This interview was originally recorded on July 21, 2023, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
Elana Leoni:
Hello and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni, and I've devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs, and experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing or content marketing, and community building. I'm excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value and ultimately improves the lives of your audience.
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week I am really excited to be sitting down with Jeremy Dulle. He is a growth strategist, a go-to-market advisor, a business developer, and probably all other things. He's going to get into lots of his experiences. Today we are going to be talking about all things EdTech. How do you grow in EdTech as a business? What's your business strategy? It'll include things on growing your business, what mistakes to look out for, and the careful balancing act of many things, including how do you diversify, but also focus. How do you incorporate educator voices and perspectives, but also keep your eye on the business prize too, and so much more. I am excited. I've been looking forward to this, Jeremy, because I'm like, "I get to pick his brain and he's not going to even care about it because we get to share it with all of you."
But before we get into those topics, let me give you a brief background about Jeremy. As you know, all of my guests are super humble and I think it's helpful for me to tell you about his background. So you don't think he's just some random person coming and talking about EdTech, which we know in our industry, if anyone's been in education and gone through an education schooling system, they feel like they're an expert in EdTech. This is not the case with Jeremy, I swear. So I was introduced to Jeremy through our director of Joy, Porter Palmer, who has the pleasure of being our very first guest on the podcast. So if you want to go back to our first episode, you can see how nervous I was as a podcast host too. So fun kicks there, but I remember Porter reaching out to me and said, "Hey, I just had a call with Jeremy. Jeremy is a good human and super smart. You two should talk."
And so I was like, "Okay, Porter." And when Porter introduces me to somebody, usually I end up collaborating with them for decades it feels like. So we had a call and we kept in touch, and I remember us just gelling and going, "Wow, you're really in it for the good reasons. You're really passionate about education, and I learned so much talking from you." So we finally met at ASU GSV this year, which is a big tech convening in March. That was really fun in San Diego, and I remember us just sitting under the palm trees and talking and feeling inspired and you being so selfless with your time. So I said, "You have to be on the show and you have to tell other people." So I want to welcome you. I still have a little bit to talk about your background, but I'm excited for you to join, Jeremy, but let me get some bullet points in his background.
Because I did promise you he's not just a random person coming on my show. Like I said, Jeremy is a growth strategist. He's a go-to-market advisor. He's a business developer who partners with founders and leaders of education. He has some background in SaaS as well and service organizations. He's all about how do you accelerate growth and impact, and I love that combining of the two. He's had over 25 years of experience as a strategy and management consultant. He's worked with organizations of all sizes, and I like that Jeremy, he hasn't lived in just EdTech. So a lot of the questions we're going to ask is differentiating EdTech from other industries. And he has that perspective because he has worked in many industries and many different business sizes from startups to Fortune 500. He started his consulting career with Accenture and Inforte, am I saying that right, Jeremy, Inforte?
Jeremy Dulle:
That's exactly right, Inforte Corporation.
Elana Leoni:
That's me just being, I don't know the consulting world as much as I should, I feel like. And then after your consulting, you became business development and a customer success leader in healthcare services and education technology. And how Porter knows you is through Discovery Education where she was at the Discovery Education for 10 years and your past crossed, right?
Jeremy Dulle:
Exactly. Porter is wonderful, one of my favorite people, and she always comes with things from an educator perspective, which is great and refreshing and informative to me because my background is in business, so absolutely.
Elana Leoni:
Yes. Well, awesome. I think that in this path of your life, you are now advising early to growth stage education companies on strategy, on business development, and growth operations. And as you do that, I think we have some questions on what do you look for? How do you truly accelerate growth? So I'm excited to get into it. Jeremy, thank you so much for spending time with us today.
Jeremy Dulle:
I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Elana. It is been great to meet you and get to know you. In the world that we live in, I think we've spent a lot more time on Zoom together than we have in person, but great to meet you in person at ASU GSV and really spent some authentic time and real conversation time, getting to know you personally and professionally. And I'm thrilled to be on today and talk all things EdTech, entrepreneurship, go-to market, anything you want to discuss.
Elana Leoni:
Yes. Well, let's get into it. So of all of your career, you kind of have some twists and turns. You still dabble in some healthcare, you have some SaaS background, but why are you focusing on EdTech right now? What brought you towards EdTech?
Jeremy Dulle:
I have kind of an interesting path and sometimes you have opportunities in your career to look back at where you've been and try to figure out how you got to where you are. And looking back, for me, my parents were always mission and service oriented. My dad was a superintendent, my mom was a nurse. My sister now teaches I believe kindergartners and first-graders with hearing impairments. My brother works for an education company, so it's kind of in the blood and in the family. I was kind of the outlier in that I started out of school in business with Accenture. It was Andersen Consulting back then, but we rebranded and went public while I was there, and I loved that work, but I kind of taken an interesting path to EdTech. But I did that for almost 11 years, a little over 10 years I think in strategy management consulting.
Loved the work that I did. I got a chance to work with Fortune 500 companies, global companies all over the world. I traveled, I lived in Tokyo, I lived in Helsinki. I did a brief stint in Jakarta, in Singapore and just loved the work. But I did get to a point after years of questions from my family about, "Hey, what are you going to do for other people?" I got to a point where I was lucky enough to come into Discovery Education and really start to work with the partnerships team who was responsible for working with, at this point, large urban school districts, informing digital transformation partnerships and then also working on the customer success side to make sure that the implementations were successful and we ultimately had impact and achieved outcomes for kids in school districts. So it was a neat journey with consulting and then running strategy and business development for a couple of companies, one in healthcare services and then one was an online startup.
My path has been fun in the sense that I've got to work with big companies and tackle really big complex strategic problems in all different countries. And then I've also worked more entrepreneurially with startup companies, and I fell in love with both healthcare and education probably for the same fundamental reason. They're very people and service oriented and mission focused, and I thought, "What a great way to bring the business side, the analytical side into a service space." So that's kind of how I ended up where I am. Being in education to move from consulting and industry and education was an eyeopener for me. I had to learn the whole new language, the lingo of K12 education when I got to discovery and really got a sense to appreciate the challenges of school districts and all the stakeholders involved and the complexities.
And one thing that really struck me that sticks with me today is that when you really go out and you visit schools and you look at classrooms and you see what teachers are doing day in, day out, you realize that some kids are lucky enough to be in a position where they can really learn and they can really absorb. And then there are a lot of kids who really aren't. Their basic needs may not be met. They may have learning differences.
So the big eye-opener for me was, "My gosh, there are many more kids than I ever thought who have challenges. And just getting them to school is a challenge, let alone helping them and putting them in a position to learn." That was the big eyeopener to me and kind of has continued to be a calling. And the last thing I'll say is that all came full circle for me when I had my kids. And then you start to really connect the dots between your career, your personal life, and your calling, whether it be to serve kids or to serve in healthcare. That's a long answer, Elana, to how I got to where I am.
Elana Leoni:
No, it's helpful. And you were kind of dipping your toe in the water of a question I'm going to be asking you soon around the differences of EdTech and how you started and how you had to get up to speed. But one of the things you were talking about was, when you went into classrooms, you realized there were some students that were ready to learn, and there were some students that there's so many nuances and factors that affect their readiness to learn. And I just want to pause there because I was recently on a call and it was with people that are new to K12 education and we make assumptions, and one of the assumptions that was made that if a student isn't engaged, it's a result of the subject matter not being engaging enough.
And I want people that are listening to pause and think about that because I think what I love and also sometimes hate about K12 is that there's so many nuances and there's so many factors. There's not ever a direct correlation because of this, this. And very rarely is it the subject matter's fault a student isn't engaged. I think that's just one assumption that was made. But why don't you talk, Jeremy, a little bit about when you were coming in, what were the mistakes or assumptions that you thought when you're like, "Okay, it worked for healthcare, it worked for SaaS, it worked for Fortune 500."
Jeremy Dulle:
There's a handful of them nuances in education, and it starts kind of just with the language and the focus. It is business language doesn't resonate in education the same as it resonates in other industries. And I think you really have to understand the complexities and the resources that are required to do what school districts do every day to really implement EdTech successfully, get kids into the classroom, make sure they've all eaten, and that their basic needs are met as best as possible. And then really making sure that what you're doing is driving the kind of impact. So I think that's a big thing. It's challenging I think for districts with all that they have going on internally to engage outside organizations. That was another thing, Elana, that I found early on was, "Oh my gosh, there's so many groups that are calling on school districts."
