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Technology in FE – Developing Relationships & Delivering Value

Forward by Bob Harrison Page 2

Executive Summary Page 3

Feedback from the Sector Page 4

Introduction Page 6

A word on Tech Entrepreneurs Page 7

The Art of the Sale Page 7

Section 1 - Sales in Further Education: Current Practices Page 8

Implications for FE - Small Market and Difficult to Reach? Page 9

Enter the Dragon’s Den – FE Style! How to Impress an Edu IT Department Page 10

Section 2 - Product-Market Fit Page 11

Out of Touch or Out of Reach Page 12

How to Find Product-Market Fit Page 13

Implications for FE–When Product-Market Fit “Discovery Process” is Missing? Page 15

Section 3 - When to Roll Products Out: When Customers Recommend It Page 16

Implications for FE–More Buying; Less Selling Page 16

Section 4 - Target Market Page 17

Implications for FE– Could FE be the Ideal Niche Target Market? Page 18

Section 5 - Market Leaders and Focus! Page 19 Implications for FE – Delivering the “Whole Product Model” Page 20

Section 6 - Losing Focus Page 21

Implications for FE – Sales Driven Approach Does Not Deliver Whole Product Page 22

Section 7 - The Technology Adoption Cycle Page 23 Technology Customer Profiles and “The Chasm” Page 24 Implications for FE – Effective Product Roll-out Based on Technology Profiles Page 25 Section 8 – Convincing the Sceptics Page 26 Selling to Laggards in FE – Not Worth the Hassle? Page 27

Conclusion and Key Point Summary Page 28

Collaboration, Acknowledgements & Bibliography Page 30

Starting Up FE – Events and Early Adopters Page 32

Appendix 1 – MIT Case Study – SensAble Technologies Page 33

Appendix 2 – Start-ups: Risk or Opportunity… What Would Google Do? Page 34

Appendix 3 –Danger of NOT Finding Product-Market Fit: High Staff Turnover Page 36

Appendix 4 – Technology Adoption Cycle: Customer Profiles Page 38

Appendix 5 – Technology Adoption Cycle: Common Early Market Problems Page 40

Appendix 6 – Life in the Chasm: A high Tech Parable... A Very Tough Period! Page 40

Appendix 7 – EdSurge – A Great EdTech Resource Page 43

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Foreword

My first experience of teaching with computers was at Stannington College,

Sheffield, (now a housing development) to a group of young motor vehicle

apprentices. The room, one of two, contained 16 BBC Micro Computers and

the students enjoyed playing “Pong” as part of their Wilt like general studies

lesson late on a Friday afternoon.

Nowadays the motor vehicle students maintain and repair vehicles run by

computers and carry devices in their pockets which have more memory,

processing speed, connectivity and capability than the combination of all the

BBC micro ICT rooms which belonged to the Maths/Computing department

in the early 1980’s.

The last Association of Colleges (AoC) technology survey in 2012 suggests that not much progress had been made

despite the huge sums of money invested and indeed suggests that colleges “were being hampered from

delivering the government’s policy aims because of their inability to use technology effectively.”

There are some pockets of innovation where the Principal, a member of the governing body or a passionate

member of the SMT actually understands the potential technology has to transform learning as they are

attempting to change the culture of the college from an analogue to a digital mindset. It is an enormous challenge

and needs more than a few passionate pioneers.

Things have taken the turn for the better just recently as newly appointed Minister for FE and Skills, Matthew

Hancock (@matthancockmp on twitter) has taken a personal interest in the issue. He has formed an action group

of industry and provider interests to try and support colleges in their attempts to ensure they make the best use of

technology to improve teaching and learning. It is systemic change to the funding, inspection, audit, and

assessment regimes which is urgently needed to give teachers the space to innovate.

There is much to be done however as colleges try to make up for lost time and avoid what Martin Bean, Vice

Chancellor of the Open University warns is the “growing crisis of relevance” in our schools and colleges.

My grandchildren will leave school in 2027, 2028 and 2029 and they will leave schools that will have no pens, no

paper, no books, no rows of desks, no whiteboards no printers, no desktops, no ICT suites and will be accustomed

to working with learning analytics, gesture computing, onscreen assessments and instant feedback, speech to text

and text to speech recognition and personalised blended learning programs accessible every day, all day and night

and year round.

I hope they will have the choice of going to an FE college to continue their learning but if the slow progress that

has been made since incorporation is anything to go by I am not sure they will?

This report should help colleges prepare for the learning and learners of the future.

Bob Harrison

Toshiba Education Adviser

Vice Chair of Governors Northern College

Member of Ministerial Further Education Learning Technology Action Group

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Executive Summary

This report is for anyone involved with making technology decisions in Further Education (FE) and has been

designed in a way to consider the colleges and suppliers’ perspective. Whether you are an educator or supplier we

hope that this report proves useful with your current and future technology projects.

In this report colleges will find out how difficult it can be to develop and roll out successful Technology products,

and considers how educators can help suppliers improve new and emerging EdTech. Existing FE and education

suppliers will find out about some tried and tested business principles that successful technology companies have

used and advocate. Start-ups and organisations that are looking to work with education or FE will discover why this

could be a great target market. A core message of this report is the need for collaboration and how an FE suppliers

business’ strategy, operational practices and roll out plans can affect the quality of EdTech they deliver to FE.

The first part of each section includes business principles that organisations like MIT and start-up Incubators like

LearnLaunchX advise their students and their newly formed companies to use. The second section “implications for

FE” details what impact adhering to, or neglecting, these principles can have of the finished product and for FE.

Section 1 looks at the time and cost implications of suppliers’ sales efforts for both colleges and suppliers. We

consider how much time colleges will spend annually dealing with sales enquiries, as well as the overhead costs for

suppliers to get some early FE customers. We question whether the costs of attracting new customers could be

converted into a development budget for early adopter colleges to trial new services and offer input.

Getting feedback and collaborating with potential customers is vital in developing great products. The best sales

team in the world will struggle to engage with customers if the product is not fit for purpose, or does not fulfil a

need. Section 2 looks at the importance of “product-market fit” and highlights how it is extremely difficult to get

products right at the first attempt – even Google, Apple and Microsoft did not get it right first time. We will

demonstrate that the best way to achieve this crucial aspect of any product is through collaborating with potential

customers.

One of the main causes of companies failing is rolling a product out too soon. Section 3 looks at the best indicator

for gauging when you know you have a great product, and when it is time to look for new customers. We also look

at some of the dangers that result from premature scaling – like high “customer churn” and turnover of key staff

members; whereas the benefits of rolling out at the right time will involve “less selling and more buying.”

Finding the right target market is one of the most important decisions a young company can make. Section 4 looks

at some of the key considerations suppliers should bear in mind when considering education and other sectors as a

potential target market for their product. We highlight how, and why, FE could be the perfect target market for

start-ups with the right product.

Once a supplier has identified their ideal target market, we discuss the merits and

importance of becoming the market leader, and why this should be one of the key strategic

objectives for new suppliers. Section 5 discusses the level of focus required for start-ups and

new providers in order to become a market leader. Section 6 looks at the negative

consequences for any organisation that loses their focus.

Section 7 looks at the “Technology Adoption Cycle,” the different profiles and expectations of

each group when assessing technology. We discuss how FE could use this model to improve

edtech products and rolling new products out within FE.

“This report has changed

my attitude! After reading

it I got an email from a

start-up and liked the sound

of what they were offering,

the company asked for a

meeting and I agreed”

Caron Sandeman, Dundee

College

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Report Feedback from the Sector – Influencers & Associations “This EdTech report is brilliant and very readable. It captures many of the key points from my book, Disciplined Entrepreneurship, and applies the principles to the education sector very

well. Education Technology is a difficult sector for any cash strapped entrepreneur, for many of the reasons outlined in this report. We look forward to sharing the findings from this report with our students and staff” “Bill Aulet, MD of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship

"Technology in FE’ is a highly informative and thought provoking report. The idea that suppliers and educators should work closely together on bringing technology into colleges will resonate strongly. Too often supposed solutions imposed without sufficient dialogue

have resulted in poor outcomes and a failure to address educational issue. The report recognizes this, and thus firmly coheres with the launch of the ‘great education debate’ by ASCL, based on the belief that establishing purpose and vision are the starting points for any lasting and successful development in education” Stephan Jungnitz, Colleges Specialist, Association of School & College Leaders (ASCL)

“Jisc welcomes this report that will help suppliers and FE Colleges to better develop and exploit the essential technology services that are relevant to need and which will play an increasingly vital part in education and skills training. Jisc supplies a variety of services to the FE and Skills sector, underpinned

but the Janet network, which itself is a highly advanced product developed in partnership with world class optical, transmission and network suppliers. We agree with the report that colleges need to be "active not passive consumers of educational technology" and the findings will support the Regional Support Centres work in this area. We recognise the importance of a vibrant and innovative relationship with suppliers and value greatly our relationship with FE Colleges that will help us to continue to co-develop valuable services for that community.” Martyn Harrow, Chief Executive, Jisc

“This report contains sensible and practice advice for tech companies looking to build positive links and commercial agreements within the FE sector. It is very encouraging that leading lights within

the sector are sharing experiences and collaborating with the education community.”Mark Rosser, Member Services Manager, British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)

“As a lecturer who is not directly responsible for the procurement of technology, I have learned a great deal from this report. While the information was new to me, it is conveyed in an interesting

and engaging manner. The journey from an idea to the creation of useful technology which is aimed at meeting a specific educational need, then getting that product to the end user is a tricky one. It seems logical that the best results to ensure genuine 'product market fit' happen when all stakeholders are involved in development. I was also able to make parallels with the various technology profiles and our learner profiles; the requirements for those that are tech proficient will be different from those who are not. We would not put a student with a lower level of skill in an A Level class, so understood and saw the value of the 'Technology Adoption Cycle'. I look forward to seeing the impact that this report has on helping the FE sector to become a great target market for start ups and to encourage collaboration in the development of education technology. I found it to be an informative and thought provoking read.” Sarah Simons, FE lecturer, writer & co-founder of #UKFEchat

"What makes the NMC Horizon Report series so unique is the diverse set of perspectives it encompasses. For each report, an international advisory board of education experts is convened to discuss their insights on the emerging technologies, trends, and challenges they each believe will have a major impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry within the next five years. Ultimately, they

select the particular topics that are described in the reports and they support those choices by sharing projects that reflect innovative uses of the technologies in action. Just as this report advocates close collaboration with all stakeholders, it is this kind collective knowledge, collaboration and sharing ideas and information that makes the work of the NMC Horizon Project possible – and profound." Samantha Becker, Senior Director, Communications, The New Media Consortium

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Report Feedback from the Sector – Partners & Suppliers “This report is on the mark. LearnLaunchX designed its curriculum with many of the

issues mentioned here – product-market fit, building long-term customer relationships,

developing effective sales strategies – in mind. As our first cohort of EdTech start ups leave the incubator, it is

satisfying to see our portfolio companies leverage these techniques and principles to scale. We believe it is

important to make this information known to the wider EdTech field so that our community can grow and startups

can continue to reform the education space.

Working hand-in-hand with EdTech startups everyday gives us here at LearnLaunchX a perfect view to watch the

growth and evolution of the education field. Education now accounts for 9% of the US economy and is growing

rapidly all over the world. We believe that technology offers a once in a generation opportunity to revolutionize the

way that people learn and make education more effective and available. We are excited to be part of this

movement.” Jean Hammond, LearnLaunchX

“We have found this report very interesting as we have lived though many of the

experiences highlighted in the 12 years since we began selling Smart Science®

explorations. Initially, we knew we had a great idea. Now, we know we have a great product. We have survived

through an evangelistic belief in what we're doing and through extraordinary customer support, including adjusting

our product rapidly based on user feedback. Our biggest challenge in addressing the post-secondary education

market has been its fragmentation. In most instances, you have to call on each educator individually. Cost of sales

is huge, and we could probably sell our service at one-half or less of our current price if it were easier to reach and

engage educators.” Harry Keller, President, Smart Science Education Inc.

“I found much in your report that was consistent with Wanderful interactive

storybooks experiences in education. The power of “word of mouth” referrals

cannot be underestimated. In today’s world of social media and mobile apps,

we have found that the importance of “traditional marketing” activities has almost disappeared. We

spent a significant amount of our marketing budget there and had little to show for it. The focus must

now be on social media to spread the word out about our products. Having some means to go viral –

which is a combination of hard work, timing and luck – is really the only way for a small entrepreneur

to “rise above the noise” Mickey Mantle, Founder & CEO, Wanderful interactive storybooks and Author of

“Managing the Unmanageable: Managing Software, People and Teams”

“We believe that the most effective technology tools stem from simple, design led, web

based applications, which can create an enhanced experience for the end user. The recent

boom in technology has led to improved internet connectivity which has enabled increased

use of cloud based solutions. These lightweight alternatives not only cost less but make support much easier to

access.

