Lets break the taboo around sex education with ‘Coitopedia’
Sonali Gupta is the founder of Coitopedia. Coitopedia is an Ed-Tech social enterprise startup focusing on sex education and sexual wellness and health. It is a team of management professionals, engineers, doctors, and passionate individuals driven to change the state of sex education and wellness using technology. Sonali was in conversation with Susparsha Gaikwad, Assistant Editor at incubees.com.
Sonali: Our solution includes four major offerings:
- “Comprehensive Sex Education Program” for schools
- “Gender Neutrality & Anti Harassment Program” for colleges
- “Sexual Health Platform & Wellness Products”
INCUBEES: What makes your product/services unique and what competition do you see in India and globally?
Sonali: Competition in India – Nil/Limited: Mostly driven by regional/local NGOs. No established players in the market yet.
Competition outside India – Growing competition: Driven by major players in US/European markets which are trying to consolidate international markets. No presence in India yet.
Our competitive advantage to gain significant market share in India:
- One-Stop Solution – Leaders in the “Sexual Education, Health and Wellness” industry
- 1st mover advantage in India – early gains in market share to become industry leaders in India
- Gamification based content – comics, animated videos
- Machine Learning (NLP) driven recommendation engine – query solutions & therapy options
- D2C (Direct to consumer) – Access to doctors, therapists, experts, and trained facilitators
INCUBEES: Tell us about your team and what inspires them?
Sonali: We are a group of 3 co-founders from ISB, IMI, and are passionate about bringing a change. We also have an extended team of designers, bloggers, animators, medical experts. The following goals inspire us:
- Reduce # of rape cases, child abuse cases, eve-teasing cases.
- Increase awareness on menstruation, puberty, positive body image.
- Promote gender equality and gender neutrality to encourage equal opportunities for all genders and reduce cases of workplace harassment.
- Reduce stigma around “Sex Education” and make it a dinner-table conversation topic to promote the importance of sexual health and wellness.
INCUBEES: Where do you see your product/service reaching in the next five-years?
INCUBEES: Do you have plans to raise funding to grow your business or allow your business to organically grow?
Sonali: We do plan to raise funds in the next 6-9 months to scale faster. We would especially like to build our technology stack to reach out to more at-risk pre-teens and teenagers.
Sonali: Different challenges include:
- Build Credibility – Especially when as we try to onboard Schools, Colleges. An advisory board with a distinguished panel of members will help us build trust with our B2B customers.
- The network of domain experts – As we plan to scale our POC and build multiple products, we would require guidance from domain experts and industry leaders to improve our skill-sets and create holistic solutions.
- Access to talent – It is a major challenge to onboard/hire specialized talent especially doctors, therapists, and animators/designers.
