10 things to keep in mind when starting to build an EdTech startup
Author: Märt Aro
There are thousands of challenges in education that can be solved with the help of technology. You might have an excellent idea on how to solve one or more of those challenges. To support you, here is some of the most common advice experienced founders find themselves giving to new founders.
Don't start building before you have feedback from your target audience that they actually would be willing to use / pay for such a tool that you have in mind building. Yes, make a nice presentation / mockup, go out there and get honest feedback. Try to make pre-agreements already.
Keep focus. If you are building your first EdTech, try to build as narrow scope MVP (minimum viable product) as possible and scale this. Building wide products is much harder and going this way there is a bigger risk that you / your team will run out of steam before getting to a big enough number of customers to sustain your team providing a high quality service.
Don't stay in the vicious cycle of “need to build this one more feature for success”. Often it isn't true. Especially nordic startups continue building and building but forget to set up appropriate marketing / sales. But guess what, it doesn't matter how much you build if nobody knows about your amazing product.
More than 50% of the world runs on 2G internet speeds and more than 50% of internet users globally are accessing it via Mobile. Let that sink in.
Choose a major language that is likely understood by your target audience as the base language of your system, so if you are doing updates in the system and lose a translation file, users would still be able to figure out how they can use your system.
Build international from the beginning. It's OK to make a first test in one (small) country but each country has their specifics. Better consider them in your architecture. Otherwise you might have a significant headache when crossing country borders as you have “built yourself stuck” into the country.
Business model wise. Ideally the end user is able to:
a) identify that your product is suitable for them,
b) make the decision on their own that they benefit from your product and take it into use and
c) be the budget holder (read: pay for the product for themselves without major headache).
The easiest way to achieve that is through development of “micro services” instead of wide vertical services.
There are many alternatives: your end user can identify that the product is good but need to involve other people to make the decision for implementing your product; need to involve other people to implement your product; somebody else pays for the product. All of those alternatives may also work but can be a headache for scaling.Your product is not strategically critical.
If you are a startup, it can be very difficult to prove that you are worthy of the trust of your customer. It's easier for the customer to make a decision if it adds value but their career / life does not depend on the product.
Be aggressive.
Building EdTech startups is hard, there is a lot of noise out there. If you want to survive in this world, you need to try all doors, windows, chimneys to get the things moving that you want to get moving. Nobody is going to lay red carpets for you even if you have the best product for solving a specific problem.
Evidence.
As soon as possible collect as concrete evidence as possible on how much value your solution creates for your customer (e.g. my product makes this: 10x cheaper; 50% faster, 80% students feel happier etc). This will make it much easier to prove that your product is valuable.
Mind the science.
Make sure there is scientific research to back up your education-related claims and aspirations. Be thorough and unbiased, your product could potentially affect a lot of people all over the world.
