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Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd,
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brought to you by Startupscience dot Io. Greg is an
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entrepreneur who has built and sold twelve businesses. He's a
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recipient of four private equity awards and is a featured
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ten X speaker and Forbes author. Here's Gregory Shepherd.
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My guest is Ashbularachi, the CEO of start ed and
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the producer of ed Tech Week. As a leader in
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the ed tech space, he has overseen multiple successful startup accelerators.
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Ash invests in and supports innovation companies solving problems across
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the education spectrum. Ash is a real pleasure.
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To have you on the show.
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Thank you for joining, Greg, I assure you it is
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my pleasure in so good to see you.
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Very kind of you to say that. So let's dive
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into the first question here. What inspired you to focus
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on the intersection of education technology in your career.
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That is a long story that has a short reason.
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Okay, it was my mom changing your mom.
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Yeah, I grew up inside a school. My mom ran
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a school for hundreds of Sri Lankan students out of
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our home for eighteen years.
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That was my life.
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So kids would actually come to my house to learn,
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and I thought that was normal. That really was what
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I thought was the best thing one could do. Education
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is really the luck thereof is really the root cause
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of most evils.
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And I saw that happen in person. You know, I
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couldn't agree more.
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My parents were teachers, my aunts and uncles are teachers,
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and my family pretty much only respects you if you're
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a teacher.
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I'm from the subcontinent, so you also get a little
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bit of a pass with being a doctor or engineer.
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But yes, teacher is up there.
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Yeah, And I mean, you know, people forget all the
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time that the doctors, the lawyers, the engineers, the entrepreneurs,
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all these people were taught by tainterers. Yeah, there should
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be a fundamental amount of respect for teachers. I want
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to talk a little bit about starting, So can you
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share the pivotal moment that led to the creation.
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I've started with most things that I think have some legs,
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which I think ten years in, I think we do
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it filled a need. It was pretty organic how we
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were born. I had the luck and as also the
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privilege of being part of a great company called Textas.
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When the company was very young, so as.
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A single digit higher and I ran there education investments
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and the program back in the day still is one
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of Texas most successful financially successful programs. But I think
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it's facts over the last ten to fifteen years in
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ecosystem have been even more profound because the growth of
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education companies tends to be a bit slower. They're little,
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is slow to grow, but when they do, their staying
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power is pretty immense and they tend to be great
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financial and social outcomes. The nature of how education company
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grows and the way that these organizations need to navigate
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the regulatory environment they need to navigate that the user
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is often not the customer just means that if you're
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in it, you're not in it just to make money.
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In it, Sure to make a little bit of money.
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One of my favorite, most favorite sayings is the best
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way to make a small fortune in education is to
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start with the big one, right, But the large fortune
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comes from the impact that you make, so the lives
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that you change, and whether you're a classroom educator in
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Midwest spending that extra hour with this and is bad
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att activists at the moment, all of it, it's supporting
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millions of learners through some of the companies we've invested in.
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It's all really the same the individual level.
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You're just changing vibes. I agree.
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I really connect with you on that. You know, coming
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from the background that I came from, it's you know,
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we were I mean, we lived in tents for a while.
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You know, we were foster and adopted. It was rough, right,
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And I have to say that I think that helping
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other people help the world, that we all share this
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little thing A lot of people forget we all share
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this little world together is the most beautiful thing anybody
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can do. And I think the best way to do
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it is through entrepreneurship. And so I honor what you're doing.
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I think that you deserve an incredible amount of respect
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and appreciation. So how is the ed tech landscape of
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all since you entered the field, like you just started
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to get into it, that things changed?
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Right?
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So what's changed? And you know in that were there
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any new opportunities that came up, any old opportunities that
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went away? What do you see there?
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Yeah, So it's been an interesting story over the last
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twenty years, right, And I've had the privilege of seeing
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the tech ecosystem grow and then in the context of
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that seeing the tech ecosystem grow so that the story
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has two facets to it. Tech became more and more
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accessible in the last twenty years. It has allowed everyone
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from the founder who has great experience and access to
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resources to a student from anywhere in the world to
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create a solution that if they see a problem that
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they really wanted to go after. Education has had that
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same evolution and accordingly has received you'd, a certain amount
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of investment, so that numbers steadily ticked up from the
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early twenty ten to just a couple of years ago
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and then crashed. So I see the cycle that we
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saw in tech a couple of times occur at least
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once in education.
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Technology.
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That's not to say it's a good or a bad thing.
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Cycles occur and people become enamored with this particular area
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for you know, for their own reasons, but also because
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the world tells them it's it's about to become bigger.
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And then when it doesn't need expectations, it all falls that.
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So on that second step in education, we're building back up.
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But the needles pointing not at the moment. To be
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more specific, in an answer a question about what's changed.
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How we learn and work has changed. I mean, obviously
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we measure the obvious gorilla in the room, which is
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the last two or three years when people realized you
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could learn and work from most places. And technology was
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the great enabler that created a lot of access for people,
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create a lot of affordability.
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People were able to achieve things that they didn't.
