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Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd,
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brought to you by Startup Science dot Io. Greg is
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an entrepreneur who has built and sold twelve businesses. He's
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a recipient of four private equity awards and is a
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featured ten X speaker and Forbes author. Here's Gregory Shepherd.
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I'm back with Ashkrulerachi, CEO of start ed and the
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producer of ed Tech Week. We've been discussing the evolution
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of the ed tech landscape and how start Ed's innovation
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accelerator model provides personalized support for startups. So, Ash, since
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the audience includes a lot of investors and entrepreneurs, I
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wanted to focus a little bit of time on investors
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for the moment, Ash, you had an incredible track record
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of success investing in ed tech startups and unicorns. For
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the investors listening who have yet to venture into the
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ed tech space, what would you tell them about the space?
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How should they look at it and how should they
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get started in investing in the sector.
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I'll address the hurdle investing in the sector, and I
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think for everyone in the room, I'll recognize that most
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investors are really trying to make sure that they're creating
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some good they're investing in places that they care about,
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but also they're trying to keep the LPCE happy. Right,
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is the opportunity cost of investing in education invests elsewhere?
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I think that's the challenge that most investors will have.
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And the response to that question is how you actually
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measure the outcome? There are twelve count them, twelve impact
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oriented education focus we sees managing a few billion dollars
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off of assets on the management at this point that
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publish research about their investments and their reasoning for continuing
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to do so. It makes the LPs very happy because
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the alps get to see great their portfolio is increasing
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in value, but they're also measuring jobs created, learners support it,
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and all these these metrics that prove that the solutions
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actually work. So in order to make an AIRP happy,
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the lp has to care about the financial outcome and
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a measurable social outcome. And if you're in the position
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to figure out both of those aspects, then this particular
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pool of capital, those little bit of partners now very sticky.
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They don't leave you once year they've invested in the
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space and you've seen those outcomes it's a smaller group,
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but very sticky and relatively easy to keep happy.
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Once you do. So in that it's interesting you say
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that because it I'm just sort of reflecting back when
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you said earlier, which I agree with. I call it
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altruistic capitalism. It's investing capital and using capitalism for altruistic outcomes,
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And you said earlier. I think they're one and the same,
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and I agree so much. I don't think that you can.
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I don't think that there's a separation of investing into
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something that's environmentally or socially conscious can't be profitable. I
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think it's the opposite, because I think that's the direction
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that the world is going, you know. So another question
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along these lines is when you look at the ed
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tech you know, sector, and you compare that sector to
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other tech sectors, how would you explain to investors that
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this sector is a is a better sector or something
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that they should, you know, spend some time and learn
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about and get into.
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In order to look at education, you have to take
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a step back, and usually the term use is patience.
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You need patient capital to be investing in education. Things
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take longer to grow and therefore your your returns come
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out a different timeline. Again, opportunity cost comes comes into play.
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Right.
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I won't actually take a look at it from a
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different perspective. I would suggest taking it from the perspective
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of what's your one hundred year plan for humanity? Right?
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If your one hundred year plan for humanity is, let's
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get a certain number of folks and individuals out of poverty,
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Let's get a certain area of the world safe and
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cimate appropriate to actually live in. If those are outcomes
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that you want to put into play, and you see
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the financial outcome from doing that in the short term,
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zoom out and take a longer term approach. If you
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take a long term approach, compounding interest comes into play.
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The eighth wonder of the world, and the outcomes that
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you get to see from one hundred ye plan up
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going to be definitely larger than the plan that you
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have for five to seventy.
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Fund It's very, very very That is some you just
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drop some wisdom bomb right there. Man. That was that's
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really cool. You're right. If you look at this, it's
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like looking at leading versus lagging indicators, right, Like we're
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all looking at lagging indicators and politics and in finance
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and we're looking at it. You know, what's going on today,
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what happened today, what happened next week, what's going on
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like that? And we should be looking at where are
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we headed in the first place. It's like focus, fire
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versus fire, focus, right, you know, it's very interesting. So
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the next question I have, and this comes up with
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investors all the time when I'm talking to investors, and
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they say, wasn't ed tech just a bubble from the pandemic,
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you know, from kids not being in school. I'm sure
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you've heard this before, right, There's all these sad tech
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companies popping up and it's just a temporary thing. It
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reminds me of a I have a newspaper cutout hanging
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on my wall in my office that says the Internet
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is a fad, and it's sort of remind it sort
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of reminds me of that, right, So how would you
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talk to those folks that are like, look, it's just
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a fad. It's going to go back the way it
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was before.
