Why won’t they buy my amazing product?

Because you have built it for yourself, not for your customer’s needs!

As a product creator in the Edtech world, you may be eager to jump right into the development phase and bring your ideas to life. However, skipping the discovery phase can lead to serious problems down the line. In this post, we’ll explore why the discovery phase is so important and how it can help you create commercial products that truly meet the needs of schools and MATs.

The discovery phase is all about understanding whom you are building the solution for and understanding their needs and not wants. It involves conducting research, gathering insights, and validating assumptions to ensure that you are on the right track. Skipping this phase means that you are creating a product based on assumptions (even if you have been in the role) rather than actual data, which can lead to costly mistakes.

One of the main benefits of the discovery phase is that it helps you get under the skin of your target customer. This includes understanding their pain points, needs, and desires. By gathering this information, you can create a product that meets and solves their needs. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction and increased loyalty over time.

Additionally, the discovery phase can help you identify opportunities for innovation. By exploring the Education market and gathering insights, you may discover a gap that your product can fill. This can lead to a unique product that stands out from competitors and has the potential to generate significant revenue.

Furthermore, the discovery phase can help you save time and money in the long run. By identifying potential issues early on in the process, you can avoid costly mistakes down the line. For example, if you discover that there is little demand for your product, you can pivot early on before investing significant resources into development.

To conclude, the discovery phase is a crucial part of product creation that should not be skipped. By conducting research, gathering insights, and validating assumptions, you can create a product that truly meets the needs of schools and MATs. The discovery phase can also help you identify opportunities for innovation, save time and money, and avoid costly mistakes. By prioritizing the discovery phase, you can set your product up for success and positively impact your customers and your bottom line.

When it comes to selling to the education sector, using discounting as a strategy to close a sale may seem tempting. However, this approach may not be a good approach. Here’s why you should steer clear of discounting tactics and focus on building value instead.

1. It diminishes your perceived value

Offering discounts can inadvertently devalue your product or service in the eyes of potential buyers. The education sector places great emphasis on quality and long-term benefits. Instead of slashing prices, highlight the distinct advantages and tangible outcomes your offering brings to the table.

2. It seriously affects profit margins

Discounting erodes profit margins, which can have a significant impact on your business’s sustainability. In the long run, maintaining healthy margins allows for continuous innovation and the delivery of exceptional customer experiences. Focus on showcasing the unique value your product or service offers, rather than lowering prices.

3. It establishes unhealthy precedents

If you rely on discounting to close deals, you risk setting a precedent that can be difficult to break in the future. The education sector is a close-knit community, and word travels fast. Instead, aim to position your offering as a premium solution, tailored to meet the specific needs of schools or educational institutions.

4. Long-term relationships are better than short-term gains

Selling to the education sector requires a long-term mindset. Building strong relationships based on trust, credibility, and a genuine understanding of their challenges and goals is key. By focusing on the value your product provides and fostering partnerships, you’ll establish a foundation for sustained success.

So instead of discounting, aim to differentiate through quality and service. By emphasizing value, maintaining healthy profit margins, and building long-term relationships, you can position your product as a premium solution while meeting the unique needs of schools and educational institutions.

Success lies in creating meaningful connections and delivering exceptional experiences that transcend price.

This month sees us publish our 40th #FinnemoreFireside chat and this time we’re delighted to welcome Jim Knight, The Rt Hon Lord Knight of Weymouth on for a Q&A session.

Jim Knight works in education, digital technology and as a legislator. As a UK government minister and MP, Jim’s portfolios included rural affairs, schools, digital and employment.  He was a member of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet 2009-2010, before joining the Lords after the 2010 General Election.

Jim is a director of Suklaa Ltd, providing advisory services to UK and international clients working in technology for education and learning, international schooling, and teacher engagement. He’s also currently chair of the board for E-ACT, is on the Nord Anglia Education Advisory Board, on the Global Advisory Council for BETT, and was appointed Chair of the Board at COBIS in November 2022.

In this Q&A Nick and Jim discuss amongst other things:

• Where Jim’s passion for education comes from and why he has dedicated so much of his working career to education.
• The disconnect between the education and labour market, and the need for a school system which truly meets the needs of learners, communities and employers.
• Why focusing on academic performance and grades doesn’t work for many, and how other core skills are more important than literacy and numeracy.
• Is edtech behind the curve compared to industry: what happened to real future-gazing?
• The fact that leadership on the use of edtech is no longer there (a role previously played by Becta) and something is required to fill the gap.
• Using trends and AI to promote insights and the associated challenges that come with sharing and interrogating data?
• The three big challenges that Jim would like to see edtech help solve

We’d love to hear your feedback and comments below. Enjoy!

We’ve been privileged to speak with even more edtech and industry thought leaders throughout 2022 as part of our #FinnemoreFireside chats, and the insight they provide us and our community is invaluable.