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They think they could learn the violin by watching someone
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do that online on your laptop. No one would have
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taken that seriously, but now people seriously do. But at
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the same time, it's become far more complex. Right, we've
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had two shocks to the ecosystem, not just the pandemic,
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but also AI tell us that technology is a great thing,
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but it needs to be pointed in the right directions
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and thoughts so and done so with some understanding of
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how things work in the space because it is a
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little bit different than the other industries.
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So, what are the most pressing challenges you see in
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education today and how can technology address them? Because you
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brought up AI and it made me think about that question,
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you know, like how and let's just add AI in there. Right,
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it's one of the enablers. How do you see AI
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and the education system changing. What are the challenges and
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what do you think we can do to help those challenges.
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I want to add one one little note in there.
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You know, University World News did a report and they
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found that a third of students that were going after
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advanced degrees are leaving advanced degrees and going into entrepreneurship.
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So it shows that education system needs to be fixed, right,
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that there's a problem there. Some of it has to
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do obviously with the cost, but also the fact that
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you know, it's like in the in the report, it's
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like something like eighty seven percent of the people that
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get MBAs never use them, and so you know, their
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parents paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for them
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known as school, and then they don't use the degree.
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So I just wanted to add that in there. I
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know it's a big question. There's a lot of pieces
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in there, but you're so genius, I figured i'd just
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load you up with stuff.
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Thank you for the actually right, maybe I'll reference back
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my mom for a second here when she was planning
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for my education and influenced me in making the decisions
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I did.
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Her decisions were relatively simple.
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To those that we have as parents today. The world
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was probably going to be the same in ten to
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twenty years when her son entered the workforce. So I'm
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this rambansous twenty year old editoring the space and starting
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a job in education and business research. It was one
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of the realistic options. It may not have been what
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she really wanted. She wanted me to become an engineer,
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but I chose differently. I wanted to explore and get
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into the business side of things. But there's a choice
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I made. The options were relatively recognizable. The options that
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arch Fueral will have to enter into the workforce ten
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twenty years from now are going to be unrecognizable to us.
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And that problem is also felt by recruiters, hiring managers,
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people who are accepting admissions into universities, good as people
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who are accepting admissions into K twelve. That unsurn us
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in what the world looks and will look and feel
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like because of the rapid change of technology and how
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the world's working is the biggest.
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Factor to us not.
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Being able to predict clearly what problems we need to
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solve as parents and recruiters and admissions counselors.
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Right, so, the people.
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Who are at age gates don't know who to pick
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or where to point us. That's a big problem. Now
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you asked me about about AI, and the reason I
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went into explaining about how things are moving fast is
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it's not because AI is the thing. AI is an
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example of the rapid pace of technology evolution. It's going
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to do great things right now. It does amazing things
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for productivity, It is amazing things for people's ability to
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create content.
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It's not as good as.
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What it will get that I wanted reference Amara's law, right.
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I mean, the law states that if we expect something
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to happen, it's probably going to take longer to actually occur.
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But the impact wate does occur will be much more
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significant than what we expect. And that's what's happening with
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technology in journal and with AI. So I think I
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would console patients. And also the idea that your old
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health believes about where you wanted to point to children
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and the people you hired and recruited is probably going
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to be changing quickly and rapidly.
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It reminds me, you know, in the eighties, if somebody
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said a social media manager, you know, or a paid
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search manager, you wouldn't even have any idea what they're
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talking about. Even the Internet. Oh yeah, you're gonna have
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an iPhone and it does all this stuff. People think
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you were absolutely out of your mind. You know it's crazy.
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So let me ask you this. Can you walk us
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through the process of how start ed I entifies and
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nurtures promising, you know, ad tech startups. I want to
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dig into your organization a little bit. I mean, I
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think it's just so cool and I want to like
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just give you an opportunity to talk to the audience
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about it.
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Thank you.
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And and here's the theory of change.
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Right.
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So I grew up professionally in accelerated world, so I
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was I was amazed by this this concept. It seems
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so simple and so effective.
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I still believe it does.
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It solves a purpose an organization that teaches and funds
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and provides the resources for smart individuals to create what
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they want and connecting them with the investors and educators, entrepreneurs,
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whoever they it is that they need, and providing mentorship
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and guidance on their on their journey. Amazing concept. I
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just love the ethos behind the space. The concept was
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created about twenty years ago and when it was it
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unfortunately recreated some of the same mistakes we made when
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we actually created schools in the first place. We created
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schools to solve a problem for creating factory workers, right
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people who could solve a particular problem or a widget
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or a spot in the process. And so we batch
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processed individuals through groups of thirty to fifty through an
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educational experience through life. We recreated the same problem when
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we invented the accelerator concept. We are batched processing startups
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at certain stages in large groups, still receiving the funding
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and mentorship learned, but still doing that in a batched manner.
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I think that is what we need to break as
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a techn ecosystem and an innovative supported ecosystem, and started
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as being trying to do that, doing that.
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I think for about ten years.
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The way we do that is by taking into account
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something that is very human, and that is that we
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all learn and move forward.
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And accelerate ourselves differently.
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So at its very basic concept, Started recognizes that each
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individual startup, as well as the founders and individuals who
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operate it, all start out at different devils relative to
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each other and also to other organizations and in performing
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an assessment of their ability to execute grow their mindsets
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gives us a good profile of what gaps they have
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by solve all the problems for them as a batch.