“Flexible high-end web based technologies for FE establishments represent better value for money. In contrast to

traditional relationships with suppliers, typically involving costly off the shelf products, suppliers should work closely

to develop or extend a product, resulting in an innovative and bespoke package to suit all needs.

Anything that encourages innovation within the sector and develops products and services that make the best

possible use of current web technologies is bound to lead to positive outcomes.” Mick Cox, Chief Executive, The

Skills Network

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Introduction

Why should educators care about how tech companies run their business?

The idea for this report came about after BBC’s Panorama – Reading, Writing & Rip offs which highlighted how

schools were being ripped off by companies at the expense of education – conned by aggressive, intimidating

sales people who would not leave without an order.

The program highlighted how company reps were telling schools that laptops were free through a leasing scheme,

but they then got bills for £160,000 for 20 laptops and 1 photocopier. School budgets were badly affected and, in

some cases, Head Teachers and educators lost their jobs as a direct result of these companies’ business practices.

The relationship those companies established with the education sector was not a positive one.

These are extreme cases, but how tech suppliers plan, develop, manage resources and execute their operations

plays a significant role in the quality of their education products. For example, if we look at the other end of the

spectrum, we find that great EdTech goes viral and is the result of close collaboration with educators – Great

technology products are synonymous with great relationships.

“We want to support colleges as they explore new ways of working, encouraging them to be active not passive

consumers of educational technology. This report is part of our campaign to help educators engage, and assist

with, edtech product development - not just use IT programs designed by others.” Mark Dawe, OCR Chief Executive

Comparing the examples of aggressive sales practices with products that

go viral, along with our own experiences, we felt that this was something

worth investigating. The kind of questions we wanted to explore included;

What differentiates great technology tools from ones that are,

frankly, quite disappointing?

Are the relationships between FE and technology suppliers as

efficient and productive as they could be?

Are there things that FE could be doing to assist suppliers?

When researching the conditions that are conducive to developing

successful technology products, we explored:

Tech Companies – Those that are doing well and enjoy organic

growth with lots of happy customers.

Venture Capitalists – Who can see when young tech companies

are heading off course, are able to identify the causes, and

recommend the best course of action.

Technology Sales – Referring to the right sources can highlight

some extremely useful ideas which can make the sales process

more efficient for all stakeholders and help improve the product.

The main source of this research comes from “Why Start-ups Fail” by Dave

Feinleib, “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore with references from

Doug Edwards (Google employee 59) and MIT’s Bill Aulet

Even the best tech in the world needs

people who can articulate how the

technology can assist customers & users

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A word on... Technology Entrepreneurs

The Start-up Genome Project research has

highlighted that, like educators, EdTech suppliers

want their technology to have an impact in the

classroom.

Through being involved with a number of

different Further Education projects we can

testify to this.

It is surprising how some projects can start out

not looking too promising but end up working

well. On the other hand it is puzzling, concerning

and extremely frustrating when other projects,

which promised much initially, but never really

fulfil their potential.

No one sets out to build a bad product, yet it happens all the time. Why is this?

Anyone who feels that Tech entrepreneurs are involved in education just to “make a fast buck” may find this

article of interest – Start-up Education

The Art of the Sale

Unless accompanied by “Closing down” or “January” the word sales can have poor connotations. While sales may

have a questionable reputation the work of Daniel Pink (To Sell is Human) and Philip Delves Broughton (The Art of

the Sale) are helping to change attitudes by highlighting the key attributes of successful sales people.

Daniel Pink suggests that teaching is a sales job, as educators have to “sell” their subject to students – talk about a

hard sell to a tough crowd! Broughton met salespeople from different cultures and different fields to understand

not only what they did, but also what went on in their minds as they did it. A comment that resonated with us was;

“Some [salespeople] put a high value on the friendships they develop in sales and the opportunity to work

in a field they enjoy” Philip Delves Broughton – The Art of the Sale

You might expect that the success of technology is simply a case of “build something useful with complex coding or

algorithms…and customers will use the product,” but the sales and roll out process are extremely important. To

demonstrate this, before reading this report, we would encourage you to consider the following questions;

How much does the college spend on ICT each year?

How many tech products is the college 100% satisfied with?

Are colleges more satisfied with products from niche FE/education suppliers or

from mainstream tech leaders like Google, Apple and Microsoft etc?

Are there any suppliers that work with 80-100% of FE colleges? If not, why not?

How easy is it for suppliers to engage with FE? If it is a challenge, what are the

implications to the kind of products that are developed?

“Putting educators at the heart

of edtech makes sense both for

investors and for users. Edtech

that is deeply rooted in the

reality of education and which

helps teachers drive educational

attainment, is what will succeed

commercially” Richard Taylor,

Managing Director, Ed Invent

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Section 1 – Sales in Further Education: Current Practices

In our experience, bringing a new idea or product to FE can be time consuming for both the supplier and the FE

sector. For colleges this might include:

1) Various departments dealing with

e-mails and phone calls from

suppliers trying to discuss the

merits of their product and to

arrange meetings.

2) Arranging a 1-1.5 hour

presentation for products that the

college wishes to explore

further.This may involve staff from

a number of departments.

3) Internal due diligence after the

presentation. This may involve

further meetings and discussions

before making any purchasing

decisions.

When we consider the number of

suppliers who will be contacting FE, we

get an idea of how time consuming

sales enquiries can be:

Education Suppliers: We have identified 1,200 suppliers who attend education conferences and events in the UK

Main Stream Suppliers: Generic tech suppliers who work in more than 1 sector– inc mass market global leaders

like Apple, Google, Microsoft as well as SME’s

Start-Ups: There are 270,000 new start-ups in the UK each year and 6.5 million in USA, while not all of these will

be relevant to FE, some will be. If 0.5% of these companies were relevant to education/FE this would be 1,350 new

UK companies and 32,500 from the US per annum looking to engage with the education sector.

Given all the budget cuts etc are colleges spending the equivalent of a full time

member of staff per annum dealing with sales enquiries?

Approx time implications for colleges Approx cost implications for suppliers

#Phone Calls Time/Cost

1,200 suppliers calling once p/m - 100 calls per college per month

10 min call per month to all colleges £20,000 (per annum)

#Meetings Time/Cost

1,200 x 1hr mtg with 1 staff member – 150 hours/4 months

1 Meeting @ 400 colleges £55,000 (based on 3 mtgs per day)

Could sales enquiries be costing colleges as much as £30,000 per annum?

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Implications for FE: Small Market and Difficult to Reach? There will be thousands of start-ups with great products that would suit colleges, but the

FE sector may get bypassed after these companies’ carry out their due diligence. This is

because their research highlights that education is a complex sector with long sales cycles.

If it takes 3-6 months for colleges to carry out due diligence on a new product and there

are only 10 colleges that make up the initial “tech enthusiast” early market, how appealing

will this sector be to an ambitious young start-up who has a great product that could be of

benefit to a number of sectors?

This was the reason why Bill Aulet, MIT Sloan School of Management Director” to “Bill Aulet, Managing Director of

the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a

Successful Startup, discounted two potential target markets (universities and medicine) with a company he was

involved with. The need was there, but the company’s extensive due diligence highlighted that it would be a real

challenge for them to effectively reach and engage with industry decision makers, which would lead to a long and

complex sales process. For more information please see Appendix 1 – MIT Case Study: SensAble Technologies.

# of Colleges Product Cost (£3K) Lead Time Overheads (X4 staff)

10-20 £30,000 - £60,000 6 Months £65,000

20-30 £60,000 - £90,000 12 months £130,000

30-40 £90,000 - £120,000 18 months £205,000

60-80 £180,000 - £240,000 24 months £260,000

SensAble Technologies looked to make an impact in their target sector within 1-2 years. If we consider the figures

above, it is easy to see why suppliers with an innovative approach would either bypass FE completely or would

need to bolster sales by looking to work with other sectors. But, as we will demonstrate, working in other sectors

can affect product quality. The lack of focus can affect how bespoke the product will become for education.

A great product meets customers’ needs, but you also need a way to distribute that

product efficiently within the target market

The Start-Up Mindset: Risk or Opportunity

Just as FE may not represent the best target market for ambitious high growth companies, a start-up may not be

the preferred choice for FE. There is a vibrant start-up culture in FE with the Gazelle Group and Peter Jones

Academies, but what are colleges’ views on working with start-ups if there is the option of working with a more

established provider? As the saying goes, “No-one gets fired for going with IBM” or any other established supplier.

Could this view be inadvertently hampering or stifling innovation to some extent within the sector?

Doug Edwards explains what he happened when Google used a start-up instead of the more established suppliers;

“I learned that the obvious solutions are not the only ones, and “safe” choices are not always good choices. I had

thought that due diligence meant finding the product most people relied on, then putting pressure on the vendor to

cut the price. It never occurred to me to talk to a start-up, even though I worked at one. It never occurred to Larry

Not to do that. We had different tolerances for risk and different ideas about what two smart people working alone

could accomplish in a complex technical area – and that is why I spent 7 years working in mainstream media while

Larry found a partner and founded his own company. Two smart guys working on complex technical problems, it

turns out, can accomplish a hell of a lot.” The full extract of this discussion can be found in Appendix 2 – What

Would Google Do? ...and is worth a read.

How easy is if for suppliers to reach FE?

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Enter the Dragon’s Den – FE Style! How to Impress an Edu IT Department Any suppliers looking to engage with FE may want to take on board some tips and advice from Paul Maddock, IT Director at Warwickshire College and member of the Association of Colleges National IT Group.

Colleges are looking for ways to save money and to attract & retain students Anyone looking to engage with, and sell to, the FE Sector should; 1) Have all their facts prepared and ready to deliver in a compelling way 2) Be able to demonstrate an understanding of the FE sector 3) Have an understanding of what colleges’ needs are 4) Be succinct in explaining your product; but detailed with the benefits to FE 5) Have sufficient depth of knowledge of the product to address questions 6) Know your numbers! What are the costs on an initial and on-going basis? 7) Be clear on the value proposition – is this an upgrade or new innovation? 8) What are the advantages over what we currently have? 9) What benefits does this solution provide to justify the time & cost? 10) Have a real innovation! There are too many companies in education with very similar solutions. If there is a “me too” product and its struggling to get educators attention, this may be because we have already identified the best provider for the sector If a company has a really innovative product the best way for them to get good feedback, and to test the water, is to meet with one of the large groups of IT Managers/Directors - e.g., 157 Technology Group, AoC Technology Group, the Regional support Centres, UCISA or the Gazelle Group. These groups meet several times a year and this is the way the big players get the opportunity to get their message across. They offer to host our meetings and then get given a slot to put their story forward. Over the last year we have been to Cisco, Microsoft and RM amongst others. One point I would like to make regarding this report is that I do not agree that, as a sector, we are difficult to

engage with if the product and approach is right. However, we are busy people and we need a good business

reason to engage. I get at least 5-10 companies a day ringing to ask “for our plans in xxxx,” this kind of approach

does get tedious. Paul Maddock, IT Director, Warwickshire College

“I absolutely agree with the section on sales calls, there is a phenomenal hidden costs to colleges dealing with these

calls. I probably talk to 3 or 4 sales people a week – unless they know our business and the challenges we face and

can offer me a solution to these challenges, I am unlikely to be interested.

Saying that you work with X College or X University doesn’t score points with me – core business may be the same

but every college is different, colleges will be at different stages – education was paperbound until only a few years

ago and colleges tend to move at their own pace.

Have something you can send me about your product - I won’t commit to a 2 hour meeting when all I can hear is

tech speak – what do you do and what does it mean for me? If companies can help then yes we will talk to them

but if you’re approaching me with a product which I am not even sure what it will do from your description then I’m

not interested. Caron Sandeman, Business Systems Manager, Dundee College

“I made a decision a couple of years ago

to stop fielding sales calls. If I hadn't

implemented the no-phone sales policy

then I would be spending far too much

time listening to pitches for things I am

not interested in. Reception is instructed

not to pass any through but to give out

our e-mail address instead. If they can't

obtain my attention via e-mail then

their product can't be that good. Several

companies send in account managers

who give you a 1.5 hour nonstop lecture

on things you should be interested in.

They find that they are never invited

back. I have strong relationships with IT

Managers / Directors in other non-

competing colleges and news travels

fast.” Martyn Coleman, IT Director,

King George V College Stockport

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Section 2 - Product-Market Fit Product quality matters more than ever before. Not only has the internet increased the speed at which word of mouth spreads, but FE has always been a tight close knit community and is able to spread the word about suppliers very quickly – whether good, bad or indifferent.