Concurrently, whether it's companies, community-based organizations, taxpayers, you name it. So there's all these different stakeholders and all these different pressures that make the education environment really, really unique from other industries. Another thing I would say is that it's very, very much, and this, I think it has in common with healthcare services, very much focused on efficacy and outcomes. And we've got to get things right in what we do, we have to get right with and for our kids and for our educators. And I think it's the same when you think of healthcare. So there's some similarities and some differences, but I think overall, the sheer number of stakeholders with different, in some cases, different agendas is a big one. The focus on mission and outcomes are also big ones and just the kind of complexity that comes with all of that that we have to understand that leaders and teachers are dealing with every day.
A really shocking thing, Elana, that when I started to get to know the districts across the United States, one of the things that struck me, because I started working with urban districts, that was my first experience was how many kids are in very few of the districts, so it's something crazy. I want to say 60% of our kids in this country are in 10% of the districts. So when you really think about what the big districts deal with in terms of complexities and density of kids and student to teacher ratios, that's the challenge. And then on the flip side, if you look at the rural districts, it's access, it's connectivity, it's all those things. So it was a whole new language and it was fun to dig in and learn it. But it was also humbling when I first started in that I did a lot of listening, at least I tried to.
Elana Leoni:
And that is the ecosystem of say, our top 10 biggest school districts. And as somebody who is starting an EdTech business, it's not necessarily the same amount of effort, but if you get a district, you might as well try to get a big district like LA Unified. But I guess, maybe let's get into this now around sales strategy. So say you have an EdTech company going, "Gosh, I want to target the top 10 school districts," and they're in the majority like everyone else does that too. Is that a good strategy? And maybe it obviously depends on how big they are, can they actually fulfill it? But I guess I see so many EdTechs going to the biggest districts, but the medium size and the smaller ones don't necessarily get targeted in strategies. And what would you recommend? I mean, maybe it depends on their growth size.
Jeremy Dulle:
It is interesting. Almost every company wants to go to the big districts because of the immediate opportunity to be able to scale within. So you naturally get that breadth and a large number of schools and a large number of students for whatever reason, whether it's to support and grow your business or get the numbers you need to prove efficacy of your product. So I think you're right, Elana, almost everybody goes that path. I would say it's not a bad path, but I think there's two big things off the top of my head to consider. One is if you're a company going to the really large districts, you have the implementation chops to make it work. And just kind of reflecting on some of our past conversations, I think one of the things that always strikes me when you ask me questions is the importance of implementation and how difficult it really is, particularly in large urban districts, and not for any of the reason that they're large, they're complex, the kids are all diverse, very different needs, different backgrounds.
And so I think having the implementation chops is important and not just to get started with the partnership, but to be able to sustain the partnership for the life of it and sustain it successfully and show quantitative impact and outcomes, whether it be student engagement, usage of your product, impact on tests, impact on grades, whatever it is. There's anecdotal and there's quantitative. So I think the implementation side is probably the biggest thing to consider and the risk, the risk that comes with all of that. It's interesting though, if you go a step below the largest districts, there are a lot of large suburban districts, and maybe even some county districts fall in this group of districts that are 20 to 40,000 kids. And you still have an opportunity in that middle market to achieve a lot that you would with the big districts and be able to do it in maybe a less risky environment.
From my perspective though, all the districts need attention. All the kids need resources. And so figuring out how you as an organization can address the needs of all students and really address the needs of all districts, even if in some cases you have to do it virtually, there's got to be a model for that. But you're right, I think most companies, their initial kind of go-to market is, "Oh my gosh, can we win one or two big districts?" And I would say it's challenging to win them, but more importantly it's challenging to implement them and get them right and sustain them.
Elana Leoni:
I would say like you said, it's more risky, but it's also a lot more competitive too because everyone else is doing it too. But in my head, I'm thinking it through of the companies I know that sometimes have only targeted medium and small or rural districts and they can't seem to make the jump to big. So it's a bit of a Goldilocks syndrome or something where it's like if you start small or medium, you have a hard time building brand awareness into the big. So I still haven't figured out this, and then everyone goes for the big, so it's more risky and more competitive. But I don't know.
Jeremy Dulle:
You bring up an interesting point though, and this is one I kind of forgot for a second, but the competitiveness is one thing, but I think the attention of large districts, they're so spread out, their attention is so spread out because they're being contacted by so many potential partners and then they've got their own internal challenges to deal with. And then they've got large communities in large cities and large tax spaces. So not only is it competitive to partner with them, but also, their attention is spread very thin. So you need to make sure that you can carry the weight as an organization of those partnerships because districts of that size have a lot of partnerships, so in a way you're looking to get attention and you're looking for them to help carry the load, but they're incredibly swamped and busy. So it's definitely consideration.