So thank you Jonathan Coyles of EO Consulting for talking to us about how Trusts can become more energy-efficient, hit carbon targets, and save money at the same time.

Thanks to Mike Donoghue for giving us an insight into how MATs work and what is important to directors, leaders, governors, staff and learners.

It’s great to speak with entrepreneurs from across the edtech industry so thank you Lawrence Royston for getting involved and giving us your perspective.

Thank you to Stephen Bilboe for talking to us about changes across the international and independent education sector, and what the future might hold in terms of MIS.

Our chat with marketing and PR guru Cath Lane is essential listening for everyone who owns or leads an edtech business, thanks for the great advice.

Thank you to Andy Kent for talking to us about his focus on innovation and culture to help all levels of the education sector.

We welcomed Phil Neal back for a follow-up chat to discuss changes in the world of school management systems.

We spoke with Martin Baker of The Safeguarding Company about the lessons that can be learnt from the Child Q case.

And finally, we were delighted to speak with Matt Woodruff, Vice President of Analytics and AI at Community Brands UK, for an insightful conversation about data and machine learning.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed making the series and already have some great sessions ready to go in the new year including a discussion on school support with Catherine Tallis, Director Of Business Services at Herts for Learning Ltd – watch this space!

Have a great Christmas break, looking forward to sharing more with you all in 2023! 🎄

Best wishes from Sarah & Nick

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How good are you at predicting the future? This image has resurfaced as the article was written 110 years ago and talks about climate issues linked to coal – amazing foresight! What it doesn’t get quite right is the timeline; it says “the effect may be considerable in a few centuries” when actually we’re at a crisis point already.

How often do businesses fall into the trap of thinking a problem is somewhere out there on the horizon when it’s really about to smack them in the face?

I work with the edtech industry and there are quite a few examples I can think of:

👉 The need to access all teaching, learning and school management technology from outside of the school came into VERY sharp focus in the face of lockdowns – lots of people were caught out.

👉 With the academisation agenda, the way schools make decisions and purchase solutions has been turned on its head which has had a major effect on some company business models that probably thought they were safe (the school MIS market in particular).

👉 Free and ‘freemium’ solutions have changed what schools are willing to pay for, you need to find ways to add extra value or risk being ditched altogether.

Here’s what can you do to future-proof your edtech business:

• Listen to your customers
• Encourage employees to speak up – find out what your workforce wants
• Challenge every assumption
• Embrace imperfection
• Iterate, don’t reinvent – be agile
• Be willing to grow
• Test out new marketing strategies
• Harness the power of tech

I’ll talk more about each of these in future blogs, but we also cover all of these in detail within our coaching programme.

How are you future-proofing your education business?

Next in the #FinnemoreFireside series is this brilliant chat I had last month with Mike Donoghue, CEO of John Taylor Multi-Academy Trust (JTMAT). It was a great conversation providing lots of insight into how MATs work and what is important to directors, leaders, governors, staff and learners.

To provide some background on Mike, he was appointed Headteacher at John Taylor High School in January 2010 and oversaw the first change to ‘converter’ academy status of an ‘outstanding’ school in Staffordshire in November 2010. That school plus 14 others now lie at the heart of John Taylor Multi-Academy Trust where Mike is CEO.

In September 2014 he became an elected member of the Regional School Commissioner’s (West Midlands) Headteachers Board, was re-elected in 2017 and elected to the newly-constituted Advisory Board in 2022. Mike has also been appointed to the DfE’s Secondary Headteacher Reference Group, an advisory panel assisting with policy and strategy decision-making.

It’s an insightful conversation which includes, amongst other things:

• What it means to be a teaching school, and how fulfilling and valuable it can be
• The challenges and opportunities that come with working outside your organisation
• Growing into a successful MAT, and how do you define the perfect size
• Equality of entitlement when it comes to professional development
• The sliding scale between autonomy and regulation/structure, and how to create that balance as a MAT: compliance-driven vs excellence-driven
• Co-construction and why this is so important across the Trust
• How the Trust is very similar to a cycling peloton!
• Using evidence in staff appraisals and the concept of quid pro quo and ownership
• What Mike would like to see more of from software suppliers, and how major investment in one area can actually stymie innovation in others
• Where Mike takes his influence from on which solutions to introduce to the Trust and why

Our next #FinnemoreFireside chat is essential listening for everyone who owns or leads an edtech business as it’s with marketing and PR guru, Catherine Lane.

Cath is Co-founder and Head of PR & Content at The Influence Crowd who work with some of the most well-known brands in education, including Juniper Education, Lexplore Analytics, Teach Active, SIMS BlueSky Education, GL Assessment, and Historic Royal Palaces.

The Influence Crowd implements highly targeted, integrated PR campaigns that prove their value through incoming leads and changed opinions. Using knowledge and relationships built up over 15 years in this sector, they engage and delight audiences through great coverage, shareable social content and by getting the key influencers behind edtech businesses.

