Juan Carlos Elizalde is Co-founder and CEO of LightEd Play, an Ed Tech startup based in Mexico City.
LightEd Play keeps the mind active and makes learning a fun experience through Artificial Intelligence and Gamification. Its lighthouse product, Zoombers, is an app for children in elementary and middle school which changes emotions towards mathematics into positive and happy moments and also fosters the development of STEM competencies and 21st-century skills. Zoombers is helping thousands of students at schools across Mexico, Latin America, USA, and Spain. LightEd Play has received multiple international awards and recently established a legal entity in the USA as part of its international expansion strategy.
Juan Carlos is originally from Mexico City. He is a software engineer and right after graduating from university he started his first company, BitWorks, a software development firm. Juan Carlos founded BitWorks together with two of his university classmates, Luis Eduardo Barragán and Arturo Cortés. They later created their first product, Mi Auxiliar Contable or MAC for short, an accounting system. Soon after they launched Illumina, which then became Zoombers and expanded the team with three additional co-founders, including María Fernanda Torres, Ivan Pérez, and Juan Carlos’ sister, Pamela Elizalde. Juan Carlos is currently focused on scaling LightEd Play, although Bitworks and MAC continue running in parallel.

Content:
03:20 Juan Carlos’ passion for education and the challenges he realized in math learning
06:40 How he and his initial co-founders started in college building a solution combining fun and learning
08:20 Their entrepreneurial journey after college graduation: a software development company, an accounting product, an educational product
10:40 Why he, as a software engineer, decided to start a software development company right after college
13:40 How they built services and products, their pivots, and how they combined them to stay in business
16:45 The milestones leading to LightEd Play: Ilumina, European investors, Zoombers
17:55 The evolution of the software development company and accounting product
20:00 How he managed to build a portfolio of services and product companies with software development at the core
26:00 His impact in education beyond business
27:30 Juan Carlos’ advise to think international from the beginning

Learn more:
Juan Carlos in LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-carlos-elizalde-moreno-37063b9/
LightEd Play in LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zoombers/
LightEd Play website: https://lightedplay.com/
Episode page: https://www.mexpreneurs.com/podcast-lightedplay
Our supporter for this episode: https://www.partnershipleaders.com/