Sramana Mitra: If you try to build a business that is selling to schools, that’s an incredibly slow cycle. I have companies in our portfolio and I know a lot of educational entrepreneurs who have become frustrated trying to sell technology or content to schools. It’s a long sell cycle. The textbook vendors are quite
Sramana Mitra: You were able to build a minimum viable product, start monetizing it right away, and then, scale it from there. Katya Andresen: Not right away. Most of the overnight successes have a five to seven years lag. Sramana Mitra: That’s my point. How do you finance five to seven years of development? Katya
Sramana Mitra: The concern is that it is complicated and expensive to build these programs. Then, if everybody wants everything for free, how do these businesses sustain themselves? That’s the real question that I’m extremely worried about. Katya Andresen: I think no one ever jumps to the opportunity to pay for something, right? If it
Sramana Mitra: You’ve taken seven years to build $17 million in revenue. That’s not a timeline that fits in the venture capital framework. The venture capitalists are looking to build hundred million dollar companies in seven years. This is what I’ve been really concerned about. For a long time, venture capitalists basically just decided not
Sramana Mitra: I’m very interested in the business model. That’s one of the issues that we’re seeing in the Edtech industry. The business models are weak. Katya Andresen: I agree with you. It can be really hard to monetize a social network. That is not our model. Our model is that we have consumers –