Sales Cycle

The EdTech sales cycle is notoriously long, sometimes up to 3 months. A district well into the pipeline is no guarantee of a sale, as district administrative staff and budgets are constantly in flux. Relationships seem to be more important in sales and between the three founders we have extensive relationships with districts and individuals that not only give us access to the district but the creds to be considered seriously.  We will eliminate the "cold call" strategy (that often addes months to the sales cycle) and leverage our many contacts and previous contracts as a sources of leads.

 

Number of players: There are a number of major players in the professional development space but past experience in this space indicates a solid niche for the company. Many districts dislike the product focused approach of the larger companies and are seeking a more personalized approach. Even those who purchased from the well-known providers are interested in supplementing their PD in specific ways that they can't get through "boxed" PD. Others recognized a different approach to PD is needed and so are seeking the unique experience we offer. Others are looking for research to support their decision and the publication of our paper in a peer-reviewed journal will validate their decision. 

 

Scalability: With the personal touch and a focus on smaller courses, we face the challenge of meeting the needs of larger districts with 1000’s of educators. We have three solutions for this challenge, the first is designing the site with the ability to create "sandboxes", thus replicating the space for each new district or school in a timely manner. The second is to bring in additional SOOC leaders. Our team can work virtually and a big plus withh be the ability of new hires to supplement their income by participanting in (and helping lead) the SOOC. Finally, within districts we will offer a "Capacity Building" option where district personnel after completing a SOOC, are accedited and can then faciliator district-lead SOOCs. We would continue to monitor and assign a team member to either participate or periodically check-in to maintain the quality of the experience.

 

User-Experience: Currently we are using a WordPress site (designed for accessibility) and Google tools to deliver our course. This will suffice for our current needs as Boston City Schools has adopted Google Apps for Education. We need to create a customized learning site for all districts that includes the option of staying within our site for the community environment or using Google+ Communities to support the district goal. To address this issue the CEO and CTO, having worked on various projects previously, have outlined a community that allows for registration, delivery of SOOC content, monitoring (if required), badging and a sharing community similar in design to Google+. The timeline to create this, based on the already existing components, is a very short two to three week completion timeline.

 

Developer Call to Discuss UE: