

Ask HN: How do you gain traction for an education startup? - chromedude

I am currently working on a startup (http://nvrforget.com). I have gained some (~150) users who would like to get into the beta, but that is a measly amount compared to other startups. How would you suggest gaining traction for this? I don't have a problem with having a small user base except that I need to gain funding somehow and that is not going to happen when I only have so few people.<p>This seems to be a problem inherent with education startups and I wanted to ask the best in startups to make sure I was leveraging all the possible options.<p>Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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patio11
So even if you had 200,000 users, that would not necessarily make the business
a great candidate for funding, but that is neither here nor there.

Education is quirky. Who is your customer for this? Is it school districts,
teachers, students, parents, etc?

If it's school districts, you lose. Selling into them largely requires
enterprise sales skills and credibility, which (unfortunately) you don't have.
They also have sales cycles which last 12 ~ 18 months, require getting about
~5 different approvals (sometimes more), and can be torpedoed by a single
recalcitrant decisionmaker, including at least 1 to 2 whose _job_ it is to
torpedo your deal.

Teachers: do teachers have a pre-existing slot in their book for the exact
problem you solve? If so, you can use demand harvesting techniques like e.g.
SEO. It's fairly slow going, but it will work. (This is how I got about 200k
or so users: building a better mousetrap for people who absolutely, positively
know they have a particular flavor of mouse to catch tomorrow.) If you have to
create the demand for your product, well, godspeed. A lot of teachers are
going to feel actively threatened by the introduction of one more scary
computer thing into their day.

Parents: Like teachers, except with less attention and less money.
(Homeschoolers excepted.) The overwhelming majority of software sold to
parents comes in boxes and is either sold on brand name (Kaplan, etc) or box
art. They find users by giving WalMart a bigger discount than their competing
box did. Run screaming from this opportunity.

Students: I would run screaming from pitching educational software directly to
students below undergraduate. Do they spend any appreciable amount of money on
educational software directly in the status quo? No. Undergrad is also not a
walk in the park, either.

P.S. Rather than selling Spaced Repetition done for the 473234th time, you
might consider selling Spaced Repetition for
$HIGH_STAKES_EXAM_TAKEN_BY_RICH_PEOPLE. Spaced Repetition for _passing the
bar_ , for example, would command a price about ~50 times higher than spaced
repetition which looks like it would help a fourth grader on their vocabulary
tests, even if it is _the same software in the box_.

~~~
chromedude
Very interesting P.S. - I actually am making it with trying to specialize for
different types (one I am thinking right now is Med students). The bar exam
idea is very good, I should look into how this could help with that Thanks.

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rmc
Med students fall into the rich category as the bar. Try doing specialized
medical fields, microbiology, psychology?, child care, etc. Go for the long
tail

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byoung2
It's hard to say without knowing how your product works, but here's what I can
say having worked in for-profit education for over 10 years (including Sylvan
Learnin Center, Kaplan, Grockit, The College Network, and Veritas Prep). In
for-profit education, there are two parts of your marketing angle. The first
is convincing people that they need to pay for prep, and the second is
convincing them that you are better than the competition. Your first challenge
is to convince me that it is worth my time and money to train myself to
memorize things faster. Is there a short presentation (~5 min) that you could
put up on YouTube that just scratches the surface of your product, but at the
same time actually gives some benefit to potential users? Kaplan uses this
technique by giving a short 10 question challenge, and then having an expert
teacher explain shortcuts for each. The takeaway is that if you can learn this
much in 30 minutes, imagine what $1500 and 3 months can do. Maybe you can
adapt that sort of approach. If you were giving people a taste of the product,
you'll be able to convince them that they want more.

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chromedude
Thanks... very good ideas.

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michaeldhopkins
It appears that you are creating a spaced repetition app that works for
memorizing poems and passages where order matters as opposed to the usual
model that works for memorizing a set of facts in random order. That's a good
idea. If it works, I'll use it.

I think you should stop calling it an education-based startup because that
sounds like something teachers would buy. You need to be clear on your
homepage etc. that you have an improved tool for power memorizers, get in
their communities and open it up as soon as possible for feedback. Offhand I
can think of: -Self-improvement hacker communities like 4HWW forums, Steve
Pavlina forums, etc. -Memorization forums -Homeschool forums -Secondary
ed/college student forums

But you need to open it to users _soon._ People don't tell their friends to
use something that doesn't exist yet.

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chromedude
Very good thoughts... I am opening it up to users very soon (invites should
start going out by the end of this week).

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pg
<http://imaginek12.com>

They have connections to schools.

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chromedude
Yeah, I have heard and looked into them, but the thing is I would have to get
into their incubator which is quite difficult since I am still a full-time
highschooler.

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nbashaw
I have a few friends that are in it - I can probably intro you, they might be
able to give you some good advice since they're in the trenches with this
stuff. E-mail me if you're interested (nbashaw at gmail.com).

~~~
chromedude
Just sent you an email (stephen at nvrforget.com)

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qeorge
Why are you worrying about traction when you haven't even launched a product
yet?

The hardest part of getting traction is making something anyone cares about
_at all_. Given that your first guess will be wrong, you need to launch the
product so you can start iterating.

To be sure, education is a really hard niche to break into. But there's always
an angle, and you'll never find it until you get involved with your customers.

