In the early childhood care industry, the curriculum is an important category of many products, in addition to the curriculum, there are many products on the market that are popular with parents and kindergartens. Today, we will change our perspective and talk about "products", or more precisely, about a solution.
The product to talk about today, super companion, in the words of founder Zhao Bin, it can help parents solve the problem of accurate care for the growth and development of infants and young children aged 0-3, and can also help early childcare institutions solve the problem of enrollment reservoirs, and help institutions drain, obtain customers, and lock customers.
Zhao Bin is the chairman of Mai Miao Education and the founder of Super Companion Division, he has a unique perspective on the childcare industry, and for Super Companion Division, he has innovative product design concepts and operating models.
(The following is based on Zhao Bin's interview self-statement)
1.
Reverse view childcare
I am Zhao Bin, a veteran of the early childhood care industry.
The Outline of the National 14th Five-Year Plan points out that it is necessary to vigorously develop the childcare service system and increase the number of childcare for infants and young children under 3 years old to 4.5 per 1,000 population by 2025. Achieving this goal means more than 6 million trusts by 2025, and according to previously released data, there are now more than 4 million trust gaps.
I believe that with the support and guidance of policies and the participation of forces from all walks of life, more than 6 million trusts can be implemented, and we will certainly be able to achieve the goal of "4.5 trusts per thousand population".
I also believe that with the popularization of the concept of childcare, in the future, parents will send 0-3-year-old children to kindergarten, which will become just like sending 3-6-year-old children to kindergarten.
But have you ever thought about two questions like this:
First, China's tradition of generational maintenance has a history of thousands of years, when the concept of childcare has not yet been popularized, can institutions "grab" children from the hands of the elderly?
According to the data previously released by the National Health Commission, the number of infants and young children under the age of 3 in China in 2021 will be about 42 million. According to this estimate, even if more than 6 million childcare positions are full, there are still a large number of infants and young children who need to be cared for in the family, and how many of their parents understand the laws and key points of early development of infants and young children?
As a father of two children, as an investor who has been running a park since 2013, I have seriously considered these two issues.
And the main force with the baby - the elderly grab the child, many kindergartens have exhausted various tricks, but the result is that parents have been immune to the experience classes of 9.9 yuan and 19.9 yuan, and the routine of pushing gifts, and it is difficult to establish a relationship of trust with each other.
On the other hand, many parents lack common sense of early education of infants and young children, even if they know that 0-3 years old is the golden period of brain development, they are not clear about what they can do as parents, and they do not know what kind of parent-child interaction is most effective for the growth and development of children. I know it myself. My eldest daughter did not experience the stage of "climbing", because at that time we did not understand the law of early development of infants and young children, did not know that this was caused by sensory imbalance, and no one around could give us professional and appropriate guidance, so my eldest daughter missed the critical period of "climbing" growth.
Starting from these two questions, in the face of the vigorous wave of childcare, I think so:
0-3 years old, the most needed is high-quality companionship, parents, the elderly and teachers should reach a consensus is - to accompany the child's first three years of life in the first three years of the growth of the critical period.
Then, based on this consensus, the relationship between childcare institutions and the elderly and the family should not be a relationship of confrontation and robbery, but a cooperative relationship, and it is necessary to unite the institution and the family as different scenes of the growth and development of 0-3-year-old infants and young children, and jointly do a good job in scientific parenting.
Based on consensus and a clear relationship, the institution will not only focus on the dozens of childcare positions in its own kindergarten, but look at all families in the community with childcare needs, starting from assisting family parenting, influencing and changing the parenting concept of each family member, thus extending them into a potential source of students in their own institutions.
This is my little thought about this wave of childcare, and it is also the underlying idea and logic of I will develop the "super companion" - to serve parents and institutions to provide high-quality companionship and care for infants and young children aged 0-3.
2.
