New Delhi (India), May 27: The annual global spending on Toys is approximately $141 Billion, according to the 2021 Fortune Business Insight Report. According to Forbes, 2019, new MoMs parenting spend is $46 Billion Globally.
By any estimate, parenting spending is significant. Given the size of the market and its expected accelerated growth, it’s not surprising that one company, UpTodd, is growing rapidly to meet that market demand. What may be more surprising is the firm’s origin is from Research-backed methodologies with contributions from top global experts from IITs, AIIMS, MIT(US) etc.
Of its founding ideals and principles, UpTodd co-founder and CPO Richa Singh said, “I was fortunate to be a member of a fantastic group of experts, specialists, and professionals from prestigious universities that worked together to create this platform. Multiple firms currently serve in developed economies such as the United States and the United Kingdom, but the Indian market has yet to find the perfect parenting platform with dependable and affordable toys. We were convinced in India that if we truly wish to move to every home and deliver powerful right brain stimulation and parenting to every newborn and child, we needed to do it for less than INR 1k per month, given India’s limited spending power. Fortunately, we were able to create a solid structure that included cards, parenting, and other topics and allowed us to give high-quality wooden toys & other materials, with one-on-one support at the same price.”
The mission for the fledgling company at the outset was to make high-quality parenting & toys accessible and affordable. In 2019, Richa and her team started this set-up by building their vision to provide pocket-sized learning. Whatsapp groups for new parents. But it wasn’t until December 2020 when they switched to online accessible learning and formally launched the UpTodd online version with a personalised approach which started to fly to Indian homes.
By focusing on what Richa refers to as “Personalised Parenting with developmental toys” rather than the familiar toy and parenting resources available on the internet, UpTodd provided a more intimate and personalised experience, aligned to years of research studies to spark neural stimulation in the baby.
The company positions itself as being committed to providing a one-stop personalised solution with developmental toys and taking of child’s growth and provides the program with more extensive durations to ensure the entire developmental phase of the child is covered. Its state-of-the-art technology, research, innovations, and top experts, mentors, and coaches have reached more than 150,000 parents across more than 20 countries.
How did Richa and Team create such a robust research-backed system with a global pool? It took time and persistence. They started with research on child development. The entire team comes from top Indian and Global institutes, so we can fetch researchers and experts to help globally develop a system in a value and cost-effective manner.
“My co-founders had strong mentors and networks in MIT, Stanford, IIT Kharagpur, AIIMS, and other places that helped us, and I, coming from IIT BHU, also assisted as a team to get guidance from not only top Indian minds but also top global brains. The analysis required years of research since we didn’t want to construct a basic structure based on a concept because there were existing problems in the market, so we took our time and came up with well-structured solutions because we wanted to give a framework that was sustainable, affordable and scalable,” says Singh.
“Early 2020, we suddenly realised that we were a small little shop working out of India with some people in the U.S., and we could build a global business. But we had to invest in the technology. We had to hire people in different regions for the strong research-backed system to prove every touchpoint fully. We had to build the content and materials, which required upfront investment. And so, we started to grow a little slower and invest more in work that can produce better outcomes for babies and parents joining our platform. Initially, 5% of parents who joined us began to have unrealistic expectations regarding the support we provided, which was not required. Still, their busy schedules began to be transferred to us to remind them of basic things already being served in the APP, which led us to build an automation engine. We also began to list every detail on the website with a vast list of FAQs for complete transparency and set appropriate expectations. It contributed to a whopping 98% satisfaction rate,” concludes Singh.