The startup of the week was contacted directly by Microsoft: “It was a huge endorsement for us. Now we’re accelerating”

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Once upon a time, you had to raise your hand one by one when the teacher called out names. Today, more intuitive, digital solutions are needed. The founders of Attender recognized this and are now ready to take their platform even further.

In 2021, Attender founders Heine Møller Jensen and Carsten Jønck started the project, which is now out in several countries. So far, the project has been bootstrapped and soft found, but the time is now ripe to scale the project and potentially bring in investments.

“In the long term, we want to attract investors who can contribute not only money, but also knowledge and experience. We are particularly interested in someone who has experience in scaling SaaS businesses across borders, as that’s where our focus lies going forward,” says CEO and co-founder of Attender Heine Møller Jensen.

You have to do it properly

In short, Attender is a platform developed for schools that makes it easier for teachers to track attendance. Unlike other solutions, it uses gamification to motivate students to attend. Students can earn different rewards – badges, rewards and streaks for their attendance, and the school can choose to redeem them for physical rewards such as sweets or soft drinks from the canteen.

Heine Møller Jensen and his co-founder Carsten Jønck have worked together in the education sector for over 20 years through two different companies. However, they felt they never had the opportunity to develop exactly the product they wanted. So five years ago, they founded their own company, Aros Cloud, which focused on school software.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit and schools closed, a new situation arose where their original business plan was no longer sustainable. This led them to pursue an idea they had had for a long time – an absence tracking solution that could make a real difference. They started developing Attender and quickly got a school on board as the first test customer. The goal from the start was to reduce absenteeism and dropout rates among students, while making it easier and more efficient for teachers to record absences.

“During development, we have had a strategy that we would rather have 25% of our customers think our product is great than 75% think it is “okay”. If you want to make a difference, you have to do it properly. So we’re fine with the fact that not everyone thinks it’s for them. We’d rather have fewer but highly engaged users who can see the value in our product. That’s also why we’ve focused so much on creating a student-centric product,” says Heine Møller Jensen.

With their platform, Attender focuses solely on absence tracking and strives to deliver a highly specialized solution. Instead of adding many other features, Attender has chosen to geek out on the details and ensure an accurate and efficient process. The solution includes statistics and access for counselors, school leaders and parents, depending on grade level. The goal is to create a simple platform that suits both the tech-savvy educators and speaks to the digital native students.

Microsoft knocking at the door

When do you know you’re doing something right? It could be when Microsoft knocks on your door. And that’s exactly what happened for Attender. Teams is not only used by millions of workplaces around the world, it’s also an integral part of many educational programs.

“After the first school had success with our solution, we were contacted by Microsoft in the US. They had heard about our product and thought it would be interesting to integrate it into their Teams platform, which has over 200 million users in the education sector. They don’t have an absence tracking system built into Teams, so they saw great potential in our solution,” says Heine Møller Jensen and continues:

“It was a huge endorsement for us. Being able to integrate our product directly into Teams meant that we could offer users an even more integrated experience. Instead of having to log in to a separate app or website, students and teachers can now record absences directly from Teams. For schools that offer online teaching, Attender can even automatically record who has logged in and when, eliminating the need for teachers to manually register.”

Gamification makes a difference

Recording absence is one thing. It’s quite another to reduce absenteeism. Using gamification and small, ongoing rewards, Attender can provide a little push and extra motivation to get going.

“Gamification is an important part of our product because it helps motivate students to show up. Many schools struggle with high absenteeism and dropout rates, which has major consequences. For example, one school we worked with had a dropout rate of over 50% in certain programs. This meant that the school lost millions of kroner in taximeter money and society ended up with a bill,” says Heine Møller Jensen.

Of course, a game element alone won’t do it. But if it can make a small difference, then mission accomplished, he believes.

“Of course, we realize that gamification won’t work for everyone. There are some students who have personal challenges where offering them badges or rewards is not enough. But if we can help a fifth of those who would otherwise drop out, then we’ve made a difference. One example is a student who contacted us to say that he had finished the year with 19.2% absence, just below the 20% threshold. He felt that if it hadn’t been for Attender, he would have dropped out. Experiences like that mean a lot to us and confirm that our product really makes a difference.”

Now it’s time to turbocharge

In the short term, Attender wants to expand their gamification features and make them even more engaging for users. At the same time, they are working to improve integration with different school systems around the world to make onboarding new customers as smooth as possible. Attender’s product already works on an international level with customers in Switzerland, Ireland and the US, but the goal is to scale and grow even faster across multiple markets.

“Our long-term goal is to reach two million users within five years. It may sound ambitious, but when Teams alone has 200 million users in the education sector, the potential is even greater,” says Heine Møller Jensen.

Attender is currently in the midst of a funding round to secure more resources to expand the team and increase focus on sales and marketing. After bootstrappingBootstrapping is when start-ups self-fund and prioritize revenue. It grants independence and financial control but demands resourcefulness and gradual growth. More the company for over three years, it’s now time to take the next step and scale. The goal now is to go even wider so that more schools around the world become aware of Attender.

“We’ve done it all with a very limited budget so far and we’ve spent almost no money on marketing. Yet customers are finding us, which is a good sign. We’ve been very successful in creating a product that speaks for itself, but we know we can go even further if we get some resources to turbocharge it,” he says.