Flashka, the AI that helps you study

Making the studying experience more interactive and effective through artificial intelligence: this is the mission of Flashka, a startup founded in 2023 in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, by Bocconi and Politecnico students. “We started the company because in our student life we felt we needed a tool that would make oue study experience more efficient and thought of using artificial intelligence for this purpose,” says Flashka's CEO and co-founder, David Djokovic, a Bocconi alumnus of BIEM (Bachelor in International Economics and Management). “The university environment was very formative for me in terms of structure and ambition so as to have a mindset that aims high and is not easily satisfied. Bocconi’s international environment and approach was also very helpful”, Djokovic points out. 

On Flashka, students can upload books and study materials in pdf format and interact with them to obtain explanations, flashcards and quizzes, being followed from start to finish in their learning journey. So much so that the majority of its users feel more confident of their preparation after using it. The startup started with the simple idea of generating flashcards (digital cards that support memorization) out of pdfs, thus making a common but slow practice more efficient. Flashka has since evolved, identifying other problems encountered by students, either personally by co-founders or emerging from dialogue with student users. “Our platform follows the student from the understanding to the application of knowledge, by horizontally expanding the applications on the platform,’ Djokovic explains. 

The flashka.ai website is already in use in 56 countries and available in 20 languages. Today it has over 23,000 users, with a 30% month-on-month user growth, and this without any paid marketing activity. The platform has a freemium business model: membership is free up to a maximum of 50 interactions per day with artificial intelligence. Beyond that, one can buy a monthly subscription for $7.90 or an annual one for $48. The main challenge for Flashka was precisely understanding user behavior on the platform. “There are different students and study methods, so it was complex to understand who we were addressing. The type of user has an impact on product retention”, says Flashka's CEO.

The startup was supported by B4i, Bocconi University’s accelerator, which invested a standard €50,000 ticket into the budding company. “They gave us office space, offered workshops and legal advice with their lawyers. We worked in their space and did checkpoints every two weeks, to establish what kind of support we needed, as part of the 4-month acceleration path. Now they continue to support us in whatever we might need: consulting and the sharing of connections and opportunities”, Djokovic concludes.