dot Learn

The Origin

dot Learn started as a Peace Corps side project in 2013. I'd spent time in West Africa and became fixated on a simple problem: students in Ghana and Nigeria had smartphones but couldn't afford to watch educational videos on mobile data. A single hour of YouTube could cost a day's wages in data fees.

After returning to the US and completing my MBA at MIT, I co-founded dot Learn in 2016 with Tunde Alawode (SM '15, PhD '17). We received support from MIT D-Lab, MISTI, MIT Sandbox, and the Legatum Center — a collection of MIT programs focused on entrepreneurship in developing economies.

The Technology

The core insight was that video compression was the lever. If we could make educational videos dramatically smaller, we could make them affordable to stream on limited data plans.

I developed a video compression technique based on vector graphics — converting the kinds of flat, animated videos used in e-learning into a vector format that was up to 10x smaller than standard h264 compression, while actually improving visual quality at low bitrates. This technology was later patented.

Ghana: Early Traction

We launched in Ghana first, targeting students preparing for WAEC (the West African college entrance exam). By summer 2017, we had grown to 10,000 monthly active users — real students using the platform to study. The engagement metrics were strong. It felt like we were onto something.

With funding from the Legatum Center and early investors, we had enough runway to expand.

Nigeria: A Hard Lesson

Nigeria was the obvious next market. Bigger population, bigger student base, same exam system. We expanded confidently.

It didn't work.

After digging into the feedback, two problems became clear. First, Nigerian students preparing for JAMB (the Nigerian college entrance exam) wanted practice tests — timed, exam-style questions — not video lectures. We'd built the wrong product for the market. Second, mobile money worked differently in Nigeria than Ghana, which broke our payment model entirely.

"The main problem was that we didn't appreciate the differences between Ghana and Nigeria." — Sam Bhattacharyya, MIT News, 2019

Both problems were fixable in principle. But we had 10 months of runway left. Adapting the product for Nigeria while maintaining Ghana would have spread us too thin.

The Pivot

In early 2018, I made the decision to close the West Africa office, let go of most of the team, and pivot the company. It was genuinely painful — we had teachers and students who depended on dot Learn, and closing felt like abandoning a mission I'd spent years on.

The video compression technology we'd built — the thing that made dot Learn possible — turned out to be commercially valuable on its own. We rebranded the company to Vectorly and pivoted to licensing the technology to larger companies in the edtech and media space.

The original mission — affordable video education for students in emerging markets — remains unfinished. It's something I'd like to return to someday.

What We Built