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When I can go in and say, hey, this particular company,
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in this particular individual just needs this connection, this set
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of knowledge in order for the rest of the company
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to be successful. Right, So it allows us to be
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far more targeted. And if you kissh us and also
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seems people of time, rather than putting them a troop
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through a three month process of acceleration, we go in
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and provide them with a single conversation, are off guidance
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and mentorship that can move the dial much quicker than
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that three months.
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Yeah, I agree with you actually on your on your
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thesis there, I think it's it's genius. As we talked
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about before, it's like very unusual. I mean, you know,
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you see these usually they they're doing these cohorts and
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they slam together. You know, entrepreneurs that are like never
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done anything before, and second time entrepreneurs all in the
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same group, and they're all at different levels, and they
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spend all their time trying to bring up the lower ones,
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which makes the ones that have experience and not grow right,
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It's it's weird, right, it doesn't really.
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Which by the way, if you ever taught in the
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classroom anyway in the US, is what educated does dam
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end doubt?
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Yeah, I mean I was in special ed because I
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have autism and dyslexia, and I was in special ed.
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I grew up that way, and they put me with
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the lowest people, even though I'm actually tested as a savant.
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So it's like, it's like, you know what, I mean,
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You're sitting there going why am I.
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With these people?
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Yeah? The teacher teaches to the lowest common denominator, you know,
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So how do you balance the need of profitability with
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your social impact goals? I mean it's it seems like
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a rough I know for me because I'm really into
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this social impact stuff. Is like, you are social and
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environmental impact and uh, it's a tough that's a tough question.
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Maybe you have a better answer than I've thought of both.
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I don't have the answer to that that yet, but
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here's here why I think there are answer is life.
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First of all, I think profitability of doing good opposite
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ends of a balancing scale, right, I think they're actually
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more aligned than people imagine. For example, if education solution
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gets sold into a school because of great positioning and
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market research and the sales process, ideally it only gets
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renewed if it actually works.
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Right, So.
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There's a remainder of that client provider relationship that is
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rooted in is there efficacy in this particular solution, and
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if it works, then that company gets to make more
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money and provide the solution for more and more organizations individuals.
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So there is a relationship there between profitability and doing good,
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which the full cremy is actually efficacy. The second is
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problem space of education.
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If you layer it over.
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The incentives that all capital has, right, think of the
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layoff industry, and the problems are add it from KT
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to higher ed workforce.
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When you lay that over with.
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All different kinds of capital, venture capital, the angel, diluted funding,
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non dolarty funding, grants, loans. In all of this, right,
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education has always been at this balancing point between some
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of those problems being social impact problems. So only grants
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and foundations actually really care about, you know, specific learners
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and problem spaces, and then only for profit motivation cares
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about this set of problems because the market's mature and
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so it's coalesced into something that people can fund that balance.
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That war between those two areas keeps going back and
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forth based on people's moods and how the industry is doing.
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And I think that recognizing where you are in that
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relation sort of cop problems based in the capital to
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fund it is the biggest trip point that founders have.
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If you love a particular problem, go find the people
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and the funding that care about the same problem. Don't
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conflict that with how you think the company needs to
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be built.
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Mm hmm.
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That actually was a question I was going to ask you,
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is what advice would you give to a founder who's
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just starting out and what are the most common mistakes
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founders make in the early stage? I consider early stage
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prea round yeah, same here, yeah, so what like, what
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would you you know? What do you think the most
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common mistakes are that you've seen in your career? And
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then what would be your advice for those early stage founders?
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The most common mistake is mistaking product market fit. I
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think that exists in education and elsewhere, and a lot
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of founders are so passionate about a particular problem that
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they skip some of the process because steps involved in
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recognizing that there's actual market for the thing that they're doing,
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and product mark if it is relatively elusive, right, it's
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it's actually, I like to call it this invisible man
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that you only get to see once you remove the background.
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Right.
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So it's a process of elimination in reaching product mark
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fit by running experiments, and then the market reveals itself
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because everything else that you've tested comes out the My.
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God, that sounds.
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So I always think about, like I explained to an
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entrepreneur that product market fit is like standing inside of
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a totally dark room and all you have is a
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flashlight and all you see is whatever the flashlight points at,
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and you're just going around trying to you know, and
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then all of a sudden you hit something and you're like, oh,
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I got I found product marker fit.
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You know, yeah, there you go.
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I mean this the way we are talking about PMF
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right now is because we haven't actually that into a
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science set.
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Your your platform, by.
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The way, which I've had the pleasure of taking a
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look at, goes a very long way in putting the
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scientific process around achieving product market fit. So such a
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big fan of the ecosystem thinking that you have there
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by the way, Greg, But the biggest mistakes founders make
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in misrecognizing product market fit and then also picking the
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wrong people to be behind and beside them.
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It's it's we've.
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Been told stories about who we think we need to
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get married to, to to work alongside, to be funded by,
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to to be friends with, and I think we miss
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understand who we need to achieve a big problem and
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a solution combination that we get miscited. And I think
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a lot of founders when they actually see the people
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that they need and and that clicks, it's a wonderful
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thing because everybody's on the same page and regardless of
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how well the company he's doing in that given moment
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in time, they all point in the right direction.