Great products are at the heart of today’s leading companies. No longer is the product independent of sales & marketing… A great product is one that is easy to use, self-explanatory and delights customers We don’t think we would be ruining the end of this report if we were to say that very few companies seem to get

every aspect of their product 100% right. David Feinleib, Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist, uses the analogy of a

horse race when searching for a successful tech company;

“To pick a winner you’ve got to have the right race, the right horse and the right jockey” No easy feat!

Just like a horse race, it would appear that even the most promising new tech company can fall at the first hurdle,

or end up being a disappointing “also-ran.” One of the first, and most important, hurdles to overcome is finding

“product-market fit.”

“Product-market fit is being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market” Marc Andreessen

Companies that take the time to do this find that it transforms the company and its trajectory. The product becomes a great product and markets itself… one that people want to tell colleagues and friends about. Of the technology products you use, how many are there that you would say fits this description? If the answer is “not many” this highlights how difficult a process this is...indeed a lot of companies never achieve the elusive “product-market fit,” before a company finds this, nearly everything they do – or should do – is about the search for this.

“Most entrepreneurs start with a thesis and believe that if they build X,

then Y will happen. More often than not, their thesis is incorrect. The best

thing tech suppliers can do during the planning stages is to work closely

with potential customers in their target market” David Feinleib

Suppliers need to be willing to make changes if their thesis is wrong.

Persistence is critical to entrepreneurial success, but stubbornness can kill

a business.

You cannot fake “product-market fit”. To be successful suppliers have to build

something people want…and supply products that match expectations. If a

product seems undifferentiated people will simply go for the lowest price.

Winners and Losers of the Internet

During the internet boom, companies

focused more on their share price than on

business fundamentals. This encouraged a

reckless disregard of the need to satisfy

their customers’ needs.

Most dot.com ventures were flaky because

they paid scarcely any attention to the issue

of why customers should use their services.

The most fundamental questions any

business needs to ask itself are:

1) What exactly do we offer customers

2) Why should customers buy from us

rather than anyone else?

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Product-Market Fit – Out of Touch or Out of Reach

If there are any challenges in FE technology today then issues around product-market fit may be the root cause. In

the event that colleges do tend to go with the “safe option” Vs anything that would be more risky, who can blame

them? How many companies go through the level of due diligence that seasoned tech entrepreneurs like Geoffrey

Moore, David Feinleib and MIT recommend? We know that Apple, Google and Microsoft do.

When it comes to the very best products, people want to buy them.

Great sales operations are no substitute for product-market fit

Evidence of this may be that, according to the Centre for Learning and Technologies survey, 42 of the top 100

tools used in education are from Google, Apple, Microsoft and other mainstream suppliers. These companies take

the time to find product-market fit, here are some examples of global tech market leaders’ commitment to

education:

Microsoft – School of the Future

Reading UTC – Sponsors and Partners

Sponsoring and partnering with these institutions will

enable the tech companies to assess, test, develop and

refine any new products in the school and classroom

environment. Working on site to develop products is a

common practice with large successful tech companies

(see p13 and Appendix 2).

Sales & marketing departments must refocus away from selling products and

toward creating relationships. Partnering with customers is a key component.

The primary challenge here is not technical, but cultural

In the event that there is disappointment amongst any smaller suppliers’ products in FE, is it because this key

product-market fit discovery phase involving close collaboration with both supplier and college has been omitted?

This is not to suggest that start-ups or other suppliers are not committed to product-

market fit. But what opportunities are there for them to assess, test and refine their ideas

and products in colleges in a way that would allow them to either iterate their way to

product-market fit; or to find out that there is not sufficient interest in their product? How

can they fail fast and fail cheap in FE if they don’t have a compelling product?

Is this the fault of the supplier or the sector? Out of all the sales calls colleges receive

looking for an order, how many suppliers have been in contact before trying to sell their

product to say “We have this idea to develop XYZ and are looking for some FE partners to

collaborate and test the idea with?” Or do suppliers try to do this but are not able to reach

the people, departments and groups in FE that could help with this product development?

If this kind of process is missing is it due to not being able to connect rather any issue of

wilful neglect?

Microsoft Sponsored School of the Future in Philadelphia

“I spent 18 months working

at a business park with an

FE College on site. I tried to

arrange meetings to discuss

a number of new ideas with

various departments at the

college.

Despite getting a lot interest

from a lot of other colleges, I

never managed to engage

with, or meet, anyone from

the college .This was quite

frustrating” William Jenkins

Tech Stories

13

How to Find Product-Market Fit – Experiment and Collaborate Seasoned tech veterans recommend that suppliers sales & marketing

departments should refocus away from selling products and toward creating

relationships. Partnering with customers is a key component.

The primary challenge here is not technical, but cultural

To achieve product-market fit, the fundamental requirement is an accurate and honest exchange of information, suppliers’ partners need it and customers demand it. During the product-market fit discovery process, suppliers should expect to

get a lot of things wrong, which is fine – just as long as they get the product-

market fit right.

Perfection is a supplier’s enemy during this discovery process… suppliers

should get products out fast and ask for feedback. They should be flexible

about everything, including offering early adopters discounts—but do not

compromise on finding product-market fit!

Finding product-market fit requires either being right out of the gate—

possible but rare—or trying a lot of different things and failing at them

quickly until the start-up discovers what works.

The history of successful companies is often rewritten to make it look like

they tried one thing and the idea worked from the start. Most companies

tried multiple ideas and products before they hit the right one. They failed

repeatedly until they succeeded. They conserved capital and stayed small

until they found product-market fit.

Apple, Microsoft, Google et al consistently come up with great new innovations,

but they also cycle through new ideas until they latch onto the right one, then

they become ultra-focused. These companies build products all the time, but

ship selectively as this article demonstrates – Apple iWatch

Most entrepreneurs have come closer than they care to admit to bankruptcy

due to lack of product-market fit. Time for suppliers and start-ups is limited.

The message from MIT, Babson & Stanford is consistent, loud and clear – get

focused. Fail fast. Fail cheap.

It is better to ship products early and refine with input from customers. Once

suppliers have this valuable customer feedback, they need to invest the time to

take what is most likely an 80% offering (at best) and redesign it until it “just

works”. Fail to tackle the remaining 20% and customers will look for alternative

products and solutions.

What would Google Do – How Do Major

Tech Companies make decisions?

“Before a press release could go out Larry

[Page] insisted on running the draft past

everyone in the building. “I definitely

never did this at any other company. I did

not have that kind of relationship with

engineers at any other company because

we had layers of organization between

marketing and techies, and I don’t think

that’s unusual. We lived in different

buildings, different worlds. I was

pleasantly surprised by the tone and

quality of the feedback I got from

Googlers” Cindy McCaffrey (PR Director)

Google was different that way. Even

though the engineers were kept separate

according to the floor plan, email

penetrated all corners of the company

and communal meals and snack rooms

led to plenty of cross pollination. It was

surprising to me, too, how articulate and

interesting the techies turned out to be

when you got to know them.” Doug

Edwards, Google employee 59

“Gaining proof of concept by working in collaboration with Pembrokeshire College has validated the

potential of the VocalEyes process and given confidence to the sector to adopt social media technologies

in a positive way. This successful collaboration with a college looking for innovation opportunities has put

us on the map as a serious contender in the field of stakeholder engagement'. Peter Anderson, LocalEyes

“Companies do not get it right the

first time… the first Macintosh and

the first release of Windows simply

were not right—both needed major

overhauls before they could become

the runaway successes they

represent today.

This was only possible by Apple and

Microsoft keeping in close touch

with their customers and the other

participants that make up the PC

marketplace” Dave Feinleib

14

Product-Market Fit Case Study – Pembrokeshire College & LocalEyes When entrepreneur, Peter Anderson, pitched his “VocalEyes” concept to Pembrokeshire College, they saw its potential immediately, as the college felt the solution could invigorate their Learner Voice strategy, and help with staff engagement. The college agreed to become a development partner with Peter’s social enterprise and, under a Welsh Government early Stage Development Fund, the partnership and project became a reality. The college assigned a long-standing member of staff who had a passion for social media, Sarah Hoss, who also had lecturing and marketing experience to help develop the idea in-house. VocalEyes was installed onto the college's intranet for students to interact with to confirm proof of concept and product-market fit. In the first year VocalEyes reached 26,000 interactions.

When the project was ready for roll out to other colleges, they signed up without the need of any college sales staff. This is because, as well as in-house development, Sarah is involved with promoting VocalEyes to other colleges – Another example of education-to-education (E2E) promotion.

“VocalEyes is setting alight our learner voice and staff engagement. It is a great vehicle for teaching responsible posting on social media, as well as fostering a greater sense of citizenship because students feel listened to and see their proposals put into action”

"The response has been overwhelmingly positive from every organisation we have demonstrated VocalEyes to. We are presenting this platform at the AoC conference for the second year, as we are keen to get the message out that this system works.” Sarah Hoss, Inventions Facilitator and VocalEyes Partner

Following the success of this pilot and collaboration with the college, The University of Wales Trinity Saint David will be the first University to use the system and other colleges in Wales are also coming on board and these is interest from other FE Colleges. VocalEyes has also been;

VocalEyes is part of a larger digital platform called LocalEyes based on social networking where the focus is on action rather than socializing. VocalEyes is raising the bar for Learner Voice practitioners by capturing real time student responses, and allowing participants to rate each other’s ideas. Rather than the feedback being published all over public sites, the college community – through the power of the crowd – determine which ideas should be actioned and which suggestions should be shelved.

VocalEyes is giving senior managers a steer on what to – and not to do – and stats prove they have a mandate. This big data collection also calls the organisation to account, as the popular ideas require actions and outcomes to be reported back.

At Pembrokeshire College, there are many opportunities for learners to have their say. The college is now implementing a web-based system to capture learners’ views which will act as a pilot for the whole further education sector. The impact is that there is increased student participation, retention and achievement. The college also has a better understanding of learner perspectives.

A finalist in the "Revolutionary" category for No. 10's awards for Social Innovation

Recognised by Welsh education inspectors (ESTYN) as ‘best practice’.

Given financial support from NESTA and been declared by them as "One to watch”

15

Implications for FE – When Product-Market Fit “Discovery Process” is Missing?

How conducive is FE to this kind of product development process? Companies are fond of talking about selling but

when it comes to the very best products, people want to buy them.

Great sales operations are no substitute for a great product We hope that we have demonstrated that a lot of work is required in the initial stages of new products, and to get some early sales. But this level of due diligence creates a great product that practically sells itself. Google, Microsoft, Apple have become ubiquitous suppliers with tools that educators enjoy using... but have you ever had sales calls from any of these companies sales reps? Indeed we have noticed some concerning trends on this topic and have commented on it in this article – The Death of an EdTech Salesman If great products are bought, not sold and educators are making more recommendations... why are there still so many sales calls being made?

Many start-ups ramp up sales before the product is ready. Some spend too

much time on technology. Others build without getting customer feedback

“The number-one cause of start-up failure is premature scaling” Start-up Genome Project

Premature scaling means spending money too quickly, usually on sales and marketing, before the company

iterates their way to product-market fit (For more details see Appendix 3, 5 & 6). This may include over-

committing to a niche sector or a particular approach too soon. By scaling prematurely, not only do start-ups waste

significant overheads, but companies also have a big psychological hurdle to overcome if they want to change

direction.

Some suppliers ramp up sales before their product is ready…and waste a lot of

money! This can kill the company

Every year countless work hours of our nation’s best technical talent are lost in failed attempts to become the next big tech company “Look at our product. Is it not as good, if not better, than the product that beat us?” The company looks for a scapegoat, and whom do they light upon? With unfailing consistency and unerring accuracy, all fingers point to the Head of Sales or Marketing. But the problem has not been an issue of staff but of not finding product-market fit, and the company wrongly believes that success is just a matter of spending money to reach their customers.

The right time to invest in sales and marketing material is when the supplier has determined that they have

product-market fit. When this has been achieved then—and only then—should the supplier start to concentrate

on rolling the service out.

Are suppliers relentless in their pursuit

of “product-market fit”?

This means not spending money, not

scaling up/rolling services out or getting

set on a certain path until they have

“Product-Market Fit”

If companies are 3-4 years into building

their services and things seem to be

stagnant, chances are their product has

not achieved product-market fit.

16

Section 3 - When to Roll Products Out…When Customers Would Recommend It A good metric for assessing if a supplier has achieved product-market fit is the “Net Promoter Score(NPS).” NPS

gauges the answer to the question:

“Would you recommend this product to a friend or colleague?”

