PIC CAPTIONS: The 2020 covid pandemic inspired Yello App co-founder and CEO Stéphane Mancabo and his two co-founders to launch Yello App as a solution to to bridge the educational gaps the pandemic highlighted and bring virtual learning to students wherever they are. Image: Supplied / Yello App.
Gone are the days when learning was restricted to the four walls of a classroom or university lectern hall as online learning has levelled the playing field for many, making access to education easy. Yello App, a Senegalese audio-based learning app is riding the crest of the wave with its unique service offering to students. AfricArena’s Jabulile Sonya Ngwenya chats with Yello App co-founder and CEO Stéphane Mancabo about his startup’s success story and how they are making a difference.
This shift from physical learning classrooms to virtual classrooms is evident across the African continent as the continent’s mobile internet user penetration numbers continue to climb, and people look for alternative ways to get or continue their education. Yello App is both a solution and a community dedicated to bridging educational gaps and inspiring growth. Mancabo tells AfricArena that “Yello offers a personalized learning experience with two main modes: a free learning mode where students can explore courses at their own pace, and a guided learning mode that breaks lessons into smaller parts with explanations and exercises, ensuring step-by-step progress. Students are motivated through a points system that rewards each completed step. The platform also acts as a bridge between content creators and learners, allowing for direct interaction and a more engaging learning experience.”
The leap toward digital education has, however, highlighted some of the challenges some learners experience in accessing educational platforms due to being in rural areas where resources such as electricity isn’t always readily available. Some of these challenges were identified during the 2020 pandemic. Mancabo and his two co-founders, Mohamed Aly Sidibé who is the Chief Product Officer and Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Yello App’s Chief Technology Officer had a front row seat to witness the visceral impact of the pandemic on different groups of people and they saw the gaps within the educational landscape and knew they needed to do something about it.
Two years later, after the pandemic, in 2022, the trio founded and launched Yello App, which Mancabo says, “was inspired by the desire to bridge the educational gap for students, especially those in underserved areas, who often face significant barriers to accessing quality learning resources. The idea came from witnessing the struggles of many students who lacked reliable and accessible educational support, particularly outside the classroom.”
Mancabo says during the pandemic, “we had a unique perspective on the evolving needs of education. The pandemic highlighted the importance of accessible, remote learning solutions, especially in underserved regions where traditional education was severely disrupted. This context motivated us to build a platform that could fill these gaps, ensuring students could continue learning even without direct access to schools.”
Their endeavour was not easy at first - “it was challenging to meet the increased demand for digital solutions, but it also opened up significant opportunities to innovate and reach students in ways that were previously underutilized. We embraced these challenges, using the lessons learned during the covid pandemic to shape a more resilient and impactful product.”
Mancabo says his team knew there was a need for their product within the market soon after launch. “Our moment of truth came when we surpassed our goal of attracting 1,000 users and exceeded over 2,000 users in the first month alone after launch. By the end of those first three months, we had exceeded 13,000 users, which was far more than we had anticipated. This overwhelming early response confirmed that there was a significant demand for accessible educational content. It validated our belief that students were craving a new, more flexible way to learn.”
Following up on this success, Mancabo shares that their most recent business achievements include “growing our user base to over 40,000 monthly active users and securing strategic partnerships that enhance our impact. Notably, we have partnered with the Mastercard Foundation, which supports our mission to make education more accessible across Africa. We have also established a collaboration with the Senegalese Ministry of Education, allowing us to align our content with the national curriculum and reach more students in need.”
Yello App is a product its co-founders and community can be proud of as it is a solution that “uses the power of audio and mobile technology to bring learning directly to students-making it easier, more engaging, and available anytime, anywhere,” Mancabo says. “Our aim is to transform education in Africa, starting with the power of knowledge at students' fingertips.” This is a noteworthy goal as Africa’s fast-growing e-learning market currently has a market value of just over $3.1 billion, and is expected to reach a $7.2 billion market value by 2032.
What makes Yello App’s growth remarkable is that they started with $200 in funding which was spent on server costs and a MVP which was driven by the team’s unique, combined skill set. “As the producer, I created all the educational content, while my two co-founders built the platform entirely themselves,” Mancabo says. “We didn't have a budget for advertising at the start, so we relied on word of mouth and the quality of our product to attract users. It was a lean, resourceful journey, fuelled by our passion to make education more accessible.”
The founding team’s dedication and hard work paid off when they pitched their innovative solution to investors at this year’s AfricArena Tunis Deep Tech & AI Summit and won the Best Agnostic Sector Startup Award. “Winning the AfricArena Startup Award in our pitch category this year has had a notable impact on Yello. The exposure and communication surrounding the win amplified our visibility, and we immediately noticed the effect when we returned home. Since then, we’ve had more meetings and interest from potential partners and stakeholders who see the value in what we're building. The award not only validated our work but also opened doors for collaboration and new opportunities that are helping us grow faster than before.”
