What's Coming up in Edtech: Q&A with Reach Capital's General Partner
And just like that — after nearly a decade of trying, Edtech has become an overnight success. As professors and teachers rush to bring their classrooms online, the demand for products from Pre-K through lifelong learning is exploding.
Some say that classrooms have finally changed after centuries — but others fear that the first perception people have of remote learning won’t be favorable since the content is delivered over clunky Zoom classrooms instead of through the highly personalized and innovative curriculum the Edtech sector is capable of producing.
To get insights into the sector’s explosive growth — and what’s coming up next! — I spoke with Esteban Sosnik, GP at Reach Capital, and one of the sector’s most influential investors. Here’s an excerpt from our chat.
(For those looking to break into Edtech, check out Reach’s portfolio — 52 of their companies are hiring!)
Your investments in the Future of Work include Springboard and the Holberton School. What makes their models compelling?
Side-bar:
Springboard is an online school that teaches job-ready skills in fields such as UX Design and Data Science. Programs come with 1:1 industry mentorship, career support, and a job guarantee.
Holberton School is a two-year college alternative for students to learn software engineering with a project-based, peer learning model.
Esteban: Our team at Reach Capital started with the understanding that the current university system works in isolation from industry needs and then developed a thesis around new models, some outside but also in partnership with legacy institutions, to bridge the demand & supply gap for digital skills.
With Springboard, we admire how the programs leverage mentors who are top practitioners in their industry to augment and personalize the online curriculum. It’s critical for students to get support and mentorship as they prepare to transition careers and land new jobs in technology. And nothing makes a subject of study more relevant to students transitioning to new careers than the ability to talk to a current practitioner on how those apply to their jobs.
In the case of Holberton, we strongly believe in their peer-to-peer learning model — not only pedagogically but also how it’s very much in line with how young engineers learn on the job. In the case of Holberton, we also love this model because it enables the company to scale quickly without needing too many instructors. Coding schools are often limited by the supply of good instructors that can teach full-time and are not already employed by the industry. Holberton’s model enables quality software education to rapidly scale worldwide. Our thesis has been proven as the company has branched out via franchises and is now operating different cohorts in cities around the world.
COVID-19 has forced students, parents, and teachers to adopt new behaviors. What are some education solutions that are enabling the new dynamic?
The most fundamental shift is that Edtech products, and remote working tools, have transitioned from being vitamins to becoming pain-killers. The future, post-COVID, will look neither digital nor physical — students and workers will transition between and blend the two.
Until now, in the United States, we would outsource education to schools, meaning students on average spent very limited time and money on educational resources outside of school. This terrible health crisis has temporarily blended the home and the school which has surfaced to parents the benefits of access to educational digital content at home. This has generated immense interest in Edtech companies and, most likely will significantly enlarge the market for these companies once the crisis recedes.
Successful education companies will have to help recreate — and improve upon — the pillars that make schools and universities valuable. Zoom is great for teacher-student communications, but what happens once the student completes a class session? How do you continue providing the community, student interactions, and the overall immersive learning experience that they make the school experience so special?
Two companies that are tackling these opportunities in interesting ways are Outschool and Epic Books.
Outschool provides group classes over Zoom, with the philosophy of providing educational content that’s interest-driven (for example, teaching Math with Sports Metrics or Chemistry with Harry Potter). It was traditionally used by the homeschool population but has, due to school closures, seen incredible growth across all families looking to fill the void of school activities.
Epic Books is an all-you-can-read eBook library for kids with 40K+ books that are free for schools and paid for by parents if they use the platform after school. They have coverage of 90%+ of elementary schools and have seen an incredible burst in demand and engagement since COVID-19. They’re offering the solution for free until the end of the school year.
I believe that parents will now take a more active part in their child’s learning and education at home, thereby opening up a new category of customers that were previously less incentivized and active to purchase K-12 Edtech products.
Let’s talk about college-aged students. Should universities be forced to adjust their pricing to accommodate for the online learning experience?
The recorded video content universities have been putting out in the last 10 years primarily in MOOCs is analogous to a library; very few people actually go to the library to learn. Most of us learn in schools — with a teacher, TAs, peer interactions, projects, and a scaffolded curriculum. That’s the real university experience.
Universities are being challenged to replicate all of these dimensions in the online world. This will make the most adaptable schools thrive and will really challenge the rest. If they can’t get there, they should probably decrease tuition. The good news is that there are some great Edtech companies ready to support universities in that transition.
President of Southern New Hampshire University on Twitter
However, the P&L of universities is not ready for decreased tuition — and many colleges just might not survive that. It’s also an unpredictable world; this seems like a transition that might last anywhere from 12–24 months, so schools are taking this very seriously. We are watching as schools make faster decisions and embrace more innovations than they have ever done.
Do you think this quick transition to remote classes will cause doubts about the quality or outcomes of online learning?
No. Just as how the healthcare system wasn’t ready for this type of pandemic with adequate testing or an instant vaccine, the education industry wasn’t ready for this new environment. But now, 1.5 billion K-12 students around the world don’t have access to school, and 9/10 university students are distance learning. And it happened faster than we could have ever imagined. When we’ll look back on this, we’ll be amazed at how quickly these changes were made and will realize what a watershed moment this would be for education globally.
Now, talking in front of Zoom without everything else that makes a school experience magical and unique isn’t the best representation of online learning, but it’s a step closer to it.
I think these new behaviors will only accelerate the growth of the Edtech industry. Schools will be much more serious about adapting to the world of distance learning, and new solutions will come up that make it possible for students to seamlessly transition between physical and digital education experiences and ultimately blend them together.
What solutions are you most excited to see in the Future of Work sector?
Two of the problems I’m interested in seeing startups solve are:
1/ How do you support workers in the gig economy in terms of career development, mentorship, and financial advancement? As knowledge workers become more remote and take on contractor/gig opportunities, how can we replicate the services and support systems that are traditionally handled by the HR and L&D teams? How do we enable such a distributed workforce to continue upskilling, advancing in their careers, and getting rewarded for their growth?
2/ The upcoming recession and unprecedented job losses will generate a lot of micro-entrepreneurs, by desire or need. How do you support these micro-entrepreneurs who want to become creators and capitalize on the Passion Economy? I’m interested in tools that empower micro-entrepreneurs with the skills they need to build & sell their products while generating a good living for themselves.
Know someone building in the Edtech space or interested in getting a job in the sector? Hit reply and let me know!