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Yeah. I just love talking to you. So I want
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to go back to this AI thing. Just when I
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was talking to you and I was thinking, I was like,
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you know what, I want to go back to this
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a little bit. When you look at the future of
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work because you brought this up like and it's evolving, right,
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So the future of work is evolving. How would the
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ed tech startups prepare for these changes, or any startup
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for that matter, prepare for these changes when you can't
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see what they are. To your point earlier, like what
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is are there any Are there any things that you
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can think of that you could listen go to a
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founder and say, look, keep your eye on this one
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or something like that.
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It's not a fixed target, is my quick response. It's
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not that there's this one capability or this point of
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leverage or this asset that the technology will allow you
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to do. It's actually having the systems that are flexible
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enough at your end to recognize and incorporate those abilities
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and resources as they come available at the moment is
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a great tool for productivity and content creation and customer management.
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And there are processes it enhances to drop in the bucket,
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well what's potentially possible.
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But the good companies, the.
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Ones that are taking advantage of the majority of those
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productivity gains, are the ones that are remaining open to
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integrating those capabilities into the existing processes, rather than considering
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those processes fixed and saying, hey, I'm going to take
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a snapshot of what's possible today and feed that into
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my system, and my system's going to recognize how to
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integrate that, versus remaining open to the potential changes in
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the future.
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Yeah, I think about it like software, you know, instead
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of now I tell people with software when it comes
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to architecture, and not the engine hearing component, but the
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architecture component. I always think of it like, you know,
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let's say you're building a house and you're like, well,
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I may want a window here, but I don't want
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a window right now. Frame it so that, yeah, there's
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a place for the window.
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I have a place with the window.
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Yeah, because you never know, you know, you have to
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be so liquid, right, you have to have the ability
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to have like a core system, and then everything on
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the outside needs to flex otherwise you just can't keep up.
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And if you think about like the role of AI
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and machine learning, you know, all these large language models
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and everything in education over the next decade, do you
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see the teachers and the educators starting to get affected
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by the by the assistance that the AI will provide,
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or do you think it's more going to be like
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a you know, a tutor, like having your own tutor.
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Ah, that's almost a philosophical question because both are relative,
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Both are possible and effective. I've seen research on both
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sides showing that AI tutors are being far more effective
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at solving particular problems and being available for students than
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human educator wise. I'm also seeing research that shows a
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tutors are removing a student's trust of actually going to
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a human being with particular problems, which has a negative effect. Right,
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But with all things, there's a pro and a con.
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I think it's both right. We need to actually solve
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both problems. We need a solution for individual learners. We
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need a better solution for allowing educators to be more
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effective with their time and for goodness sake, getting them
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a little bit more help.
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Who wins in the end?
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I think the winner of that argument is the one
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who supports either party more efficaciously and then updates how
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they support based on the evolding needs.
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Uh.
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Interesting.
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I was talking to a startup last week and they
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are essentially building an AI tool that coaches students so
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the student can take the curriculum and put it in there,
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and it learns how the kid learns, and then it
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starts teaching them in the way they learn. So it
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uses watch lists and read experience as a way to
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allow them to shape the images in their brain and
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retain the information. It is fascinating. I was just That's
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why I asked you that question. I was like, that
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would change things. You know, if a student could come
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in and take a class and the AI is like
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learning how they learn, and so every student is getting
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their own education based on how that student learns.
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And by the way, we mistake they educated his job
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as teaching students to the content. But what you can
467
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it is actually doing is are being social service workers,
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they're being pseudo parents, they're being coaches, they're being educators,
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and then all of that gets kind of bottled into
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one role and then we call that an educator.
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In the US.
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The AI does one of those things, well right now, right,
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It can be better, it can do more of those things.
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For example, there is research that shows that suicidettal ideation
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for students that are using AI tutors is actually less
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significantly less than for those who without any support.
477
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Amazing thing.
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Does it prevent that certain from harming themselves eventually?
479
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Maybe not.
480
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We want to make sure that humans are involved in
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that process because at some point the technology is necessary
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but not sufficient.
483
00:27:49.720 --> 00:27:53.400
Absolutely, I completely agree. All right, Ash, I want to
484
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dive into this topic of investors next, but we have
485
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to pause here, and the second part of our conversation
486
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at Schoolerachi, CEO start ED we'll share some inspiring advice
487
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for ED tech entrepreneurs.
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Every industry has a time and a place to grow.
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I honestly think that the US and in this next
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decade is probably the place where I'm going to see
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the most innovation in education from a technology perspective.
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I also think that even.
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If you aren't based in the US and you're trying
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to solve problems elsewhere, learning from what has been successful
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in the US from successful entrepreneurs and then importing that
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knowledge and that innovation to wherever you are in the
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world to solve the problem that your market and that
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timing requires is probably going to be the smartest thing
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you do.