Passion is one of the driving forces behind this startup’s success. Describing this passion, Mancabo shares with AfricArena that the passion for what he does comes from understanding that he has a responsibility to ensure that his actions influence people around him for good. This is something his mother instilled in him as a child. “Education has been a constant thread in my life; I have always been drawn to initiatives that uplift and empower,” he says. However, Yello App hit different with him because he says he feels he has “a responsibility to an entire generation of young students who are often left behind. I see their struggles, their desire to learn despite the odds, and I remember myself at that age, wanting to do more, to be more. Yello is more than a product-it's my way of honouring the lessons my mother taught me, of giving back, and of making a real, lasting impact on young people across Africa. It's about holding a light in the darkness for those who need it most, about giving hope where it feels like there is none.”
Operating Yello App within a funding winter landscape has been an interesting journey, he says, because as a social impact project, “we recognized early on that we, had unique opportunities to secure grants rather than relying solely on traditional venture capital. Given our mission to make education accessible in underserved areas, we focused our fundraising strategy on grants that aligned with our values and the social good we were aiming to achieve.”
This strategy, Mancabo says, enabled Yellow App to continue to thrive by carefully targeting organizations and foundations that shared our vision for education. “This approach helped us secure critical funding to develop our platform and expand our reach. By positioning ourselves as an impactful social initiative, we managed to attract support even in challenging times when investor appetite for high-risk ventures was low. Our focus on meaningful partnerships over pure financial returns kept us resilient and able to flourish when many other startups struggled.”
In addition to navigating the funding landscape, one of the team’s biggest challenges, Mancabo recalls, was “dealing with the resistance from traditional teachers and education stakeholders towards adopting new technologies. These educators are often the first point of contact for students, making their involvement crucial to the success of Yello. However, many of them are wary of digital transformation and reluctant to shift away from conventional methods.”
To counteract this resistance, Mancabo’s team invested heavily in relationship building exercises by creating awareness and rolling out training through hosting workshops and seminars on AI and digital learning tools to demystify the technology and showcase its benefits. This mission bore fruit, turning some teachers into Yello App advocates.
No two days are ever the same for Mancabo in the dynamic, evolving digital education landscape. But the mission is the same, Mancabo points out - “it is our mission to make education accessible for everyone and this keeps me energized and motivated every day.”
“The largest amount of funds we have raised is $75,000 from the Mastercard Foundation,” Mancabo shares. These funds will enable Yello App to build a stronger foundation, hire new team members to further grow the platform, secure office space for team productivity, and invest in advertising to reach more students and increase impact and reach. “This funding is crucial for taking Yello to the next level and scaling our vision,” Mancabo says with a smile. But that’s not the end of this startup’s capital raising journey.
The team aims to raise $1 million this year to expand Yello App’s impact out of Senegal into Benin and Ivory Coast. “These funds will allow us to continue scaling our platform and adapt our solutions for students who face barriers to accessing Yello, such as lack of internet, electricity, or a compatible device. Part of the funding will go towards developing extensions of Yello that can reach students who are unable to use the app.”
There is no stopping this team as they’ve found their stride and momentum, and are determined to forge ahead into new territories and in Mancabo’s words, “ensure that quality education can reach even those who are the most disconnected, extending Yello's mission beyond the digital frontier.” This bold e-learning startup has great plans for the future with an expansion roadmap ahead that will see them roll out new content to include grades 10 and 11, enhance their course player service offering, introduce personalized learning and provide customized student support, revamp the front end and back end of their website, and launch new products to make it accessible to both students and families.
“The best advice a mentor ever gave me was simple but transformative: focus on your customer,” shares Mancabo. “At first, it sounded almost too straightforward, but over time I realized the depth of its importance. Every decision we make at Yello, from the features we develop to how we prioritize our resources, comes back to this principle. It's easy to get lost in big visions, new technologies, or complex growth strategies, but our mentor's advice serves as a reminder that the heart of our product is our users-the students. Understanding their needs, listening to their feedback, and ensuring that every aspect of Yello is designed to improve their experience is what makes our solution truly impactful. Keeping the customer at the centre has been the compass guiding us through all the challenges we've faced.”
The biggest challenge e-learning startups face, Mancabo says, is to know who their customer is and create a sustainable business model. To navigate this, he advises e-learning startups to “engage in benchmarking exercises to find out how startups are doing in different parts of the world, and to think constantly about these two fundamental questions,” This exercise, he says, “will help you find your niche and win.”
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