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The education systems, especially in the US, are very insula amiba's,
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you know, they they have they take all these exaugenous sucks,
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but they kind of go back to being roughly in
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the same foam. That's why you know, someone one hundred
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years ago could come back, come back from could come
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into the future, and they'd look at how we move
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and be transported and they'd be fascinated. They'd look at
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how we beat our food and they'd be fascinated. They'd
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go to a school and say, oh, that's a school, right,
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they'd recognize it from one hundred years ago. Schools look
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and change very slowly. There's a couple of things going
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on with education as a fad, which is when the
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pandemic resulted in the greatest experiment in it tech that
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humanity has ever seen. The number of users went up exponentially, right,
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and users tend to be a great metric for making
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money in any industry. So looking at the number of users,
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a lot of investors thought, oh, fantastic, Education's moments come.
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I'm going to put all the capital into the space.
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But the excess capital that entered the space met with
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not really efficacious solutions.
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To talk about, lot of really bad software.
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Yeah, we talk about a thousand companies that are created
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every year in education. In the first couple of years
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in the pandemic, that went up to five thousand a year,
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So that's eight thousand companies that shouldn't have existed, that
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probably received a decent amount of capital that never went anywhere.
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They were never going to go anywhere, right, So, yes,
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those companies were a fad, and wise investors should have
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recognized that rather than being tourists. The other last part
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of this is that what the pandemic created, it unstructured
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a lot of what has created and been instilled into
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that Amiba structure over the last one hundred or twenty years,
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and it broke apart a lot of the pieces. Parents
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started sending their kids to alternative educational solutions. Micro schools
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popped up, People started finding alternatives to university or even
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going to work. People started working later in their careers.
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The boundaries between these very fixed stages of education that
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we experienced as children to adults pre k K twelve
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higher ed workforce learning, they started getting poorous and started disappearing.
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So the fascinating thing that's happening now is that these
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industries that were almost relatively separate are now congealing into
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this gigantic seven thrill doll market, and we have just
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a few years away, probably from the whole thing becoming
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a less fragmented hole, and market creation is just on
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the rights.
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It was at this lake, this small lake, and I
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was meditating on the side of the lake, and you
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know when I first meditate, you know, you just sort
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of gaze before you close your eyes. And I saw
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this little dragonfly drop into the water, and it's just
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a little drop, and then all these wakes come off
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the center. And it made me think, that's what happens
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with ecosystems. There's a disruption of some form in a
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flat surface. And the circles that come off the original
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are the real big ones, right, like iPhone and those
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first big things like social media and stuff. But they're big,
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but it's highly concentrated and very difficult because the competition
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is dense, right. And then as the circles go out,
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you have more opportunities, not as big, but still big, right.
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And you have more and more opportunities because the circles
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grow as they leave, right. And there's this like that's
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the expansion phase. And during that expansion phase you see
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all each companies hustling to try to do something, you know,
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and then you get the contraction phase, right, And this
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is where everybody starts to close their doors and then
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you get down to the ones that are the good ones.
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Is that what happened with ed tech? Is it there
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now or where are we at with it?
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So like in tech, we've gone through a few of
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those cycles, I'd say at least two or three by now,
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ed Tech's only gone through one of those cycles so far. Right,
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we had a slow rise and boom, and now we've
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come up just coming out of that bust. So the
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second time around, the second wave that we're building up to,
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I think we'll take about four to seven years. But
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the companies that have come out of the next few
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says is that a farming right now are forged in steel, right,
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I mean it's like eight again when marketplace models started
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really moving. That's what's happening to ed tech into twenty
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four and twenty five.
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Yeah. So something that's really passionate to me, right as
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underserved communities, any of the people that are stepped on,
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stepped over, passed up, or shoved aside. Right. So this
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is not just people of color or neurodivergent people. This
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is blind people, deaf people. This is the people that
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are immigrants that come into the country and are They
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are just learning, right, and they're just getting started. And
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our country is a country of immigrants, right, I mean
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that's what we are, right, the indigenous We almost made
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them extinct unfortunately, but so we are our country of immigrants.