Elana Leoni:
And the other point you made around implementation is such a good one because I think sometimes there's an assumption that you might not be, you keep using the word partner, which is a great word, but sometimes you get into EdTech, you're like, "I'm just a tech solution. I'm a vendor. Let me just sell you my product. It's super easy, doesn't require implementation. I mean, who wouldn't know how to use this?" And then it's one and done, and then because it's a government entity, it's going to renew and renew and renew. You want to break that myth down a little bit?
Jeremy Dulle:
For sure. And this is from my perspective, my experience districts tend to have a discipline around not only how they procure and buy on the front end, but also in terms of how they assess the value of partnerships. And so they will quantify things and they will bounce up usage numbers and other outcome data against their budget, and often they do it annually. And so there's always that chance every year, there's always that need to be able to show the value that you're bringing all the time. And I think at the same time, it's difficult for solution providers. It's also valuable because the districts are protecting the best needs of kids. You're absolutely right. Once you get in, it's not a slam dunk that you're going to stay a hundred percent.
Elana Leoni:
And just for the listeners kind of going, "Okay, this might be just Jeremy and Elana's opinion around what's happening in EdTech." I was just recently reading an article at Reach Capital, Tony Wan, and there's a lot of research to support this, but because we've had such an EdTech boom, if you will, with the pandemic where everyone was grabbing everything, a lot of technology became more accessible, a lot of vendors offered their product for free. So the tech stack for districts got quite bloated, and whether they're slow to reduce the bloat or not, everyone's intention is eventually to consolidate their tech stack and say, "What's working?" Like you said, what are the two things they might evaluated on? What's working?
If you have any kind of efficacy data, anything related to student impact, academic outcomes, we know that that's the holy grail, but there is some scaffolding steps and data points in between it all and what is actually being used, what's being used, the very basic, and you talked about those two, it's being talked about in every single article right now. If you're an EdTech provider, you should be worried just as much as active users as well as growth.
Jeremy Dulle:
At the end of the day though, Elana, it's about the power of the partnership between the district and the solution provider, so it behooves solution provider when they partner to be on the same page in terms of the expectations and how efficacy is going to be measured. So in an ideal world, you have both sides working together as one and agreeing on the outcomes that they're trying to achieve and checking in at different points in time as regularly as possible to make sure it's getting the impact and the results that should. It's like being an entrepreneur, you always have an opportunity to adapt or pivot as needed. So nothing should be a surprise if the partnership is set up right and you have stakeholders lined up from the buyers to the implementers, to the influencers, to the users. Ideally, you should have a path and know along the way what's working and what's not.
Elana Leoni:
Yep. Okay. So let's switch gears a little bit because I know now a lot in your day-to-day is you look at a lot of business plans, pitch decks, proposals that come your way from EdTech entrepreneurs. And for those of you listening, you may be an educator thinking about dipping your toe in EdTech. And if eventually you do that, what does a good pitch deck look like? You may be a startup, founder, or you may be someone in EdTech that's raising additional funding, but I think having Jeremy's thoughts on what are the things that stand out to you of like, "Wow, I may want to work with them." And then what are the flops you're like, "Please don't ever do this. This just makes me stop right in my tracks."
Jeremy Dulle:
Well, first thing I'll say is I like people by nature. I love to work with people, especially people who are passionate about something and they're driven. And I also love ideas. Those are the two things that I really, really thrive on. So I love talking to entrepreneurs because they're so focused and they're taking a risk on something that they really, really, really believe in. So first of all, it's impossible to be overly critical just because of that, because they're putting themselves out there in a risky way because they really wholeheartedly believe in something or they should at least. So I love those conversations. Some things that I would probably stay away from, if that's the question is one is buzzwords. I feel like in education there are always certain words that people use and they feel like they have to use if they're in a conversation or they're in a room and those things are all fine, if you can really connect them to what needs to be accomplished in a classroom or how would that look or who will it impact?
AI is a huge one right now. And you and I were at ASU GSV together and it seemed like everything that was discussed, it had to do with AI. And really it's kind of an ambiguous term. You could argue that intelligence has been built into technology for a long time. It's maturing, which is great, but I feel like everybody wanted to be an AI business. And a lot of investors now are very focused on the space and they have a bit of a fear missing out on the next big idea. And so if you're going to talk about, there's so many of them. If you're going to talk about AI or if you're going to talk about teacher shortages, scalability, equity, have a real connection between what your solution is and what the actual word is that you're claiming that you are, that you're saying that you are I think is really important and break that down into, if you're talking to an education leader, what does that really look like? What does that mean to you?