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This Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd is brought to
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you by Startupscience dot Io. Founders can log on to
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00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:03.599
startups Science dot io and use code Forbes to get
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00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:07.119
free access to connect and find out more about greg
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Go to Gregory Sheeppard dot com. The Startup Science Podcast
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is a production of Forbes Books
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Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd,
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brought to you by Startupscience dot Io. Greg is an
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entrepreneur who has built and sold twelve businesses. He's a
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recipient of four private equity awards and is a featured
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ten X speaker and Forbes author. Here's Gregory Shepherd.
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My guest is Ashbularachi, the CEO of start ed and
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the producer of ed Tech Week. As a leader in
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the ed tech space, he has overseen multiple successful startup accelerators.
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Ash invests in and supports innovation companies solving problems across
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the education spectrum. Ash is a real pleasure.
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To have you on the show.
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Thank you for joining, Greg, I assure you it is
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my pleasure in so good to see you.
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Very kind of you to say that. So let's dive
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into the first question here. What inspired you to focus
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on the intersection of education technology in your career.
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That is a long story that has a short reason.
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Okay, it was my mom changing your mom.
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Yeah, I grew up inside a school. My mom ran
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a school for hundreds of Sri Lankan students out of
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our home for eighteen years.
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That was my life.
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So kids would actually come to my house to learn,
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and I thought that was normal. That really was what
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I thought was the best thing one could do. Education
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is really the luck thereof is really the root cause
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of most evils.
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And I saw that happen in person. You know, I
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couldn't agree more.
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My parents were teachers, my aunts and uncles are teachers,
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and my family pretty much only respects you if you're
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a teacher.
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I'm from the subcontinent, so you also get a little
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bit of a pass with being a doctor or engineer.
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But yes, teacher is up there.
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Yeah, And I mean, you know, people forget all the
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time that the doctors, the lawyers, the engineers, the entrepreneurs,
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all these people were taught by tainterers. Yeah, there should
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be a fundamental amount of respect for teachers. I want
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to talk a little bit about starting, So can you
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share the pivotal moment that led to the creation.
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I've started with most things that I think have some legs,
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which I think ten years in, I think we do
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it filled a need. It was pretty organic how we
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were born. I had the luck and as also the
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privilege of being part of a great company called Textas.
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When the company was very young, so as.
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A single digit higher and I ran there education investments
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and the program back in the day still is one
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of Texas most successful financially successful programs. But I think
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it's facts over the last ten to fifteen years in
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ecosystem have been even more profound because the growth of
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education companies tends to be a bit slower. They're little,
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is slow to grow, but when they do, their staying
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power is pretty immense and they tend to be great
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financial and social outcomes. The nature of how education company
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grows and the way that these organizations need to navigate
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the regulatory environment they need to navigate that the user
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is often not the customer just means that if you're
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in it, you're not in it just to make money.
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In it, Sure to make a little bit of money.
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One of my favorite, most favorite sayings is the best
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way to make a small fortune in education is to
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start with the big one, right, But the large fortune
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comes from the impact that you make, so the lives
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that you change, and whether you're a classroom educator in
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Midwest spending that extra hour with this and is bad
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att activists at the moment, all of it, it's supporting
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millions of learners through some of the companies we've invested in.
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It's all really the same the individual level.
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You're just changing vibes. I agree.
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I really connect with you on that. You know, coming
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from the background that I came from, it's you know,
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we were I mean, we lived in tents for a while.
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You know, we were foster and adopted. It was rough, right,
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And I have to say that I think that helping
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other people help the world, that we all share this
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little thing A lot of people forget we all share
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this little world together is the most beautiful thing anybody
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can do. And I think the best way to do
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it is through entrepreneurship. And so I honor what you're doing.
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I think that you deserve an incredible amount of respect
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and appreciation. So how is the ed tech landscape of
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all since you entered the field, like you just started
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to get into it, that things changed?
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Right?
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So what's changed? And you know in that were there
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any new opportunities that came up, any old opportunities that
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went away? What do you see there?
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Yeah, So it's been an interesting story over the last
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twenty years, right, And I've had the privilege of seeing
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the tech ecosystem grow and then in the context of
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that seeing the tech ecosystem grow so that the story
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has two facets to it. Tech became more and more
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accessible in the last twenty years. It has allowed everyone
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from the founder who has great experience and access to
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resources to a student from anywhere in the world to
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create a solution that if they see a problem that
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they really wanted to go after. Education has had that
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same evolution and accordingly has received you'd, a certain amount
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of investment, so that numbers steadily ticked up from the
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early twenty ten to just a couple of years ago
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and then crashed. So I see the cycle that we
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saw in tech a couple of times occur at least
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once in education.
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Technology.
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That's not to say it's a good or a bad thing.
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Cycles occur and people become enamored with this particular area
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for you know, for their own reasons, but also because
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the world tells them it's it's about to become bigger.
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And then when it doesn't need expectations, it all falls that.
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So on that second step in education, we're building back up.
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But the needles pointing not at the moment. To be
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more specific, in an answer a question about what's changed.
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How we learn and work has changed. I mean, obviously
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we measure the obvious gorilla in the room, which is
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the last two or three years when people realized you
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could learn and work from most places. And technology was
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the great enabler that created a lot of access for people,
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create a lot of affordability.
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People were able to achieve things that they didn't.
