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I was working on an education idea a few years back in university, something very similar to YC's Lingt. After reading up on the market, I came to the conclusio
by IsaacL 13y ago
I was working on an education idea a few years back in university, something very similar to YC's Lingt. After reading up on the market, I came to the conclusion that education was a sales-driven business, not a product-driven one - ie you can't beat Blackboard with a better product, because they have an army of salespeople and you don't. However, I do think you could "consumerise" edutech products where you sell directly to consumers, and where consumers are willing to pay a lot, like in language learning or professional qualifications. (Which suggests I should have stuck with the Lingt idea, but whatever).
- ht_th 13y agoI've thought about it as well. It is extremely hard to innovate successfully commercially inside the educational system. On the other hand, targeting the bottom of the system, the individual teachers, parents, students, and the like, does work locally. Scaling that up to something akin to your stereotypical internet startup, however, is hard or even impossible because once you get big you're start messing with the educational system as a whole, looping back to the original problem of entering into the educational system. Still, I think that selling individualized educational services will work, it just does not scale. (And the question is: should it?)