4 ms·

This is an under-appreciated market.

by skmurphy 18y ago

cubicle67 18y ago
for what?
- mkyc 18y ago
  Education. Given that parents can more freely choose the curriculum, all sorts of novel ways to educate can find a niche.
  - patio11 18y ago
    Yep. I have sold more than a few licenses to homeschoolers over the years. Beyond just curricular aids there are all sorts of, e.g., compliance needs, planning needs, record management needs, etc etc. Take note: Homeschoolers are a very diverse bunch with disparate needs. Obviously, an English workbook for a homeschooled 1st grader and an online study planner for a homeschooled 8th grader needing help in math are going to look pretty different. On the plus side: single decisionmaker (mom, typically). Purchase cycle resembles B2C far more than it does enterprise IT B2B, which is quite common at school districts. Guaranteed to be strongly motivated about education and family time. Less allergic to new technology than public schools (because if you make someone's job redundant, well... great! That means mom is free to do something other than whatever busywork she was just doing.) These are all nice things to have in a market when you're selling to them.
  - reuven 18y ago
    I don't homeschool my three kids, but I've spent a lot of time learning about, working with, and tracking the homeschooling community. (And if we didn't live in a community with a school that largely meets our needs, I would homeschool them in a heartbeat.) I'm working on a PhD in technology and education, and have a lot of good things to say about the educational methods that homeschoolers are using. And yes, it's a huge and untapped market, which very few people realize is large, growing, and quite viable. I actually spent some time trying to raise seed funding for an e-learning startup that would have addressed many of the needs of the homeschooling market. Unfortunately, many investors have been burned badly by e-learning companies, and weren't interested. But even those who were interested were somewhere between amused and horrified by the idea of addressing homeschoolers, who are (incorrectly) seen as a bunch of crazies. In the end, financial realities forced me to return to consulting and my PhD work, rather than my startup. But I remain convinced that homeschoolers are the educational equivalent of high tech's early adopters, and that it's far wiser to address their market than to compete for the shrinking, bureaucratic, and inflexible market for schools.
- mkyc 18y ago
  Meta. Points are interesting: It was skmurphy:1 and cubicle67:3, until the two clarifications. It's now 6, 3, myself:6, patio11:9. Why did skmurphy's score go up by 5 points. It seems that some comments become substantially more useful due to others that follow them, which is interesting.
thismat 18y ago
I was actually home schooled, and it was a relatively taboo thing back in the mid eighties to be home schooled. The supplies available to us were fantastic though, ranging from different computer based systems to actual text books. It's a lot less under-appreciated than you would really think, you can pretty much find a support group and curriculum aide in any community. It's just still not as popular as it should be, in my biased and humble opinion. A lot of our learning though, was incorporated into the family business...what's a good way to brush up on some skills? Make sure you do AP/AR/Laptop maintenance/Mass mailings and for PE - you get to sweep the entire warehouse. I loved every minute of it.
- skmurphy 18y ago
  By under-appreciated I meant by entrepreneurs. Too many focus on trying to insert first into the traditional college or K12 systems instead of niche education markets like home schooling.
  - thismat 18y ago
    No matter what though, you will get more money by doing for college or K12 systems, I can understand the mentality. Besides, with the 'zealot religious', 'backwoods', 'socially inept' and other stereo types that tend to float around home schooling as a practice, you can see why most people might not consider the market very seriously.
    - skmurphy 18y ago
      It's a question of which market makes for a better start. You can always expand into larger markets over time. If the home schooling niche has many of the same properties that the K12 or college markets do that are relevant to your application then it doesn't hurt to start there. You should also note that because the markets communicate poorly (school districts don't tend to reference home schooling buy decisions) you can actually price differently in the two markets (e.g. lower in home schooling to get started without contaminating your mainstream price or enabling arbitrage).

This is an under-appreciated market.

cubicle67 18y ago

for what?

mkyc 18y ago
Education. Given that parents can more freely choose the curriculum, all sorts of novel ways to educate can find a niche.
- patio11 18y ago
  Yep. I have sold more than a few licenses to homeschoolers over the years. Beyond just curricular aids there are all sorts of, e.g., compliance needs, planning needs, record management needs, etc etc. Take note: Homeschoolers are a very diverse bunch with disparate needs. Obviously, an English workbook for a homeschooled 1st grader and an online study planner for a homeschooled 8th grader needing help in math are going to look pretty different. On the plus side: single decisionmaker (mom, typically). Purchase cycle resembles B2C far more than it does enterprise IT B2B, which is quite common at school districts. Guaranteed to be strongly motivated about education and family time. Less allergic to new technology than public schools (because if you make someone's job redundant, well... great! That means mom is free to do something other than whatever busywork she was just doing.) These are all nice things to have in a market when you're selling to them.
- reuven 18y ago
  I don't homeschool my three kids, but I've spent a lot of time learning about, working with, and tracking the homeschooling community. (And if we didn't live in a community with a school that largely meets our needs, I would homeschool them in a heartbeat.) I'm working on a PhD in technology and education, and have a lot of good things to say about the educational methods that homeschoolers are using. And yes, it's a huge and untapped market, which very few people realize is large, growing, and quite viable. I actually spent some time trying to raise seed funding for an e-learning startup that would have addressed many of the needs of the homeschooling market. Unfortunately, many investors have been burned badly by e-learning companies, and weren't interested. But even those who were interested were somewhere between amused and horrified by the idea of addressing homeschoolers, who are (incorrectly) seen as a bunch of crazies. In the end, financial realities forced me to return to consulting and my PhD work, rather than my startup. But I remain convinced that homeschoolers are the educational equivalent of high tech's early adopters, and that it's far wiser to address their market than to compete for the shrinking, bureaucratic, and inflexible market for schools.
mkyc 18y ago
Meta. Points are interesting: It was skmurphy:1 and cubicle67:3, until the two clarifications. It's now 6, 3, myself:6, patio11:9. Why did skmurphy's score go up by 5 points. It seems that some comments become substantially more useful due to others that follow them, which is interesting.

thismat 18y ago

I was actually home schooled, and it was a relatively taboo thing back in the mid eighties to be home schooled. The supplies available to us were fantastic though, ranging from different computer based systems to actual text books. It's a lot less under-appreciated than you would really think, you can pretty much find a support group and curriculum aide in any community. It's just still not as popular as it should be, in my biased and humble opinion. A lot of our learning though, was incorporated into the family business...what's a good way to brush up on some skills? Make sure you do AP/AR/Laptop maintenance/Mass mailings and for PE - you get to sweep the entire warehouse. I loved every minute of it.

skmurphy 18y ago
By under-appreciated I meant by entrepreneurs. Too many focus on trying to insert first into the traditional college or K12 systems instead of niche education markets like home schooling.
- thismat 18y ago
  No matter what though, you will get more money by doing for college or K12 systems, I can understand the mentality. Besides, with the 'zealot religious', 'backwoods', 'socially inept' and other stereo types that tend to float around home schooling as a practice, you can see why most people might not consider the market very seriously.
  - skmurphy 18y ago
    It's a question of which market makes for a better start. You can always expand into larger markets over time. If the home schooling niche has many of the same properties that the K12 or college markets do that are relevant to your application then it doesn't hurt to start there. You should also note that because the markets communicate poorly (school districts don't tend to reference home schooling buy decisions) you can actually price differently in the two markets (e.g. lower in home schooling to get started without contaminating your mainstream price or enabling arbitrage).