Super Companion Product Design Ideas
To formally introduce the "Super Companion Division":
This is a 0-3-year-old children's growth system of weekly age, listing 468 key ability points that will appear in 156 weeks of 0-3 years old, with the week-based "companion pack", with teaching aids, teaching plans and assessment tools that match the development of key abilities, and then forming a simplified solution that combines online and offline through the Internet to provide parents and institutions with navigational infant growth guidance and companionship.
I would like to use the following questions to connect the product design ideas of "Super Companion".
Q1: What are the differences between Super Companion and similar models of products?
First: The super companion is a 2B2C type, which is not sold directly to parents, but serves the kindergarten institutions, which can help the institutions drain and obtain customers. The e-commerce brand of play teaching aids represented by Qiaohu is a 2C model directly facing the parent end.
Second: The growth assessment and growth navigation of the super companion teacher are simplified, operable and easy to use, which is the "plug-in" of parents and institutions on the road of parenting.
Third: weekly growth navigation + weekly growth assessment, do a good job in the accurate accompaniment of each key growth period.
Q2: Why do you want to navigate growth to 156 weeks and 468 key competency points?
First of all, 0-3 years old is the most rapid period of brain development of infants and young children, changing every day, in weeks, can be more refined to decompose the key points of children's growth, help parents, institutions and children interact with each other high frequency, do not miss every critical period of growth.
Secondly, 468 key abilities for the gradual development of infants and young children aged 0-3 years have been extracted, and a growth navigation map has been formed, which can help parents and institutions better understand the growth rules of infants and young children, and can measure the development of children's abilities in weekly terms, find problems in time, and intervene effectively.
Q3: What is the basis for the weekly growth assessment? How to ensure the scientific nature of the assessment?
The weekly growth assessment logic of the super companion corresponds to the children's weekly key ability development.
The growth assessment adopts the concept of Ou Mujie, a well-known expert in children's education. In view of the fact that The norm modulus scale of Teacher Ou Mujie was established in the 1990s of the last century, and refers to the norm standards of some European and American countries. In order to make the assessment more scientific and more in line with the current development laws of Chinese children, we have set up a research group in cooperation with Zhejiang Normal University, which is dynamically updating this set of scales, hoping to construct a set of normal modulus scales that keep pace with the times and provide accurate and scientific growth assessments for Infants and Young Children aged 0-3 in China.
Q4: How can Super Companion Help Parents and Institutions to "Accompany" Their Children Efficiently?
A weekly "companion pack": containing "3 teaching aids + 3 assessment cards + growth manual", the teaching aids will be adjusted according to the child's weekly development needs corresponding to key abilities. That is to say, corresponding to 468 key ability points, 468 intelligent adaptation teaching aids have been prepared, and 468 demonstration videos of teaching aids operation have been produced, which parents and institutions can operate at a glance. This companion pack can be ordered by parents through the institution, or they can go to the institution to experience and use it.
The advantage of such meticulous guidance is that the elderly can also use these teaching aids without obstacles, which not only enriches the way they interact with their children, but also allows them to observe the changes of their children, so as to recognize the importance of scientific parenting, and then change the prejudice that infants and young children do not need to be sent to care.
Second, rely on the super plug-in of parents and institutions - small programs: parents and institutions do not need to memorize key growth points by rote, only need to open the small program, you can know what kind of ability the child should have this week, and the corresponding ability improvement guidance method. The Mini Program can track and record the growth of children, form a personalized and exclusive growth file, and realize the seamless link between the two major companion scenarios of family and institution.
Three rely on rich interactive game programs: In order to strengthen the "accompaniment" interaction between institutions and families, the super companion division has designed 492 game lesson plans according to the development needs of children's key abilities, and institutions can easily carry out games according to the lesson plans and guide parents to participate.
I hope that the above four questions can give you a comprehensive understanding of the design concept and model of super companion. Next, I will focus on the ways and methods of super companionship empowering institutions to drain and obtain customers.