The answer is given on a scale of one to ten, with respondents grouped into

promoters, passives, and detractors. Suppliers with higher Net Promoter Scores

have been shown to enjoy faster and more efficient roll out progress.

Improving this score boils down to having more promoters and fewer detractors.

Companies with higher NPS values have more efficient growth because customers

are more likely to recommend the product to new customers.

Asking people whether they would recommend a supplier to someone else is a lot different than asking if they like

the product. In order to recommend a product to a friend, users really need to love it; few people want to be

known to their friends or colleagues for recommending a product that does not perform as well as expected.

A low NPS will result in high customer churn – customers are showing up to use

the product... but then going away

Implications for FE–More Buying; Less Selling

Net promoter score, product-market fit and collaborating with customers are all interconnected with the overall

result being that colleges will do more buying, and less time needing to be “sold” on the merits of a product. Of all

the sales calls that colleges get, how many are from Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube?

Many start-ups ramp up sales before the product is ready

I have had direct experience of engaging with colleges through “selling” and colleges “buying”. I have worked on

projects that required two meetings only to be informed that the college would not be subscribing to the

companies’ product. The development of these products involved a meeting with the company’s Managing

Director and the IT Director who, after their meeting, decided between themselves that “This is what FE needs”

with little or no input from colleges.

I have also had colleges sign up to projects without any meetings required, all interactions were carried out online,

but were developed in collaboration with colleges using emails, surveys and other quick and simple feedback

forums. This was followed by establishing some small scale pilots to test the idea. These colleges were then used

as reference sites when the project was ready for roll out. The same sales person but different approach –different

levels of customer engagement... and different results!

Numerous studies have shown that word of mouth is the number one source of

information for buyers of technology. Suppliers must ensure their first set of

customers are 100% satisfied and that their product fulfils their objectives. NPS

asks “How likely is it that you would recommend the company to a friend?”

Time to Roll Out When…

Found product-market fit

Customers are referring you to other customers

Roll Out Failure Occurs when…

There is insufficient experimentation

Ramping sales before product-market fit

17

Section 4 - Target Market There is a big focus on enterprise in FE and college enterprise educators will

no doubt be teaching young entrepreneurs to think about which sector they

will focus on when they start to sell their products… and that this may be

the toughest but most important decision of the young start-up’s life.

Companies that are just starting out have to make this decision with little or no useful hard information. They will be trying to pick a target market that they have not yet been involved with to any great extent and they may lack experience in the sector. The start-up is in a “high-risk, low-data" state.

Not Too Big…Not Too Small – Just Right?

David Feinleib and other Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists will tell any budding entrepreneur that their goal is to

find a big market opportunity, because going after a big market opportunity vastly reduces the chance of failure.

The most successful tech start-ups—Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon et al — are all

synonymous with big markets. Companies with big markets have a lot more potential customers.

Feinleib highlights that some sectors (i.e. small businesses) can be a challenging target market for start-ups as

there are two painful truths about them; 1) They are very hard to reach, and 2) They have no money. The product

may be compelling and users need the solution, but the supplier is not able to reach their customers effectively!

While there are dangers with small markets, big markets also have their pitfalls. When suppliers are on the verge of making a decision about which niche target market to commit to, the issue of how much revenue this target market could generate comes up. People normally think that bigger is better. This is almost never the case. Here’s why...To become the de facto standard and market leader, the company needs to win at least half of the new orders in the target market in a relatively short period of time. Companies just starting out with scarce resources must operate in a “tightly bound” market to be competitive. In large market segments marketing messages will get diffused and the chain reaction of word-of-mouth communication dies out… the sales force is back to selling “cold.” If customers try to start a conversation about the supplier there will be no one there to reinforce the customers’ view of the product. However winning 4-5 customers in one sector will provide some word-of-mouth discussion. Buyers communicate along industry lines or through professional associations. Further education colleges talk to other colleges via AoC, NAMSS, College Marketing Network, 157 Group etc. A sales driven approach might see a supplier win over one or two customers in 5-10 different markets/sectors, but this will not create any word-of-mouth effect. Geoffrey Moore advises that in order for word of mouth to develop in any particular market place there needs to be a critical mass of informed individuals who meet from time to time and exchange views which reinforce the product’s reputation. There is a lot riding on the niche target market that suppliers decide to establish their business in, and severe punishment for making a bad decision. So, if suppliers want to be market leader, the #1 marketing goal is to work with customers who can act as references— the only strategy is to take a “big fish, small pond” approach.

“Many in the FE sector participate in active Jisc groups, which facilitate contact across a wide range of providers in the sector. The NAMSS JISC mail group is one of the most active, bringing together nearly 400 General Further Education Colleges, 6

th

Form Colleges, Training Providers and Higher Education Institutions. One of the foundations of the NAMSS it forms a critical part of sharing good practise, raising awareness and sourcing solutions amongst members Colleges” Jim Busher, NAMSS Chair

Facebook’s strategy started with a niche market — US colleges

18

Implications for FE – Could FE be the Ideal Niche Target Market?

We have highlighted how some suppliers may bypass FE because their due diligence suggests that this is a small,

difficult to reach market.

Venture capitalists like Dave Feinleib highlight just how important the initial target market is, and go as far as to

suggest that a poor product in a great market is better than a great product in a bad market.

We can perhaps get an idea of how sound his advice is by looking at education’s relationship with social media.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube started out as being blocked by schools and colleges in the first few years.

Today not only do most colleges have Twitter, Facebook and You Tube accounts, but they

have links and icons on the college homepage. This process took 3-4 years which was

feasible for these companies as they are mass market, mainstream services. This rate of

adoption could have been too long for a specialist education start-up to remain in business.

But this is not to say that FE can’t be a great market. It would not take much to demonstrate

to start-ups that FE colleges are not “typical educational institutions” when it came the sales

process but, that UK FE colleges is an ideal market – easy to reach, able to test ideas, helps

to spread the word about good products and, overall, extremely good progress could be

made within a 1-2 year period.

1) FE have budgets of almost £7 billion, if we speculate that 5-7% of this is spent on

technology then this is not a small industry, it is a £350-400mil industry.

2) The FE sector is amongst one of the most tight knit “bounded” communities we can

think of, with a variety of associations and partners – AoC, Scotland’s Colleges,

Colleges Wales, NI Colleges, FE Week, College Marketing Network, NAMSS,

Awarding Bodies to name a few, all with national and regional

conferences/networking events.

3) FE has great links with the 125 UK universities and over 3,000 secondary schools.

Further Education could be a great launch pad for the next big tech company(s), which could

lead to the sector attracting some cutting edge emerging technology from companies that

may not have considered FE as an initial potential target market.

Any issue of attracting new and innovative suppliers maybe an issue of market size. When

carrying out their due diligence what new suppliers will see is a market with less than 500

prospective customers and challenges with being able to effectively reach and collaborate

with this audience. However a co-ordinated campaign could help to change this, FE could

become a hot bed of experimentation and innovation.

If FE is seen as a small

market with long and

complex sales cycle, then

colleges may be missing out

on some great EdTech. It

would not take much to

change this perception and

for FE to become “A great

tightly-bound-fantastic-

word-of-mouth fuelled

market for start-ups and

other organisations with

great ideas…”

Date Established Feb 2004 Feb 2005 March 2006

Date college started using: 20?? 20?? 20??

Date on college home page: 20?? 20?? 20??

Date blocked/unblocked: 20?? 20?? 20??

"The 157 group’s networks

and Principal's meetings are

designed to make it possible

for technology companies and

others with innovative ideas

to reach the 29 of the large

urban colleges in the UK.

With a combined budget of

£1.5 billion 670,000 students,

37,000 staff and hundreds of

thousands PCs this is the

largest small market you are

likely to encounter"

Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group

19

Section 5 - Market Leaders and Focus! A key strategic objective for a new supplier will be to do great work and become a respected supplier and, ideally, be a market leader in their target market. In order to achieve this goal focus is a pre-requisite.

Suppliers that focus become market leaders To be the leader in any given target market, the supplier needs the largest market

share—typically over 50 percent. When starting out new suppliers and their products

will not be the market leader.

If the supplier has collaborated with their customers in the early stages of product

development, has achieved “product-market fit” and has delivered the product

customers were expecting, then they have a chance of becoming a market leader. But

this process takes a lot of time, effort and commitment. This is why focus is essential.

One of the main reasons that potential customers delay buying decisions is to help them get a fix on who the market leader will be. The reason for this is because other suppliers’ products will support the market leaders’ product. There are significant benefits to becoming a market leader, not only does it facilitate new business, but even when these key suppliers make mistakes, customers often bend over backwards to give them second and third chances… bringing cries of anguish from their smaller competitors who would never be granted such grace.

Without focus a company will struggle to become a market leader as it will spread its resources’ too thin

Facebook

Focus/Niche: Colleges and

universities – only students with

.edu email address could join.

This exclusivity drove demand.

Product-Market Fit: Enable real

life, authentic contacts to

connect online.

Execution: This focus allowed

Facebook to become a market

leader despite the fact that

MySpace and Friendster had

larger market share.

Market Leaders: Facebook did

nearly everything a startup is

supposed to do right: it was

nimble, reacted quickly, and got

the product right. In contrast its

biggest competitor, MySpace,

was mismanaged as part of a

larger organization, News

Corporation, which Rupert

Murdoch admitted that: “We

proceeded to mismanage

MySpace in every possible way.”

Google Focus/Niche: Search! Other companie had search engines, but was a small part of what they did. They didn’t think search could be profitable. Product-Market Fit: Relevance of their search results and a user friendly interface. Execution: Google won because it focused on search to the exclusion of all else, their algorithms delivered the most relevant search results Market Leaders: It’s difficult to imagine a time when Google was not the market leader in search, but Inktomi, Yahoo! and AOL were early leaders. In 2000 Inktomi was worth $25 billion with Yahoo as its biggest customer, but their search results struggled to deliver relevant results. Yahoo tried to develop their own search but their search lacked relevance and the page was cluttered in comparison with Google’s.

What if you’re not the market

leader?

It’s the elephant in the board

room, the difficult question no

one really wants to ask: “We’re

#2. How do we become #1?”

If you don’t answer the

question, the #1 supplier will

answer it… Great product-

market fit combined with

unparalleled execution will

move a company from market

laggard to market leader.

20

Implications for FE – Delivering the “Whole Product Model” Theodore Levitt and Bill Davidow highlight that with new/emerging technology there can be gaps between the

sales and marketing promise made to the customer and the actual product that gets shipped that would fulfil this

promise. This is partly due to the sales team selling based on the “Whole Product” but this does not always get

developed or delivered. Suppliers should be looking to deliver “The Whole Product”

Market leaders have focus and are committed to “The Whole Product”

The ability to deliver the Whole Product solution goes through stages. The most crucial point is when companies are “crossing the chasm” (see p24). When collaborating with clients on early pilot projects these development partners will assist with “the whole product”. Once the product is established third party suppliers will help to flesh out the whole product. During their “chasm crossing” phase of product development there is no hope of any external support. If a supplier neglects the whole product and simply leaves the customer with the service, they are leaving their customer’s success to chance, and so, are giving up control over their product’s success. But if suppliers can think through their customer’s problems—and solutions—they can work to ensure that customers get “the whole product”.

If we consider this product development in the early days of the PC, the actual product Vs the whole product might include: 1) Generic Product: A hard drive

is shipped 2) Expected Product: Early PC

users expected to get a monitor with their purchase – how else were they able to use the computer? But in fact, in most cases, it was not part of the generic product.

3) Augmented Product: A variety

of products - software, games, printers– are developed. Customer hotlines, advanced training and local service centers crop up.

4) Potential Product: In edtech

today topical issues are MOOCs and, since the TED Prize – Sugata Mirta’s S.O.L.E & A School in the Cloud

Any time a supplier looks to attract a different sector, this new customer base will put additional new demands on the whole product, so it soon becomes clear to even the most optimistic product marketing managers that they cannot go after all markets at once, because each opportunity has very real support costs.

21

Section 6 - Losing Focus Colleges may have suppliers that have done fantastic work but some key aspects of their product or customer

service may not be what it once was. This can often be the result of a lack of focus and can take the shape of;

Rolling out too soon or growing too fast

Working in too many different sectors

Having too many products

Lack a clear strategy

Struggle as a result of poor execution

What should suppliers do if they were a market leader but lost their position?

Market leadership is difficult to regain, but options might include bringing in a new leader, sell the company or…

focus, focus, focus! Go back to the strategy that made them successful.

Ever heard of a company called Ames? From 1973 to 1986 Ames was doing in the North East of the USA

what Wal-Mart was doing in the South. Ames stock performance tracked Wal-Mart’s. But while Wal-Mart

is alive and well (#1 on the fortune 500), where is Ames today? Dead. Gone. What distinguished Wal-Mart

from Ames? The answer lies in their focus.

