Building a $10M Company Proctoring Exams Online: Don Kassner, CEO of ProctorU (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

One of the chief bottlenecks of the adoption of online education has been the lack of ability to handle testing in a secure fashion. ProctorU addresses that gap and is growing at a nice clip.

Sramana Mitra: Don, let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about yourself. Where are you from? Where were you born and in what kind of circumstances? It sounds like you have multiple co-founders, so if you could also introduce the cast of characters, that would be great.

Don Kassner: My name is Don Kassner. I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area. I studied and taught at San Jose State University where I earned my bachelor’s and master’s in Economics. In 2005, I had the opportunity to take over a small accredited correspondence college in Birmingham, Alabama called Andrew Jackson University. I moved out to Alabama to take over as President and converted the university from paper-based to wholly online. During that time, I hired a guy named Jarrod Morgan. Jarrod became the Director of Technology.

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Venture Capital in Slow Growth Markets: India, EdTech, Cleantech

There are a number of relatively slow growth markets in which we do a lot of business: India and EdTech are two examples. These are also two markets that I am passionate about, and have covered prodigiously for a long time. In a way, these markets, and many others that have similar characteristics, share very similar trajectories vis-a-vis entrepreneurship, venture capital, and exits. Another market in which 1M/1M doesn’t have much presence, but I have invested in, is Cleantech. The story is somewhat similar there as well. Let’s take a look at these slow-growth markets, and how they will emerge over the upcoming years.

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Are We In A Golden Age Of EdTech?

John Doerr would like the world to believe yes.

Speaking with Betsy Corcoran of edSurge, Doerr expresses his enthusiasm:

What makes this moment “transitional” for learning, Doerr says, is the fact that so much of the technology now getting applied to learning and schools already pervades the rest of our lives.

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From The Seedy Underworld of Drugs and Prostitution To Entrepreneurial Success: David Sharpe’s Journey with Empower Network (Part 1)

From drugs, sex, prostitution, David Sharpe has seen it all. Hopelessly lost since his teens, a father at 15, jailed in his twenties, David has found his way back to a healthy life through entrepreneurship. Enjoy reading one of the most unusual stories we’ve done in the eighth year of Entrepreneur Journeys.

Sramana Mitra: Dave, tell us where you’re from. Where were you born and raised – what kind of circumstances?

David Sharpe: My name is Dave Sharpe. I was born in Clearwater, Florida which is right outside of Tampa Bay in 1983. I turned 30 last November 17.

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit more about the circumstances. Where did you do school? What did you study? What kind of mental set are you coming from as an entrepreneur? What’s your family background?

David Sharpe: The fascinating thing is I don’t come from an entrepreneurial family. My mom was very involved in a lot of what I did, extracurricular wise. I was a sports player. I was an athlete. By the age of five, I was on a baseball field throwing the baseball around. My parents divorced when I was 2-years-old, but my dad always showed up for my baseball games. Then I had a stepfather, still do. My mom and my stepfather are still married.

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Mike Pellerin, Director, Enterasys University (Extreme Networks) (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Well, it can be looked at differently as vocational training. For example, there are plenty of jobs in computer networking. We live in a networked world. Somebody who is trained in computer networking and has a good theoretical understanding can deal with equipment and so forth. This is a very nice vocation even if they don’t go to the university. It could be a decent career path, which is why the community college angle is very interesting.

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Mike Pellerin, Director, Enterasys University (Extreme Networks) (Part 6)

Mike Pellerin: Correct. Now I have a question for you. I have been approached for a couple of K-12 courses as well, for the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. A number of school districts have expressed interest in recommending some of our material to their students. Have you seen any trends on that?

Sramana Mitra: Not in the high schools. Not networking in the high school. If you’re getting interest, I would definitely explore on what’s going on. But I think on this level, it makes perfect sense to me.

Mike Pellerin: No, I agree.
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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Mike Pellerin, Director, Enterasys University (Extreme Networks) (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What you are doing is that you are selling equipment to the universities. And you have a lot of curriculum material, which you have packaged up into MOOC and then, you are letting students use it. In case, they express some interest in using those digital curriculum materials, colleges and universities might want to incorporate it into their courses. This is what’s going on here.

Mike Pellerin: Yes. However, some of the schools that have recommended our MOOC material to the students are not existing customers. It was truly done on the academic side only. We have no relationship on the business side.

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Mike Pellerin, Director, Enterasys University (Extreme Networks) (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: So what you are talking about is the student curriculum development including knowledge, talking about localization. Is it a strategy of Extreme Networks? It sounded like you have a lot of budgets to work with. Why is Extreme Network trying to nail the common educational publisher?

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