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So are we serving these underserved people with ed tech?
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And can we do a better job helping them? You know,
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I was working outside in my garden and I got
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a couple of day labors, right, guy from Venezuela and
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a guy from Mexico City, And they're going to school
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to learn English, right, because they need to learn English
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in order to get a job. And the amount of
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I mean, they're struggling, right, like really struggling, trying to
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get through this. And when you were talking about the
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future here, I was thinking, maybe there's a way that
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we can help the immigrants rise up. Maybe there's a
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way that we can help those people that grew up
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in rough areas like where I grew up come up easier, right,
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and get a real education. Because what I know and
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I've seen is that if you live in a nice neighborhood,
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you have a nice school. If you don't live in
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a nice neighborhood, you don't have a nice school. There's
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no money, there's no tax revenue, and the teachers don't
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get as much, and you just don't get the same quality,
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right because the teachers have to make a living too,
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so they go to a better school that's going to
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pay him work. I'm wondering if there's a way to
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deal with edgecation equality basically right by through ed tech,
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and if there's anything currently happening in that space, and
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if there isn't please founders, if you're listening, do something anyway.
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That's when we question I.
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Love that question, Greg, and I think again, I don't
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have the answer, but I think I have a hypothesis.
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I think we need an army. We need an army
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of innovators solving specific problems for specific underrepresented and majority individuals.
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The reason is because just like there are often diseases
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and there are micro problems and micromarkets, you can't really
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judge what you fall in love with as as an animator, right.
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I mean, if you love a problem, you really love it,
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and you're going to focus that probably for the rest
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of your life until it kills you. Are are about
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you well more. Most order protests tend to be whether
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you fall in love with the gigantic market or not.
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That's kind of secondary, right, and it's not your fault
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if you fall in love with the problem, it's your
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life and your brain. I think we need to create
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the circumstances where everybody in that army, whether they're whether
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focus on a tiny problem in a specific market where
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it's twenty individuals in their small town that they're trying
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to train through a microschool, or whether it's a large
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company Australian millions of students, there needs to be a
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support structure for all of them that recognize all of
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them are valuable.
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Right.
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Basically, the smaller problem spaces are the ones that aren't
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getting their attention. So in order to create this army,
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we need to realize that the capital and the regulatory
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environment that allow us for these smaller players to rise
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is created. And so I think it takes a little
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bit of a village, a village of policemakers, a village
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of funders, a village of innovators all to come together,
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which tends to be our theory of change and really
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make change in a space like this, unless all parties
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are represented and at the table.
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Yeah, do you feel like we have a future there.
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Do you feel like I mean, you know, you're you're
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like the you know, one of the top authorities in
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this space. Do you feel like there's a future where
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the underrepresented can get the same education as the as
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the wealthy folks.
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I don't think that they'll get the same education as
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the well folks. I don't think they need the same education.
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As the wealthy fox Oh fascinating.
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They need the education that puts them in a place
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where they're able to pursue something they love doing. And
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when I use the term, they might as well use
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the term. We write. We need to create the technology
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and the problems red create the technology and the financial
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infrastructure for both sets of parties to receive the information
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insurance that we need. And for the ones who have
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the ambition and want to rise, let them rise, right,
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That's what this country has always been amazing about, and
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I think it still is. I've been in this country
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for twenty five years, and in places like New York especially,
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who would have taught that, like a kid from Shri
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Laka came over when I was seventeen, could gather these people.
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But you know, by sure force of will and some luck,
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I was able to. And I think that opportunity was
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only offered to me because he I had some preparation
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and then I was lucky enough to be in the
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right place. So if we can get people prepared, then
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they'll have a shot.
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So the last question, and I thank you for your patients,
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is looking at your career For those entrepreneurs and investors
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that are listening to two part question, what would you
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like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs in terms of ad
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tech and also aspiring investors in terms of ad tech.
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I'll start with the investors. I'll say that if you
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are investor, you've been successful in your life and you've
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decided that you want to give back in some way,
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those two things need to probably be true right if
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you if you're in position to make those investments, I
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would my simple suggestion if you're starting out is to
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be very picky. A lot of folks started get into
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that mindset of success and wanted to give back, and
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they just want to get started, and they will make
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their first few bets, and those first few bets because
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they haven't really done the legwork to understand the space,
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will be unsuccessful and then they'll retire from education or
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investing in companies in general. So be very picky at
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the start, is my advice. When you're getting started as
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as an investor. Talk to people who know the space
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really well, people who lead in the space, people who
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know to separate the meed from the chef. I think
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that's step number one. There are multiple steps after that.
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For the entrepreneurs. I'll say that this market, this community
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that way and has grown significantly over the last twenty
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five years that I've been a privilege of being part
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of it. And I think that every industry has a
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time and a place to grow. I honestly think that
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the US and in this next decade is probably the
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place where I'm going to see the most innovation in
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education from a technology perspective. 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. So learning from folks who've done it before
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and recognizing that there's luck more potessionally in the market,
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and that stick withdness that it's required to compete and
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continue plasing. Your passion is keep doing it right. You
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find your kindred spirits in this space, and once you do,
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it's really hard to let go.
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Ash. I really appreciate you taking time from startheed to
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do this podcast. You're a busy guy. Thank you for
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giving everybody your knowledge. I really appreciate it. Thank you
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for being on the podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me here.
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And that's another episode of the Startup Science podcast. If
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you can leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify,
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00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:45.200
I would greatly appreciate it. And Founders, as a thank
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00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:47.960
you for leading the changes in our world, I'm offering
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free access to the Startup Science platform Visionaries by Gregory Shepherd,
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00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:56.079
one stop shop for founders that has everything from the
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startup Academy to investors, grant finders, pitches, and much much more.
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00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:06.960
It's absolutely free for you. Go to Gregory shephard dot com,
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00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:11.079
click on Visionaries to access, use the code founders all
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00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:14.839
capitals for free access and check it out for yourself.
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00:20:15.599 --> 00:20:17.599
I'll see you next time, my friends, not.
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00:20:17.720 --> 00:20:22.759
Mistake This Startup Science podcast with Gregory Shepherd is brought
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to you by startupscience dot Io. Founders can log on
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to startupscience 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 gregoryshepherd dot com. The Startup Science Podcast is
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00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:42.680
a production of Forbes Books.
1
00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:05.879
Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd,
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00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:10.640
brought to you by Startup Science dot Io. Greg is
3
00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:14.400
an entrepreneur who has built and sold twelve businesses. He's
4
00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:18.000
a recipient of four private equity awards and is a
5
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.679
featured ten X speaker and Forbes author. Here's Gregory Shepherd.
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I'm back with Ashkrulerachi, CEO of start ed and the
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producer of ed Tech Week. We've been discussing the evolution
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of the ed tech landscape and how start Ed's innovation
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accelerator model provides personalized support for startups. So, Ash, since
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the audience includes a lot of investors and entrepreneurs, I
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wanted to focus a little bit of time on investors
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for the moment, Ash, you had an incredible track record
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of success investing in ed tech startups and unicorns. For
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the investors listening who have yet to venture into the
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ed tech space, what would you tell them about the space?
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How should they look at it and how should they
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get started in investing in the sector.
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I'll address the hurdle investing in the sector, and I
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think for everyone in the room, I'll recognize that most
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investors are really trying to make sure that they're creating
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some good they're investing in places that they care about,
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but also they're trying to keep the LPCE happy. Right,
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is the opportunity cost of investing in education invests elsewhere?
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I think that's the challenge that most investors will have.
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And the response to that question is how you actually
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measure the outcome? There are twelve count them, twelve impact
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oriented education focus we sees managing a few billion dollars
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off of assets on the management at this point that
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publish research about their investments and their reasoning for continuing
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to do so. It makes the LPs very happy because
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the alps get to see great their portfolio is increasing
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in value, but they're also measuring jobs created, learners support it,
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and all these these metrics that prove that the solutions
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actually work. So in order to make an AIRP happy,
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the lp has to care about the financial outcome and
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a measurable social outcome. And if you're in the position
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to figure out both of those aspects, then this particular
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pool of capital, those little bit of partners now very sticky.
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They don't leave you once year they've invested in the
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space and you've seen those outcomes it's a smaller group,
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but very sticky and relatively easy to keep happy.