Ames acquired a company that changed their focus and destroyed the momentum they built over 3

decades. Wal-Mart continued to focus first on rural small town areas before making an evolutionary

migration into more urban settings. In contrast Ames acquired a chain that made them a significant urban

player overnight. While Wal-Mart remained obsessed with offering everyday low prices on all brands all

the time, Ames dramatically changed to a strategy that was new to them (relying on special loss leader

promotions)…one that eventually plunged them into bankruptcy. Meanwhile Wal-Mart continued its

relentless march across the US – step by step, store by store, region by region – until it reached the North

East and killed Ames with the very same business model that Ames pioneered in the first place.

Jim Collins – How the Mighty Fall

Companies that need to regain market leadership have often lost their focus

The strategy designed to reduce suppliers’ market risk – operating in more than one niche sector – actually increases the risk. Companies who cannot commit to a single niche target market almost always fall prey to this mistake. Act locally, focus on one target market before acting globally (i.e. moving out into other sectors and wider audiences). Do not go straight to mass deployment: If companies try, they will not pass Go, and will not collect £200. On the other hand, with any niche that the supplier has saturated, they are likely to remain the market leader for a long time to come. The fundamental principle to becoming a market leader is to target a specific niche market and focus all their resources in that sector. If there is a genuine problem and product-market fit has been achieved, then customers and potential customers will support the supplier. In this situation, suppliers can go from “product-market fit” to delivering “The Whole Product Model” (see p20)... develop this and you could have some extremely happy customers. Market leadership is critical. Suppliers must focus exclusively on 1-2 narrowly bounded target markets. Failing to commit fully to this goal, the odds are overwhelmingly against the supplier ever becoming a mainstream product within the sector.

Most companies fail to become

market leaders because,

confronted with the immensity

of opportunities (other sectors,

new products), they lose their

focus, chasing every opportunity

that presents itself.

22

Implications for FE – Sales Driven Approach: Does NOT Deliver “Whole Product” Despite the sound rationale for the role that focus can play in becoming a market leader, which greatly facilitates the sales process, lots of companies remain “sales driven” as opposed to “market focused”. “We are not a market-driven company; we are a sales-driven company. We do not have, nor are we willing to adopt, any discipline that would ever require us to stop pursuing any sale at any time for any reason.”

1) Now, how bad can this really be? 2) Sales are good, right? 3) Things will just work themselves out…we will discover our market, retroactively,

led to it by our customers, yes?

Geoffrey Moore’s answers to these questions are: (1) disastrous, (2) not always, and (3) never in a million years.

The consequences of being sales-driven when looking to become a market leader are, to put it simply, fatal!

Here’s why: The sole goal of the supplier is to become a market leader. In order to do this in a niche target market, suppliers need to have a customer base with high net promoter scores who can provide good references, which help provide access to other customers.

Word of mouth is the #1 source of information for buyers. Suppliers must ensure customers are 100% satisfied that the product fulfils their objectives Whenever anything is left out from the product that was discussed at point of sale, the solution is incomplete. This means that the sales promise is unfulfilled and it is unlikely the customer will agree to be a reference site. To secure these much-needed references, suppliers must commit to providing the product customers were expecting. Delivering a quality product requires the attention of a supplier’s most key people. Therefore, the supplier’s commitment must be made sparingly and strategically— A small start-up working across more than two sectors will burn out their key resources. They may also falter on the quality of the product, thereby delaying any attempt to become a market leader… to be a sales-driven company is to invite a permanent delay. While a sales-driven strategy should be avoided, the lure is strong, but wrong. One of the keys to breaking into a new market is to establish strong word-of-mouth reputation.

Implications for FE – Focus

Any time we are assessing projects or potential partners we ask how big the company

is and how many sectors they operate in. If they are a team of 6 and work across 4

different target markets, how much attention is each sector likely to get? How likely is

it that they will become market leaders committed to the whole product?

RCU Ltd is a company that focuses

almost exclusively on the FE sector,

the result? They have been in

business for 20 years and work with

over 80% of FE Colleges, as well as

other FE associations and

organizations. Oh and guess what...

They don’t have any sales people?!

onlyFE is dedicated digital media

recruitment buying startup which is

100% focused on FE. They are

passionate about delivering quality

service, and understand that focus is

key… which is why they are an

onlyFE kind of company

While onlyFE is a new company,

staff have 12 years experience in FE,

so understand the needs of the

sector.

Without focus, a company cannot become a market leader

as they will spread resources too thin

23

Section 7 - The Technology Adoption Cycle So we have suppliers who have spent months testing their idea and refining (and failing) their way to product-market fit, has discussed the possibilities with potential customers across a range of sectors, have assessed and selected FE as the best target market to focus on, and are confident that they have got a good product because of some positive early net promoter scores. Now what? Sit back and watch the sales come in? The supplier does now need to think about rolling the service out, but should look to engage a select group within their target sector. “The Technology Adoption Cycle” provides an effective model of how tech products mature, and how you should collaborate with innovators and tech proficient groups to continue to refine and develop with other early adopters before moving on to work with other groups. There are two distinct marketplaces for technology products—the early market dominated by people and organisations who are quick to appreciate the nature and benefits of the new development. The second market is the mainstream market. Something that stands in the way of a supplier going from having a handful of early adopter customers to becoming an established market leader is what Geoffrey Moore describes as “The Chasm.” This is where a lot of companies who do not appreciate how new technology gets adapted can end up.

In the development of a new tech product, you want to make the transition from the early market – which is dominated by a few visionary customers – to the mainstream market where there are large numbers of customers within the sector. The gap between these two groups of customers is significant and “Crossing the Chasm” must be the primary focus, a successful crossing is how suppliers become market leaders; failure in the attempt is how they become lost. See Appendix 6 – Life in the Chasm. People’s attitudes toward technology are an important consideration with new products. New suppliers should seek out the early adopter market. Early adopters can be hard to find as they make up less than 20% of any given market. This is one of the reasons why continuous innovations can prevail, even when the case for a discontinuous innovation is a compelling one. E-readers have a compelling case... but have also been around since 1998! We can test this and let you find out what your technology profile is by asking questions like Electric Cars... When will you be getting one? When will you be making the switch?

Continuous Innovation Upgrading products that do not require people to change behaviour. i.e. A new car which promises better mileage is a continuous innovation Discontinuous innovation Requires people to adopt different behaviors. i.e. Electric cars are incompatible with the current infrastructure and requires significant changes

Remember when VCRs came on the market? VCR manufacturers complained that they would sell more machines if only there were more video tapes to show on them…. the film industry said they would make more video tapes if only there were more machines in circulation to view them. This led to a prolonged period of discomfort – achieving critical mass in its target market is key to any emerging technology

24

Technology Customer Profiles and “The Chasm”

While a new supplier’s product may have the same functionality for all their customers, the example of electric cars demonstrates how different groups within the target market have different attitudes towards technology and tolerance to risk. Therefore each group should be contacted at different times, as the supplier’s technology develops and is refined. Sales teams may use the same material, presentation and testimonials for all potential customers without having an appreciation of the various profiles that exist amongst their customer base.

If we apply Moore’s market segmentation to FE, we can see that 65 colleges make up the “Early Market.”This is certainly consistent with our experiences as has taken 12-18 months to get some initial college partners, but got a lot easier to sell once word-of-mouth testimonials started to emerge from those initial partners. For a more detailed look at the profiles and buying criteria of each of these groups see Appendix 4 – Tech Adoption Cycle: Customer Profiles, with the exception of the most sceptical group as we consider technology from the laggards’ perspective in the next section. It would be interesting to see how many FE providers have successfully crossed the chasm. Any suppliers who have not may find Appendix 5 useful as it highlights some of the Common Early Market Problems.

“In my experience, developing a lean

product and then spotting the early

adaptors to work with is the most critical

part of any tech startup. Working with

these to identify the core product set that

will lead to crossing the chasm which

about focusing the key features and

benefits for the pragmatists” David

Bozward, Development & Innovation

Director, National Association of College

& University Entrepreneurs (NACUE)

25

Implications for FE: Effective Product Roll-out - Technology Profiles

Selling a newly developed product, which may still require some tweaks and

debugging (especially if it has been “shipped early”) to individuals or

organisations who fit the conservative or laggard group profile could lead to

some dissatisfied customers. This is because they may have expected a more

developed product.

If neither the college nor the supplier is aware of the technology adoption

cycle and the requirements of each profile, then this may present some

challenges during roll out as a result of some poor references.

There is also the fact that there will be technology enthusiasts, visionaries,

pragmatists, conservatives and laggards in every college – which may go some

way to explain the reason for any heated debates and differences of opinions

that arise when discussing the merits of new technology.

Tech enthusiasts may be frustrated at not being able to progress technology at

the same rate as other colleges or industries any time the late majority and

conservative viewpoints win the day.

What if the tech enthusiasts got to play about with new tech toys at a hugely reduced rate (or for free) because they were assisting companies who had some promising new products with the product-market fit discovery process?

This is what a lot of the major tech companies will do, partner with their clients

to help find product-market fit and then use the client as an example of best

practice and/or as a reference sites for the new product.

Just like Google’s example in Appendix 2, engineers spend months working on-

site with customers, and members of the customer’s team work alongside the

company engineers to test the product. They work with these key partners

and a handful of other early adopters to deploy the product in the supplier’s

target market.

Why did these customers agree to let a supplier use their resources – office space, infrastructure, data and time?

Because the supplier created an exclusive early adopter program to provide discounts on its upcoming product.

But that alone was not enough. The real secret was that the supplier was building a product that – if it worked –

would solve a very real pain point for the customer.

Had the supplier’s engineers built the product in the absence of the early adopter customers, they would have

become highly susceptible to product blindness. In comparison, the early adopters had no problem being

incredibly blunt about key product issues. Any time I am looking at a new idea, one of the first things I do is sound

out some of the fantastic tech enthusiasts that I am extremely fortunate to be able to call on and bounce ideas

around with – a special mention and huge shout out to Martyn Coleman, Cheryl Dabble, Mike Gaston, Chris Grant,

Scot Hayden, Steven Keevil, Dan Liddicot, Paul McKean, Carolyn O’Connor, Dave Pickersgill, Caron Sandeman,

Sarah Simons, Jayne Stigger and everyone at #ukfechat within FE, and all the guys at #edtechchat and EdSurge in

the US – Thank you! You rock! The progress in Edtech would not be the same without people like you!

The Value of Tech Enthusiasts -

The unsung heroes of EdTech?

The role that tech enthusiasts play in

emerging technology is hugely under-

rated and a good way to highlight this

is through the NMC Horizon Report >

2013 K-12 Edition, which accurately

identifies which EdTech will be widely

adopted… Where would these ideas

be without the tech enthusiasts and

visionaries?

ed-invent is supported by Oxford

Cambridge and RSA Examinations

and Media Taylor following the

success of Start-up Education

Weekend Education. This 54-hour

event saw teams create several

outstanding ideas, but it also

highlighted a disconnect between

teachers and their role in how edtech

To get involved in the future Ed-

Invent activity, please follow the link

www.ed-invent.com/apply-now/

“Work in Partnership with visionaries who already know you and work together to develop the product"

26

Section 8 – Convincing the Sceptics While we are extremely grateful that we can get input from the tech enthusiasts...that is not to say we ignore, or are insensitive to, the sceptics viewpoint. In the technology adoption cycle above the recommendations for the most sceptical group is that you should not try to sell an early stage product to them, but that sales people should look to “neutralise their influence so the laggards don’t “block the sale.” But Moore goes on to point out that any product is sure to benefit if we were to engage with this group in the early stages of development instead of ignoring them.

Laggards Profile Laggards look to pragmatists to help lead them with technology purchases (see appendix 4). They will

look for references from members within the sector. References from pragmatists and conservatives are key to this group. This will be significant, and problematic, if the technology has not achieved “product-market fit” – by the time suppliers look to establish a relationship with laggards there will be a history of customer reviews about the product and the overall experience of dealing with the supplier. As suppliers work with tech enthusiasts, visionaries, pragmatists and conservatives, they will have a number of references – but they may not the right sort!

Buying

Criteria

Do not participate in the high-tech marketplace, except to block purchases. The advice in tech sales is

that the supplier’s primary goal is to “neutralise their influence.”

This is disappointing and short sighted as this group could teach suppliers a lot about where they or

their product is going wrong.

Assist Tech

Suppliers by

The service that sceptics provide to high-tech marketers is to point to the discrepancies between the

sales claims and the actual product that is delivered.

