The state of the Colorado EdTech sector appears to be strong and booming. EdTech is seeing an infusion of capital nationwide, and is experiencing sustained growth in the Denver and Boulder areas. We talked with several Colorado EdTech startups to get their thoughts on the sector. They were happy to sound off on their current projects, their future predictions, and the challenges and opportunities their community must embrace to move forward in the tech-based education sphere.
EdTech in Colorado
“I went to a so-called Dewey School that really encouraged my natural instincts around creativity and discovery. So a quality education focused on exactly what a student needs is near and dear to my heart,” said Charlie Coglianese of Schoolrunner.
Since launching in 2012, Schoolrunner has grown into a viable business with 50,000 students currently on its platform. Coglianese said he got the idea when a friend from New Orleans who runs a charter school asked him for help using metrics to drive growth. “I looked at the problem and thought, 'this is doable.' I had just built a suite of tools for First One Hedge Fund and then another to do exactly that: allow them to make data-informed decisions.”
John Levisay, the CEO of Sympoz, said, “My cofounders and I felt that the deficiencies in online education spanned higher education, corporate training, and aspirational education. But due to the long sales cycle and inherent bureaucracy in the first two sectors, we felt that direct-to-consumer aspirational education was the best way to achieve traction in a startup.”
Sympoz now boasts 200 employees and plans to keep growing. Levisay said he sees ample opportunity to make e-learning more engaging, fulfilling, and geared toward solid results. “Historically, what has passed for online education was essentially a PowerPoint with a voice over or a camera placed at the back of the classroom. Past instantiations of 'online learning' addressed the distance and time element deficiencies of access to education, but not the quality learning outcomes.”
“The great thing about working in education,” says Coglianese, “is that everyone wants everyone to succeed. So your customers, if they're happy, will tell everyone they know about you.”
2. EdTech Opportunities
“Based on what I have read in the press, it seems like there needs to be a refocus on driving legitimate learning outcomes and ultimate job placements, and not just convincing people to incur debt," said Levisay. "This can be achieved, but instructional design and learning platforms need to continue to evolve.”
“I think the biggest issue in Colorado right now is funding. We're right near the bottom in terms of per-pupil funding and that affects what kind of innovation you can sustain locally,” said David Meyer, CEO and cofounder of CampuScene.
“To use startup lingo, there are countless 'pain points' in education. One of the biggest opportunities I see is connecting the in-classroom experience to future careers," said Meyer. "I firmly believe that investors need to be incentivized for investing in companies that pursue social good on top of financial gain. EdTech companies often have smaller addressable markets than consumer-facing products, and we need some help competing for capital.”
3. The Future of Colorado EdTech
“Colorado has a solid but nascent EdTech community. We're still not as well known as Boston, San Francisco, and Baltimore, but that is changing," said Meyer. "Education companies operate very differently from consumer-facing and traditional enterprise businesses, and as such attract different types of investors. Over the last year or two, I've seen more industry-specific investors add Colorado companies to their portfolios, a trend I am excited to see and that must continue for EdTech to thrive in Colorado.”
"We have such a strong startup community, full of engineers, operators, and salespeople," said Mark Phillips of Hire Education. "It's a shame that more EdTech startups don't headquarter here and take advantage of the quality and the comparative low cost of that labor. The number of highly educated people who live in the area because of the active lifestyle, and who are available for really reasonable wages, is incredible. I think that's the area of greatest untapped potential."
“We live in a country where education is underfunded and often ignored,” said Meyer. “We have great teachers with insufficient facilities and supplies. Our universities produce world-class research, but our higher education system relies on an unsustainable business model. To me, EdTech represents our best chance to scale what is working in education and remove the barriers educators face. Technology has brought efficiency and results to countless other industries, and education should be no different.”