If you're talking to a teacher, what does that mean, the classroom looks like, parent? Because they're in the day-to-day, so I think that's important. This is something I find all the time, Elana, is very often entrepreneurs build products from their own experience. Which is good and bad. It's good in the sense that if you were a classroom teacher and there was some gap in your classroom that you had a vision to fill and you built something for your kids and it worked, that's fantastic.
You felt the problem firsthand and you lived it, which makes your solution that much more compelling. The challenge with it is there's a lot outside of your classroom of 30 kids. And so I think the big thing is to be able to connect what you're doing and what you've built in terms of your practice solution to your personal experience. Because if you've lived the challenge, that makes it that much more compelling. But also get outside voices. Before you even prototype it, ideally take the idea outside of it to teachers who serve different kids, kids who are way different from your kids, and then slowly expand your net so you've got enough of a sample size or group so that you're comfortable making the investment in the prototype.
Because what could happen is you overbuild a prototype or you invest a lot and then you find that the market for what you're doing isn't as big as you dreamt that it would be. So I think that's a huge issue and everybody, I hate to bring it up, but it's product market fit stuff, and everybody talks about product market fit, but I think it's taking your own compelling experience and getting enough different data points as you build that you mitigate your risk and you maximize your opportunity to make an impact is really a big one. Just a couple more thoughts is...
Elana Leoni:
Just adding to that. I know that all of our attention span is limited as humans, and I love to pause on really good points that you made. And that one is really about user-centered design, design thinking concepts, making sure that if you are not being myopic of your own experience, "Oh, because this is my problem, this means every single educator or admin in the nation must experience it the same way. And so I'm going to build it." And so I just want you to, people that are listening, think about that because even if you're a big company and you have an engineering team, be aware of that bias because sometimes we get into featuritis too of like, "Oh, that would be a cool thing to build." And we always have to validate that it is a product market fit and it is a priority, and potentially it can differentiate you from the crowd of people too.
But it's an assumption I hear over and over again in the market when I'm on calls. I'm on calls, 20 calls a week at least with EdTech people. And I remember a principal telling me, "Well, I didn't do it that way, so that's not going to work for all principals." And I just paused and I said, "Well, I think your point is valid, but let's just make sure that we're not speaking for all of the stakeholder too." And that's really important. So I wanted to pause there. I know you're going into really awesome other stuff too now.
Jeremy Dulle:
No, I'm glad you did. I think asking yourself like how would you do that is probably a great question, and you do that all the time in your work, Elana, but ultimately, how do you pace that? What does that collaboration look like? How do you slowly expand the net? And I do think getting input, building your prototype, and then slowly bringing in more users and doing user-based design and almost thinking about it in terms of, I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this too, but in terms of stages, and the stages are stages of development, stages of rollout, investment. As you expand your net or your web of people that you collaborate with, you also are more comfortable making investments as you go along. And I think that it doesn't fully de-risk it, but it mitigates your risk and maximizes your potential to really accomplish what you're trying to accomplish and get that impact. And I know you do that, or you talk about that a lot in your work too, Elana.
Elana Leoni:
I think if I were investing money as an EdTech startup founder for each feature, I would say, "Okay, let's scaffold it small," kind of like what you're suggesting. And we had a guest on our podcast, and we'll put it in the show notes, Katie, and she's the CEO of Leanlab Education. And what they do is they partner with EdTechs to really, as they do a feature, they really do product validation for each feature and rollout, and they have a methodology that they're working with the target audience and making sure it's truly validated that it's a need, and then how can they optimize it to best fit the need? I mean I know that sounds conservative, but for each feature I would do that and then slowly roll stuff out. I think sometimes we get a little bit shiny object syndrome and go, "Oh my god, there's a whole new marketing out there, cough, cough tutoring. How can I go over there and just develop a product?"
Jeremy Dulle:
Well, it's almost like that lean model, the lean development models, same idea. That's really cool. I think what they do in much needed piece by piece, right?
Elana Leoni:
Yes. Everything, like what I'm learning in life, everything is just, it's slow and steady, slow intentional growth. While we're talking about growth, what are the things you recommend for somebody who is a startup, either startup like beginning seed stage or kind of growth stage? How do they continuously grow in this competitive, weird market?
