First Look: quester
Organising the world's information for Gen Z
Company: quester.io
Deck: Here
Raising: £2m
Team: Saul, Wojciech, Shuowang & Chung
TLDR/L -
quester allows for the easy indexing and curation of content by communities. They describe themselves as a database of databases.
So far, there has been strong traction: 18k MAU, 50% MoM growth, and 40% two-month retention.
The co-founders met at university and through their first EdTech startup, Doxa.
GTM is focused on building and fostering communities with monetisation as a key priority over the next six months.
Their mission is to create a new standard for search, driven by the community and supported by AI.
Previously raised £240k from Twinkl Hive, CVC arm of the Twinkl publishing firm, as well as an assortment of angels from Ventures Together, including cofounders of Memrise, Onfido, Crowdcube & Let’s Do This.
Full recording available on the Podcast section 👀
Team
Where did you guys meet, and why did you decide to start working on quester? 🏃♂️🔨
Saul, CEO
I met Wojciech in 2014 at university. We had similar education experiences and co-founded the largest registered society at the university. I tutored after uni and realised I enjoyed watching how information was transferred from one community to another. I reconnected with Wojciech and co-founded a company called Doxa before founding quester together.
Wojciech, CGO
I came to the UK as a child and didn't speak English at the time. I went to schools that were not known for academic performance, and that encouraged me to do a lot of self-learning/teaching through internet forums like Reddit. This instilled in me an appreciation of the internet as a vast bank of information and a degree of scepticism about how information is conveyed, organised, and made accessible to those who are not experts in a field.
I went on to study at Oxford. After university, I worked as a tutor while pursuing a master's degree at LSE. Meanwhile, I co-founded Doxa with Saul, which provided mentoring and built curriculums using free online content. Through this, I realised that current systems could be more efficient, appealing and fitting for students in the 21st century, and we wanted to create something more dynamic and engaging. This led to the evolution of quester.
Shuowang, CPO
I met Wojciech and Saul in the summer of 2020 while working as a tutor for Doxa. They approached me about my future aspirations, and I shared that I was interested in starting my own tech company, particularly in the field of education. They suggested I join their team, so I did. Initially, I had a diverse role but eventually settled as a Product Manager. What attracted me to work on quester is that the end goal aligns with my vision of making an impact using technology.
Motivation, Vision & Value Proposition
What is quester and what are you trying to achieve? ✨
We're trying to organise the world's information for Gen Z.
We've seen many massive online communities build their own equivalents of Google and search engines using other systems like Notion and Airtable. They're good, but they're fragmented, and they need to be better optimised for the purpose of search.
We want to create the perfect place for these communities to collaboratively curate content they care about so every community can easily access their own search engine.
What is your GTM strategy? 💪
Wojciech: Our GTM strategy is all about building and fostering communities. Our approach is to identify communities with evidence of communal curation and convince content leaders within those communities to shift over to quester and take their audience with them.
Over time, this creates loops by which more and more members of the community shift into the consumption of that content as well. We plan to apply this approach to communities where we see evidence of communal sharing on other platforms.
What is your monetisation strategy? 💸
Saul: Initially, we wanted to create a platform where anyone could access and share content for free, similar to how Reddit started. However, we realised that these communities put a lot of time and effort into curating the content, and it is only fair for them to be rewarded for the value they have created.
Monetisation has become one of our key focuses over the next six months. We want curation powered by membership, similar to Patreon, where you can subscribe to a community and reward them for the valuable content they have curated.
What has been the biggest challenge in building quester? 💪
Saul: Team. Finding the right people, especially a CTO, was difficult and took time and effort. I even had a deadline for when I would give up on finding the right person, but ultimately, Chung approached me about joining the team on deadline day! Without him and other key team members, we wouldn't be where we are today.
Wojciech: Budget. Everything we have done so far has been done at a fraction of what most other companies would spend. Despite this, we have built a strong product and have a growing presence on socials. We have been prudent with our money, which is a great lesson to carry forward, but it's time to double down on what we have.
Product
What are the key features of your current product? 👨💻
Shuowang: There are three main features of our product.
quests: powerful lists of resources that can be curated and published publicly for anyone to access.
communities/parties: spaces within our platform where users can set up and invite their friends, give them access roles to collaborate on quests together, add data points, vote and organise their resources to create an online social library of resources.
votable data points: tags that can be attached to any resources or content, allowing users to organise, add data, and structure resources in a useful and meaningful way.
What feedback have you received about quester? How do you incorporate feedback into product development? 👩💻
Shuowang: quester users are fearless in giving us their honest opinions. Through TikTok and Discord, users can provide direct feedback on what's working and what’s not.
I set up direct conversations with curators to get their feedback, which I then use to improve our product development. I write up all the feedback in Notion, tag every point made and rank them by priority. This helps to feed into our product roadmap and ensures that we're addressing the most pressing issues on users' minds.
Market
What is key to acquiring Gen Z as a user base? 🔑
Wojciech: Authenticity is key. The age of traditional advertising is ending, and younger users expect more creativity and effort in marketing. I don’t believe in relying on traditional ad-based methods.
We think deeply about our marketing. Where can you add value? What problems are you solving? And where can you add humour and creativity to make that message a lot more convincing and compelling?
What key trends are you are seeing in the market? 📈
Wojciech on Search: we believe search will go through a pretty fundamental change over the next couple of years. Google has struggled with more visual search forms, such as TikTok, where users can find content and learn things through videos. Community spaces, like Discord and Reddit, are also becoming more important as people go directly to their communities to seek advice from people who share the same interests.
Saul on AI: The traditional opinion here seems that as chatGPT and other AI/ML applications are built, people will use them to get all the answers they need. We think those applications will give you factual information, but the key to the next generation of search is AI plus community.
Fundraise
What are you looking to raise now, and what milestones are you hoping to achieve with this financing round? 💸
We are raising $2m. This is what we want to achieve in 18-24 months:
User metrics: maintain our growth rate and improve retention.
Monetisation: monetise before the next round.
Team: build out the development team.
Product: integrate AI/ML tools.
