What Does it Take to Build an EdTech Startup?
Think of the most successful startups in educational ,EdTech Startup and the names that come to your mind include Khanacademy and Udemy. It is very heard to find other successful ones that have managed to build a sustainable platform in the edtech niche as much as these two. Yet, Khanacademy is not a business and does not run like one. It is a non-profit organisation in good books with several investors and philanthropists including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
So what does it take to build a platform that can stand the tide in the edtech world? The CEO and Co-founder of Knowledge Officer shared his story while building the edtech company that focuses on helping people achieve their career goals.
The stages of the company involve three phases; Pre-MVP, MVP, and Product stage.
The Pre-MVP stage is the stage where a lot of market research is happening to find suitability of the product. This is also the phase where you collect a couple of customer leads and do some customer development.
The MVP stage is where you have built your ‘not so perfect’ product and are trying to validate with the users. At this stage you also begin reaching out to some investors to see if they are interested in funding your company. Your early customers are at this point testing the platform to see if its worth paying for; they are delving into the solution of the problem they face.
The Product Stage is where you have validated the product and made a couple of sales. Your customer base is growing, and you are no longer thinking about validating the product but building a successful business around it. At this point you could have secured some funding from interested investors, or not. If you haven’t, you decided to bootstrap and go the hard way.
All these stages in the edtech world have their very specific challenges. Want to learn more about them, check out: Behind the scenes: The challenges of building an EdTech startup