Julie Bouchon and Stéphanie Bourgeois, co-founders of Holy Owly, the app that revolutionizes language learning for children. ENTREPRENEURSHIP | Learning English from early childhood and in a didactic way is the challenge of the Holy Owly application. Julie Bouchon and Stéphanie Bourgeois took up this challenge and their adventure does not end there. These two sisters are developing their business model in other languages. Maintenance.
What is the principle of the Holy Owly application?
Stéphanie Bourgeois: It is the fruit of 3 years of R&D, the Holy Owly application revolutionizes language learning and allows children from 3 to 12 years old to learn to speak English in 5 minutes a day. Daily, children learn 3 words or 3 sentences around a theme that changes every week. It incorporates voice recognition to improve pronunciation and promote children’s confidence and ability to express themselves orally. It also offers 15-minute sessions with native coaches to review the concepts learned and to work on conversational skills. The application integrates ” adaptive learning» And guarantees personalized learning for each child, based on their ability to progress. It also offers an immersive adventure for children who will become English superheroes. In addition to their 5 minutes of daily games, they will be invited to enrich their general knowledge. They will also be responsible for a pet that they can watch grow and flourish if they are diligent. The driving force and ambition of Holy Owly: to use the power of screens in a reasoned way and to allow more equal opportunities for children who all have the same capacities from an early age.
Julie Bouchon and Stéphanie Bourgeois (co-founders of the Holy Owly application): New languages will soon be available in our application such as Spanish, French, and Chinese
How did this idea come about?
Julie Bouchon: We are sisters, mothers, and passionate about education. The idea was born when Stéphanie returned from expatriation, who spent a year in Shanghai with her family. On her return, she wished to maintain the level of English of her children acquired at the French Lycée. But, finding no effective solution, we decided together to invent our own method. It is therefore in September 2015, that the adventure begins. We then opened an English school for children, Kids MBA, which was our experimental laboratory for 3 years. We surrounded ourselves with linguistic researchers and native English teachers and tested our method on 180 children. Faced with growing demand and the success of our experiments, we launched the Holy Owly application for Family in the Apple and Google stores in March 2017. In July 2019, we carried out our first fundraising and we formed a team to develop the second version of Holy Owly, released in September 2020.
What are your short term goals?
Stéphanie Bourgeois: New languages will soon be available in this application such as Spanish, French and Chinese. Since the start of the new school year, the company has been offering a version for Holy Owly for School schools in collaboration with the Bordas school publisher. The objective is to offer a turnkey solution that will help teachers in schools who do not master English and do not have a common learning method. More than 250,000 children have already used the Holy Owly application, it was also recommended by the Secretary of State in charge of digital during the Covid-19 crisis.
We do not intend to stop at the French market and we are starting to test new markets to determine what will be the road map for the internationalization of their application. The company now has 15 employees and has recorded a growth of 280% since the launch of the second version in September 2020. Our objective is to raise new funds to continue our growth in the French market and begin the internationalization of the application. Our challenges for the end of the year are multiple: to succeed in our fundraising, to integrate new Tech talents into the adventure, and to succeed in generating 20% of our turnover internationally.
What is the economic model?
Julie Bouchon: The application is available in the Apple or the Google Play Store. Children can play for free for 1 week. The application then offers subscriptions from € 4.99 / month (12-month commitment), otherwise € 9.99 / month (without commitment). These subscriptions are also available in the form of a gift card, the opportunity to offer a fun and educational gift for the holidays.
What is the principle of the Holy Owly application?
Stéphanie Bourgeois: It is the fruit of 3 years of R&D, the Holy Owly application revolutionizes language learning and allows children from 3 to 12 years old to learn to speak English in 5 minutes a day. Daily, children learn 3 words or 3 sentences around a theme that changes every week. It incorporates voice recognition to improve pronunciation and promote children’s confidence and ability to express themselves orally. It also offers 15-minute sessions with native coaches to review the concepts learned and to work on conversational skills. The application integrates ” adaptive learning» And guarantees personalized learning for each child, based on their ability to progress. It also offers an immersive adventure for children who will become English superheroes. In addition to their 5 minutes of daily games, they will be invited to enrich their general knowledge. They will also be responsible for a pet that they can watch grow and flourish if they are diligent. The driving force and ambition of Holy Owly. To use the power of screens in a reasoned way and to allow more equal opportunities for children. Who all have the same capacities from an early age.
Julie Bouchon and Stéphanie Bourgeois (co-founders of the Holy Owly application). New languages will soon be available in our application such as Spanish, French, and Chinese
How did this idea come about?
Julie Bouchon: We are sisters, mothers, and passionate about education. The idea was born when Stéphanie returned from expatriation, who spent a year in Shanghai with her family. On her return, she wished to maintain the level of English of her children acquired at the French Lycée. But, finding no effective solution, we decided together to invent our own method. It is therefore in September 2015, that the adventure begins. We then opened an English school for children, Kids MBA, which was our experimental laboratory for 3 years. We surrounded ourselves with linguistic researchers and native English teachers and tested our method on 180 children. Faced with growing demand and the success of our experiments, we launched the Holy Owly application for Family in the Apple and Google stores in March 2017. In July 2019, we carried out our first fundraising. And we formed a team to develop the second version of Holy Owly, released in September 2020.
What are your short-term goals?
Stéphanie Bourgeois: New languages will soon be available in this application such as Spanish, French and Chinese. Since the start of the new school year, the company has been offering a version for Holy Owly for School schools in collaboration with the Bordas school publisher. The objective is to offer a turnkey solution that will help teachers in schools. Who do not master English and do not have a common learning method. More than 250,000 children have already used the Holy Owly application. It was also recommended by the Secretary of State in charge of digital during the Covid-19 crisis.
We do not intend to stop at the French market and we are starting to test new markets to determine what will be the road map for the internationalization of their application. The company now has 15 employees and has recorded a growth of 280%. Since the launch of the second version in September 2020. Our objective is to raise new funds to continue our growth in the French market. And begin the internationalization of the application. Our challenges for the end of the year are multiple: To succeed in our fundraising, to integrate new Tech talents into the adventure, and to succeed in generating 20% of our turnover internationally.
What is the economic model?
Julie Bouchon: The application is available in the Apple or the Google Play Store. Children can play for free for 1 week. The application then offers subscriptions from € 4.99 / month (12-month commitment), otherwise € 9.99 / month (without commitment). These subscriptions are also available in the form of a gift card. The opportunity to offer a fun and educational gift for the holidays.
