EdTech Founders: Recent Episodes
EdTech Garage
In this podcast we interview engaged early-stage EdTech founders from startups across Europe in 20+ minutes.
The podcast is brought to you by the EdTech Garage, a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources.
Learn more on edtechgarage.org and follow us on LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/.
Host: Frank Albert Coates Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank Albert Coates is talking with Gustav Grimberg who is the co-founder of Ezri, a company dedicated to developing AI tutors that transform online learning. With a background in human-computer interaction, Gustav has long been passionate about creating technologies that are natural and intuitive for human beings to interact with, especially in education. In October 2023, he co-founded Ezri to bring this vision of affordable, personalised education to life.
Recently, Ezri launched its first AI tutors in Germany through a white-label model in collaboration with the K-12 publishers Cornelsen and Duden Learnattack. Their machine learning systems converted tens of thousands of videos, exercises, and articles into interactive AI tutors, offering personalized student support tailored to the content.
The company is now focused on releasing its next generation of AI tutors, which work in multiple modalities to deliver even more effective personal tutoring.
We talk about:
The role AI tutors will play in the future of education, how to incorporate effective human-computer interaction principles, challenges such as user interface design and privacy, voice interaction and enhanced dialogue management systems ….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- AI tutors will play a very important role in the future of education. What exactly they will look like and how they will work and how they will fit into the learning process are still questions that need to be addressed fully. But, at Ezri, we believe and we work towards a future where AI tutors will be a learning companion that all students will have.
- So how do you compare an AI tutor to a human tutor? There are similarities and there are differences, of course. And I think that going forward there will be ways that these two modes of learning will complement each other definitely.
- An important feature of human tutoring is a mutual understanding and feeling some kind of harmony or some kind of connection with the tutor. And this is something that is also important to definitely explore in AI tutoring systems. If you should make this or try to develop this interpersonal connection with the tutee, with the student. From what we see, it is definitely a path to go down to try and develop these more close relationships where the tutor has a better understanding of the student, has an ability to not just tutor, but also, go off topic sometimes to develop a more close connection to the student because that in the end can foster and promote better learning.
- I would love to have a really good voice system that works very well, especially with K-12 students. That delivers a very human like voice interaction. And then just find this dialogue manager that can really just steer the interaction as the best tutor in the whole world. So if I could order one thing and plug into our tutors, it would definitely be the best tutor dialogue management system, which we are working towards at Ezri.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month.
- Sign up to the podcast & newsletter on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank Albert Coates is talking with Arnaud Blachon who is the co-founder and CEO of Rise Up, a specialist provider of learning software solutions that help organisations stay up-to-skill. With an engineering background he began his career as an application developer and in 2014, he co-founded Rise Up with his brother Guillaume, aiming to revolutionize corporate learning through blended learning solutions at the time.
They have now raised nearly 50M EUR in funding and have more than 130 employees, support 5 million learners and 500+ clients. This year they are jumping on the adaptive learning bandwagon with the acquisition of the adaptive learning platform Domoscio that will allow personalized learning at scale.
We talk about:
Overcoming initial market misunderstandings, strategies for expanding across Europe, learning personalization at scale through adaptive learning and AI, market consolidation, how to succeed in a market with a focus on doing more with less
….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- The difference between Rise Up and the rest of the world is; we want to accelerate what we call the time to skill. On average, if you look at the last Gartner research and Josh Bersin as well, even if we are all convinced that training is key, people spend less than 25 minutes on formal learning every week.
- After COVID it also moved from an HR decision to a general management topic, which completely changed the game in terms of how to unlock budget, basically. Companies were convinced that investing in digital was key. It accelerated, and I think not only in the HR space, but the whole digital transformation of every department.
- Having the right skills framework is important because it first it will permit to really align learning objectives with business objectives.
- Pure players, if they are not delivering enough wide functionality, can't survive right now.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month.
- Sign up to the podcast & newsletter on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank is talking with Mindaugas Petrutis, the CEO of Coho, which is enabling companies to curate peer groups at scale. This came as a spin-off from On Deck, the global startup community for founders. For Mindaugas, his journey in community building began nearly a decade ago, creating spaces for meaningful interactions and learning while working at InVision and On Deck. Through his work in assembling nearly 400 peer-groups, he unearthed a key insight: true professional growth stems from a blend of challenge and support found in diverse, thoughtfully curated peer groups.