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Once you do. So in that it's interesting you say
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that because it I'm just sort of reflecting back when
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you said earlier, which I agree with. I call it
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altruistic capitalism. It's investing capital and using capitalism for altruistic outcomes,
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And you said earlier. I think they're one and the same,
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and I agree so much. I don't think that you can.
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I don't think that there's a separation of investing into
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something that's environmentally or socially conscious can't be profitable. I
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think it's the opposite, because I think that's the direction
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that the world is going, you know. So another question
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along these lines is when you look at the ed
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tech you know, sector, and you compare that sector to
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other tech sectors, how would you explain to investors that
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this sector is a is a better sector or something
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that they should, you know, spend some time and learn
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about and get into.
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In order to look at education, you have to take
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a step back, and usually the term use is patience.
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You need patient capital to be investing in education. Things
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take longer to grow and therefore your your returns come
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out a different timeline. Again, opportunity cost comes comes into play.
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Right.
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I won't actually take a look at it from a
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different perspective. I would suggest taking it from the perspective
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of what's your one hundred year plan for humanity? Right?
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If your one hundred year plan for humanity is, let's
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get a certain number of folks and individuals out of poverty,
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Let's get a certain area of the world safe and
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cimate appropriate to actually live in. If those are outcomes
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that you want to put into play, and you see
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the financial outcome from doing that in the short term,
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zoom out and take a longer term approach. If you
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take a long term approach, compounding interest comes into play.
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The eighth wonder of the world, and the outcomes that
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you get to see from one hundred ye plan up
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going to be definitely larger than the plan that you
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have for five to seventy.
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Fund It's very, very very That is some you just
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drop some wisdom bomb right there. Man. That was that's
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really cool. You're right. If you look at this, it's
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like looking at leading versus lagging indicators, right, Like we're
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all looking at lagging indicators and politics and in finance
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and we're looking at it. You know, what's going on today,
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what happened today, what happened next week, what's going on
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like that? And we should be looking at where are
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we headed in the first place. It's like focus, fire
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versus fire, focus, right, you know, it's very interesting. So
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the next question I have, and this comes up with
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investors all the time when I'm talking to investors, and
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they say, wasn't ed tech just a bubble from the pandemic,
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you know, from kids not being in school. I'm sure
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you've heard this before, right, There's all these sad tech
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companies popping up and it's just a temporary thing. It
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reminds me of a I have a newspaper cutout hanging
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on my wall in my office that says the Internet
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is a fad, and it's sort of remind it sort
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of reminds me of that, right, So how would you
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talk to those folks that are like, look, it's just
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a fad. It's going to go back the way it
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was before.
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The education systems, especially in the US, are very insula amiba's,
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you know, they they have they take all these exaugenous sucks,
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but they kind of go back to being roughly in
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the same foam. That's why you know, someone one hundred
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years ago could come back, come back from could come
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into the future, and they'd look at how we move
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and be transported and they'd be fascinated. They'd look at
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how we beat our food and they'd be fascinated. They'd
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go to a school and say, oh, that's a school, right,
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they'd recognize it from one hundred years ago. Schools look
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and change very slowly. There's a couple of things going
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on with education as a fad, which is when the
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pandemic resulted in the greatest experiment in it tech that
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humanity has ever seen. The number of users went up exponentially, right,
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and users tend to be a great metric for making
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money in any industry. So looking at the number of users,
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a lot of investors thought, oh, fantastic, Education's moments come.
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I'm going to put all the capital into the space.
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But the excess capital that entered the space met with
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not really efficacious solutions.
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To talk about, lot of really bad software.
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Yeah, we talk about a thousand companies that are created
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every year in education. In the first couple of years
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in the pandemic, that went up to five thousand a year,
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So that's eight thousand companies that shouldn't have existed, that
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probably received a decent amount of capital that never went anywhere.
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They were never going to go anywhere, right, So, yes,
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those companies were a fad, and wise investors should have
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recognized that rather than being tourists. The other last part
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of this is that what the pandemic created, it unstructured
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a lot of what has created and been instilled into
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that Amiba structure over the last one hundred or twenty years,
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and it broke apart a lot of the pieces. Parents
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started sending their kids to alternative educational solutions. Micro schools
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popped up, People started finding alternatives to university or even
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going to work. People started working later in their careers.
