Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed « Avichal's Blog. I co-founded PrepMe in 2001. We were one of the first education companies online and the first purely online, personalized platform. We were acquired in 2011 by Providence Equity-backed Ascend Learning. In the last month, I’ve had 3 VC firms bring me in to chat with their partnership about education and 6 independent entrepreneurs reach out to me about their new education startup. This is a summary of what I tell them in person. Note: I am going to make some generalizations below. Most entrepreneurs in education build the wrong type of business, because entrepreneurs think of education as a quality problem. “Education is ripe for disruption.
First, let’s qualify what they’re saying here. The average person in a developed country does not think about education the way a well educated VC or entrepreneur thinks about education. VCs and entrepreneurs tend to be well educated. The average, middle class person thinks about education as an expenditure, not an investment. Sharing by design. Lessons Learned. TechCrunch. Tech News | Innovation News | Money News. The Next Web - International technology news, business & culture.