By listening to the laggards’ concerns, as well as existing customers, we might find that the

capabilities designed into the system (at great expense) remain buried in the system because the user

never learns about them. Or we might find that for every individual who can transform the hours

invested in training into competence in a high-tech product, there might be others who cannot – the

customer has bought a system that some people cannot use effectively.

Sceptics will highlight that for all the billions of dollars invested in technology, that productivity has

not improved. Some fairly good data exist to support this notion, but tech supporters will simply point

to a number of obvious ways in which the industry eliminates mundane routine tasks.

What if, instead of rushing to rebuttal, technology suppliers were to explore the merits of the

sceptic’s argument and concerns? Steamrolling over the sceptics may be a great sales tactic, but it is a

poor marketing one

Would it be possible to assess the quality of FE technology products through the eyes of the laggards? Based on

Moore’s model, would it be possible to assess the current situation in FE? How many colleges do individual FE

suppliers work with? How many will work with less than 65 colleges (Pre-Chasm)? 66-200 (Early Majority)? 201-

341 (Late Majority)? 342+ (Larrards)? How many suppliers work with all UK colleges? The answer to this question

may highlight some interesting points that would be worth further exploration.

27

Selling to Laggards in FE – Not Worth the Hassle? The claims that a supplier’s sales team make may be statements that are based on the “whole product solution” which incorporates elements that are well beyond the product that is shipped inside the box. If suppliers do not take responsibility for seeing that the whole product solution is being delivered to other customers then they are giving sceptics and laggards an opening to block any sale.

As any experienced seller of high-tech products can tell you there is always the potential in new and emerging technology… but realising this potential depends on factors beyond the system itself According to the technology adoption cycle, laggards make up 16% of any sector. In FE this represents 65 colleges. This would mean that any supplier who is working with over 300 colleges will either be having an easy time or a very tough time convincing the remaining colleges to subscribe to their product. At this point the sales will have very little to do with the suppliers sales teams ability, it will depend almost entirely on what other colleges’ experience with the product has been. However given the choice of;

1) Putting a lot of effort into securing the remaining 65 FE customers, or 2) Moving into the companies next target market

The temptation may be to ignore this hard to reach group and move into a different sector or other areas of education. I would like to make a few personal points regarding this particular strategy:

1) I only work in Further Education and I care a great deal about the views and experiences of anyone that I work with – regardless of what technology profile they might have. In addition to this, while I love hanging out with techs, I also have a healthy level of “sceptic tendencies,” so understand the concerns. I was horrified when I went into Waterstones last Christmas to see that there was a section dedicated to Kindles and E-Readers.

2) While some suppliers may think “Well we are working with 340 colleges and it will be a lot of effort to get the last 64, let’s build new products for our existing college clients or move into new markets”. This is not my view. Any FE college projects that I have been responsible for managing, I have enjoyed 100% repeat bookings with our college partners. So my view is that if a product has “product-market fit” and has delivered what was expected to their current customers, then the “laggards” should be a very easy group to deal with. If they are not easy to deal with then it is most likely the result of some of the, entirely avoidable, issues discussed in this report – product-market fit, lack of focus, working in too many sectors and/or not being committed to delivering the Whole Product.

3) In sales I have adopted Henry Ford’s philosophy, which certainly stands you in good stead when dealing with the close, tight-knit community like Further Education:

"Educators have many skills,

though innovation has not

traditionally been a required

attribute. We cannot avoid the

information age that is already

encompassing our lives. It will

be our establishments’ downfall

if we fail to embrace the IT

innovations which this superb

report highlights." Mark Evans,

Principal, Oporto British School

“A manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer... the sale is an introduction. If the machine does not give service, then it is better for the manufacturer if he never had the Introduction, for he will have the worst of all advertisements – a dissatisfied customer…” Henry Ford

28

Conclusion

When getting input from educators, start-ups, VC’s and established EdTech suppliers for this report we would get

feedback like “I presume when you compiled XYZ section of the report that you had other stakeholders in mind”

when, in actual fact, we were thinking how the topic or observation would really help them.

Compiling and editing this report highlighted how hard it is to untangle the customer-supplier relationship from

great products. Where does the customer input stop and the supplier development begin? We see this with the

large tech companies as some development work is done at the customers’ offices. We see this in education with

tech companies building and sponsoring new schools. We see this with VocalEyes and RCU who don’t need sales

staff, which is the kind of collaborative relationships and products that Ed Invent is looking to establish.

Whatever aspect of this report we look at and consider, whether - Iterating your way to achieving product-market

fit, using net promoter scores as a key indicator for when a product is ready to be rolled out, assessing whether or

not FE and education is the best initial target market for a new product or having a real commitment to delivering

the “Whole Product” solution - all of this requires close collaboration with the sector... But how is this ever to be

achieved if the sector is difficult to engage with?

It is our belief that UK FE colleges could be a fantastic market for start-ups and new product ideas, which could

have significant benefits. To not do so could have some far reaching and negative implications and consequences.

Bob Harrison warns that FE is at risk of getting left behind in the digital dust, but there is also the fact that

technology is unlikely to ever replace a great teacher. While we hear about good progress being made with

MOOCs and Self Organised Learning Environments, there is also evidence that these programs work best for highly

motivated and talented groups. As FE colleges represent some of our more vulnerable students, new and different

approaches, ones that are unique to FE may be required.

Over the last few years, we have seen massive “creative disruption” that the digital revolution has had on

industries like retail (Woolworths), photography (Kodak, Jessops), music (HMV, CD’s), gaming (Game Shops) and

media (newspaper circulation) amongst others. A lot of the press commentary about these industries failing has

been around disbelief with comments like “how did these guys not see the changes coming?”

There may be issues with MOOCs in their current form, which perhaps makes this learning model easy to dismiss...

at the moment. However, when we consider the organisations that are behind MOOCs – MIT, Stanford, Coursera,

Udacity – you can’t help get the feeling that FE and education just might be an industry where, in a few years time,

people outside the sector might be saying “How did these guys not see it coming? Why did they not innovate to

prevent this or to take the lead in shaping the future?”

When I started working with FE, there were around 530 colleges in the UK today there are just over 400. To date, these have been a result of big city mergers etc. But, will we be at 300 in another few years, not as a result of budget cuts but because of new innovations coming from outside the sector? Bob Harrison ended his foreword on this report wondering if his grandchildren will have the option of attending an FE college, or will FE flourish as one of the innovators? If there is one thing that the industries above can teach us, it is “innovate or die”… or more accurately “Massively creatively disrupt… or someone else will!”

It may be an unlikely source… but improving some of the inefficiencies that might exist with the technology sales

process in FE just might be able to play a role here. As a result of researching and producing this report we have

some ideas on how to facilitate more efficient levels of engagement and collaboration between educators and

their tech providers, please complete the details on this link to receive more details: Improving Tech Sales in FE

29

30

Collaboration and Acknowledgements

William Jenkins has been working with UK College in Technology Sales for the last

13 years because he loves the way that educators and techies make a difference

in young people’s lives. He can’t teach and can’t code so he gets to hang out with

both groups by selling the clever gadgets that techs come up with, and discuss

them with our clever educators. He is currently exploring some new ideas from

this report to improve the culture of tech sales in FE. Other reports that he has

produced and co-authored include:

Tech Story – What FE can learn from Pixar’s Toy Story

Culture in FE

Business Development Ideas for FE

Twitter in Further Education

OCR is a leading UK awarding body who provides qualifications which engage

people of all ages and abilities. Our general and vocational qualifications equip

learners with the knowledge and skills they need for their future, helping them

achieve their full potential. We are proud to be involved with start-up and

technology based initiatives and events

Are workshops to inform, challenge and inspire teachers about their role in the

development of edtech. Educators come up with ideas for edtech that could

deliver change. Participants form into teams around ideas and develop an

outline of their edtech product or service. Teams then will pitch their idea to

the judges, who will choose a winner www.ed-invent.com/apply-now/

Special Thanks The material for this report draws extensively from the work of Geoffrey Moore, Dave Feinleib, Doug Edwards and

Bill Aulet, and would not have been possible without their kind permission to use material from their books and

research.

While we do detail some of the concepts from “Crossing the Chasm,” “Why Start-ups Fail” and “I’m Feeling Lucky”

we would recommend these books to anyone involved in EdTech, please find more details and Amazon links for

these books in the bibliography...and order your copy today!

Bill Aulet’s “Inbound Marketing Workshop” is also an invaluable experience. Bill comes over to the UK regularly to

deliver this course and has published a book, Disciplined Entrepreneurship, which discusses many of these topics.

Our thanks to Charlotte Bosworth at OCR for her help with designing and editing this report.

Finally, special mention to the educators, EdTech start-ups, established suppliers and VCs who offered their input.

In line with this reports advice we “shipped early to get feedback” when we thought the report was 80-90% ready.

However our critical friends highlighted that it was 60-70% finished – at best. This research would remain

incomplete without your input and suggestions, so Thank You! Your input has been instrumental in helping to

produce a more complete report.

31

Bibliography Crossing the Chasm

Geoffrey Moore, the world′s leading high–tech and communications guru, throws out old

marketing ideas to clear space for the special realities of the high–tech market. Based on a

revolutionary new model and filled with practical insights, Crossing the Chasm is a landmark book.

This new edition has been updated to include comprehensive coverage of the Internet and World

Wide Web.

Why Start-ups Fail

Why Start-ups Fail shows you the key mistakes new ventures make—and how to avoid them.

Nearly everyone has an idea for a product they could build or a company they could start. But 8

out of 10 new businesses fail within the first three years. Even only 1 in 10 venture-backed start-

ups succeeds, and venture capitalists turn down some 99% of the business plans they see.

Why Start-ups Fail can help you beat the odds and avoid the pitfalls and traps that lead to early start-up death. It’s

easy to point to successes like Apple, Google, and Facebook. But the biggest lessons can come from failure. What

decisions were made, and why? What would the founders have done differently? How did one company become a

billion-dollar success while another—with a better product and in the same market—fail? Drawing on personal

experience as well as the wisdom of the Silicon Valley start-up community, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist,

and blogger Dave Feinleib analyzes companies that have come and gone.

I’m Feeling Lucky At forty-one, Doug Edwards was ready to sit back, put his marketing career on autopilot, spend more time with his wife and kids and generally chill out. Instead, he decided to join a cocky internet start-up called Google. Suddenly his life was no longer his own. This is the story of what it's like to work for a boss who is the age of your favourite t-shirt - and is never, ever wrong. To be the square middle-aged guy in an office that resembles a geek fraternity claiming squatters' rights. To put in sixteen-hour days and wonder if you'll ever see your family again. To work with the most brilliant - and annoying - people on earth...

Disciplined Entrepreneurship

24 Steps to Success! Disciplined Entrepreneurship will change the way you think

about starting a company. Many believe that entrepreneurship cannot be taught,

but great entrepreneurs aren’t born with something special – they simply make

great products. This book will show you how to create a successful startup through

developing an innovative product. It breaks down the necessary processes into an

integrated, comprehensive, and proven 24–step framework that any industrious

person can learn and apply. Author Bill Aulet is the managing director of the Martin

Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship as well as a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan

School of Management.

32

Starting Up Further Education – Events and Early Adopters

There are a number of hack edu and start-up education events – this is where educators, techies, entrepreneurs

and venture capitalists come together to work on ideas and develop solutions to current challenges. Equally

companies like Learn Zillion have a “Dream Team” of 200 educators who help with their product development.

This is great to see and can only be a positive development... especially as Thomas Friedman cites a key factor for

Silicon Valley’s success as being the level of collaboration by tech companies – Collaborate Vs Collaborate

Ed Invent Workshops aim to inform, challenge and inspire teachers about their role in the

development of edtech. Educators will come up with ideas for edtech that could deliver change

and then develop an outline of their product. Teams will pitch their idea to the judges, who will

choose a winner. OCR are proud to sponsor and be associated with these workhsops.

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who

are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest

community of passionate entrepreneurs: as of October 2012, 672 events have been held,

involving 57,000 entrepreneurs across more than 300 cities in over 100 countries. Over 5,000

startups have been created. OCR was a proud sponsor of the London EdTech Start-up weekend.

Learner Journey Data Jam was a weekend long collaborative event involving

developers, designers, learners, practitioners and education sector. The purpose of

the event was to explore and experiment with existing learner data. Check out what

happened at the event here - Learner Journey Data Jam Prototypes

EdSurge is for anyone who wants to support learning through technology. The team of journalists,

educators and technologists believe that candid conversation about the role of edtech is essential

to building great products. They bring together the people who use edtech and the people who

build it with the goal of creating great tools for learning.

