Lean Startup May Not Work Best for Edtech

FATTEN UP: Serial education founder John Katzman (Princeton Review, 2U, and currently Noodle Education) thinks the whole "lean startup" craze is, ironically, a little overblown. In his talk for EdStartup 101, Katzman makes the case for a bulkier team with deeper backgrounds in business and education. To which Karan Goel would suggest including a competent sales force as well. "Sales and negotiation are really the final frontier from an intellectual standpoint--the ability to convince someone to do something they had no intention of doing by sharing data, vision, and ideas with them." He would know a thing or two, having founded and successfully exited PrepMe, a college test prep and adapting learning platform (which was sold to Ascend Learning and Naviance).