Grinds 360 on a mission to democratise education

Podcast Ep 236: Grinds 360, a fast-growing AI-powered edtech business backed by some of Ireland’s top rugby players, is intent on making grinds available to all students who require them.

Founded by experienced secondary school grinds teacher Ronan Murdock and serial entrepreneur Brendan Kavanagh, Grinds 360 was born out of a desire to address gaps in the traditional grinds system and transform the current education landscape.

In August the platform secured €3.2m in funding from a constellation of investors that include rugby stars Brian O’Driscoll, Caelan Doris, Jordan Larmour, Sean Cunningham from Brass Monkey New York, Shane Glynn of Lexas Technologies, Stephen Langan, and Kilkenny hurler Walter Walsh.

Combining Ireland’s best teachers with cutting-edge AI technology and an innovative hybrid model, Grinds 360 looks to democratise grind education, ensuring access to students not restricted by geography or finances.

The platform provides personalised, high-quality education with affordable pricing options, making exceptional grinds accessible nationwide.

Hey teachers! Give those kids some grinds

Murdock spoke with the ThinkBusiness Podcast about Grinds 360’s innovative approach to education and how the business was born out of a desire to address gaps in the traditional grinds system and transform the current education landscape.

“The area where execute really well, is we’re able to gather up the top level teachers from all over Ireland and get them all onto the same platform. And that has driven a lot of students onto the platform. We have excellent tech behind us as well, such as animations that we’ve built in, to help with teaching subjects like maths and physics that are that are excellent. We are getting great feedback from the students.

“We have a phenomenal method of educating students on our platform, and phenomenal teachers.”

Murdock has been working in the grinds industry for up to 15 years. “One thing that’s always struck me is that when you signed up for grinds it always cost up to €1,000. Not only that but if you signed up in January you’ve missed grinds from the start of the [education] year and you only really get half the course. These are the issues that students had.

“So we’re developing a platform where students can get all of their lessons on-demand and at the same time they’ve got grinds once a week with the teachers and can chat with them and get advice from them.

“It’s a platform for Leaving Cert students that gives them everything they need to excel in their exams.”

The genesis of the idea for Grinds 360 came from how Murdock himself worked as a grinds teacher. “I found a varied way of teaching online and a good delivery method. I didn’t plan on putting it all up on YouTube and then selling books. I spoke with Brendan Kavanagh and he showed me various animations and we just clicked very quickly because he was also looking at the market.

“He suggested we could develop this across all subjects and come in with a cheaper price than students are being currently charged. We took the idea to investors and from there the investment just flew in for us and a lot of teachers were jumping in as well.

“Recruiting the teachers was easy enough because they liked the platform and saw the great technology behind it. It’s strange, I never thought it would be this big, but it all kind of merged together at the same time, like a perfect storm!”

The key, he explained, is Grinds 360 is a platform for teachers built by teacher. “We were all driven by the motivation to make it a more affordable way for students to access grinds.”

Another factor is the students’ parents who obviously saw the traditional cost of paying for grinds prohibitive. Crucially the feedback from students and parents has been strong. “They are surprised how much is on offer for students. Word of mouth has been a key factor as we’d see spikes in new students from places like Cork and Skibbereen.”

Going from the career of teacher to that of an entrepreneur wasn’t something that Murdock had planned on. “There is quite a big workload involved in teaching grinds and what I had originally envisaged was a way of making the workload a bit more manageable. But then I met Brendan and he’s quite a driven business partner and suddenly it escalated. Suddenly we had more than 15 teachers signed onto the platform and it went from there.”

The partnership works because Kavanagh focuses on the business aspect of Grinds360 while Murdock is free to focus on working with teachers and developing the content.

“There is of course crossover but it wasn’t like I had to pitch Dragon’s Den in front of investors. A lot of it was quite straightforward. The teachers saw the product and liked where we were going and the investors came on board from that too. We actually raised our funding in nine working days.”