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Thoughts on Differentiated Venture Investing

Four Key Traits of an Education Entrepreneur

While all great entrepreneurs share similar traits, the education entrepreneur is a special breed. This post imparts an overview of what it takes to be a successful, backable education entrepreneur in today’s state of affairs, if not in any macroeconomic cycle.  N.B. This is an overview post that will be followed by successive, more detailed posts pegged to each of the attributes below.

Fire-in-the-Belly with a Social Bent

There is nothing more inspriring, more genuine than an entrepreneur who exudes and incites passion. Founders or early CEOs who have deeply seated passion for the problem(s) they are solving have the desire to change the world – and can bootstrap and find a way to hit milestones. They are positively infectious. They attract talent. They never give in.

Market Knowledge & Focus

The education industry is vast, hyperfragmented, and has taken many prisoners. The early leader of an education company must know the customers, the channels, the players, the policy trends that are in existence and developing around them. Knowing whether a K-12 practitioner will use a novel web service for math instruction, or whether the college professor will adopt a new digital textbook is best left to the experienced entrepreneur – or with a venture syndicate that has deep, deep coffers and very patient limited partners.

Financial Foresight & Discipline

I was inspired by the late Professor Drucker on this front. Ideally, an entrepreneur would have experienced secondary if not primary P&L experience. He or she should have the ability to test unit or small scale economics before attempting a large scale ramp up. Having a firm understanding of what it takes to get to positive cash flow is critical to discerning capital needs for scale.

Knowing & Sharing Personal Strengths & Weaknesses

No entrepreneur is good or even average in all facets of company building. The metacognitive, genuine souls who freely admit their weaknesses and highlight their strengths are the best leaders, the best team builders. While start up cowboys and rock star CEOs are fun, it is the managers who can decentralize decision-making, who can admit and quickly move on from failure that will win consistently, indelibly.

The education entrepreneur is a key element in the fiber of the world’s regenerative economy. As Carl Schramm, President of the Kauffman Foundation has stated, “every entrepreneur is a social entrepreneur.” The great education entrepreneur, whether in a for-profit or nonprofit context, is acutely focused on execution, on serving the end user, on iteratively moving the needle in the various sectors of a trillion dollar industry.

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Category: Education, Venture Capital

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  • gaganbiyani
    Hi Frank,

    Just happened upon the blog while researching education. These are great points and I would add one more:
    Technical Expertise. Although I believe the education sector is fairly "low-tech" compared to others, there amazing things you can do with technology even if the user doesn't realize it. You can literally engineer user acquisition and dramatically reduce friction with great technology. Even if the user doesn't appreciate it as a value prop to them, it helps increase the number of users on your service and optimize the funnels that bring them to you.

    Would love your thoughts on this!

    Best,
    Gagan Biyani

    http://www.udemy.com
  • Yes, thanks for the comments. Please excuse my egregious absenteeism from
    posting in recent weeks; I will be back.

    You are exactly right re technical expertise. Actually, I would say precise
    knowledge of the end user, and how simple front end speaks to that user and
    flexibly interoperates with other web services and appliances is key. Clear
    product road maps and communication between product manager and developer
    will become ever more important as we reach for a SaaS tipping point in
    education industry.

    What is clear is that, as the digital immigrant increasingly exits the
    education system, the teacher as digital native will adapt more quickly to
    and readily accept changes in 21st Century learning and administration.
  • I'd like to know your views on how the digital native can create change in learning and administration, as it seems that sometimes the teacher side of the equation is locked up by stale business / admin processes.

    Good to see you blogging, as you seemed to have the mind that was ripe for it and ready to deliver. I'll be twittering about your posts and recommending them to others.
  • Thanks. Have yet to figure out the blogging rhythm - may never - but would like to have a voice in the dialogue over 21st Century learning. We must attract and retain the right sort to the system; this will affect change, bottom up.

    Thanks for any assistance in driving ideas in the right direction. It takes a village ... if not an uprising.
  • Hi Frank, I found your blog as I was researching VCs and angels that focus on the education sector. I recently quit my job to build an education-related web services company and found your post on the 4 key traits of an education entrepreneur refreshingly honest. Added you to my RSS feed and Twitter list and looking forward to learning more from you.
  • Thanks, Brandon. It's a pleasure to have a committed entrepreneur helping me drive nicheVC in the right direction. I am in the early days of this blog and my generative additions to the same are not as tightly spaced as I would like, but, with luck, I can add value to your endeavors and others. I am always receptive to ideas and thanks for commenting. In the coming days, look for a post on passion tempered by preparation. BR, Frank
  • Chuck D.
    Spot on Frank. Love the blog.
  • Much appreciated. It's early days, and I'm definitely a novice, but I will endeavor to find the right voice and an applicable user base and readership herein. Comments welcome and warranted.
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