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The boundaries between these very fixed stages of education that
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we experienced as children to adults pre k K twelve
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higher ed workforce learning, they started getting poorous and started disappearing.
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So the fascinating thing that's happening now is that these
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industries that were almost relatively separate are now congealing into
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this gigantic seven thrill doll market, and we have just
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a few years away, probably from the whole thing becoming
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a less fragmented hole, and market creation is just on
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the rights.
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It was at this lake, this small lake, and I
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was meditating on the side of the lake, and you
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know when I first meditate, you know, you just sort
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of gaze before you close your eyes. And I saw
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this little dragonfly drop into the water, and it's just
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a little drop, and then all these wakes come off
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the center. And it made me think, that's what happens
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with ecosystems. There's a disruption of some form in a
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flat surface. And the circles that come off the original
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are the real big ones, right, like iPhone and those
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first big things like social media and stuff. But they're big,
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but it's highly concentrated and very difficult because the competition
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is dense, right. And then as the circles go out,
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you have more opportunities, not as big, but still big, right.
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And you have more and more opportunities because the circles
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grow as they leave, right. And there's this like that's
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the expansion phase. And during that expansion phase you see
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all each companies hustling to try to do something, you know,
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and then you get the contraction phase, right, And this
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is where everybody starts to close their doors and then
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you get down to the ones that are the good ones.
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Is that what happened with ed tech? Is it there
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now or where are we at with it?
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So like in tech, we've gone through a few of
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those cycles, I'd say at least two or three by now,
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ed Tech's only gone through one of those cycles so far. Right,
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we had a slow rise and boom, and now we've
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come up just coming out of that bust. So the
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second time around, the second wave that we're building up to,
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I think we'll take about four to seven years. But
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the companies that have come out of the next few
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says is that a farming right now are forged in steel, right,
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I mean it's like eight again when marketplace models started
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really moving. That's what's happening to ed tech into twenty
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four and twenty five.
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Yeah. So something that's really passionate to me, right as
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underserved communities, any of the people that are stepped on,
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stepped over, passed up, or shoved aside. Right. So this
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is not just people of color or neurodivergent people. This
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is blind people, deaf people. This is the people that
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are immigrants that come into the country and are They
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are just learning, right, and they're just getting started. And
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our country is a country of immigrants, right, I mean
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that's what we are, right, the indigenous We almost made
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them extinct unfortunately, but so we are our country of immigrants.
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So are we serving these underserved people with ed tech?
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And can we do a better job helping them? You know,
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I was working outside in my garden and I got
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a couple of day labors, right, guy from Venezuela and
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a guy from Mexico City, And they're going to school
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to learn English, right, because they need to learn English
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in order to get a job. And the amount of
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I mean, they're struggling, right, like really struggling, trying to
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get through this. And when you were talking about the
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future here, I was thinking, maybe there's a way that
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we can help the immigrants rise up. Maybe there's a
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way that we can help those people that grew up
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in rough areas like where I grew up come up easier, right,
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and get a real education. Because what I know and
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I've seen is that if you live in a nice neighborhood,
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you have a nice school. If you don't live in
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a nice neighborhood, you don't have a nice school. There's
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no money, there's no tax revenue, and the teachers don't
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get as much, and you just don't get the same quality,
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right because the teachers have to make a living too,
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so they go to a better school that's going to
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pay him work. I'm wondering if there's a way to
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deal with edgecation equality basically right by through ed tech,
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and if there's anything currently happening in that space, and
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if there isn't please founders, if you're listening, do something anyway.
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That's when we question I.
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Love that question, Greg, and I think again, I don't
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have the answer, but I think I have a hypothesis.
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I think we need an army. We need an army
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of innovators solving specific problems for specific underrepresented and majority individuals.
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The reason is because just like there are often diseases
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and there are micro problems and micromarkets, you can't really
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judge what you fall in love with as as an animator, right.
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I mean, if you love a problem, you really love it,
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and you're going to focus that probably for the rest
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of your life until it kills you. Are are about
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you well more. Most order protests tend to be whether
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you fall in love with the gigantic market or not.