This is an audio-only fireside chat (unfortunately the video tech got the better of us on the day 😕) and in it Nick and Cath discuss:

• Why selling to teachers is so hard, and why speaking the right language is so important
• Understanding your target audience
• How Covid has affected schools and the way they use edtech
• People buy from people- it’s not all about the product – and how the pandemic exposed the need for PR and marketing
• How edtech companies have become more experimental in the face of Covid challenges, which improves learning, marketing and messaging
• Cath’s advice for raising your profile as an edtech business in the sector
• How to approach getting national coverage with a whole package
• The importance of timing in creating a story and making the most of newsjacking
• Interpreting data to make it more digestible, gain investment, and help with messaging from day one
• How creating loyalty help with bumps in the road when it comes to reputation management
• Three things people should have in mind if they want to embark on a successful marketing and PR campaign
• What’s next for The Influence Crowd?

Enjoy!

Just before Bett this year, Nick caught up with Lawrence Royston, Founder of teamSOS, to talk all things edtech.

Lawrence is one of the true entrepreneurs of the Edtech market. Along with his partner Joanne, he started with GroupCall messenger, the first SMS messaging system for schools in the UK, then built Xporter, supporting Third parties to have a generic way to integrate with MIS data, before looking at how they could provide deeper insights in the data they were already transferring through GroupCall XVault. He’s also supported GDPRis and has recently started a new business in teamSOS, an incident management and compliance tool for staff in Education and NHS establishments.

We’ve split the interview into two parts to make it easier to digest. In part one Nick and Lawrence discuss:

• What it means to have an entrepreneurial mindset
• Working with partners (and family!), their symbiotic skills, and how this is a great asset in business
• The thinking behind teamSOS, where the idea came from, and the problem it solves
• The importance of listening and learning from users
• ‘Successive approximation’ and continually iterating solutions to help better meet the needs of your customers

In part two they talk about:

• What advice would Lawrence give budding edtech entrepreneurs based on his own experience?
• Getting work/life balance right
• The effect of recent market changes: how consolidation makes space for speedboats!
• The innovation bubbling away in the background within smaller businesses that lead on vision and integration
• Modernising technology (case in point: walkie talkies)
• Their approach to pricing and delivering value
• How making school staff feel cared for attracts and retains the best candidates

Enjoy!

Towards the end of 2021, Nick caught up with Andy Kent, CEO and Founder of Angel Solutions who create innovative, web-based applications to help all levels of the education sector. Their tools are used nationwide, as well as internationally, from pupils, teachers and school leaders right through to local authorities and large academy chains.

Some of the questions Nick asked Andy include:

• Your business is unlike many others as you really focus on innovation and culture; what does innovation mean to you?
• What do you think is important for businesses and establishments to consider and take stock of right now, especially after Covid?
• With so many new technologies entering the market, what will your approach be to these new technologies and when to introduce them?
• What advice would you give to edtech businesses and startups?

We’ve split the interview into three parts to make it easier to digest. In part 1, Nick and Andy discuss innovation and culture at the circus (for those of you who have never visited, Angel Solutions offices are themed as a circus), and the impact of Covid on businesses.

Part 2 focuses on their ‘freemium’ model and advocacy, usage data and customer success, and showing value through usage and data. They also chat about changes in edtech and the challenge this creates.

Finally, in part 3 Nick and Andy cover ‘best of breed’ solutions, what’s new in edtech, and the future direction of Angel Solutions.

Enjoy!

We’ve been privileged to speak with even more edtech and industry thought leaders this term, and the insight they provide us and our community is invaluable.

So thank you Tony Lockwood for talking to us about how companies can improve the performance of their products and develop new solutions.

Thanks to Duncan Baldwin for giving us an insight into teaching, his time at Capita SIMS, influencing government as Deputy Policy Director at ASCL and his current Headship.

We were delighted to welcome Winston Poyton back for a follow-up chat on IRIS Education, especially given how much has changed in the world of school management systems in the last 12 months alone.

It’s great to speak with colleagues from MIS support teams as it gives such a unique and insightful view of the landscape, so thank you Keren Wild for getting involved and giving us your perspective.

Sue Macgregor talked to us about Alps Education’s focus on providing the right analytical tools to schools so they have the power to help every student achieve their full potential, thank you!

And finally, thank you to Ian Koxvold of Supporting Education for talking to us about changes across the education sector, what the future might hold in terms of new solutions, and new strategies.

Sarah and I have thoroughly enjoyed making the series, and already have some great sessions ready to go in the new term with industry thought leaders Andy Kent and Jonathan Coyles – watch this space!

Have a great Christmas and see you in 2022!

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In case you missed it, here’s a round-up of all our thought leader Q&A sessions from last term.

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