Sramana Mitra: Absolutely. I am not totally convinced about the Coursera business model and whether it is going to scale to the extent to support the amount of venture funding they have raised. EdX is a different story, because it is non-profit funded. As long as they sustain themselves, they are going to be fine.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s say I am a consumer, and I sign up for a course in economics on the site of Cornell. I am a consumer, not one of Cornell’s business customers. Then I want to find a job. When I go to the Cornell website, are the resources I am able to access specific
Sramana Mitra: You have been in the continuing education space for a good decade or more. What are the trends of the industry? Shaul Kuper: What is interesting to us, having dealt with continuing education for so long, is that about two years ago presidents of the universities woke up one day and realized that
Sramana Mitra: Ten or 12 years later, where do you stand? What percentage of your business is product versus customization services? Shaul Kuper: In the early days it was not uncommon for a school to pay a few million dollars for customizations, and it would take a year or two to implement. Now we are
Sramana Mitra: What year was that? Shaul Kuper: In 2001 we got the deal and in 2002 we delivered the product. SM: So by 2002 you had a reference account in education. Did you go after other education companies?
Sramana Mitra: Who was your first large website design for? Shaul Kuper: Our first large client was a children’s performer named Sharon, Lois & Bram, very well known performers in Toronto – children entertainers. I approached them and said that we could make a great deal for them – download music, they could sell their CDs
Shaul Kuper is the chief executive officer of Destiny Solutions, a company that provides software solutions for higher education management on a cloud-based SaaS. He holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology and genetics from the University of Toronto. In this interview he gives us a detailed overview of the origins of Destiny and of