to Agata from HR-People First, who spoke to him about managing the stresses of his business and encouraged ED TREE to apply for the Government Kickstart scheme, “thanks to Raj and Agata, I have successfully submitted my application”.

Since using the support and resources from the London Business Hub, ED TREE has expanded their team from 3 to 9 employees, “The support received increased my motivation as a first-time entrepreneur. The advice was very useful, and I learnt a lot from my time, which improved my wellbeing and helped my business to grow.”