Now he's scaling this concept and the MVP or v1 will be out later this year. The goal is to democratise access to this rich learning model, ensuring professionals across all fields can tap into the power of peer interaction. This approach counters the prevalent issues of loneliness, disengagement, and retention in the modern workplace.
We talk about:
The transformative potential of collective learning experiences, the integration of AI for group facilitation, the significance of customer feedback and prioritizing customer interactions for validation, the opportunity & complexity of implementing peer learning in large companies….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- A lot of companies have thought about implementing like the true concept of peer learning, but they either started and failed or got scared of the complexity.
- And what fascinates me is; how do people build relationships and learn from each other when you bring a group of people together in various settings.
- If this is successful, it falls way beyond the kind of basic learning tools because you start tackling, truly tackling employee engagement and retention with something like this. And that unlocks very different budgets and speed as to which you can move within an organization.
- You know that these folks are talking about, in real time, the things that they need, that they care about. And so being able to integrate with, say, learning management systems, you then can start building nearly a true recommendation system for the employee needs.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank is talking with Noam Gerstein, the CEO of the bina school - a fully online primary transnational school for kids aged 4-12. Noam started university at 16 in Tel-Aviv, worked for physichians for human rights. Founded, bootstrapped and exited a business at 26. Then did more than 7+ years of global K-6 research that culminated in the bina school.
We talk about: The need to solve serious problems as an entrepreneur and not small consumer problems of discomfort, how building a school takes time, effort and careful adjustment, how entrepreneurship is like eating dirt for a long time, why getting a white male in the room helps for funding….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- When kids go to a local school, they meet their local peers, and the educators that are available to them are the ones that are in their neighborhood, more or less. In Bina, children can learn with children from the very north to the very south of their time zone. They are matched according to their needs, not according to their location. Also to their educators by the way. And then we see wonders like two kids from very different sides of the aisle or of the wall or of the war learning together every day and becoming best friends. And that's marvelous.
- I think, you know, success would be to walk into a village in the middle of nowhere and that there are children there in multiple aged, in a grandma's hut or whatever, that are all recipients of like the world's best education. That's the dream, right?
- So either you have a strong enough network or enough financial resources to put things off the ground on your own with whatever it takes, and then start when you have something to actually sell. That's a one option. Or you like eat dirt for like four years. And hopefully you have the ability to do both.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank is talking to Lula de León, a designer, teacher, entrepreneur and mother. She is the CEO and co-founder of Leemons, a startup born in May 2021 with the goal of transforming the digitalization of learning in educational centers with its innovative SaaS LMS platform.
We talk about: How the lack of innovation in the LMS/LXP segment pushed her to create the company, that you need to be ready to move fast in an uncertain market, how peer connections help to maintain mental health and get support, how she raised the 1,5M EUR….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- And then I enter the education technology market, and I thought, what is happening in LMS or in LXP technology. That the companies that are developing this kind of software for the educational centers don't need to innovate at the same level that the e-commerce, travel or banking industries.
- But, there are a lot of startups that are trying so hard, that have great products and they are now in danger to close because the market is difficult and the moment is very complicated. So even though you have a secret sauce, you need to be prepared always to move, move forward because things are not easy, not easy in this industry.
- We know a lot about a person, to whom we want to sell a T-shirt. But, we don't know anything about a person who wants to learn something new. So it is a bit stupid that educational centers are not learning organizations when they are teaching all the time.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank is talking to Nick Hernandez who is the CEO and Founder of 360Learning, an advisor and investor in the SaaS technology industry. He has been running 360Learning now for 10 years and grown it into one of the leading LMS platforms for corporate education. He has also secured over 200M EUR in funding from funds such as SoftBank and Silverlake. The focus of the company is on collaborative learning and he has even written a book about the topic. He is based here in Paris, France.
We talk about: Why the company initially pivoted from K-12 education to corporate learning, the unique collaborative approach of 360Learning compared to traditional top-down methods, their recent acquisitions of eLamp and Looop, the influence of AI on learning & user experiences, and a solid dose of advice for emerging EdTech startups….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- Something that's challenging with AI right now is to build a product that's not completely going to work right now, but you're building a product for GPT-5. You're building a product for GPT-6. You're not building a product for GPT-4. And I see a lot of people thinking like if the technology was static.
