“I Want to Teach Engineering to a Billion”: Anant Agarwal, President of EdX (Part 5)

Sramana: Have you heard of a company called Pluralsight? Pluralsight has a similar model. The company is doing about $16 million in revenue. They are a bootstrapped company out of Utah, and they have a crowd source content development model. They do royalty sharing between content creators and Pluralsight when consumer or corporations pay for

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“I Want to Teach Engineering to a Billion”: Anant Agarwal, President of EdX (Part 4)

Sramana: Isn’t there a possibility that a student could convince someone else to take a course for them and essentially defraud the system? Anant Agarwal: Absolutely. The certificates at this point are issued after signing an honor code. The certificates we issue are noted as honor code certificates. We have recently partnered with Pearson, which

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“I Want to Teach Engineering to a Billion”: Anant Agarwal, President of EdX (Part 3)

Sramana: So there is no MIT stamp of any kind on that San Jose State degree? Anant Agarwal: No, not for a blended class like the example I gave with San Jose State. They get a San Jose State degree. Now, if the student took the public MIT course at the same time on edX,

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“I Want to Teach Engineering to a Billion”: Anant Agarwal, President of EdX (Part 2)

Sramana: How does the model support the on-campus vision? If your courses are built by universities all over the world with an open source methodology, how do localized campuses leverage that information? Anant Agarwal: The platform is open source. The software is open source. The content is owned by the universities. They are the ones

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“I Want to Teach Engineering to a Billion”: Anant Agarwal, President of EdX (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Professor Anant Agarwal was my graduate advisor at MIT in the mid-nineties. In Anant, I found a kindred entrepreneurial spirit, someone who encouraged me to pursue my entrepreneurial dreams, even if that meant quitting the PhD program at MIT. Over the past 20 years, both of

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Equity Financing from Customers: Modernizing Medicine CEO Daniel Cane, Boca Raton, Florida (Part 7)

Sramana: Where are you located? Daniel Cane: We are in Boca Raton, Florida. Sramana: That is a region that does not have as much of an angel or a VC community. That makes your company’s story even more interesting.

Equity Financing from Customers: Modernizing Medicine CEO Daniel Cane, Boca Raton, Florida (Part 6)

Sramana: This is one of the few stories I have heard where this type of fundraising has taken place. It is wonderful, and it makes perfect sense. You have converted customers into very serious evangelists. Daniel Cane: Exactly. The company has done well financially, so I think everyone is happy with the outcome. Raising money

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Equity Financing from Customers: Modernizing Medicine CEO Daniel Cane, Boca Raton, Florida (Part 5)

Sramana: When you started Modernizing Medical, you focused on dermatology specialists. How many specializations do you sell to today? Daniel Cane: We have also launched products in ophthalmology and optometry. This quarter we are launching into plastic surgery and orthopedics. We also have derivative products. For example, the plastic surgery product has a cosmetic derivative

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