Thought Leaders in Online Education: Bharat Anand, Faculty Chair, HBX at Harvard Business School (Part 1)

Online first or classroom first? This discussion delves into the design principles of the two models.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to the Digital Learning initiative at Harvard.

Bharat Anand: I’m a Professor in Strategy at Harvard Business School. I also served as Faculty Chair of our new online learning initiative called HBX, which launched in 2014.

Sramana Mitra: What is the mission of HBX?

Bharat Anand: We started HBX as a way to keep up what seemed to be fascinating trends in the online education space. We really tried to think about how we, as a school, can create some offerings that serve our residential students well as well as allow us to better fulfil our mission, which is training and educating leaders who make a difference in the world. Those are really the objectives behind HBX. >>>

Scaling to $10 Million from Kentucky: Steve Huey, CEO of Capture Higher Ed (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting in your story? Are there any other strategic moves that you want to discuss?

Steve Huey: One of the biggest things that happened was about a year and a half ago, when we were introduced to a McKinsey study that talks about a consumer’s decision journey. The story that they used is the idea of people buying a car. When do you actively start trying to buy a car? The time from when you actively say, “I need to buy a car”, to the time that you buy a car is two weeks. You can imagine car companies. If they were only going to market to you when you’re actively engaged in buying a car, they’d have to pick the two weeks out of five years. This McKinsey study talked about the consumer’s decision journey where they have your brand.

If I were going to ask you what car you’d like to buy, odds are that you probably have a few brands that you’re familiar with and are interested in. Going to college is a huge investment in the United States. In fact, most families don’t believe that college is affordable to them. The adoption of this student decision journey of where they’re going to school is a significant departure of how the industry has been run. Typically, people have >>>

Scaling to $10 Million from Kentucky: Steve Huey, CEO of Capture Higher Ed (Part 5)

Steve Huey: Understanding that this data advantage was the key for us to talk more intelligently to students, we started hammering on that perceived advantage. Very quickly, we expanded the data set that we had so that we could talk more intelligently to them. In the next generation of our product, we created a lot of subcategories and groupings. The goal was always to continue the technology so we can develop an almost one-to-one marketing program for each student.

Sramana Mitra: When you’re working on behalf of a college, how big is the deal size? How do you price these projects?

Steve Huey: In the first couple of years, I think our average contract size was about $80,000. Now, our average is around $200,000, but we have partners who pay us upwards of three-quarters of a million to partners who pay us $50,000. >>>

Scaling to $10 Million from Kentucky: Steve Huey, CEO of Capture Higher Ed (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How did you acquire these customers? Can you get a bit more granular?

Steve Huey: Certainly. We were six co-founders. Two of the co-founders were sales people that had deep relationships with many schools. They simply called their best customers and said, “We have a new company. We’re doing this. We explained our strategy to them.” They agreed to test us. We signed one-year agreements when the industry average was three. We put ourselves out there and we said, “We’re going to do better for you than anyone else has done.”

For the first year, we worked hard and probably gave $200,000 worth of value. It proved that our methodology worked. I was not working day to day on the business at that time. I remember when in our first big meeting in May of the following year, I was amazed at the figures. Using our solution, many of the schools we worked with experienced a 2x increase in number of applicants. I remember sitting there and thinking, “This actually works.” It’s always surprising. >>>

Scaling to $10 Million from Kentucky: Steve Huey, CEO of Capture Higher Ed (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The primary business is, essentially, lead generation for colleges? Is that what you’re saying?

Steve Huey: Yes, our primary business is lead generation but for not-for-profit schools. It’s a very important distinction. There are around 3,300 not-for-profit colleges in the United States.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start there. What is the difference between leads for not-for-profit schools versus for-profit schools since it’s such a big distinction?

Steve Huey: For-profit schools started out as trade schools. A lot of the for-profit schools you see are for truck driving, typing, etc. There are a number of for-profit schools where you can learn nursing or earn business degrees. They’re in the minority. The schools that are for-profit typically target more mature, non-traditional college students. >>>

Chegg Expands into Online Education

Analyts expect the digital education market to quadruple in size to $450 billion over the next five years. Chegg (NYSE: CHGG) is moving away from its traditional textbook rental service to focus on this disruptive market. >>>

Technology Tools for a Flipped Classroom

By 1M/1M Premium Member and Co-Founder of Omninox Jake Yap

The idea behind a flipped classroom has become more popular amongst teachers as of late, which can most likely be attributed to the rise of technology in and out of the classroom. Tools such as computers, smartphones, and tablets are typical items in a student and teacher’s arsenal in more recent times. These technological tools allow for the necessary instructional strategy required for a flipped classroom, which include teaching content at home and activities and discussions (often regarded as homework) being conducted in the class. Learning at home can include reading the required textbook lesson or watching online lectures, which would not have been possible if it was not for the advancement in technology. >>>

Future of Education: Three Conversations

There is a lot going on in the educational technology market. In our effort to bring you continued insights in that market, we would like to bring to your attention three recent roundtable discussions:

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