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They think they could learn the violin by watching someone
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do that online on your laptop. No one would have
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taken that seriously, but now people seriously do. But at
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the same time, it's become far more complex. Right, we've
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had two shocks to the ecosystem, not just the pandemic,
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but also AI tell us that technology is a great thing,
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but it needs to be pointed in the right directions
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and thoughts so and done so with some understanding of
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how things work in the space because it is a
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little bit different than the other industries.
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So, what are the most pressing challenges you see in
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education today and how can technology address them? Because you
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brought up AI and it made me think about that question,
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you know, like how and let's just add AI in there. Right,
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it's one of the enablers. How do you see AI
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and the education system changing. What are the challenges and
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what do you think we can do to help those challenges.
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I want to add one one little note in there.
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You know, University World News did a report and they
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found that a third of students that were going after
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advanced degrees are leaving advanced degrees and going into entrepreneurship.
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So it shows that education system needs to be fixed, right,
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that there's a problem there. Some of it has to
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do obviously with the cost, but also the fact that
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you know, it's like in the in the report, it's
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like something like eighty seven percent of the people that
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get MBAs never use them, and so you know, their
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parents paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for them
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known as school, and then they don't use the degree.
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So I just wanted to add that in there. I
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know it's a big question. There's a lot of pieces
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in there, but you're so genius, I figured i'd just
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load you up with stuff.
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Thank you for the actually right, maybe I'll reference back
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my mom for a second here when she was planning
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for my education and influenced me in making the decisions
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I did.
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Her decisions were relatively simple.
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To those that we have as parents today. The world
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was probably going to be the same in ten to
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twenty years when her son entered the workforce. So I'm
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this rambansous twenty year old editoring the space and starting
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a job in education and business research. It was one
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of the realistic options. It may not have been what
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she really wanted. She wanted me to become an engineer,
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but I chose differently. I wanted to explore and get
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into the business side of things. But there's a choice
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I made. The options were relatively recognizable. The options that
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arch Fueral will have to enter into the workforce ten
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twenty years from now are going to be unrecognizable to us.
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And that problem is also felt by recruiters, hiring managers,
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people who are accepting admissions into universities, good as people
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who are accepting admissions into K twelve. That unsurn us
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in what the world looks and will look and feel
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like because of the rapid change of technology and how
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the world's working is the biggest.
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Factor to us not.
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Being able to predict clearly what problems we need to
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solve as parents and recruiters and admissions counselors.
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Right, so, the people.
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Who are at age gates don't know who to pick
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or where to point us. That's a big problem. Now
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you asked me about about AI, and the reason I
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went into explaining about how things are moving fast is
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it's not because AI is the thing. AI is an
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example of the rapid pace of technology evolution. It's going
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to do great things right now. It does amazing things
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for productivity, It is amazing things for people's ability to
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create content.
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It's not as good as.
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What it will get that I wanted reference Amara's law, right.
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I mean, the law states that if we expect something
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to happen, it's probably going to take longer to actually occur.
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But the impact wate does occur will be much more
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significant than what we expect. And that's what's happening with
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technology in journal and with AI. So I think I
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would console patients. And also the idea that your old
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health believes about where you wanted to point to children
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and the people you hired and recruited is probably going
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to be changing quickly and rapidly.
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It reminds me, you know, in the eighties, if somebody
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said a social media manager, you know, or a paid
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search manager, you wouldn't even have any idea what they're
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talking about. Even the Internet. Oh yeah, you're gonna have
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an iPhone and it does all this stuff. People think
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you were absolutely out of your mind. You know it's crazy.
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So let me ask you this. Can you walk us
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through the process of how start ed I entifies and
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nurtures promising, you know, ad tech startups. I want to
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dig into your organization a little bit. I mean, I
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think it's just so cool and I want to like
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just give you an opportunity to talk to the audience
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about it.
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Thank you.
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And and here's the theory of change.
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Right.
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So I grew up professionally in accelerated world, so I
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was I was amazed by this this concept. It seems
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so simple and so effective.
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I still believe it does.
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It solves a purpose an organization that teaches and funds
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and provides the resources for smart individuals to create what
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they want and connecting them with the investors and educators, entrepreneurs,
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whoever they it is that they need, and providing mentorship
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and guidance on their on their journey. Amazing concept. I
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just love the ethos behind the space. The concept was
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created about twenty years ago and when it was it
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unfortunately recreated some of the same mistakes we made when
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we actually created schools in the first place. We created
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schools to solve a problem for creating factory workers, right
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people who could solve a particular problem or a widget
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or a spot in the process. And so we batch
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processed individuals through groups of thirty to fifty through an
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educational experience through life. We recreated the same problem when
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we invented the accelerator concept. We are batched processing startups
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at certain stages in large groups, still receiving the funding
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and mentorship learned, but still doing that in a batched manner.
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I think that is what we need to break as
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a techn ecosystem and an innovative supported ecosystem, and started
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as being trying to do that, doing that.
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I think for about ten years.
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The way we do that is by taking into account
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something that is very human, and that is that we
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all learn and move forward.
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And accelerate ourselves differently.
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So at its very basic concept, Started recognizes that each
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individual startup, as well as the founders and individuals who
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operate it, all start out at different devils relative to
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each other and also to other organizations and in performing
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an assessment of their ability to execute grow their mindsets
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gives us a good profile of what gaps they have
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by solve all the problems for them as a batch.