- I see a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of companies going to market to raise money without any structure or process. So typically, first they're talking to VCs all the time, like they're constantly raising money. It's not the best way.
- We're living through fantastic times. It's time to build, take risks, imagine the future. There are some risks and we can be worried about the future, but we also have a lot of opportunities to build it. So, let's focus on building.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank is talking to Michal Hudeček who is the CEO of Levebee and a serial entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience in online business. Levebee makes learning easier, more effective and fun for kids in areas such as math, reading and languages. His background combines deep technical knowledge with business skills proven by multiple exits. He is based in Prague, the Czech Republic.
We talk about: How the international expansion is challenged by the fragmentation of educational markets, that the biggest challenge is understanding and digitizing the implicit knowledge and decision-making processes of teachers, that understanding pedagogical research and focusing on the educational value is important for EdTech startups….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- What we are trying to build here is this mythical, personalized digital math teacher.
- When you try to focus only on the fun, you are eventually competing with everything that is fun. So I still believe that the educational value is more important, like finding a way how to help teachers.
- It's important to be able to get it to the users quickly. This is why we try to have the direct contact with the teachers and the students and to build the brand, to be trusted and have the expertise to build on.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players in the EdTech ecosystem from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: Frank is talking to Michaela Horvathova who is the co-founder and Chief Education Officer at Beyond Education. The company empowers students 10-21 years old with the 21st century competencies, or so called "soft skills” through research-based programs and 1st scientifically validated assessment. She is an international education policy expert having worked for international organisations like the OECD, IB and UNICEF. She has extensive global experience in curriculum design and reform for 21st century skills & competencies, learning outcomes, evaluation & assessment. She is based in Paris, France.
We talk about: Why the market needs education on the importance of soft skills overall, how assessment goes hand-in-hand with education programs, the discrepancy between international standards and what is needed in the classroom, the importance of having a co-founder ….and lots more.
Outtakes:
- What we are doing is aiming to help ultimately students be better prepared for the future.
- There are a lot of companies that are developing soft skills through programs, which is something that we actually started with and we still have, but we sort of put it on hold and as we understood that what is really needed or what is maybe more of an entry point to schools is assessment.
- What is the challenge is that there is a big discrepancy still between what ministries of education, researchers, policy makers, understand that it's needed and important and what people on the ground understand that is needed.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: We are talking to Andy Ayim who is an entrepreneur, investor and an expert angel being the founder of the Angel Investing School. He is coaching founders to help them achieve product market fit and is a leading voice for integrating diversity and inclusion into portfolios of investors. He has invested in over 17 startups and also received the Order of the British Empire for his work in this field. He is based in London, UK.
We talk about: The long-term mindset of investors, how to tell the story to connect with and convince investors, how founders with a real understanding of the problem they are solving for have an edge, why founders need to do their own due diligence of investors….and lots more.
Want to become a business angel? Join the Angel Investing School and get 10% off with the discount code EdTech10.
Outtakes:
- There is a massive long tail opportunity for educating the majority of the world with these micro courses, cohort based courses and the like.
- The founder should understand their story. What is your origin story? Why are you well suited to solve this problem? Who are the customers that you serve? Can you share stories about your customers and how you alleviate a pain point with the problems that you're solving for them?
- The same way the angels are doing due diligence on you and referencing you, you should be doing due diligence on your angels and referencing them because this is a long-term partnership and relationship you're about to form.
- I always try and position myself as that core and that person to speak to when the metrics aren't looking as good, when the things aren't trending upwards, when you need to have honest conversations where you wanna sense check stuff before talking to the rest of the investors.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Music: Ehsansation
In this episode: We interview Christophe Mallet, who is the CEO & co-founder of Bodyswaps, a VR platform that brings realistic simulations and AI-enabled feedback to soft skills training for educational institutions and corporate clients. Christophe has long experience in the immersive technologies and digital marketing fields and is based in London, UK.
We talk about: The hype and opportunity in immersive education, their partnership with Meta, the go to market strategies for education institutions vs corporates and generative AI opportunities plus lots more.
Outtakes:
- The issue for a wannabe SaaS business like us is that the higher the buy-in, the less likely they are to buy off the shelf.