Jeremy Dulle:
I am glad you brought that up because my brain is going to, how do you strike a balance. Entrepreneurship is a lot about balance. How do you strike that balance between really being really, really focused on solving the problem that you set out to solve versus looking down the road and really thinking about what is it that I need to do to sustain and grow my business? What are the next one or two or three best? I feel like in my experience, the best founders and leaders of entrepreneurial growth companies that I've worked with are the ones that can... The analogy I kind of think of is, they almost zoom out. When you're on a map app, you're on Google Maps or whatever it is, you can kind of zoom out and not only look at your street because you can look at the whole neighborhood, you can look at the city, you can look at the state.
I think the very best people are the ones that can zoom out and see the big picture of the vision and where it could ultimately go in a couple of the building blocks. But then they're also able to zoom in almost painfully close to say, "What are the next one or two steps or three steps that I know we need to take?" And I feel like, and this is me how I've always thought, all the stuff that happens in the middle between the zoom out view and the zoom in view is kind of unpredictable. And I learned that in my consulting career when I started was we would build out, this is before agile methodology. Now, we would build out these multi-year plans for companies and they could be strategy process or technology oriented, and we'd have teams of people who would literally put in every task.
And the reality is usually it's good for the thought, the planning, and the budgeting process, but it usually doesn't work that way. And so I think knowing the big picture and being able to have that 20,000 foot view and then saying, "But what do I need to do right now to be able to get this business to market or to have my first big success," is really, really critical.
Elana Leoni:
Really good metaphor, I would say too. And make sure that when you're on that Google Maps is you're not connecting it directly to China, you're not overselling, right?
Jeremy Dulle:
Right. Exactly. And that it comes from being connected and using your resources wisely. I mean, one of the challenges is we all have limited resources, but when you're starting a company or growing a company, you have really limited resources. So you've got to be able to tap into everything that's at your disposal and do it really creatively to move the business and keep your run rate low. And so I think it's very much about seeing the big picture and then those immediate steps that are right in front of you.
Elana Leoni:
And I like how you were thinking about growth and impact. They can move alongside each other, but sometimes you have to, as a leader, understand when they're in conflict of each other and make the right decisions for your business. I'm wondering for you is where do you see the most sustainable growth? We see different models in EdTech, we see B2C where we're going directly to the teacher, we see B2C where we're going to the parent, we see B2B or B2G to the districts and the schools. And then we see people doing both, right? Everyone asks, and it's the age-old question of do we do top down B2B or do we do bottom up or do we do a combination of both? I don't know. And then it gets confusing. I know this is a hard question because it depends on so many factors.
Jeremy Dulle:
It's a great one. And what I'm finding more and more now is companies are doing both and they talk about their modeling and they're saying, "Well, we piloted with a handful of teachers in some schools, we got some traction." They told their principals about it, or they told other educators, and it's kind of growing a bit organically. Or some are doing a B2C model where they'll put the app out there and they'll market it, social media through communities, parents will latch onto it and they'll get some traction that way. I think the B2C and the direct to teacher models are valuable for a lot of reasons, but two that come to mind are one, getting direct feedback from people who are in the classroom, and especially people who are in different kinds of districts with different kinds of kids and different kinds of technologies.
And that firsthand feedback is great. And then you can also learn a lot from B2C because ideally you can get to a lot of people, a lot of users, and you can measure. You can measure what is it that resonated with them, why did they buy it, when did they buy it, how much did they use it? Are their kids going back to it? If they're going back to it, I don't know if they're being assessed through the tool, are they doing better and better? So there's just a lot that I think you can learn from that. When I was running business development for an online startup years back, somebody said to me once, and it always stuck with me, they said, "When you're starting a company, it's more important that the pace of learning be fast than the pace of growth."
And so I think depends on what stage you're in, to answer your question, Elana, but I think the more data and information you can gather and the more open you can be to adapting and evolving what you're doing based on the input early on is really critical. And of course you got to hit a stage where you grow and you sustain the growth and the business and the infrastructure you've built. The top down model also obviously works, but I think going at it from different angles can be valuable.
Elana Leoni:
And top down is not a jackpot. You can't just bank on signing one big district. And you have to realize, and especially K12 education, it's very relationship driven. I always ask people that I mentor and accelerators and say, "Do you have anyone on your team with K12 experience, anyone that can get in the rooms that may have some contextual relationships already baked in with decision makers?" Because that's so much easier than just cold calling your product, even if it's good. I see really great products being rejected all the time just because those people don't necessarily have an in in the district.
