Didacte is now positioned as an LMS designed for continuous training in companies.
However, this was not the project’s initial idea, which mainly targeted the sale of online courses!
Why did we decide to integrate into the world of human resources? How did that influence the company?
Mathieu and Marie-Hélène share their opinion and experience with us concerning the HR technology market!
Mathieu Dumont is President and shareholder at Didacte. He is a fan of proper team management and good entrepreneurial practices. He is convinced that human resources are essential in the organizational development of SMBs.
Marie-Hélène Couette is Digital Strategist and marketing manager at Didacte. She is also very passionate about entrepreneurship and human development. She creates all the educational content for our clients, both for HR and for training sales.
Where did the idea come from to offer Didacte as a technological solution for in-house training?
(Mathieu) For the love of SMBs, first and foremost.
In a very biased and personal way, I come from Beauce, the kingdom of small business and resourcefulness. It is, therefore, the common thread in all my entrepreneurial projects to help SMBs.
Fortunately, the rest of the team shares this small business love, and it shows in ours. We aim to remain small, united, efficient.
In its early days, Didacte mainly targeted the market for the sale of online courses. It's a massive market with a lot of potential, but it's challenging to qualify customers and stand out from the competition.
However, we wanted to diversify our income by seeking a market with less competition and where customer relations are at the center of business strategy. This is how we started to take an interest in human resources and in-house training.
We take great pride in the impact we try to have on our customers. Although we also pride our clients who sell courses, we are less exposed to their growth and successes.
As for SMBs, we are continually in contact and have conversations with our clients to inspire them with good management practices, so we see them grow and stay with us for a longer time, knowing that we have contributed to their success.
Too often, SMBs have the needs of large companies without having the means to equip themselves with the right tools and systems. This is where we come into play by doing everything in our power to remain the most affordable and functional solution to support the training and knowledge transfer needs of these companies.
How has the penetration of this market influenced business decisions?
(Mathieu) Obviously, if you try to please everyone, you don't please anyone. Thus, in recent years, we have had to make decisions to clarify the profile of the companies we help and those we agree to let go of.
We now prioritize projects with a long-term vision, which is often the case with SMBs that invest in the training of their employees.
Therefore, we have assumed that our positioning in the market is to be the easiest platform to use. On paper, the platform makes it possible to do less than the others, and we are proud of it. What we do, however, we do better.
In recent years, we have devoted more time to developing features that benefit companies aiming to train employees with ease, without the need for an HR department and a lot of resources.
If at the very least, we help protect HR's mental space and allow them to reduce the clerical load of their work, we are sure this decision is worth the effort.
(Marie-Hélène) I am under the impression that this also was a turning point for us as a team. Surrounding ourselves with companies that value developing their talents motivates and inspires us to do the same.
And rather than following the wave, we decided to become the wave!
In recent years, Didacte has positioned itself more and more as an employer of choice and business decisions made internally have been greatly influenced by this. Our corporate culture is stronger than ever, and that makes sense considering that we are constantly exposed to good (and not so good) HR practices.
For marketing, what are the challenges of adding a second target audience?
(Marie-Hélène) The first thing they tell you in marketing is to know your ideal client.
The problem when you develop multiple markets is that you end up with lots of personas. And trying to talk to everyone is like not talking to anyone!
Obviously, positioning Didacte on two fronts requires a lot of thought, strategy and sacrifices. You can't always please everyone, and it's better to accept that than to make yourself sick with it.
When we create new content, we always ask ourselves the question: who is it for?
Suppose we talk about a common issue to all of our clients; the task becomes more manageable. But as soon as we target a more niche problem, we go all-in by identifying the target audience. It clarifies the message, prevents others from wasting their time, and facilitates creation.
Everyone wins in the end!
However, sometimes it also increases the amount of work to be done. For example, I often divide my subscribers between our HR clients and everyone else in our newsletters. I will therefore modify the text according to the audience I am addressing or completely talk about another subject if it’s not relevant.
It's a bit like doing marketing for two companies that share a single brand! It brings its share of challenges, but it allows us to create diverse content, which I find very motivating.
How do you stay competitive in the HR technology market?
(Mathieu) By doing our part. And for us, that means not limiting ourselves to developing a tool that helps human resources daily.
Didacte, the platform, is an excuse to continuously positively influence healthy work environments, good management practices, intelligent and sustainable growth of a company, improve the quality of professional and personal life of employees, etc.
Rather than continually looking for “the next big feature,” we question ourselves more about getting people to take action and better use the essential features that correspond to 80% of every business’s expected needs.
Being competitive means everything and nothing if you don't specify in front of who or what. For us, we aim to be as competitive as possible for companies looking for their first actual LMS.
And we are.
We know that we are not competitive with the big players of this world who are targeting the vast company which is looking for a 4th system, but that does not prevent us from having a positive impact on a wide range of companies, small and large, which are in their first project.
So we create a lot of content to inspire people to take action and reduce the unknown, which is scary and causes inaction too often.
What would you like to improve in the positioning of Didacte as an HR solution?
(Marie-Hélène) We still have work to do in terms of notoriety; no brand escapes it. My personal goal would be for Didacte to be the first name that comes to mind when we talk about LMS or online training - at least in the French-speaking world.
What makes the task complex for us is that we are responding to a need that is still latent. It's hard to advertise a service to businesses that don't think they have a problem!
So you have to invest time to educate, sell the benefits of using an LMS, explain why training is necessary. It will eventually pay off, but until then, it's a steady job that requires a lot of effort!
One element that we have in our sights is to improve the integration of Didacte into the HR ecosystem. We would like it to be natural to choose Didacte for internal training management and have an app integrated with other HR systems.
Our goal is always to make it easier, more accessible and, above all, more enjoyable for everyone!
Check out the other articles in this series in the Team section of the blog.
