Genially Helps 8 Million Users Create Memorable Content with Guidance from AWS EdStart

Genially is dedicated to helping people create memorable communication experiences. “Communication is an essential part of every day, whether you are a student, a teacher, or an employee. Good communication determines success, yet traditional forms of digital communication like PDFs and slide decks can be boring. We wanted to help people communicate in easier, more effective, and more creative ways,” explains Chema Roldán, founder and chief technology officer at Genially.

To achieve that goal, Genially developed an all-in-one online content creation tool that enables anyone to create interactive and animated presentations, images, infographics, and more. “Complex messages and concepts are better explained using visual elements and interactivity. When using visual elements, educators can engage students better and concepts are grasped on the fly, transforming what would normally be a tedious experience into a memorable one,” says Roldán. “We saw an opportunity to make a difference and create a tool that anybody with basic computer skills could use to make stunning presentations and materials and unleash their creativity.”

Genially’s primary audience is made up of educators and students, but the tool is also used by businesspeople, media companies, marketers, designers, and corporations. The company, based in Spain, offers thousands of templates and images that these users can customize with just a few clicks. Roldán says, “Even with no previous design knowledge, people can create professional-grade, interactive materials.”

Genially used a public cloud provider to manage its content, but soon ran into challenges scaling its solution. After testing several other services, Genially migrated to Amazon Web Services (AWS). “Making our product fast and scalable is very important for us, together with making our infrastructure costs competitive. AWS ended up being what we needed. The sum of many things—from top-notch documentation to having a technical team at our disposal—made AWS our first choice,” says Roldán.

The company relies on AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy and scale web applications and services, Amazon Route 53 to distribute its product across the world, and Amazon CloudFront to securely deliver images, data, and videos to customers. Roldán says, “We need to deploy new code and features quickly and securely without downtime, and AWS makes it very easy to do that.”

It also uses AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway to cost-effectively manage services that need to scale fast. “AWS has enabled us to solve problems that seemed impossible in the past. For example, some schools have poor internet connections, which require very low latency,” says Roldán. “AWS points of presence mean you can bring these services closer to your customers, and that makes those services work better. When you run your business on AWS, you get full control of what you are doing.”

Genially also turned to the AWS EdStart program for support and guidance. AWS EdStart helps entrepreneurs build the next generation of online learning, analytics, and campus management solutions in the AWS Cloud. “We started with AWS EdStart about five months ago and it is one of the best decisions we have ever made,” says Roldán. “The program supports us in everything we need. We always have a contact person that can help us solve any issues that come up. We are very happy to be part of the AWS EdStart program.”

He adds that a good example of how AWS EdStart enabled Genially’s success is that it showed the company how to migrate to Amazon CloudFront. “We had a team of engineers at our disposal and that saved us a lot of time and money. AWS EdStart has also helped us connect with organizations and potential partners in the education industry with whom we have great synergies, which brings a tremendous value to our relationship. AWS EdStart makes us feel that we are not alone in this amazing journey.”

Working with AWS enabled Genially to implement a solution that scales easily. The company now has more than eight million users and that number grows by about 30,000 per day. “AWS enabled us to develop a service focused on the product and not on the infrastructure. That’s very important for us because we don’t need to spend time on things that are not central to our activities,” Roldán says.

The company was also able to keep infrastructure costs low. “We decreased our costs by 50 percent. This was very helpful for us and we were able to invest that money in other areas of the project. Without AWS, we could not have implemented a solution that runs on any browser around the world. We have democratized a service that in the past would be impossible, expensive, and slow,” says Roldán. “When you start a new company based on cloud computing, you need to find the easiest way to solve the problems you are going to find along the way. AWS offers the best products and solutions and enables us to focus on the most important parts of the business—in this case, our product.”

As Genially continues to expand, Roldán plans to continue working with AWS. “We have empowered teachers and students to create and communicate for the new generation. Genially is rapidly becoming an essential part of educators’ toolkits worldwide, even more so now with many schools going remote. We’ve received tons of messages from teachers expressing their gratitude and telling us how much Genially has helped them improve their lessons. We are here to stay!”