Jeremy Dulle:
Well, and you brought this up earlier, we've gone from, I was reading this article earlier, there is like 900 tools per district on average to now 2000 or slightly over 2000 since the pandemic. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of innovation, there's a lot of noise. I think districts are trying to sift through it all. And at the end of the day, their job is to teach the kids the standards, help the kids learn. And I think we take for granted how hard it is just to do that, let alone look at new products and give feedback and partner in new and different ways. And so I think we just got to be mindful with the fact that there's a lot more innovation out there than a school district or a buyer could possibly consume. In some cases, some of the best solutions that are out there may not be getting the eyes of administrators just because of that point, because there's so much going on.
And I do think we're going to see some more integration and consolidation. You look at HMH acquiring NWEA is a good example of that. You're going to see some consolidation in the industry that may make it a little easier in some ways. And hopefully you will see integration too between solutions and partners and systems and more and more of that. And I think that'll make it easier. And I do think the advanced AI is going to help a lot in terms of personalization and reaching individual kids when they need to be reached and how, and really helping intervene at points where they're challenged. So I think it's interesting, it's fun what lies ahead of us, and I do think it's going to continue to be crazy and there's going to be a lot going on, but I also think there's going to be a lot of innovation to help with things like scale teacher shortages, reaching every individual student. So it's a pretty exciting time, as confusing as it might be.
Elana Leoni:
I agree. I think, well, one last question on EdTech, and we'll get into some wrap up questions because I don't want to take more of your time, but I know we could talk for hours on this stuff. It's a little bit of a, would you rather, but it's like depth versus breadth. When we think about products, would you rather have a product that is super focused but really good at what it does, and it's not trying to be an all-in-one solution, it just does one to three things really well? Or would you rather have an all-in-one solution that districts go to and it does this, it's an LMS, it's an SIS, it has a Kahoot type of thing? I know revenue potential might be different, but I don't know, this is a hard question to even pose, but when I think about products, sometimes they get into featuritis it because they try to be an all-in-one solution.
And sometimes when you try to be everything, you end up being nothing. But sometimes when you're super simple, you can't get into districts because they only have a certain amount of tech available like for spots. Am I overcomplicating this?
Jeremy Dulle:
I love your question. I love your thoughts on it too. I'm assuming you have a perspective, but my immediate reaction is initially I think you've got to solve a problem. It's got to be focused on solving a big and specific problem that is not universally felt, but broadly felt. And if it's not a problem that is immediate and somewhat sustainable, like enduring, I guess is a better word, then I would say that you could end up being, to your point, you can be everything and nothing. So I think initially focusing on a problem that you feel very confident based on your experience and the input that you're getting from people around you, users, buyers, et cetera, is the key. And then I think you take that foundational thing that you've built and then you build around it.
You look for all the adjacencies or nearby innovations that you can make, and then it becomes a question of do you want to build it or do you want to buy it? And you can kind of put together that ecosystem, which is pretty exciting. I think if you go too broad, it is risky, it's time-consuming. You're investing a whole lot without the confidence that you can execute. So I think again, it's that zoom out, zoom in. I think the zoom out view is to your point, is all those features you could have or all those challenges you could solve and the big vision and then the zoom in is what is the most critical pressing thing that I can do that will have an enduring value? And can I build around it? I'd love your thoughts on it.
Elana Leoni:
No, I think it's spot on. It's like, would you rather build it, would you buy it, or potentially would you rather be bought? And that would you rather be bought, I feel like that's a different strategy on the focused approach. "I do something really, really well that this other company doesn't do. I have a new niche of a market that they want to acquire," that kind of thing. I see it all. I don't know what's better. And I think all of these questions are hard because it depends so much on context and nuance and growth stage and industry and what problem they're solving and all of the things. But it's just fun to pontificate, I guess a little bit hard questions. Why don't we get some closing questions? I know we're reaching time here, but we ask all of our guests this one question, and I love it because although we love education, we know every day it can be quite hard and it can be draining at times.
