Making it all add up: Polymath co-founder Sophie Silver on the power of play

It's time to retire the idea of just 'not being a math person'.

With modern educators seemingly stuck in a zero sum battle for attention with their students’ screen, edtech startups like Polymath are instead harnessing the power of modern mediums to teach ancient lessons.

Polymath, founded by Christian and Sophie Silver, combines gaming mechanics like those found in Roblox or Minecraft with adaptive math lessons to make the experience of math immersive, enjoyable and effective.

Polymath recently $1 million pre-seed funding round with some major names attached, co-led by Blackbird and GD1 which will fuel its next stage of growth.

Caffeine caught up with Sophie recently Polymath and started with the obvious question.

When was the lightbulb moment for Polymath, if there was one?

I was studying at the time and one of the things I was studying was psychology, specifically kind of human learning and memory and developmental psychology. But I was also a part-time nanny which was an awesome gig to have. But what I noticed kind of rushing from lectures to the school gate is that the way that we teach kids doesn't really line up with the way that their brain works.

And I started noticing these holes in the education system I've been really passionate about. And it's also something that my co-founder and partner has always been really passionate about. So I kind of started complaining to him, as you do - right?

This is so frustrating that these kids and these kids were really struggling with maths. They found it really miserable. I got asked to do their homework for them. I was like, "No, we're going to get through this." But I would go home and complain. And my co-founder Christian was like, "This is really frustrating. You have so much research and it doesn't align. Surely we can make an algorithm for this." And we were like, "Yeah, let's make an algorithm." We built an algorithm that includes some kind of space repetition and a bit of recency and primacy biases and things like that.

And how did you go from algorithm to edtech business?

We were like, wait, you can't put an algorithm in front of a child! And that's actually not the key problem here or the only problem here. We started kind of delving into mathematics around the world, noticing how it's been dropping since literally the year 2000. And there's a massive issue here. And it's not just the way that we teach. There's kind of like a branding issue with maths that has a really bad rep. And we were like, "Okay, so what are we going to do? How do we bypass all this kind of hatred of maths? How do we get kids motivated to actually actually do it and start practicing?"

Because what we found is when we gamify it in person, when we tutor kids and we bring personality and fun, they actually can do the maths. It's not that kids don't have a math brain. They absolutely do. and so we were like, right, we need to gamify it. We need to make it fun and we need to use tech to make it fun so that we can scale it and give it to lots of kids. And so I finished up with uni and I got a job in the corporate world and Christian was working and co started to kind of spend a bit more time at home and a bit more time on this and it kind of rolled on from there and we ended up leaving the UK. We were in the UK at the time we left during co and came back to New Zealand and we're like let's give this a proper go. Let's come home and really have a crack at it.

How did you approach the gamification aspect, what was the inspiration?

You'll notice with Polymath, it looks very similar to other games that kids might already know. It's very friendly and approachable. And after that, it's not very hard. if they've got kind of an avatar and they can run around, they're kind of hooked and they'll start to answer math problems and they'll interact. To be honest, even if we just put flashcards in front of them and they looked kind of fun and had animations, they'll do it. But one thing that we really care about is intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. So, we don't want a kind of a carrot and stick situation where you do your math and then you get a reward.

We want kids to kind of experience a world where by doing the math they're achieving goals. And so that's not something that's fully finished in Polymath yet, but it's what we're working on. And so if you play, what you'll notice is there's a couple of game features that are like that. So for example, we have an unreliable shopkeeper. And so she's unreliable both ways, by the way. A kid pointed this out the other day. He was like, "I found a hack. Sometimes she gets the maths wrong the right way and you get a discount. so you should watch out for that. But that's kind of the essence like we want kids to pick up on. This shopkeeper doesn't always get the maths so you need to make sure that you're doing the maths yourself to make sure that you can correct her and get the right deal. And so it's about making sure there's that alignment and purpose there. And we think that's the most important thing with maths and kids.

It's not just about making it fun and giving them rewards but actually making the maths kind of meaningful and purposeful for children. And in our context, it's a game world where they can run around and build and buy things and that sort of stuff.

Could you talk a little bit about the business side of it as well? So you've closed out the pre-seed. You've got some really interesting names on there. What does the next step of growth look like?

It was a really exciting milestone for us to raise. So the pre seed was led by Blackbird and GD1, both kinds of exceptional VCs based here in New Zealand. and so the exciting thing is what we've already validated is that kids are enjoying practicing math with Polymath. That was kind of the first step. We raised it. were like, "Okay, we've got this time to make sure that we can build something that kids love, an educational experience that kids want to do, because The whole point is that the kids find enjoyment." and one of our markers for this is engagement. And so, a stat that I find really kind of shocking is that at age 10 kids are spending four to five hours a day on screens. but six of those minutes are used on educational apps on average…which is kind of gutting.

Polymath's average screen time is 30 minutes which means that kids are kind of voluntarily spending time because it's really hard to get kids to spend 30 minutes on a math worksheet if they don't want to do it. So, really the first step for us after raising our seed was making sure that engagement was really valuable and that kids were genuinely enjoying it and now we're really on a mission to make Polymath a household name.

So, to reach as many children as possible. Polymath is free for kids, it's free at school, and it's free at home. And our goal right now is just making that accessible. And so it's working with schools, it's talking to teachers, and it's talking to parents and getting their feedback and working with them to make Polymath a really great experience for everyone involved basically.

It seems like math is not the only thing you could teach using this format - could you see this style of education rolled out across the syllabus?

We have so much work to do in the math space. We're still kind of incredibly focused on that right but STEM is a very easy application from there. So yeah, we're very excited to see what the future holds.