To: You
From: Catalyst Summit Attendee
Date: June 22, 2024
Subject: How to Launch an Education Venture
Intro: Catalyst Summit @ U Penn
Yesterday, the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania hosted a day-long conference. The Catalyst Summit, called "Propel Your Edtech Venture" brought together hundreds of entrepreneurs and industry professionals for networking and an agenda of workshops centered around:
Finance: Navigating funding strategy
Product: Development informed by data
Market: Commanding the landscape
Leadership: Laying the foundation for rapid growth
I went into the summit with an idea that hasn't "left the building" yet: to connect K-12 students to inspiring career pathways, through their homework.
Goals of the Education Entrepreneurship Summit @ U Penn
Understand what it takes to lift an education venture off the ground
Make in-person connections and carry them over to LinkedIn
Values for Education Ventures
The Education Entrepreneurship Summit @ U Penn hosted education researchers, VCs, and other professionals who shared important values for education entrepreneurs:
Work with teachers, not with teachers in mind. You don’t have to be the best product if you're cheap. Don’t keep research in the Ivy [League] tower. Share it with everyone. If you're approaching a researcher, don't be a salesperson. Talk about your impact, not your product.
Other remarks are important reminders of the thoughts and feelings that some students carry with them:
How I learn isn’t necessarily how other students learn. Students shut down the inquiry process to avoid the embarrassment of not knowing. We need to believe in who we’re trying to help. Students are in a system that doesn’t always believe in them.
State of the Business
Intermittent research: K-12 career pathways, gamification, tutoring
Getting familiar with the National Career Clusters Framework
Mocking up a few wireframes on Figma
Pivoting to customer discovery before building out anything
Lessons Learned
VCs are biased toward what they think is important: In this case, the presenting VCs look for founders who:
Have traction
Are coachable
Are willing to sell
Have a defensible business model
Become deep subject matter experts
It's okay to add VCs to a distribution list: Before hearing this, I would've thought doing so would harm not help a venture. It looks like this isn't as spammy and gutsy as I thought.
Don't wait until the product is ready to start selling: Build relationships and get through the fundraising cycles.
Don't pack your MVP with features and functionalities: Customers want their problems solved, not shiny features.
Strategic Priorities
Think through the pros and cons of a B2B vs B2C education venture
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