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Top Tips for Building a Successful EdTech Company

By Matthew Lynch — March 20, 2017 3 min read
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Every day, technology innovations transform the way children learn and how educators teach. In the last few years, the education field has attracted a lot of talented people, all with excellent knowledge and ideas. Naturally, with increasing capital, the number of technical education companies is also growing.

Yet, having a professional education company and selling products and services to schools is not an easy task. This is why we have collected a few tips to help you build a successful edtech business.


  1. Create engaging products.

Technology should engage students in the classroom, not isolate them. Using it for multiple-choice tests and individual activities is not the best use of educational technology; rather, technology should engage and improve education in the same way great teachers do. For example, teachers can create various and personalized lessons and later assign different lessons to kids in the same room. Or each child can work on a different assignment, form an opinion as a result, and share it with other kids in the discussion.


  1. Be prepared to invest a lot of time and energy.

How much time do you need to build a successful company? More than you think. A thriving company takes years to evolve. Having a business plan written on paper is just a good start, but you also need to work on launching your beta product, and, eventually, the final version. You also need to take the time to promote your product to different schools and regions.

In this whole process, don’t forget to surround yourself with the right people. No matter how good of a subject matter expert you are, having a good team of talented professionals is always a good idea. Additionally, you will need to work with teachers, students, and principals to get their feedback so you can develop the technology that best suits their needs.


  1. Leverage your unique strengths.

Even if you don’t have experience, you can successfully launch a product using your existing strengths and acquire more skills along the way. But keep in mind that in product design is not the only challenge in educational technology. Once you launch your product, understanding how sale cycles in education function might be a lot harder. In this situation, following the industry is not a requirement, but it can be an advantage.


  1. Measure success and focus on the mission and end goal.

Challenges are inevitable, so instead of worrying and giving up, focus on what is most important to you. Find your “why.” What does success look like to you? Define your mission, use it to motivate you, and take one more step towards your goal every day.

For example, you can focus your attention on producing great content that will revolutionize teaching and learning. Technology is now personalized enough to deliver individualized teaching and learning products based on feedback from teachers and students from various schools. And most importantly, the focus should be on student outcomes. Products that add value to the school are the ones that deliver results.


  1. Think about the future

There will be many changes in the field of education, especially as it is combined with technology. Creating products will need to connect what is nice to have, what teacher wants to have and what must be included in the product. When schools create an instructional plan, they will need to curate applications carefully. Nowadays we have a situation where administrators set up the education curriculum, and in the future, teachers will choose learning management systems, apps, and content. EdTech is evolving, and competition will grow. Set your mind on future, and you will quickly adapt and go forward.

To summarize, build applications with impact on student outcomes, and learn how to explain them. To create successful applications and grow a company, you need to know the people who will use it--students, teachers, and administrators--and incorporate their feedback and ideas into your business’s products.

The opinions expressed in Education Futures: Emerging Trends in K-12 are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.