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Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

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Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#111

Post by lostboys67 »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #26
jldugger wrote: post #8

> The average, middle class person thinks about education as an expenditure, not an investment. The way I remember it, middle class folks in Kansas City suburbs really, really care about the quality of their schools and levy property and sales taxes to fund it. Rural Ohio townships where dual earners are making 17k less than the national median for such households may not have a lot of middle class to speak of. Cost…

"1:1 tutoring is the gold standard for educational outcomes." Is it? I'd be interested to see some data to support or refute this. I'd always assumed that students benefit somewhat from other students being around (due to observing how others learn, being pushed to be better etc.), so perhaps the ideal ratio would be in the 1:2 to 1:4 range. If people have really figured out that 1:1 is better than 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4,…

Interesting as a dyslexic I was lucky enough to have a 1:1 tutor provided as well as a typewriter for some of my junior school years (late 60's in UK)

This was well before dyslexia was a mainstream issue in schools - needles to say this did not go down well with the headmaster

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#112

Post by lostboys67 »

ismarc wrote: post #51
PakG1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember in high school, TI-83 graphing calculators were just being mandated to be used in classrooms. All students were required to buy one. No idea what happened with students who weren't able to afford one, they weren't cheap in my high school mind. I do remember being annoyed because I couldn't see how buying the TI-83 helped me to learn algebra or anything else better. But we all enjoyed playing Tetris on the…

I was in the required but too poor group. I had to borrow others or do the work by hand. I eventually was able to get gifted one from one of those "help families in poverty with school supplies" donation drives. I had those books with tables of logarithms and one other one constantly checked out from the public library just so I could do my homework.

Slide rules Log tables and later on steam tables that takes me back I was probably in one of the last cohorts that used slide rules at school

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#113

Post by Symbiote »

Chris2048 wrote: post #104
Symbiote wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain funded computing in schools very well from some point in the 1980s until the early 1990s. Lots of good software was produced. Schools had computers, and parents were encouraged to buy them for education at home. My favourite software was The Crystal Rainforest. I think this was for 6-8 year olds. There was a long story (4 floppy discs in 1992!) leading through a rainforest, solving puzzles using increasingly…

What year was that? When it was my turn to play on the computer at school, it was a BBC micro, and the game "grannies garden". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3_6r6_1D3M

That game is from 1992, and ran on an Acorn Archimedes.

I've recorded a playthrough of the demo of the sequel, which is from 1994: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRWa6v-QEcY

I provided the disc images of my copy of the original (not the sequel) to the people at this forum [1] — I think the "provisional images" must be mine — but they haven't released the game to the public.

[1] https://forums.jaspp.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=204

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#114

Post by lostboys67 »

anonymous5133 wrote: post #87
smallnamespace wrote: post #70

Couple of other causes: - It's very hard to measure to value add of education; people have spent lives working on this - Only half the value of educational institutions comes from educating people; the other half comes from the credentialing where they pick out the 'brighter' individuals, but measuring how much a credential is worth is almost impossible for most individuals

Credentials aren't immune from disruption. Just look at how the trades work. They all are using some sort of independent testing company that certifies people. In the future employers might not care if you have a BA degree if instead you have an electrician certificate or some comptia certification. Those credentials might be more valuable. Perhaps in the future there will be certifications for programming languages…

But theirs more than one way to do it :-) and from my dads experience chartered status is more about who you know not what.

And in the USA in particular what point are BAR exams when you get people with ZERO experience of law appointed to senior legal positions - No offence to one of Obamas Supreme nominations but they had no real world judging experience - shades of E l Wisty

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#115

Post by ryandrake »

japhyr wrote: post #38
adamnemecek wrote: post #19

Figure out a way to franchise high schools to make them into coworking spaces. All teachers are remote and all teaching happens over skype. The employees on site are there only to make sure the kids dont kill each other. Offer an insane amount of subjects (this is possible since there might be only 30 kids worldwide interested in xyz, now they can take a class on it). The future of education is something along these…

Or just change the way we do school. I teach in a small school in Alaska, and we get to do school the way it makes sense for everyone, not just the way that makes it easiest for administrators and students. At our school, everyone's in classes like any other school. But towards the end of a session, after most of the teaching has been done and everyone's working on final projects, students are free to go at their own…

I look at some of these replies and I think back to my own High School many moons ago. None of these ideas would have worked. You guys might as well be describing schools from another planet.

In my school, 5% of the class (probably less) were actually there to learn, were on a college track of some sort, and would take advantage of educational resources. Their parents took an active role in their education and pushed them. A good 70% or so were pretty much furniture. They were there because they had to be, and their parents saw school as free babysitting service. They would end up in a trade school afterward if they were lucky, or a more likely future drifting between unemployment and Walmart/McDonalds employment. Then there were the 25% who were actively opposed to learning. They existed to disrupt everything, start fights, and waste all of the teachers' and administrators' time. Most of them were into gangs, selling drugs, etc. and their presence detracted from everyone else's experience. This group is likely dead or in prison today.

Aside from the political reasons already covered by other posters (school boards playing politics and being more interested in mandating and banning things than furthering education), there is this reality that education startups ignore: The vast majority of their end users will not want to be end users.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#116

Post by amitmathew »

Interesting article! If you're thinking about targeting consumers in edtech, there's a lot of good advice in here. My company mainly sells to medical students, which are a highly incentivized group of consumers, so we can avoid some of the pitfalls mentioned in the article. However, most of the action in edtech is focused on selling to institutions because that's where the money is. The good news is institutions are more willing than ever to try out new technologies if you can convince them you can impact recruitment, retention, graduation rates, etc. Of course, that's easier said than done. Not many startups can wait around for 5 years to do a comprehensive research study. And you get all the classic problems of selling to institutions (and magnified in education): slow sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, politics, etc.