“No high pressure sales pitch, no selling products or services that

you do not need or cannot manage –it's simply education selling

to education (e2e)” HRC3 website

Bolton College has won the

recent Apps4Us challenge and

will produce a brand new

maths app as part of the

national Maths4Us initiative to

help boost adult maths skills

across England.

bksb is the UK's most popular online

functional skills solution, which is ran by

West Nottinghamshire College. Over 25

million learners have used bksb online

assessments and resources to improve

their functional skills in English, maths

and ICT.

Escreens is a simple, cheap and

effective solution to controlled

assessments and computer

based exams. Escreens is the

brainchild of Martyn Coleman,

Director of IT at King George V

College

HRC3 is the first education to education

service provider. They bring together the

best computing companies to offer a

unique service in UK EdTech. HRC3 are

education orientated, understands the

problems and identifies with the needs

and constraints of IT for education.

Ed Invent Dates: 9 &10 Oct – Manchester; 5 Nov – Birmingham; 30 Nov – Plymouth; 3 & 6 Dec - London

33

Appendix 1 – MIT Case Study – SensAble Technologies

To demonstrate the importance of product-market fit, the search for the best niche market and the need for focus

we thought it would be useful to highlight an example from an MIT start-up.

In 1995 Thomas Massie founded a company called SensAble Technologies (now part of GeoMagic), after inventing a haptic technology product called Phantom which saw virtual reality enter the tactile stage and had the potential to revolutionise industries like surgery, music, video games and CAD design amongst others as people within these industries could think of various different uses for his device. When looking for their initial target market, SensAble’s senior board undertook the valuable exercise of assessing all the options and opportunities. The table below summarises their due diligence. This pre-sale process took 4 months:

Industry Entertainment Industrial

Design Medical

Virtualisation Surgical

Simulation Micro Surgery Geophysical

Virtualisation New Visual

CHL Prototyping

End User Animator Stylist Designer

Radiologist Surgeon

Med Student Surgeon

Surgeon Geophysicist Blind people Engineer

Application Sculpt Animation Paint

Sculpt Paint Modeling

Segmentation Navigation Surgical Planning Diagnosis

Training Surgical Planning

Opthalm Surgery Neurosurgery

View Enhancement Drill Plan

H.U.L. Design Review Model Evaluation

Benefits Ease of use Reduce Cycle

Reduce Cycle Increase accuracy

Ease of use Increase Accuracy

Increase use of new tech Increase Accuracy

Reduce Cycle Increase accuracy

Reduce errors Increase yields

Increase access

Reduce cycle Improve Designs

Lead Customer

Disney ILM Dreamworks

Toyota Ford Rollerblade

Brigham & Womens German Cancer research

U of Colorado Penn BDI

Dr Ohgami Ottawa Eye

BHP WMC/CSIRO

Certec UDeleware

Volkswagon Stratasys Toyota

Market Characteristics

Early Adopter High Priced Talent High Growth

Dislike CAD & Computers High Priced Talent

Mainstream High Priced Talent HMO

Mainstream High Priced Talent HMO

Early Adopter High Priced Talent HMO Not Comp Automated

Late Main Oligopoly

Late Main No Money Gov’t Sponsor

Mainstream Pressure to reduce prod cycle

Partners

Alias Soft Image Discrete Logic

PTC Alias Imageware

GE Siemens Picker

Smith & Neph Heart port Ethicon US Surgical

Toshiba Hitachi

Landmark Fractal Graphics

IBM Apple Sun HP Microsoft

PTC Solid Works

Size of Market 40,000 X00,000 X0,000 X0,000 X,000 X,000 X,000,000 X,00,000

Competition Watcom None Yet None Yet Immersion None Yet None Yet None Yet

Platform SGI Windows

SGI SUN

SGI SUN

? None SGI SUN

Windows SUN HF

Needs NURBS Stylus Dynamics

NURBS Stylus

Voxels Stylus VRML

6 DOF Custom Devices

3 Finger Scaling Voxels Stylus

Windows I/F P300

NURBS VRML Dynamics

SensAble Time Line “Bedroom” Start-up Phase 1993 Device formed, patents filled, first product shipped Revenue $34k 1994 13 products shipped Revenue $227k “Real” Start-up Phase 1995 Wins MIT $50k contest, gets more incoming enquiries than founder wants or can handle 1996 19 products shipped, significant backlog of orders $2mil VC invest. Revenue $387k 1997 Identified best niche target market was CAD design, 20 employees Revenue $1,000,000 1998 Continued to focus on CAD Revenue $3,000,000 1999 Named Inc 500 Fastest Growing Company Revenue $3,400,000

34

SensAble Technologies– Reaching Target Markets When SenseAble was assessing some potential niche target markets they had a number of key questions and included ones like - was their potential market:

1) Well funded?

2) Readily accessible to their sales force?

3) A sector where the company would be able to show

good progress within a 1-2 year period?

Great product-market fit means having not

only a product that matches the market, but

also a way to distribute that product

efficiently within the target market

Some of other areas and principles that SensAble might have considered:

Sales Leverage – Sales leverage is about reaching customers efficiently... the most cost-effective way to get new

customers or users is through “zero cost user acquisition” (It costs nothing to acquire new customers). The best

way to do this is for existing customers to recruit new customers through word of mouth.

Robert Cialdini points out in his book “The Psychology of Persuasion” that people trust recommendations from people they already know. So when your friends tell you they are using a new application and suggests you use it too, that will carry more weight than randomly hearing about the application from elsewhere. The closer the community is within a niche target market, the easier and faster the messages about the product will travel by word of mouth. To put word of mouth sales to work, suppliers must have product-market fit – suppliers need to figure out the one thing they can be better at than any other company in their niche and product category.

Customer Lifetime Value – Customer Lifetime Value is how much revenue a customer generates over the time they remain a customer of the supplier. By determining Customer Lifetime Value, suppliers can figure out how much they can afford to spend to acquire each customer.

When companies start out, acquiring customers often far exceeds the amount their products cost. This is the

nature of new companies, when they are figuring out the most efficient way to acquire customers, every new

customer is a learning experience. That learning is expensive but balances out once they are able to acquire

customers through word of mouth and/or as they become market leaders.

For example, if a supplier expect to generate £1,000 in revenue over a “customers’ lifetime” they can,

in theory, spend up to £999.99 to acquire and serve that customer and still be profitable (although

this will generate only one pence profit for every customer...so it would be unlikely that the supplier

will have enough to pay their other costs). But if it costs you £10 to acquire and serve a customer, and

the product costs £1,000, then there is £990 which could mean a larger R&D budget.

35

Appendix 2 – Start-ups: Risk or Opportunity

How Do Major Tech Companies Select their Tech Suppliers?

Below details how Google went about selecting a new tech vendor:

In 2001 Larry and Sergey strongly hinted we should look for an alternative to our Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) Company, which continued to hinder rather than enhance productivity. “I don’t want to start

looking for a new CRM vendor” I warned them “if we’re just going to pick the cheapest one at the end of the road.

That’s how we got into this situation to begin with. It’s better to stick with the devil we know than to start over

with a new set of problems.”

Their current supplier released a software update. I let their sales rep know that we would order a copy, but

that Larry and Sergey wouldn’t pay the $5,000 cost of flying their techs out to install it.

The sales rep was taken aback. “You don’t want us to install it? You know this is a completely new version, not a

service pack. It’s very complex. We’d strongly recommend against a self install.”

“We have a building full of engineers, they’re confident they can do it themselves. Just send us the disks and the

documentation.”

“Well frankly, only one other customer asked to do it themselves and they gave up halfway through. We’ll have

to pull some documentation together for you.”

I wasn’t nearly as worried about that as I should have been. I had developed unquestioning faith that there was

no task beyond the capabilities of Google engineers. The disks arrived in the mail. The installation did not go as

planned.

“We are rapidly approaching a major e-mail meltdown” I advised our executive staff 10 days later. The wheels

had come off…the program kept crashing and the database of incoming emails was leaking to bits at an alarming

rate. Our CRM supplier was not taking our calls, and my sales rep’s phone message said she had left the company.

It was the e-mail apocalypse.

Two days later, our CRM server stopped accepting inbound mail. I accelerated our plans to find another e-mail

solution.

Comprising a list of new CRM vendors didn’t take long. Fewer than half a dozen major players offered stable,

well-tested systems.

Larry had a college friend who would advise us on desirable features, and

counselled us on what to ask for, then added that, by the way, he was building

a CRM product – if they were interested. It wasn’t really finished yet, but one

of Larry’s other Stanford friends was already using it.

Interested? Interested in an untested CRM product still in development

with only one tiny client? Created by a company of two people? Sure that’s

just what we’re looking for – another risky technology with no support and no

track record behind it. I thanked him for his help and, because he was a friend

of Larry’s, assured him we’d be happy to send him our request for proposal.

Meanwhile, our real search was well under way. One vendor couldn’t

provide any support for non-English email. Another had a terrible UI because it

was a first-generation product. A third seemed overpriced and their sale’s

aggressive stance made us wary of doing business with them. Only one

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company offered a reasonable solution, and we began negotiating with them in earnest.

I hoped that Larry’s friend had taken the hint and forgotten about us. It would be a frosty day in Hades before

we’d make the mistake of buying a bargain basement CRM solution again. No such luck. The company came back

ready to present their proposal. I had to laugh at their chutzpah. I didn’t really have time for what I knew would be

a dead end, but a friend of Larry’s is a friend of Larry’s, so I agreed to give him half an hour. What he showed us

was surprisingly well thought out, but still not ready for beta testing. Many of the essential features we required

were missing, and the interface lacked the polish of the others we’d seen.

I broke the news to them “It’s a good start, but I’m afraid we need something more developed.”

“Not to worry” he said, taking notes on the features we wanted. “I can get these done. How about I come back

next week with a new demo?”

When we met again they had implemented more than 30 feature improvements from our list. It was

impressive, but I was far from convinced. I was more worried that the company seemed to think they had a shot at

winning the contract.

I spoke to Larry “actually, you should hire these guys. They’re really smart. They’ll work hard to build the

product for us, and we can invest in their company.”

“Larry” I explained slowly and carefully “we just went through hell with an underdeveloped product. I can’t

burden my team with another flaky piece of software that will just slow us down. We’re close with a real CRM

company and should have a proposal in a couple of days, I’ll let these guys down gently.”

“No. really” Larry repeated. “You should hire these guys. Look, they’re a small company and they’ll be very

responsive. We can give them space in the office and they’ll live here and build their product to our specs. We’ll be

their most important client, and we’ll benefit from their growth based on our product design ideas. Have legal

negotiate the contract and make sure we get some equity.

I could say I was stunned, outraged, incredulous, but that would be an understatement. I couldn’t believe Larry

was going cheap again instead of buying reliability. When I informed the other vendors, they either thought I was

corrupt or an idiot. One salesman sent blistering emails demanding to talk directly to Eric and our Board of

Directors. “This decision lacks wisdom and foresight” he asserted. “If you are under the impression that you can

build an email tool resembling ours in 30 days, you are mistaken. It has taken us years and 1,200 customers to get

where we are. To not include us in your plans does not make sense.

That guy was kind of a jerk anyway, so telling him no didn’t bother me, but I’d still be cursing Larry’s decision

today if not for one small thing: Larry was absolutely right. Within a couple of months we had the CRM system we

wanted. The guys lived in our office and our user support manager gave them a daily list of desired features and

bug fixes. Unlike the big “reliable” company I had wanted, our supplier didn’t have hundreds of customers using

the same product with upgrades twice a year. Our supplier fixed things as they came up, in priority order. A year

and a half later we bought the company making its two founders full time Googlers.

So what did I learn from this? I learned that the obvious solutions are not only the ones and “safe” choices

aren’t always good choices. I had thought that due diligence meant finding the product most people relied on,

then putting pressure on the vendor to cut the price. It never occurred to me to talk to a start-up, even though I

worked at one. It never occurred to Larry Not to do that. We had different tolerances for risk and different ideas

about what two smart people working alone could accomplish in a complex technical area – and that is why I spent

7 years working in mainstream media while Larry found a partner and founded his own company. Two smart guys

working on complex technical problems, it turns out, can accomplish a hell of a lot.

Doug Edwards, Author of “I’m Feeling Lucky”

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Appendix 3 –Danger of NOT Finding Product-Market Fit: High Staff Turnover

There’s the romantic notion of starting something—be your own boss and build what you want to build. But what

if you discover that people don’t want to use what you have built or don’t want to pay for it? Team members get

stuck with an existing product and some users, but no big picture vision of how they want to transform the market.

Some founders are not sure what their target market is. The company becomes stuck.

If suppliers have not found product-market fit then the Sales Director and his/her team will have a difficult job,

they tend to get turned over more than any other department. This was the case with one company, who went

through 3 Sales Directors in 12 months. One of the Directors joined the company a little earlier than he was used

to.

