Category: EdTech Startups & Businesses

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How to Pilot Your Edtech Product

Putting together a pilot program for your edtech product may seem like a daunting task, but it can be both manageable and enjoyable if the pilot study is well-planned and well-executed.

Better than beta testing

Edtech companies routinely beta test products as part of their product development process. The challenge with beta testing is that companies are often working with their MVP – minimum viable product, and the results can be one-sided.

Product piloting, on the other hand, offers a give and take. The pilot site benefits from using the product, and you benefit from their feedback.

Take these eight initiatives in edtech product piloting

Here’s how to get the most out of piloting your edtech product:

  • Offer your pilot to schools who most need your product. By working with schools eager to try your product, you are more likely to get good participation.
  • Set a definitive start and end time. Include these dates in your written contract, making it clear that the pilot project time specific. This contract is your GPS in conducting the pilot.
  • Make sure your pilot encompasses a large enough data sample. Bigger is better. Offering your pilot to only two classrooms won’t allow you to gather the data you need for a viable study.
  • Provide professional development. Training and support failure will cause the pilot program to suffer. The more teacher-friendly you can make the training, the more effective your pilot will be.
  • Devote ample time to data analysis. You’ll have to collect a variety of data, and this collection must meet confidentiality standards.
  • Share the results. Show participants how well the edtech intervention worked, and share this data with future edtech product users. Educators use data to make their purchase decisions. Help with this part of the process by providing research-based data for them.
  • Set a price for product purchase. Determine prices for ongoing services for your pilot participants, and establish the pricing structure for new clients as well.

Don’t pilot your edtech product alone 

Finally, consider including a third party data collector. Digital Promise, for example, offers free services to help edtech companies and schools find the right match in piloting innovative educational technology.

Having an impartial third party lends credibility to the data analysis. You’ll get objective edtech pilot results that you can share with other interested schools, use in improving your product and  give you a reason to scale up more quickly.

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If You Really Want to Design Useful Edtech, Start with Students

All instruction begins with students.

Educators call this student-centered learning, and if you’re going to design a useful edtech product, you’ll start with students, too. This design approach isn’t too different from a business model in which you create a product that provides solutions for consumer problems.

Begin at the grassroots level.

Designing useful edtech is a lot less about creating what you like than it is about providing what students need. They need human-centered design, which is an approach that begins with people.

To answer that question, spend time talking to teachers. They’ll tell you what they’d love to see in the classroom. You’ll gain even more insight if you talk to the students. Children are open, honest, and often innovative, especially when it comes to edtech.

Identify the user.

How hard can it be to design for children?

If you think all kids have similar needs, think again. The needs of the early elementary child are nothing like those of students in the intermediate grades. Teachers and administrators are quick to point out that middle school students are unlike students in elementary or in high school.

Useful edtech takes child development into product design consideration.

Follow student-led instructional design.

Educational leadership begins in the classroom – with students.

Today’s teachers are less likely to be a “sage on the stage.” Instead, they are becoming the “guide on the side” as students are stepping up to drive their instructional plans.

Individualized needs have driven curriculum customization. This bespoke approach to education has paved the way for innovative courses as well as personalized pacing.

You can expect that the most useful edtech will keep step to the beat of a different drummer – one that makes his or her own music.

Remember that the competition is real.

Edtech companies must maintain their relevance in today’s fast-paced tech world. That means knowing more than who your market is. You must also know who your competitors are.

It may surprise you to know that the students you’re trying to reach may be out-reaching you. Some students are designing personal education products for enhanced learning, and their edtech products are already in use in their classrooms.

Teachers purposefully select classroom experiences that will help their students learn, but learning is about much more than mastery. Teachers want their students to become lifelong learners far beyond the classroom. Your edtech product can take them there if you remember to begin with the students.

 

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Managing an Edtech Startup: the Essentials

You have a brilliant idea for edtech and now you want to launch it as a startup? First, you need to know the essentials of managing an edtech start-up.

Know your consumer

Education is unlike any other industry. Teachers are as protective of their lesson plans as they are of their students, and they are wary in placing trust in outsiders.

Your job is to come across as an insider, one who understands the pain points of being a teacher. Remember that these teachers and their students can be a valuable resource for you as you are developing your product. Get their input along the way.

Market to a particular niche

You may be tempted to market your product to students in K-12, with the philosophy that casting a wide net will get you more clients. The opposite is true. By focusing on a narrow slice of the population, you are more likely to spark interest in a given area.

Suppose, for example, that you have a product targeted to ESL students. That’s a large population, but you narrow it down to students in 5-8 grades. Maybe you go a step further and identify recent immigrants in grades 5-8. You can continue narrowing down your target population until you have a specific and well-defined niche.

Add time

Anything worth doing is worth investing a lot of time in it, and edtech is no different than any other venture in that respect.

You’re not the only edtech company out there, not by a long shot, but you will stand out if you are willing to invest the time its to move your company from inception to instant success.

Grow like a pro

Understand that you are multiple iterations away from your final product. The only way to get where you are going to build on where you’ve been.

Allow for flexibility

Your edtech company will flourish if you are willing to show agility and adapt as your company grows. What you did last year will not work this year, and next year may be a whole new game. Embrace it for what it is and accept that change will become part of your DNA.

Market the right way

You know your product or service, but who else does? You have to market to an audience that includes teachers, parents, administrators, and students.

Recognize that your cash flow may come from unsuspected sources

Money is the one thing you can expect to run out of unless you have the right investors. You may find help in surprising allies like Amazon or the Angel Investors.

By mastering the essentials, you can manage your edtech startup like a pro.

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