Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: That’s true in general. Part of the error that the venture capital industry is making is to fund a lot of free stuff. This hides all the problems of whatever product or service they’re trying to sell. Entrepreneurs think that they’re doing great by offering something for free. Eventually, it doesn’t monetize. I’m

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How long has Edgenuity been around? Sari Factor: Since 1998. It was called Education 2020 until the beginning of 2013 when we changed the name. Sramana Mitra: How is your company funded? Sari Factor: We were owned by an investment firm called Weld North. It’s a partnership between Jonathan Grayer, the former CEO

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I get all these things that you’re saying. Let’s say there’s a rural school that can afford to manage the core and in the edges; they can’t afford that many languages or higher level mathematics and sciences. My question is how much does it cost them to include that in their curriculum? Given

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Your system maintains the personalized skill gap data for every student that is on your platform? Sari Factor: Correct. Sramana Mitra: Can different teachers, as they progress through the grade, access that data?

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: They are using online curriculum but there’s a teacher who’s telling them, “You take this course. Do this exercise.” Sari Factor: Absolutely. The system is telling the student how much they need to accomplish each day, but a teacher is always monitoring that. We offer adjunct teachers as well. We provide that service.

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 2)

Sari Factor: It’s also an excellent solution for acceleration. We have situations where students in middle school might be ready for geometry, which is typically taught in the 10th grade. But there is no Geometry curriculum or teacher at the middle school level. They might take a course from a high school teacher administering the course from the

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 1)

K-12 has been a challenge for EdTech companies to build businesses in. Typically, buying cycles tend to be very long. See where Edgenuity is getting traction, and what trends are emerging in the space. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you as well as to your company. Sari Factor: After a short

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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 7)

SM: What is your sales model? Do you do direct sales, telesales, or other approaches? DM: We have a marketing group that does a lot of Web optimization, e-mail marketing, and direct mail marketing. We generate leads that go directly to the salespeople. They get an appointment at the building with the principal and the

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