Innovation is necessary to address the many challenges of our ever evolving world. Education is no different. We might be biased, but we believe that nurturing new and transformational changes in education is especially consequential given that the end impact is on student learning.
We believe that any successful venture in education must contribute to the ultimate outcome of empowering learners to navigate and respond to the needs of an uncertain future.
The education sector now finds itself at an inflection point.
The last few decades we have seen reform efforts trying to push changes within a 20th century system to address both the systemic inequities of the 20th century model as well as the unique challenges posed by life in the 21st century.
This, in part, has left us with an innovation gap.
Our world is transforming too fast and the K-12 system hasn’t been able to keep up.
We haven’t even been able to address past inequities let alone innovate for the future. Nevertheless, we still have an imperative to innovate our way out of this situation.
This brings us to the question: Who is doing the innovating and what are their unique skills?
As with any successful entrepreneur, education entrepreneurs need to have fundamental knowledge and mastery of their domain. They need to be able to think critically to correctly identify the right problems, apply their knowledge and experience to unfamiliar problems, and brainstorm new ideas and test them in appropriate context.
They also need to have the behavioral and social-emotional skills to foster critical thinking and creative confidence in their team. Education entrepreneurs must build community partnerships and trust to secure the buy-in necessary to put their ideas into action.
In our experience, the most successful education entrepreneurs are both steely-eyed about the impact they want to have and agile enough to respond to the ever changing landscape of education. Having that “range” is key.
Successful education entrepreneurs know the fundamentals of teaching and learning and they prioritize their end users’ (students and parents) experience. They seek ongoing feedback and look to co-develop with their users wherever possible.
That’s all at the highest level.
Let’s dig into how our work with education entrepreneurs has helped us identify the top skills needed for their success in the field.
KNOW YOUR ABCs (aka the fundamentals)
1. Be Knowledgeable about Teaching and Learning
Education entrepreneurship is fundamentally about having an impact on how learners learn.
Over the last few years, fueled by a continued surge in edtech funding, there has been an explosion of tools in the education sector that have been marketed as “innovative” with limited impact.
Successful education entrepreneurs should have deep subject matter expertise and truly understand the principles of learning and pedagogical best practices.
This is especially important as they seek to innovate within the aforementioned innovation gap, updating teaching and learning to focus more on the needs of a 21st century education: life skills, educational experiences, literacy, mental health, socio-emotional needs, critical thinking, communication skills, living in a pluralistic society, social skills, and survival skills.
2. Understand the Future of Work
It’s undeniable that a critical outcome of education is to prepare learners to live, work and thrive in a future world.
Successful education ventures need to clearly address the needs of the future workforce and adapt their products at the speed and quality that contemporary challenges require.
A deep understanding of this evolving market need will enable education entrepreneurs to design products that meet a very pressing need of the moment - updating and adjusting teaching and learning frameworks, systems, and spaces to the evolving skill needs of highly innovative societies.
3. Navigate the Political Landscape
Whether we like it or not, education is deeply political.
It touches on one of the most intimate and important aspects of our society: How we treat our children and what that determines for our collective future.
This is why it’s critical for education entrepreneurs to understand the interplay between school governance structures (e.g. school boards), elected officials, and local/state/federal policies--all of which shape the education landscape.
It’s no secret that our current education system comprises structures and models that have historically done little to solve for the persistent inequities. Making new bets that are successful in addressing these systemic inequities requires a strong grasp of the political landscape.
Successful education entrepreneurs need to be able to meet the needs of their users and their consumers. In other sectors, entrepreneurs can “disrupt and transform” the status quo by directly providing users/consumers with options.
The education sector is a bit more unique. It’s a “common good” or a human service.
With multiple stakeholders from end users (students/teachers/parents) to consumers (teachers/parents/districts), education entrepreneurs have to be particularly savvy managing the needs of different stakeholder groups.
Having a strong, up-to-date pulse on the political landscape will enable education entrepreneurs to understand key forces and challenges in the education sector that are creating opportunities for new relationships and products while also helping them anticipate any barriers to adoption and scaling.
