Online K-12 Education IPO In The Great Recession: Archipelago Learning Co-founders Cameron Chalmers, Dave Muzzo, And CEO Tim McEwen (Part 3)

SM: Dave and Cam, when you initially started to sell, did you focus on a particular grade level or subject area? DM: We started with grades 4, 6, 9, and 12. The subjects we focused on were math, reading, science, and social studies. Those grade levels and subject areas were chosen because of Ohio standards

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Online K-12 Education IPO In The Great Recession: Archipelago Learning Co-founders Cameron Chalmers, Dave Muzzo, And CEO Tim McEwen (Part 2)

SM: What happened during the year and a half you were building the product? I assume you were able to put it online. What kind of customers were coming to you? DM: We got a few people to register for a free service, and those users input their study material. We quickly realized over the

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Online K-12 Education IPO In The Great Recession: Archipelago Learning Co-founders Cameron Chalmers, Dave Muzzo, And CEO Tim McEwen (Part 1)

David Muzzo and Cameron Chalmers cofounded Study Island in May 2000 and have been vice president and director, respectively, since January 2007. Both received a BS from Vanderbilt University. Prior to founding Study Island, Cameron served as a software engineering lead developer for Lucent Technologies, and David founded Captive Marketing Concepts, which he sold in

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Taking On Microsoft And Google From India: InstaColl Founders Sumanth Raghavendra, Kaushal Cavale, And Their Mentor Sabeer Bhatia (Part 7)

SM: VCs don’t offer what you are offering Sumanth and Kaushal. Having a bridge like the one you are providing is very helpful. SB: VCs dump companies and run away. I am now buying companies that VCs have dumped.

Taking On Microsoft And Google From India: InstaColl Founders Sumanth Raghavendra, Kaushal Cavale, And Their Mentor Sabeer Bhatia (Part 6)

SM: I really like to go-to-market strategy. Who developed it? SR and KC: The three of us together. SM: It seems that Sabeer’s role today is very active. Is that right? SR and KC: Absolutely. He has told us that the first phone call he makes when he wakes up and his last phone call

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Taking On Microsoft And Google From India: InstaColl Founders Sumanth Raghavendra, Kaushal Cavale, And Their Mentor Sabeer Bhatia (Part 5)

SM: Do you have a sense of who your 70,000 beta users are? Have you asked them why they are interested in your product? SR and KC: Most of them are people who have already tried apps such as Google Docs and are obviously not satisfied. They want a collaborative app but are not willing

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Taking On Microsoft And Google From India: InstaColl Founders Sumanth Raghavendra, Kaushal Cavale, And Their Mentor Sabeer Bhatia (Part 4)

SM: Tell me more about the architecture underpinning your product. What enables you to do what you can now do in the browser? SR and KC: We explored many options. The first thing that came to mind were plug-ins. Even though the browser is popular for HTML, there are numerous plug-ins that make a supplemental

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Taking On Microsoft And Google From India: InstaColl Founders Sumanth Raghavendra, Kaushal Cavale, And Their Mentor Sabeer Bhatia (Part 3)

SM: Back to you, Sumanth and Kaushal. Once Sabeer became your mentor and your financing partner, how did the company’s strategy evolve? SR and KC: Up to that point we were very conservative because we did not have a lot of money. We had shut down our services group completely because it didn’t make strategic

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