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That's kind of secondary, right, and it's not your fault
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if you fall in love with the problem, it's your
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life and your brain. I think we need to create
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the circumstances where everybody in that army, whether they're whether
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focus on a tiny problem in a specific market where
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it's twenty individuals in their small town that they're trying
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to train through a microschool, or whether it's a large
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company Australian millions of students, there needs to be a
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support structure for all of them that recognize all of
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them are valuable.
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Right.
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Basically, the smaller problem spaces are the ones that aren't
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getting their attention. So in order to create this army,
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we need to realize that the capital and the regulatory
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environment that allow us for these smaller players to rise
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is created. And so I think it takes a little
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bit of a village, a village of policemakers, a village
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of funders, a village of innovators all to come together,
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which tends to be our theory of change and really
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make change in a space like this, unless all parties
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are represented and at the table.
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Yeah, do you feel like we have a future there.
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Do you feel like I mean, you know, you're you're
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like the you know, one of the top authorities in
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this space. Do you feel like there's a future where
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the underrepresented can get the same education as the as
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the wealthy folks.
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I don't think that they'll get the same education as
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the well folks. I don't think they need the same education.
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As the wealthy fox Oh fascinating.
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They need the education that puts them in a place
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where they're able to pursue something they love doing. And
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when I use the term, they might as well use
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the term. We write. We need to create the technology
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and the problems red create the technology and the financial
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infrastructure for both sets of parties to receive the information
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insurance that we need. And for the ones who have
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the ambition and want to rise, let them rise, right,
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That's what this country has always been amazing about, and
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I think it still is. I've been in this country
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for twenty five years, and in places like New York especially,
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who would have taught that, like a kid from Shri
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Laka came over when I was seventeen, could gather these people.
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But you know, by sure force of will and some luck,
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I was able to. And I think that opportunity was
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only offered to me because he I had some preparation
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and then I was lucky enough to be in the
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right place. So if we can get people prepared, then
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they'll have a shot.
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So the last question, and I thank you for your patients,
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is looking at your career For those entrepreneurs and investors
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that are listening to two part question, what would you
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like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs in terms of ad
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tech and also aspiring investors in terms of ad tech.
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I'll start with the investors. I'll say that if you
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are investor, you've been successful in your life and you've
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decided that you want to give back in some way,
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those two things need to probably be true right if
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you if you're in position to make those investments, I
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would my simple suggestion if you're starting out is to
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be very picky. A lot of folks started get into
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that mindset of success and wanted to give back, and
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they just want to get started, and they will make
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their first few bets, and those first few bets because
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they haven't really done the legwork to understand the space,
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will be unsuccessful and then they'll retire from education or
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investing in companies in general. So be very picky at
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the start, is my advice. When you're getting started as
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as an investor. Talk to people who know the space
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really well, people who lead in the space, people who
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know to separate the meed from the chef. I think
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that's step number one. There are multiple steps after that.
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For the entrepreneurs. I'll say that this market, this community
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that way and has grown significantly over the last twenty
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five years that I've been a privilege of being part
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of it. And I think that every industry has a
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time and a place to grow. I honestly think that
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the US and in this next decade is probably the
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place where I'm going to see the most innovation in
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education from a technology perspective. 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. So learning from folks who've done it before
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and recognizing that there's luck more potessionally in the market,
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and that stick withdness that it's required to compete and
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continue plasing. Your passion is keep doing it right. You
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find your kindred spirits in this space, and once you do,
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it's really hard to let go.
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Ash. I really appreciate you taking time from startheed to
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do this podcast. You're a busy guy. Thank you for
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giving everybody your knowledge. I really appreciate it. Thank you
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for being on the podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me here.
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And that's another episode of the Startup Science podcast. If
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you can leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify,
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00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:45.200
I would greatly appreciate it. And Founders, as a thank
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you for leading the changes in our world, I'm offering
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free access to the Startup Science platform Visionaries by Gregory Shepherd,
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one stop shop for founders that has everything from the
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startup Academy to investors, grant finders, pitches, and much much more.
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It's absolutely free for you. Go to Gregory shephard dot com,
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click on Visionaries to access, use the code founders all
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capitals for free access and check it out for yourself.
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I'll see you next time, my friends, not.
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Mistake This Startup Science podcast with Gregory Shepherd is brought
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