I think an interesting problem in edtech today is there are a lot of "startups" that fit in that dangerous area between a small business and a high-growth startup. You'll find dozens of companies that help improve mathematical skills, create STEM games, or build products for improving reading and writing comprehension. A lot of these companies might grow to be multi-million dollar companies over several years, but they won't fit that "classic" startup growth curve. Since venture money is flowing relatively well (and a few VCs focus specifically on edtech), a lot of these companies get funded. But there's a dilemma for these entrepreneurs: what do you do when you realize that your company is growing 2x each year (which is great!), but not at 10x where your investors want you.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#117

Post by discreditable »

Lich wrote: post #79

I'm currently working for an education startup right now. We are struggling. Have been for the past few years. The biggest problems I've noticed: 1. Cost. When you deal with school districts, you usually sell for X number of devices. So for example, all devices for 5th-7th grade, something like that. When you sell alot, schools will usually ask for volume licensing. Schools don't want to see prices above $5. This goe…

Coming from the grades 9-12 sysadmin side, I might be able to provide some perspective. Every school is wildly different, so I would recommend against applying my perspectives too broadly.

1. Cost: Windows licenses for student PCs are just under $20/PC/year (for us). Is your $5 software 25% as useful to students as their operating system is? Even worse, the reality is if I put your software on my 1000 computers I'll be lucky if 300 of them use it. That's something to keep in mind when working with per-device licenses. I agree installed system software bloat is a problem. That results from every department having different needs. We might be a little different in that we don't allow students to install/run foreign software (using AppLocker).

2. I agree different schools are amazingly different. I collaborate with a few other schools around me and whenever we meet I'm pretty floored by how differently each one approaches basic problems. These significant differences really add up and I can understand how supporting schools might be a pain.

3. It seems like every vendor wants access to my SIS. That's a privilege not granted lightly. I'm generally okay with automated CSV dumps of bare minimum data uploaded over a secure channel, but some vendors have the nerve to request direct LDAP or Oracle database access over the public Internet. No way!

4. I'll agree school IT teams are generally terrible. Among my peers and schools I collaborate with, I'm the only one with a degree in IT. Many are older and migrated to the role from something else (former math teachers surprisingly often). Some find themselves shoehorned into the role because they happened to be the most technically-inclined among the staff. These guys are uncomfortable in powershell/cmd and typically use contractors or local PFYs to handle technical details. Schools do not pay enough to attract decent talent. I could work for a local company and make 1.5-2x more doing less than I do here, but for now I like this environment.

5. While video demos can be helpful product overviews. I distrust video demos just as I distrust other marketing wank. I want to test drive the car before I decide to purchase it. That said, I wouldn't expect anyone to let me demo something longer than 60 days. The long time in my case is that exploring new software is usually a backburner project, and I am likely to have other things come up that take priority. I never put production data into trial software however.

6. Yes, purchasing processes are a pain. I 100% agree. I currently have a request for $60 of printer toner that's been sitting in the requisition process for over a week. Trust me, it's just as bad for us on the inside.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#118

Post by meepso »

jondubois wrote: post #95

I worked for an Education startup a couple of years ago. They had a really good math learning product which blew away the competition in terms of software quality but they didn't achieve exponential growth. It was linear growth but at a very good rate. The trick was to sell directly to schools and educational institutions. There are new challenges there but it's also very high-reward. You can sell 1000 licenses from…

There is truth to the centralization issue in education, we see more and more deals being done at 100k levels. Makes the current way of doing business on smaller language markets obsolete, I'm not sure it's for the better.

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#119

Post by [deleted] »

Spooky23 wrote: post #107
jeffmaxim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Targeting poor people is dumb because poor folk give zero shits about education.” Don’t even know where to start on this...

How many low income households are spending money on Kaplan courses? You may find that harsh, but it’s reality. Doing what the author suggested (producing low quality cheap crap) may sound more sensitive, but in my mind is unethical. Things like Khan academy have traction because third parties pay the bill. Online degree mills have traction because an uncritical third party (ie the government) loans the cash to stude…

[deleted]

Re: Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)

#120

Post by dwater »

ryandrake wrote: post #115
japhyr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just change the way we do school. I teach in a small school in Alaska, and we get to do school the way it makes sense for everyone, not just the way that makes it easiest for administrators and students. At our school, everyone's in classes like any other school. But towards the end of a session, after most of the teaching has been done and everyone's working on final projects, students are free to go at their own…

I look at some of these replies and I think back to my own High School many moons ago. None of these ideas would have worked. You guys might as well be describing schools from another planet. In my school, 5% of the class (probably less) were actually there to learn, were on a college track of some sort, and would take advantage of educational resources. Their parents took an active role in their education and pushed…

I spent nearly the last decade teaching high school math in public schools in the US and this is my attitude as well. Most of your intended users are adversarial; most students enter the classroom not wanting to learn most of the subjects they are required to. The district I worked in the longest had one laptop per student at the secondary level and we tried lots of different products. What I saw with my students was that those few who were self-motivated would be successful and those that were not motivated would just drag along, no matter how much interaction and gamification was involved. So the outcome was the same as if you just gave them textbooks, except that textbooks don't have the web to distract users.
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