- And right now, there's a lot of government money in grants. How are we gonna use immersive learning to improve remote education and access to education for people on the other side of Digital Divide?
- Right now, 2023, we have crossed the chasm in education. So when we have a conversation with institutions, we are not talking about why VR. It's never why VR anymore. It's always how. And now we are entering the phase of mutualization of use cases and scaling.
- The day the company changed for us is the day we realized that if we are VR geeks trying to do education, that's not gonna work.
- And we found that the best driver for us, for new business is the advocacy of our own clients.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the community on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this episode: We interview Hanna Celina, who is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Kinnu. The startup is developing an app for curious people to learn effectively with the goal of changing the way billions of people learn. She holds a PhD in Computer Science specialized in Human-Computer interaction design, has a background from Futurelearn & Google and is based in London, UK.
We talk about: How user research and feedback helps prioritize, how to scale content production, the methodology used to measure learning, how octopuses inspired Kinnu and lots more.
Outtakes:
- We want to do to the world, what Duolingo has done to language learning. And we're trying to become the Duolingo for literally any other topic.
- One of the challenges and success metrics that we're going after is just the stickiness. Do people come back? How many people come back? How often do they come back? And with what amounts of passion?
- How effective is really Duolingo for learning, we don't know, because we can't measure it.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
- Join the community on edtechgarage.org
- Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this episode: We interview Thomas I. Tveteraas Helgø who is the founder of Society Lab, a Norwegian digital learning agency that helps increase an organisation's ability to lead transformation.
We talk about: Why it is more than ever crucial to focus on learning to support transformation in companies, what the actual competitor of corporate learning is, how to build a culture that lasts and why it is important to sleep at night as a founder and lots more.
Outtakes:
- And we set out and said, how can we help companies, learn as fast as the change that is going around them.
- The consultant usually brings around great answers like the fish, but we are trying to help the clients fish.
- There's two ways about building a company. It's telling the people what to do. For example, build a ship or making them long for the sea. And building culture is about helping people connect to the dream of the sea.
- Learning is much more of a mindset than actually learning specific topics.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the community on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this episode: We interview Matteo Penzowho is a serial entrepreneur and a former executive at frog, a global design and strategy firm. Today Matteo leads the team at zick learn, which is a startup making enterprise learning fast, efficient and fun through text based micro-learning delivered to any chat client on the market. Matteo is based in Milan, Italy.
We talk about: How to leverage the lack of learner attention and time, how LMS providers are falling behind, the importance of corporate culture even from the very beginning for startups, pre-seed fundraising tips and lots more.
Outtakes:
- The reasons behind our success. It's very simple. If you look at our life today as learners, the one thing that everybody has huge lack of is time, and we operate in the minutes of free time everybody has.
- You must nurture your network because especially in pre-seed, people might like your idea, but at the end of the day will invest in you. And it's so much better if they know you very well.
- Because the one thing with company culture is that once it's wrong, when you realize it, it's too late and since it's too late, it is extremely challenging, if not impossible to change it.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the community on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this episode: We interview Jesper Bergmann, co-founder and CEO at startup Teacherspace, who makes it easy for teachers (in K12) to get quality feedback on their classroom by providing them with mentors and unique qualitative and quantitative insights. Jesper is based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
We talk about: The challenges of being a teacher and lack of support, how technology is not the solution to everything in the classroom, how you need to be prepared that solving big problems in K12 will take time, finding co-founders and lots more.
Outtakes:
- A lot of people who know a lot about technology, but don't really understand teachers and learning will fail by trying to create products that are way too techy.
- We know how difficult it is to really change something in education, so we don't try to pretend this is a quick fix or this will be a miracle or everything will change overnight.
- We are just at the beginning of trying to think about what could a much better experience and support for teachers look like.
In this podcast by EdTech Garage, we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the community on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In season 2 we interview business angels investing in European EdTech startups to understand their investment thesis, what advice they would give startups seeking funding and how founders should approach these types of investors.
In this episode: We interview Anette Bø Andreassen who is an angel investor and partner at Sagene Tech Ventures, a pre-seed venture fund based in Norway, investing in early-stage Edtech, Prop-tech and Creative tech. She is based in Oslo. She is also COO at the startup Unifractal that is combining visual search technology with user manuals & training.
