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I was thinking of mentioning that I believe a lifestyle business in edutech is totally doable but my post was getting pretty long. Assuming much more modest req
by mrandish 2y ago
I was thinking of mentioning that I believe a lifestyle business in edutech is totally doable but my post was getting pretty long. Assuming much more modest requirements for revenue and growth, I'm actually fairly bullish on this scenario. The one proviso is that, in my experience, you need to structure the new business to survive a (potentially) very long period before reaching break-even. K-12 sales cycles can be glacially slow to close full district deals. If you can structure your product and pricing model to also generate some faster (though smaller) revenue from individuals, parents, private schools and single-classroom teacher-directed funds this can help provide some partial life support during the long winter before your first harvest.
Assuming you're able to (or maybe even enjoy) optimizing a business to operate for a few years on hand-to-mouth revenue and can get to product-market fit with few iterations then the AI buzz will make for an especially good entry window for new product offerings in edu. Most of your customers are already aware of AI and open to the possibility it may change things for the better. This should make getting classroom pilots easier.
The final thing I'll share is something I'm sure you already know (but I'll mention for others). It's pretty rare for long-term, lifestyle-scale, edutech businesses to get "good" exits by normal tech startup standards. Think around 1x to 3x trailing twelve month revenues with the higher end of that range only for those having proven consistent multi-year profitability.