He was at one board meeting, and left before the next, because he quickly realised that the company was a lot

earlier than he was used to. The company was a long way from finding product-market fit. This did not stop the

CEO from blaming the Sales Director for poor results, saying he had turned out not to be a good fit for the

company.

When searching for the next Sales Director this company went through a number of lengthy interviews, having

been through two sales executives in rapid succession, neither the CEO nor the board was eager to hire another

mismatched executive. The decision to hire the third sales executive was unanimous… as was the decision to make

him the CEO a few months later.

He came right out and said the one thing no one else had been willing to. The problem was not a question of his

sales team that was killing the company; it was the lack of product-market fit. While other companies in the space

were having great success, this company continued to struggle. Given the choice between him becoming CEO and

losing sales executive number three, the board decided to make him CEO. The examples above are from Dave

Feinleib’s “Why Start-ups Fail”

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Appendix 4 – Technology Adoption Cycle: Customer Profiles

The Early Market

Tech Enthusiast Visionary

Profile Are the gatekeepers for any new tech, they are

first to adopt new technology because they

appreciate the tech for its own sake. Tech

Enthusiasts appreciate the architecture of the

product and see how it could have competitive

advantage over current products.

Are driven by a “dream.” The core of the dream is a

business goal, not a tech one...Understand their

dream, and you will understand their needs.

Visionaries are not looking for an improvement; they

are looking for a fundamental breakthrough. Tech is

important if it promises to deliver on their dream.

Buying Criteria Have the interest to learn about the new

technology. Others in the sector know they are

competent to do the early evaluation.

Tech Enthusiasts are key to any high-tech sales

& marketing efforts.

Expect to get a jump on their competitors (i.e. lower product costs, faster time to market, more complete customer service). Visionaries expect radical discontinuity between old methods and the new. Are prepared to champion this cause against entrenched resistance. Are easy to sell to but very hard to please because they are buying a dream—a dream which may require integration of numerous immature technologies. The odds against everything falling into place without a hitch are astronomical. But it is possible for the buyer and the seller to build successfully.

Assist Tech Suppliers by

Will spend time trying to get products that perhaps should never have been shipped in the first place to work. Tech Enthusiasts are prepared to bear with the inevitable bugs and glitches that accompany any new tech innovation – They will forgive ghastly documentation, slow performance, and ludicrous omissions in functionality—all in the name of moving technology forward. Tech Enthusiasts make great critics because they truly care. They provide great feedback early in the design stages.

Will work with vendors who have little funding, and with products that start life as little more than a whiteboard diagram. Visionaries know they are going outside the mainstream, so accept this as part of trying to leapfrog the competition. Because they help shape the product, can serve as highly visible references, which helps draw attention of new customers to a small fledgling enterprise.

Other Notes If product-market fit has been achieved, Tech Enthusiasts will influence buyers not only in their own company but elsewhere in the sector as well.

Visionaries want to stay close to the development to make sure it is going in the right direction. Because the technology is new, working with visionaries requires careful account management to: 1) Ensure deadlines are realistic and met and 2) That the product that was promised is delivered

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Pragmatists Conservatives Profile Want a productivity improvement for existing

operations and look to minimize discontinuity from existing processes. Want tech to enhance established methods. Want to know how others have fared with it. The word risk connotes the chance to waste time and money. Will undertake risks but with safety nets in place and manage risk very closely. Pragmatists tend to communicate within their own industry.

Against discontinuous innovations. Believe in tradition. Find things that work for them, and stick with it. May fear tech a little bit – can be a key differentiating factor between pragmatists and conservatives.

Buying Criteria Have learned the hard way that the “leading edge” is often the “bleeding edge,” so do not tend to volunteer to be early test sites…why should they pay for the product AND fix bugs?! It is very tough to break into a new industry selling to pragmatists.

Conservatives like to buy preassembled packages, with everything bundled, at a heavily discounted price. The last thing they want to hear is that the software they just bought does not support the printer they have installed. Goal when buying high-tech products is simply not to get stung.

Assist Tech Suppliers by

Pragmatists may be hard to win over but, once a supplier has won their trust, are loyal and will assist their suppliers, even helping to establish standards that requires the purchase of your product for a given requirement. When pragmatists buy, they are planning on living with this decision personally for a long time to come, so they care about the company they are buying from, the quality and reliability of the product and the infrastructure of supporting products.

The conservative marketplace provides a great opportunity to take mature technology, repackage them it into a single-function system. The quality of the product should be high because there is nothing in it that has not already been thoroughly debugged. The price should be quite low because the R&D has long since been completed.

Other Notes Pragmatist buyers like to see competition to

get costs down; to have the security of other

suppliers to fall back on, and because;

existence of competitors assures pragmatists

that they are buying from the market leader.

This is because they know that third party

suppliers will design supporting products

around the market leader’s product.

Despite successes with some technology suppliers,

the conservative market can be perceived more as a

burden than an opportunity. They are the long

ignored “back half ”of the technology adoption

curve.

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Appendix 5 – Technology Adoption Cycle: Early Market Problems

There are some common challenges that can prevent suppliers from

“crossing the chasm”. These include:

1) Execution - The supplier simply has no expertise in bringing a product to

market. It lacks the capital for the required product development, hires

inexperienced sales and marketing people or promotes in the wrong places

and in the wrong ways… and in general fouls things up.

2) Over promising – The company sells the vision before it has the product. This is a version of the famous vaporware problem – pre-announcing and marketing a product that still has significant development hurdles to overcome. The entrepreneurial company secures a few pilot projects but, as schedules start to slip, the customer eventually withdraws support for the project. Despite a lot of customised work, the product that was promised is not fully developed or, if it is, the process has been so fraught that the customer is reticent to agree to act as a reference site. Caught in this situation, the entrepreneurial company has only one adequate response, a truly unhappy one: shut down its marketing efforts, admit its mistakes, and focus all its energies into turning its pilot project into something useful – both in terms of making amends to the customer and then to find a marketable product. Since most entrepreneurial companies are fuelled on the ego of their founders, this is too often the road not taken, thereby keeping bankruptcy lawyers busy. 3) Finding “Product-Market Fit”…or failing to articulate it – Marketing falls prey to the crack between the technology enthusiast and the visionary by failing to discover, or at least failing to articulate, product-market fit and the compelling application that provides the order-of-magnitude leap required for people to consider making a shift to a discontinuous innovation.

A number of companies buy the product to test it out, but it never gets incorporated into a major system roll-out, because the rewards never quite

measure up to the risks

4) Being ahead of your time – If a supplier has a true breakthrough product, it may struggle to get the early market moving, it may be necessary to step down from the lofty theoretical plateau on which the product has been established – can the product be part of any other applications? The supplier should get very practical about focusing on one application.

Get at least one visionary who is already familiar with you and partner with that visionary, in return for their support in the sector, to help remove some of the

obstacles to getting the application adopted These are some of the most common ways in which an early market development effort can go off—and be put back on— track. For the most part, the problems are solvable because there are always multiple options at the outset of anything. The biggest problem is typically overly ambitious expectations combined with lack of resources — or, as your mum might have put it: When your eyes are bigger than your stomach.

A Word on Testimonials

Innovators & Visionaries don’t make good

references for the early majority. This is

because the early majority are concerned

about not disrupting their organizations,

so good references are critical to their

buying decisions. So what we have here is

a catch-22.

The only suitable reference for an early

majority customer, is another member of

the early majority, but are unlikely to buy

without first having consulted with

several suitable references first.

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Appendix 6 – Life in the Chasm: A Very Tough Period! If the product is a new, discontinuous technology then customers will not have any direct experience to predict what will happen. Discontinuous innovations can be ahead of their time and users are not ready to spend money or change habits for unproven benefits. The company may run out of money waiting for the market to develop. Once the early market has been found the opportunities from the early market of visionaries become exhausted (with big-ticket products this can be after as few as 5 to 10 customers), but the mainstream market of pragmatists are nowhere near the comfort level they need in order to buy. In short, there is simply an insufficient marketplace to sustain the supplier. Having been cash-flow positive, the trend is now reversed, and the enterprise is accelerating into increasingly negative cash flow. The next year of work is far more likely to be catching up to the promises the sales team made to secure the deal from the early market customers.

There is plenty of work to do but there is no money or prospect of new sales. The clock is ticking... and there is an underlying feeling that somehow,

somewhere, someone has failed

During this key period, managers need to be careful with trying to secure sales with other visionaries who they might be able to sell to. This is because each visionary is going to have a unique dream, leading to unique demands for customization, which will overtax the already burdened product development team. The temptation here may be to think that the market place is too small and there is a need to go after more sales – even if it is in a different sector. However if the supplier has “Product-market fit” and has carried out their due diligence with regard to their target market… this would be the wrong strategy. Technology sales do not unfold in a continuous and smooth way. Each group have different needs, so a different approach is needed at different times in sales because of the technology adoption cycle.

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A High Tech Parable

In the first year of selling a new product, the emerging tech supplier expands the number of customers to include the “technology enthusiasts” and a couple of “visionary early adopters”- all stakeholders are pleased. In the second year—the first year of true product—the company wins over several more “visionary early adopters”, including a handful of major orders. Revenue meets the company’s projections and everyone is convinced it is time to “ramp up & roll out.” After all they do not want to lose “market share” at this critical juncture to a competitor. “We must act while we are still within our window of opportunity. Strike while the iron is hot!” The beginning of the third year sees sales force expansion, and impressive sales and marketing campaigns are underwritten. But halfway through the year sales revenues are disappointing. A few more companies have come on board, but only after a prolonged sales struggle and significant compromise on price. The number of sales overall is far fewer than expected, and growth in expenses is vastly outdistancing growth in income. In the meantime, R&D is badly bogged down with several special projects committed to in the early contracts with the early customers.

The sales team complain that there are great holes in the product line – it is not what customers want

Company Directors lament that the sales force does not call high enough in the prospect organisation, lacks the ability to communicate the vision, and simply is not aggressive enough. Nothing is resolved and political enclaves begin to form. Third quarter revenues are absolutely dismal. The board start in on the founders, who in turn put the screws to the head of sales, who passes it on to the troops in the trenches. Staff turnover follows. The head of marketing is fired. It is time to bring in “real management.” One or more founders object but are shunted aside. Six months pass. Real management does not do any better. Key defections occur. Time to bring in consultants. More turnover. What we really need now, investors decide, is a turnaround artist. Layoffs followed by more turnover. And so it goes. When the screen fades to the credits, yet another venture rides off to join the twilight companies of high tech enterprises on life support. Despite having good technology and exciting products, hundreds of tech start-ups falter and then fail in this way every year... and here’s why. What the company interpreted as a ramp in sales leading smoothly “up the curve” was in fact an initial blip—what we will term the early market—and not the first indications of an emerging mainstream market. The company failed because its managers were unable to recognize that there is something fundamentally different between a sale to an “early adopter” and a sale to the “early majority.” At the time of the company’s greatest peril, when the company was just entering “the chasm” its leaders held high expectations rather than modest ones, and spent heavily in expansion projects rather than husbanding resources. All this is the result of a technology marketing illusion—the belief that new markets unfold in a continuous and smooth way. In order to avoid “the perils of the chasm”, we need a tech marketing enlightenment to correct the flaws in the model and provide a secure basis for new technology product marketing strategy development.

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Appendix 7 –EdSurge: A Great EdTech Resource In one of my faviourite books, Small Giants, Bo Burlingham highlights the role that Bernard Goldrush, Founder of Inc Magazine, had in helping to redefine entrepreneurship in America;

“Although it’s hard to imagine now, there was a time when it was not considered a compliment to be called ‘entrepreneurial.’ Back in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s entrepreneurs were generally looked upon as shifty characters with little or no redeeming social value. The media ignored them, academia deplored them, and their companies got no more respect than they did. When people talked about business, they were referring to large well established, publically traded companies... All that began to change in the early 1980s, thanks in no small measure to Bernie and Inc” Bo Bulingham, Author of Small Giants

I can’t help thinking that the kind of reputation start-ups had in the 1950-70s is not dissimilar to what EdTech experiences today, albeit to a lesser extent. If this is the case then EdSurge is to EdTech what Inc was to entrepreneurs 40-50 years ago. We find EdSurge to be an invaluable resource that provides fantastic EdTech coverage, as well as establishing some really interesting campaigns, which includes;

Try education technology before you buy

EdTech Product Index

EdTech start up incubators

Education Technology 101 Guide

Covering the latest innovations in education technology

Reporting on, curating and analyzing products, companies and organizations building edtech.

Bringing together educators and entrepreneurs and others devoting to supporting learning.