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When I can go in and say, hey, this particular company,
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in this particular individual just needs this connection, this set
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of knowledge in order for the rest of the company
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to be successful. Right, So it allows us to be
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far more targeted. And if you kissh us and also
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seems people of time, rather than putting them a troop
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through a three month process of acceleration, we go in
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and provide them with a single conversation, are off guidance
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and mentorship that can move the dial much quicker than
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that three months.
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Yeah, I agree with you actually on your on your
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thesis there, I think it's it's genius. As we talked
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about before, it's like very unusual. I mean, you know,
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you see these usually they they're doing these cohorts and
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they slam together. You know, entrepreneurs that are like never
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done anything before, and second time entrepreneurs all in the
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same group, and they're all at different levels, and they
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spend all their time trying to bring up the lower ones,
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which makes the ones that have experience and not grow right,
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It's it's weird, right, it doesn't really.
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Which by the way, if you ever taught in the
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classroom anyway in the US, is what educated does dam
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end doubt?
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Yeah, I mean I was in special ed because I
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have autism and dyslexia, and I was in special ed.
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I grew up that way, and they put me with
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the lowest people, even though I'm actually tested as a savant.
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So it's like, it's like, you know what, I mean,
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You're sitting there going why am I.
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With these people?
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Yeah? The teacher teaches to the lowest common denominator, you know,
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So how do you balance the need of profitability with
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your social impact goals? I mean it's it seems like
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a rough I know for me because I'm really into
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this social impact stuff. Is like, you are social and
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environmental impact and uh, it's a tough that's a tough question.
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Maybe you have a better answer than I've thought of both.
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I don't have the answer to that that yet, but
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here's here why I think there are answer is life.
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First of all, I think profitability of doing good opposite
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ends of a balancing scale, right, I think they're actually
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more aligned than people imagine. For example, if education solution
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gets sold into a school because of great positioning and
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market research and the sales process, ideally it only gets
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renewed if it actually works.
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Right, So.
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There's a remainder of that client provider relationship that is
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rooted in is there efficacy in this particular solution, and
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if it works, then that company gets to make more
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money and provide the solution for more and more organizations individuals.
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So there is a relationship there between profitability and doing good,
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which the full cremy is actually efficacy. The second is
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problem space of education.
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If you layer it over.
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The incentives that all capital has, right, think of the
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layoff industry, and the problems are add it from KT
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to higher ed workforce.
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When you lay that over with.
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All different kinds of capital, venture capital, the angel, diluted funding,
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non dolarty funding, grants, loans. In all of this, right,
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education has always been at this balancing point between some
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of those problems being social impact problems. So only grants
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and foundations actually really care about, you know, specific learners
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and problem spaces, and then only for profit motivation cares
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about this set of problems because the market's mature and
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so it's coalesced into something that people can fund that balance.
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That war between those two areas keeps going back and
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forth based on people's moods and how the industry is doing.
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And I think that recognizing where you are in that
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relation sort of cop problems based in the capital to
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fund it is the biggest trip point that founders have.
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If you love a particular problem, go find the people
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and the funding that care about the same problem. Don't
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conflict that with how you think the company needs to
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be built.
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Mm hmm.
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That actually was a question I was going to ask you,
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is what advice would you give to a founder who's
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just starting out and what are the most common mistakes
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founders make in the early stage? I consider early stage
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prea round yeah, same here, yeah, so what like, what
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would you you know? What do you think the most
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common mistakes are that you've seen in your career? And
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then what would be your advice for those early stage founders?
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The most common mistake is mistaking product market fit. I
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think that exists in education and elsewhere, and a lot
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of founders are so passionate about a particular problem that
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they skip some of the process because steps involved in
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recognizing that there's actual market for the thing that they're doing,
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and product mark if it is relatively elusive, right, it's
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it's actually, I like to call it this invisible man
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that you only get to see once you remove the background.
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Right.
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So it's a process of elimination in reaching product mark
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fit by running experiments, and then the market reveals itself
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because everything else that you've tested comes out the My.
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God, that sounds.
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So I always think about, like I explained to an
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entrepreneur that product market fit is like standing inside of
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a totally dark room and all you have is a
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flashlight and all you see is whatever the flashlight points at,
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and you're just going around trying to you know, and
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then all of a sudden you hit something and you're like, oh,
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I got I found product marker fit.
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You know, yeah, there you go.
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I mean this the way we are talking about PMF
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right now is because we haven't actually that into a
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science set.
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Your your platform, by.
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The way, which I've had the pleasure of taking a
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look at, goes a very long way in putting the
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scientific process around achieving product market fit. So such a
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big fan of the ecosystem thinking that you have there
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by the way, Greg, But the biggest mistakes founders make
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in misrecognizing product market fit and then also picking the
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wrong people to be behind and beside them.
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It's it's we've.
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Been told stories about who we think we need to
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get married to, to to work alongside, to be funded by,
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to to be friends with, and I think we miss
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understand who we need to achieve a big problem and
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a solution combination that we get miscited. And I think
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a lot of founders when they actually see the people
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that they need and and that clicks, it's a wonderful
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thing because everybody's on the same page and regardless of
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how well the company he's doing in that given moment
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in time, they all point in the right direction.