And especially for the educators listening, we see you. I can't imagine what it's like to be an educator, whether you're in the classroom or running a school, but those days where you have had everything drained out of you. I asked the question of these folks on the podcast, so you can get inspiration of other ideas that you might do to recharge and refuel and get back inspired and show up the next day. So what are the things that you do, Jeremy, that once you've had those days... I had one yesterday where I just told our producer of the podcast, I said, "I just stared at a wall for a solid hour." What do you do to recharge? That doesn't necessarily recharge me.
Jeremy Dulle:
Staring at walls can work. For me, I get a lot of energy out of my family and being with my kids, and I like what I do professionally because it is so closely attached to what I like to do in my personal life. So to me, it's all about being with my family, being with my kids, getting them to where they want to go, and helping them be, I guess, the best version of who they are. That energizes me. And so I like to be on the move. I'm not good at sitting still, so I like to move around and really just see the development and the growth of our kids. I'd say other than that, I like to read when I can. I'm an audiobook guy. I don't like to sit and look at the print, but I do, as I'm moving around, like to read, I'm reading a great book now called The Power Law.
I think the author's name is Steven Mallaby. It's about the venture capital industry and how it grew from the beginnings and where it is now. It's kind of interesting. I like the knowledge. I think it's Shane Parrish does a podcast called The Knowledge Project. That's really good. They always have really interesting people, entrepreneurs on, which is fun. And then the other thing I have to do almost every day is I do my really short, high intensity workouts. We have a little workout gym in our basement and one of my passions is physical activity. So personally, I've got to keep moving to stay engaged and to stay inspired. And it's the only way I can sit in the seat as much as I do. So I like to do these 12 to 15 minute really, really difficult workouts and then call it a day, come up and get ready to do work. Those are all things that are inspiring. There's really not a lot of time left to do a lot else.
Elana Leoni:
But those are all great things. And I could hear people go, "Oh, well, I always wanted to work out, but this guy only works out for 12 or 14 minutes and it seems to be working for him," or that's a great podcast, whatever. Those are super helpful. Jeremy, how can people get in touch with you? And if there's any specific resources you'd like to share, we'll throw them in our show notes as well. And for those of you, we have show notes at the end. You can access them at leoniconsultinggroup.com. So two Gs consultinggroup.com/54, like Studio 54. So those are our show notes, but how can people get in touch with you, Jeremy?
Jeremy Dulle:
I'm pretty simple. LinkedIn is the best. I like to connect with people on LinkedIn. I always respond though. That's probably the easiest way. I like to get to know people individually, I'm not a big poster in terms of being online or being on a lot of social media platforms, but I think LinkedIn is the easiest.
Elana Leoni:
I know that's why I was so excited you said yes to this podcast because you seem to intentionally fly under the radar and do those one-to-one relationships. So I really appreciate you talking, the ability for me to just ask sometimes what I think are stupid, not really well-thought-out questions, but we're still struggling with them, and so I love hearing your thoughts. Thank you so much for joining us. Everyone, in terms of show notes, you can access them at again, at leoniconsultinggroup.com/54. We'll embed the audio, the transcript will be there, all the fun things. And we put related podcast episodes too based on what Jeremy talked about too. So thank you everyone. We will see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.
Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can visit leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast for all show notes, links, and freebies mentioned in each episode. And we always love friends. So please connect with us on Twitter at @LeoniGroup. If you enjoyed today's show, go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We'll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Jeremy Dulle, Guest
Jeremy Dulle is a growth strategist, go-to-market advisor, and business developer who partners with founders and leaders of education, SaaS, and services organizations to accelerate growth and impact. With over 25 years of experience as a strategy/management consultant and business development leader, Jeremy has worked with organizations of all sizes, from startups to the Fortune 500, to achieve growth through innovative business models, go-to-market planning, partnership development and management, customer growth and retention strategies, and operational improvements.
Jeremy started his consulting career with Accenture and Inforte Corporation, where he partnered with large global companies across industries including Texas Instruments, Caterpillar, Nokia, and Palm and led enterprise-wide programs including business transformation, customer strategy and experience design, departmental reorganizations, and technology integrations. After consulting, as a business development and customer success leader in healthcare services and education technology, most recently with Discovery Education, Jeremy developed a passion for partnering with mission-driven organizations to advance health and learning outcomes.
Jeremy currently advises early to growth stage education companies on strategy, business development, and growth operations. Most recently, he has advised and contributed directly to the growth of mission-driven organizations focused on literacy, digital content & curriculum, learning management systems, executive functioning, tutoring, health & well-being, dropout prevention and re-engagement, and workforce readiness.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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