Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace - S11

Pines, the executive director of the Education Industry
Association, a Vienna, Va.-based membership organization
that represents both mature companies and
startups. He calls the fear of making a costly mistake
"headline risk."
For that reason, administrators are less likely to
choose ed-tech products from companies they don't
know, Mr. Pines said. He notes that larger companies
already have an advantage, in that they can deploy
legions of sales staff to districts, in addition to being
able to offer other services and tech support.
"They have the machine to work with clients in a
fairly routinized way," he said.
Selling to Teachers
Increasingly, ed-tech companies, particularly young
ones, try to get around those barriers by marketing
their products directly to teachers, hoping word of the
product will spread among educators, who can also
persuade administrators to buy it across schools or
districts, Mr. Pines said.
That approach will soon be tried by Eric Nelson, a
social studies teacher in Forest Lake, Minn., and the
creator of an educational game, "Fantasy Geopolitics."
Mr. Nelson, who teaches at North Lakes Academy
Charter School, which serves about 370 students
outside Minneapolis, became frustrated with his
students' lack of interest in international affairs. So
he set out to broaden their perspective on the world
at large by appealing to the world they know. He
designed a game modeled after fantasy football, in
which students "draft" countries as if they were players,
become "fans" of those nations, and receive points
based on whether their countries end up in the news
stream.
Currently, teachers can use "Fantasy Geopolitics" for
Other ed-tech company officials describe similar obstacles
selling to school districts. Among the most common
complaints:
* It's a decentralized market. Businesses are often
unsure who should be the target of their marketing
pitches, because they can't always identify the ultimate
decisionmaker. The superintendent? The chief technology
officer or chief financial officer? Do principals and
teachers have a say?
* The process is slow. Districts can take many
months to make decisions about purchasing curriculum,
software, and other products. Depending on the size of
the project, they may put out requests for proposals.
Smaller companies may not have the staff or resources
to answer those solicitations.
* The buyers are not the end-users. In many
cases, district administrators and school boards are
making spending decisions about ed-tech products without
knowing whether teachers and students will like the
technology that gets chosen-and, in some instances,
without having even sought feedback from educators.
* It's a risk-averse market. Districts face legal
obligations to follow procurement rules and are under
pressure from taxpayers to buy glitch-free products at
the best prices. That can make them reluctant to buy
educational technology from providers they don't know.
"Nobody ever got fired for hiring ibm," is an oft-heard
expression in sales, including K-12 sales.
Some of the problems ed-tech companies face in selling
products to schools stem from how digital products function,
and the process districts typically follow in evaluating
them, observed Steven Hodas, the executive director
of Innovate NYC Schools, an initiative within the 1.1
million-student New York City school system that seeks,
among other goals, to more closely align ed-tech companies'
products and services with schools' needs.
When a district buys textbooks, most of the people reviewing
that purchase know those products and what
the district needs. "They live in that space," Mr. Hodas
said.
But with technology purchases, many more district
officials are often involved, Mr. Hodas noted. Some of
those officials may not understand the technology. Others
may know the technology but not the educational or
administrative needs associated with it, he said. Amid
growing concerns about student-data privacy, district
legal staff may also be involved. The result, Mr. Hodas
said, is a longer list of district staff members who could
potentially nix the project.
"That doesn't happen with textbooks," he said. "That
doesn't happen with furniture."
Even well-established companies in the ed-tech space
face similar barriers. Curriculum Associates, a company
that has been in business for more than 40 years, sells
online assessment and instructional materials. Those
two products are meant to be integrated together, but
in school districts, different administrators are often
charged with overseeing those purchases, said Robert
L. Waldron, the ceo of the North Billerica, Mass.-based
company.
Mr. Waldron said he sympathizes with administrators
responsible for researching potential ed-tech purchases
while juggling myriad day-to-day duties. He said
he tries to encourage school officials to prioritize their
needs by asking themselves a simple question before
they make a purchase from an ed-tech company: "What
is it being hired to do?"
"By helping that conversation along," Mr. Waldron
said, "they can make an informed and better decision."
The big price tags associated with school technology
purchases, and the fear of making a costly mistake, also
weigh heavily on district administrators, said Steven
free, and about 600 educators nationwide are doing so.
But by next year, Mr. Nelson plans to try to monetize
the game, either by charging for access or accepting
donations. He's counting on his current teacher-users
to spread the word.
Mr. Nelson, 28, faces other challenges, related to
time and money. He's brought money into his business
from a variety of sources, including the funding
platform Kickstarter, but he's also been forced to dig
into his own pocket, to the tune of about $5,000.
"The expansion plan, in the long run, is a little
scary," Mr. Nelson conceded.
Even so, the market offers examples of entrepreneurs
persevering and finding a place-even if the
path is rocky and indirect.
Mr. Hensley's company managed to sign up about
30 districts and schools for its dropout-prevention
software. But that wasn't enough to keep up with expenses,
or build the company. In 2012, when he flew to
an education conference in New York City to look for
seed-funding, the company was "pretty close" to running
out of money, he recalled.
Then came an unexpected turn: At the conference,
he met a representative from the global education
company Pearson, which was impressed enough with
the product to eventually agree to buy it, in 2009, two
years after Intagrade was launched.
With that money, Mr. Hensley has launched another
company, Edbacker, an online fundraising effort that
seeks to help educators, parents, parent-teacher associations,
and others raise money for everything from
classroom projects to building facilities. He says he's
learned several lessons from his first ed-tech company,
such as the need to listen more closely to customers
and develop his product methodically.
In ptas, he also believes he has a better-defined audience
listening to his product pitches.
"I know exactly who I'm selling to," Mr. Hensley said,
"and what their pain points are." n
NAVIGATING THE ED-TECH MARKETPLACE
> www.edweek.org/go/edtechmarket
EDUCATION WEEK * June 11, 2014
| S11
Jenn Ackerman for Education Week
http://www.edweek.org/go/edtechmarket
Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace

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