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Yeah. I just love talking to you. So I want
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to go back to this AI thing. Just when I
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was talking to you and I was thinking, I was like,
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you know what, I want to go back to this
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a little bit. When you look at the future of
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work because you brought this up like and it's evolving, right,
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So the future of work is evolving. How would the
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ed tech startups prepare for these changes, or any startup
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for that matter, prepare for these changes when you can't
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see what they are. To your point earlier, like what
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is are there any Are there any things that you
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can think of that you could listen go to a
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founder and say, look, keep your eye on this one
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or something like that.
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It's not a fixed target, is my quick response. It's
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not that there's this one capability or this point of
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leverage or this asset that the technology will allow you
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to do. It's actually having the systems that are flexible
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enough at your end to recognize and incorporate those abilities
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and resources as they come available at the moment is
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a great tool for productivity and content creation and customer management.
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And there are processes it enhances to drop in the bucket,
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well what's potentially possible.
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But the good companies, the.
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Ones that are taking advantage of the majority of those
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productivity gains, are the ones that are remaining open to
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integrating those capabilities into the existing processes, rather than considering
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those processes fixed and saying, hey, I'm going to take
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a snapshot of what's possible today and feed that into
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my system, and my system's going to recognize how to
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integrate that, versus remaining open to the potential changes in
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the future.
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Yeah, I think about it like software, you know, instead
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of now I tell people with software when it comes
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to architecture, and not the engine hearing component, but the
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architecture component. I always think of it like, you know,
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let's say you're building a house and you're like, well,
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I may want a window here, but I don't want
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a window right now. Frame it so that, yeah, there's
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a place for the window.
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I have a place with the window.
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Yeah, because you never know, you know, you have to
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be so liquid, right, you have to have the ability
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to have like a core system, and then everything on
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the outside needs to flex otherwise you just can't keep up.
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And if you think about like the role of AI
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and machine learning, you know, all these large language models
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and everything in education over the next decade, do you
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see the teachers and the educators starting to get affected
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by the by the assistance that the AI will provide,
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or do you think it's more going to be like
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a you know, a tutor, like having your own tutor.
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Ah, that's almost a philosophical question because both are relative,
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Both are possible and effective. I've seen research on both
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sides showing that AI tutors are being far more effective
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at solving particular problems and being available for students than
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human educator wise. I'm also seeing research that shows a
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tutors are removing a student's trust of actually going to
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a human being with particular problems, which has a negative effect. Right,
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But with all things, there's a pro and a con.
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I think it's both right. We need to actually solve
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both problems. We need a solution for individual learners. We
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need a better solution for allowing educators to be more
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effective with their time and for goodness sake, getting them
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a little bit more help.
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Who wins in the end?
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I think the winner of that argument is the one
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who supports either party more efficaciously and then updates how
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they support based on the evolding needs.
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Uh.
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Interesting.
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I was talking to a startup last week and they
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are essentially building an AI tool that coaches students so
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the student can take the curriculum and put it in there,
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and it learns how the kid learns, and then it
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starts teaching them in the way they learn. So it
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uses watch lists and read experience as a way to
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allow them to shape the images in their brain and
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retain the information. It is fascinating. I was just That's
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why I asked you that question. I was like, that
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would change things. You know, if a student could come
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in and take a class and the AI is like
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learning how they learn, and so every student is getting
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their own education based on how that student learns.
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And by the way, we mistake they educated his job
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as teaching students to the content. But what you can
467
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it is actually doing is are being social service workers,
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they're being pseudo parents, they're being coaches, they're being educators,
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and then all of that gets kind of bottled into
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one role and then we call that an educator.
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In the US.
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The AI does one of those things, well right now, right,
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It can be better, it can do more of those things.
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For example, there is research that shows that suicidettal ideation
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for students that are using AI tutors is actually less
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significantly less than for those who without any support.
477
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Amazing thing.
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Does it prevent that certain from harming themselves eventually?
479
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Maybe not.
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We want to make sure that humans are involved in
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that process because at some point the technology is necessary
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but not sufficient.
483
00:27:49.720 --> 00:27:53.400
Absolutely, I completely agree. All right, Ash, I want to
484
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dive into this topic of investors next, but we have
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to pause here, and the second part of our conversation
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at Schoolerachi, CEO start ED we'll share some inspiring advice
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for ED tech entrepreneurs.
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Every industry has a time and a place to grow.
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I honestly think that the US and in this next
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decade is probably the place where I'm going to see
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the most innovation in education from a technology perspective.
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I also think that even.
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If you aren't based in the US and you're trying
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to solve problems elsewhere, learning from what has been successful
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in the US from successful entrepreneurs and then importing that
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knowledge and that innovation to wherever you are in the
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world to solve the problem that your market and that
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timing requires is probably going to be the smartest thing
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you do.
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This Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd is brought to
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you by Startupscience dot Io. Founders can log on to
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startups Science dot io and use code Forbes to get
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free access to connect and find out more about greg
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Go to Gregory Sheeppard dot com. The Startup Science Podcast
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is a production of Forbes Books