KNOW YOUR WHY
4. Hone your Story
A successful entrepreneur is able to effortlessly and succinctly discuss their product, the problem-solution narrative, the value proposition, and its market reach.
In our experience, investors care deeply about not just the product, but the people behind it and how they position their offering to the world.
Personalizing your product by sharing your entrepreneurial story is as important as the practical details of your product.
Having a compelling personal story is especially important in the early days of your venture when seeking early-stage investors. Many investors are advised to invest in people, not ideas.
The primary advantage of sharing your entrepreneurial story is that it makes one relatable. Good stories are powerful when it comes to inspiring positive emotional responses and moving your audience to action.
5. Have a clear strategy
Successful educational entrepreneurs are clear about what problem they are trying to solve, why it’s important, and how to get it done.
While there is a lot of opportunity for innovation and entrepreneurship in education, talented education entrepreneurs rarely seek overnight success that seems to define entrepreneurship in other sectors.
To be a successful education entrepreneur over the long term, one has to care deeply about the why of the work and about creating and having a positive impact on learners. This requires understanding your motivation, capabilities, and unique value-add against the conditions of the market and the needs of the users you are aiming to serve.
Being clear on the problem you are trying to solve and why is not only important to creating a functional product, but also important when it comes to making difficult decisions, asking for feedback from customers and partners, prioritizing resources and, generally, getting through the tough spots.
KNOW YOUR HOW
6. Leverage Strong Business Acumen
While education entrepreneurship is and should be purpose-driven, it’s also a business venture.
And like any business venture, success relies on paying attention to important aspects of running a business, which includes everything from establishing an adequate customer support system to smart strategies for scaling up.
From finance to operations to people management, you will need to hone the organizational management skills necessary for business success.
Assembling the right team that is mission and vision aligned will be key in helping you achieve the long term impact and success that you envision for your venture. A study by Gallup found that managers account for 70 percent of variance in employee engagement, which is key to driving team productivity, morale, and overall organizational culture.
Strong data analysis and financial management skills are important for understanding and improving your organization’s performance and potential. Effective communication, strong implementation skills, negotiation, and decision-making skills round out the basic business skills that every successful entrepreneur needs.
Education entrepreneurs also need social-emotional skills like interpersonal emotional intelligence and adaptive leadership to positively impact your organization’s performance and drive impactful decision-making.
7. Prioritize Relationship with Stakeholders
Successful education ventures are ultimately about having a meaningful social impact. With the events of the last year, there is more pressure on American businesses to address societal issues and be responsive to communities in crisis.
Building trust with community members is key to effective stakeholder engagement and integrating people into co-designing educational solutions together.
When education entrepreneurs co-design and co-create, they simply produce better products.
Tapping into your emotional intelligence and leveraging effective relationship management skills will not only enable you to influence, coach and resolve conflict but to design products and learning experiences that are authentically user-centered and speak to the very real needs of the stakeholders.
8. Measure and Share Your Impact
Once you’re clear on the problem you’re looking to solve, you also need to be clear about how you will know that the problem is being solved. In other words, how will you measure impact?
Ask yourself: What is a simple data point that will demonstrate that we have made measurable impact towards addressing this problem? How soon do we expect to start seeing results?
Answers to these questions will help you be clear on the data that you need to collect and share. It will also inform the tools and processes you need to design to have an effective measurement system in place.
The best way for you to scale your impact and thus, your success, is to share the impact you are having with your product and the problem-solution narrative.
Build in public.
Data-driven decision making helps you to put data-informed insights to your advantage when making high-impact business decisions. It will help give your impact story a boost of confidence and will enable you to effectively communicate and get buy-in for your decisions.
Education entrepreneurs need a well-rounded skill set
For education entrepreneurs seeking to boost their impact and secure success in their venture, the value of these skills can’t be overstated.
These skills will provide you with a well-rounded set of competencies necessary to address the innovation gap through your entrepreneurial edtech product.
No matter the nature of your venture, every education entrepreneur needs to know the fundamentals of the education sector, their own narrative arc, as well as essential business and engagement skills to help drive their education products forward.
The communities you’re serving will benefit greatly from you investing in these core skills.
