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(Clever cofounder here) Interesting comparison, but I think you might be missing a couple things: 1. Data integration is incredibly costly for edtech vendors

(Clever cofounder here) Interesting comparison, but I think you might be missing a couple things: 1. Data integration is incredibly costly for edtech vendors - it's a massive engineering & support distraction, and it slows down sales and customer onboarding. Vendors tell us paying for Clever is worth it - just for the internal cost savings. 2. While seed-level edtech companies without revenue may get more attention on hackernews, there's a significant number of companies in various niches of education earning great revenues selling to schools and districts. Those are the folks adopting Clever & driving our growth (not "free to teacher" apps).

7Figures2Commas 13y ago
> ...there's a significant number of companies in various niches of education earning great revenues selling to schools and districts. The spending trends in the K-12 space are not positive[1], and while I'm sure there are companies in "various niches of education" with respectable revenue, the bankruptcies of companies like Cengage Learning[2] and School Specialty[3] are hard to ignore. There's a strong argument to be made that education as a market, particularly K-12 education, is in secular decline. [1] http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/09/12/report-most-states-spending-less-on-k-12-education.aspx http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/09/12/report-most-states... [2] http://thefutureofpublishing.com/2013/07/inside-the-cengage-bankruptcy/ http://thefutureofpublishing.com/2013/07/inside-the-cengage-... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/school-specialty-delta-education-file-for-bankruptcy.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/school-specialty-de...
- 2arrs2ells 13y ago
  Thanks for linking to sources - but I don't see the connection from any of them to Clever's market (K-12 spending on education technology).
  - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
    When your market is part of a larger market that is in secular decline, the secular trend eventually tends to dominate any local trends that are present in the sub-market. That's why companies attempting to get a piece of a growing pie are generally easier to build and more likely to be successful than companies attempting to get a bigger piece of a shrinking pie.

7Figures2Commas 13y ago

> ...there's a significant number of companies in various niches of education earning great revenues selling to schools and districts. The spending trends in the K-12 space are not positive[1], and while I'm sure there are companies in "various niches of education" with respectable revenue, the bankruptcies of companies like Cengage Learning[2] and School Specialty[3] are hard to ignore. There's a strong argument to be made that education as a market, particularly K-12 education, is in secular decline. [1] http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/09/12/report-most-states-spending-less-on-k-12-education.aspx http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/09/12/report-most-states... [2] http://thefutureofpublishing.com/2013/07/inside-the-cengage-bankruptcy/ http://thefutureofpublishing.com/2013/07/inside-the-cengage-... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/school-specialty-delta-education-file-for-bankruptcy.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/school-specialty-de...

2arrs2ells 13y ago
Thanks for linking to sources - but I don't see the connection from any of them to Clever's market (K-12 spending on education technology).
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  When your market is part of a larger market that is in secular decline, the secular trend eventually tends to dominate any local trends that are present in the sub-market. That's why companies attempting to get a piece of a growing pie are generally easier to build and more likely to be successful than companies attempting to get a bigger piece of a shrinking pie.