The digital platforms Not only spaces for social interaction were taken, but they also began to be a fundamental part of work environments to the point that they became a strategic ally for the training and qualification of workers.
A clear example of the above is the hackU platform, created by Santiago Salazar, a 27-year-old young paisa, which sells educational capsules with personalized teachers via WhatsApp with the aim of training company employees in certain specific and relevant aspects for the organization.
“HackU is a company that sends 10-minute content through WhatsApp with personal educational coaching and we quickly began to become that solution for companies, to educate their workers,” said Salazar.
The capsules delivered by hackU seek to train company workers in education for life, in aspects such as communication, leadership, self-knowledge and creativity; and on job skills such as business policy, digital marketing, digital transformation, languages, digital literacy, and more.
“We have already sent more than a million educational capsules in 20 countries working with the main business groups in the region such as Argos, Sura, Bancolombia, Nutresa, Davivienda, global companies such as Discovery Channel, among others. We are becoming that benchmark that can reach a population that today is not able to deliver relevant and quality education, ”said Salazar.
hackU sent educational capsules in nine Latin American countries and to date it has about 30 coaching sessions between Colombia, Argentina and the United States. “We hope to close this year with US $ 1 million in sales and next year we want to land in Mexico and Brazil with considerable force, seeking to position ourselves in other markets and we know that in the future emerging markets will be our next destinations. In a period of five years, we want to reach a turnover of US $ 100 million with a presence in all of Latin America ”, explained Salazar.
The main ally of hackU’s growth in both sales and training has been WhatsApp, because as the founder himself (Santiago Salazar) explains, hackU had two previous versions, but the platforms they used did not make the business plan fruitful.
“We started with the first version of hackU three years ago, and at that time it was a platform that allowed people to be professionals, without going through university and with a unique and personalized career, but we realized that although people they yearn to learn, they are not willing to live an experience that complicates their life. In that first version, we raised some investment, but then we created a second version of hackU, and we analyzed that this is not about complex platforms, but something simpler and more everyday and we created a social network for education, a Facebook style, but with only educational content. In the pre-registration we did very well, but after people registered, the usage rates dropped considerably ”, Salazar explained.
And it was there, at the launch of a third version, that hackU opted for WhatsApp.
“We realized that the complexity was what generated the desertion. We had to start generating experience where users already felt familiar and that they could handle it from the grandmother, the child and from the businessman to the operator and WhatsApp is the tool that is most widely used ”, added the founder of hackU.
Why WhatsApp?
For Daniel Enriquez Delgado, digital expert and founder of Strategias Impacta, the versatility and penetration of WhatsApp within society makes it a strategic asset for any company.
“In Colombia there are 39 million active users on WhatsApp, participation and penetration of the Internet is relevant and the use of mobile devices is increasing more and more, and even with the post-pandemic technological acceleration, it has led us to use the cell phone to absolutely everything, ”Enriquez commented.
According to the expert, “WhatsApp, despite the difficulties and problems it has had due to privacy issues and server failures, has always been the most important platform for practicality and usability, which makes the experience with it user is very simple, then bring our digital strategies to WhatsApp, it is an element that allows educational platforms such as hackU to position themselves in the market, be easily accessible, have a wider target and that is possible thanks to the fact that there are 10% more than mobile devices than people ”.
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