Edtech investment surged to $1.45 billion in 2018, matching the amount raised in 2015. While that level of funding highlights strong interest in education technology, venture capital alone does not guarantee success for a company or an improvement in learning.
Many entrepreneurs are choosing to avoid investor-driven growth because the priorities that come with outside funding can pull a startup away from its original mission. When founders alter their goals just to satisfy investors, projects can quickly exhaust resources and fail to deliver meaningful results in schools.
If you are an education entrepreneur entering this sector, remember: technology is only one way to support teachers and students.
At the center of any effective school system are measurable learning outcomes. The purpose of school is not to sell subscriptions, add apps, or chase trends—it’s to help students learn, grow, and succeed in real life.
For newcomers who have never worked inside classrooms, it’s essential to recognize teachers need help across many areas that extend beyond the buzzwords emerging from Silicon Valley.
Every student who enters a classroom brings a unique background, experience, and set of needs. A short list of differences to consider includes:
- Preferred learning styles and strategies
- Multiple intelligences and talents
- Varied academic levels and pacing
- Prior knowledge and exposure to subjects
- Cultural and community influences
- Language proficiency (ESL, bilingual students)
- Demographic differences and diversity
- Socioeconomic realities that affect learning
- Personality traits, such as introversion or extroversion
- Family circumstances and home support
- Mental health and emotional well-being
- The range of prior experiences students have before school
True educational progress depends on the relationships teachers build with their students, on fostering social and emotional development, and on clear, applicable learning outcomes. Classrooms that prioritize connection, empathy, and relevance tend to produce stronger academic and life results.
Critical classroom skills — collaborating with peers, forming healthy friendships, planning and completing projects, solving problems, thinking creatively, applying critical thinking, and communicating effectively — are as important as content knowledge. These competencies shape how students succeed beyond standardized tests.
So where does the edtech community fit?
Education entrepreneurs should collaborate with schools rather than trying only to disrupt them.
The most useful edtech solutions begin with a tightly defined problem. Entrepreneurs should pick a specific classroom need, research it thoroughly, and work directly with teachers and administrators to co-design solutions. Narrow, well-researched products or services often integrate more smoothly and produce greater impact than broad platforms that aim to fix everything at once.
Education is complex: it’s full of messy, interrelated needs that technology can support but cannot fully resolve. Teachers and students are human beings with emotional, social, and contextual needs that digital tools alone cannot replace.
Take, for example, a young child attending preschool or kindergarten for the first time. That child needs to feel safe, secure, and cared for. No app can replace the human presence that calms a child’s anxieties and makes a first learning experience feel nurturing and steady.
Back to school.
Schools are in the business of educating students, and their primary metric is healthy student outcomes. Far too often, teachers spend school hours learning how to use tools that add little value to instruction; those tools may sit unused after the initial rollout, leaving schools with the appearance of modernization but not the substance.
Entrepreneurs who pay attention to the realities of classroom culture—who focus on tangible teacher needs instead of chasing trend-driven features—can create products and services that genuinely support learning.
If you’re looking for high-impact areas to explore, consider initiatives like professional development that is practical and ongoing, teacher support and coaching, mental health and counseling resources, curriculum design tied to real-world outcomes, classroom management tools grounded in practice, and fundraising strategies that help schools access needed resources. These seemingly small investments often produce outsized benefits in day-to-day teaching and student success.
If you have already built an education product, look beyond the technology itself. Partner with educators, listen to what they say, and design solutions that fit into real classrooms and school priorities. By doing so, your work will be more likely to improve learning and stand out in an increasingly crowded market.
Stay tuned for the next installment, where I will share practical ideas and hear directly from teachers about what they need most as the school year begins.