3.
Empower institutions to be childcare allies for families and the elderly
Scene expert Wu Sheng said: The product solves a problem, and the scene continues to solve the problem.
Making the institution a second scene for serving family parenting is the concept that Super Companion determined from the beginning of the design.
First To B and then To C, in order to make the super companion become a bridge between institutions and families, so that the institution becomes a scene of daily parenting, no longer being a "nail in the eye" of the elderly, but as an "ally", in the form of providing services, to accompany the early development of infants and young children together.
Super Companion Division began to promote and test on a small scale in 2019, and by the end of 2021, there are more than 200 cooperative institutions. Judging from the market feedback, we have locked five categories of application scenarios suitable for linking families through super companions, namely:
Kindergartens (pre-acquired), nursery schools, mother and baby shops, communities, obstetrics and gynecology and epidemic prevention stations.
With the scene in place, how does the Super Companion help these institutions to drain, acquire, and lock customers? I use the nursery as an example to show a complete solution.
Input and cost——
A companion division exhibition area corner, 10-20 square meters. The contents of the display are companion pack teaching aids box (1-3 years can be selected independently, 52 boxes in one year, 156 boxes in three years), player (for displaying growth videos), growth file cabinet (for storing each baby's independent growth manual).
1-2 companions.
Cost: The price of the product purchased in stages is 19800 yuan / step, and the total cost of the third order is 59400 yuan. Each level includes 52 weeks of teaching aids, 52 assessment cards, electronic version of baby growth files, the construction of mini programs in the public account, as well as teacher training, teaching videos, etc.
Drainage and customer acquisition——
First of all, with the growth assessment as a stepping stone, the childcare institution can enter the community in the form of "public welfare" or "fee" (such as 29.9 yuan twice), provide one-on-one growth assessment for infant and young child families in the community, establish a relationship with a family member through a small program (mostly mothers), and bind the child's growth information (such as age, gender, etc.).
After that, tracking is done on a weekly basis to communicate with parents about the baby's development. Parents can be invited to take their babies to the nursery, give professional guidance and advice, and interact with the game. Through the professional system of all ages and weeks, parents are provided with a visual, quantifiable and fulfilling educational experience, so that parents can see the changes and growth of their children.
In this process, if parents want to get further consultation and services, they can purchase 4980 yuan / year of early education members through the institution, get a weekly escort package sent home, and exclusive guidance and services that all family members can participate in.
Through this continuous strong relationship binding, high-frequency growth interaction and companionship, the nursery school becomes a growing scene familiar to parents and children, and wins the trust of family members. The nursery school can use the method of partial deduction of the membership fee to deduct the childcare tuition fee and lock the childcare seat in advance.
In this way, a closed loop of drainage, customer acquisition, and locking is formed.
I must explain that the super companion is not a product that can make institutional enrollment immediate, it requires institutions to spend a certain amount of time to link with families, so that parents can see the changes in their children's growth, in order to establish a solid relationship of trust.
If the pattern is opened up a little more, when the institution uses the super companion to link the family, do not just think about how to recruit 50 child supports in the kindergarten, but to help the 500 infant and child families in the community that need to accompany and navigate, so that it is to use long-term thinking to operate childcare, to solve not only the "small" problem of the childcare, but also to promote the "big" things that promote the popularization and promotion of the early development concept of infants and young children at the social level.
This is in response to the old saying that we often talk about: the most important thing to do, not the most urgent thing to do.
Finally, talking about our three-year plan for the product of Super Companion, we will focus on the layout of childcare institutions and maternal and infant institutions from 2022 as a starting point, hoping to reach 10% of infant and young child families through cooperative institutions after three years.
Finally, I would like to discuss with you a question that has been thrown up in the previous article:
Is the childcare institution limited to operating 50 nursery positions or is it focused on operating 500 infant and young child families?
We welcome your views in the comments section and discuss the development of childcare.