Four years ago, I became the fifth hire at a brand new edtech startup. It was exciting, it was daunting. I had no idea what would happen in the coming years (that we’d disrupt the industry), but I knew one thing: I believed in the mission of the organization, and I wanted to be a part of making education more accessible to students across the globe.
Over those four years, I was promoted from Research Analyst to Director, and finally to Vice President. Those four years were the ride of a lifetime, and they taught me so much about entrepreneurship, innovation, and what it means to disrupt an entire industry. While I was there, the company went from training a handful of teachers to training 70,000+ teachers across 165+ countries.
We did what most entrepreneurs dream of: We went viral, created a movement, and developed products and services that changed the lives of our clients. Reflecting on my experience, here’s what I think had the biggest impact on our ability to grow and disrupt the industry.
Table of contents
#1 We Lived the Client Experience
Our founders, and all our staff, were educators. Like many entrepreneurs, we experienced the problem we were solving firsthand, and our solution was created in the space where the problem was being experienced: The classroom.
Too often, business owners try to solve problems without experiencing how those problems show up in everyday life. We get removed from the dirty work, start to get theoretical, and develop something that doesn’t quite meet our clients’ needs. That wasn’t the case in our work: We talked to teachers every single day, we visited their classrooms, and we let their voices be our guide in everything we did.
#2 We Showed Instead of Told
Our primary offering was a training program that taught teachers how to leverage a blended, mastery-based instructional model in the classroom. This model was so innovative that it was sometimes hard to describe in comparison to other classroom models.
So, we recorded a video of our model in action – and it went viral. Right after we put the video up on YouTube, we got thousands of views, and the connections started rolling in. Before we knew it, educators from across the US (and world) started reaching out to learn about our instructional model. The way to disrupt the industry.
#3 We Identified, and Shifted, Our Target Audience
Early on, we found that educators were the perfect audience for our marketing efforts. Educators understood our model; they knew the classroom experience better than anyone else. And, once an educator entered our community, they were likely to refer someone else to us, including other educators and administrators. The educators became our entry point into schools, and into conversations about buying our program for more educators.
Over time, our marketing and sales efforts shifted: We found that although educators were drawn to our work, they often didn’t have the funding to cover the training costs. So, we started making connections with school leaders instead to spark conversations about our programs. Most importantly, we identified key contacts at the school and district level who could influence decision making. Sometimes, these contacts were principals or district leaders, but other times, the most influential person was the Director of Professional Development. It was important to direct our efforts to the person that would 1) Understand out work most intimately, and 2) Be an advocate for our program within the school district.
#4 We Spoke the Lingo
As we started connecting with school and district leaders, our pitch shifted. We were no longer talking to educators, who are primarily concerned about classroom management and hands-on student learning experiences. Administrators had different goals: Schoolwide achievement, teacher retention, and curriculum implementation. The more we spoke to the problems that administrators were trying to solve, the better our message was received.
How Can Other Business Owners Apply These Learnings?
Although these experiences were specific to one startup’s success, I believe they can be universally applied to other businesses to increase growth and virality.
First, if you’re a business leader, make sure that you always stay close to the heartbeat of your business: The customers. When your week is full of meetings, strategic planning sessions, grant reports, and sales pitches, it can be hard to find time to reconnect directly with the clients you serve. At minimum, create systems for your frontline employees to share feedback on the client experience with executive leadership. If possible, set aside time on your calendar to speak directly with clients every so often to hear about how things are going and what can be improved upon.
Second, leverage high-quality video marketing. Show your product in action. Hire content creators or influencers to talk about how amazing your product is on camera. In the online space, video is king, and it’s not going away any time soon.
Third, get extremely clear about who your target audience is, and speak thoughtfully to their daily experiences. If you’re selling a B2B product, it’s not enough to identify potential businesses to pitch to. You need to know who the key decision maker is and how they go about making decisions. Know what’s making their job harder, know who they want to impress, and know what their biggest goals are for the year. Finally, speak your customer’s language. Don’t focus on the product and its features; focus on the transformation. Get into your clients’ heads and think their thoughts, live their lives, really step into their shoes. Let them know that you truly understand them and that your offering is exactly what they’ve been looking for. In this way, you’ll stand out from the crowd, disrupt the industry, and build a community of raving fans in no time.