We talk about: The value of creating real connection over time with investors, how far some investors can go to support startups, getting recommendations from other startups, what not to do when pitching investors and the importance of creating buzz around your products.
Outtakes:
- For me as an investor, it's really good to have recommendations from other startups.
- We want to feel engaged, we want to feel energized.
- Find the right investors and cultivate them. And sometimes it could be also other kind of industry companies who have all these kind of venture brands.
The EdTech Garage is a community for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every month. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the community on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In season 2 we interview business angels investing in European EdTech startups to understand their investment thesis, what advice they would give startups seeking funding and how founders should approach these types of investors.
In this episode: We interview Erensah Ayanlar, who is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Mesmerise, a company delivering immersive experiences in VR. She has a passion for food & education and is an angel investor in 16 companies, of which 25% is in EdTech.
We talk about: Education in the metaverse, why use of communities is critical, rethinking measures of success in the current investment climate, how geographical boundaries are less relevant for investment networks, how to select your investor and lots of other tips for founders.
Are you an EdTech investor interested to be on the show or do you have recommendations for investors we should talk to? Let us know! Stay tuned over the next months for investment stories and tips to demystify angel funding.
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20 minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In season 2 we interview business angels investing in European EdTech startups to understand their investment thesis, what advice they would give startups seeking funding and how founders should approach these types of investors.
In this episode: We interview Dr. Melody Lang from MPA Education, an advisory and investment company dedicated to the future of learning and work. She is based in London, UK, and focused on investing in solutions for learners 16+ in areas such as apprenticeships, challenger universities, lifelong learning, as well as talent acquisition, development & retention including mental health & wellbeing in the workplace.
We talk about: Challenges investing in K12, investing for profit and for good, how to measure impact, evergreen investment structures, dumb money vs operator investor, the value of founder communities and concrete tips for founders when fundraising.
Book recommendations:
- The Innovation Blind Spot - Why We Back the Wrong Ideas and What to Do About It
- Class Clowns - How the Smartest Investors Lost Billions in Education
Are you an EdTech investor interested to be on the show or do you have recommendations for investors we should talk to? Let us know! Stay tuned over the next months for investment stories and tips to demystify angel funding.
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview startup founders & players supporting early-stage EdTech startups from across Europe. We get straight to the point in 20 minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
We are now back after a long summer holiday and ready to kick off the fall of 2022 with a new season of the EdTech founders podcast. This season we will focus on an area where early-stage founders have many questions; namely getting funding from business angels. We will interview business angels investing in European EdTech startups to understand their investment thesis, what advice they would give startups seeking funding and how founders should approach these types of investors.
Are you an EdTech investor interested to be on the show or do you have recommendations for investors we should talk to? Let us know! Stay tuned over the next months for investment stories and tips to demystify angel funding.
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources.
In this podcast we provide valuable stories, concrete tips & resources for EdTech founders. We get straight to the point in 20+ minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
This is the 11th and final episode of the first season of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage. Keep listening until the very end for a bonus remix from our DJ friend Ehsansation. Can you spot who is remixed?
In this episdoe we interview Marie Verchère, who is the co-founder and CEO of Upskyld a personalized learning app that uses audio to plug into downtimes for professionals. They are based in France and focusing on the corporate education market.
We talk about: Finding the right content to upskill, priorities in the great demission, the power of having a complementary team, building in public with a community of users, picking the right type of investors and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"Professionals are not taking the time to upskill themselves regularly and frequently. And they struggle to find the right content at the right time - actionable content to help them within their day to day job. We tackle the question of turning those professionals into lifelong learners."
"By 2030, professionals will be spending 30% of their time on training. So now is the perfect time for us to actually launch."
"For all employees not to upskill is like professional negligence, and they'll drown under a tsunami of unqualified content."
"We are very engaged with our first 10 to 15 users. They are a bit like our best friends and and we take care of them."
"We have zero content production, because we think it's not really that scalable."
"Never start with VCs… but maybe with smart money, and then business angels, and then VCs, especially when you're in such an early stage."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview engaged early-stage EdTech founders from across Europe who are a part of the EdTech Garage network. We get straight to the point in 20 minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In the 10th episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Robin Guerit, the co-founder and Chief Experience Officer of Flowchase, based in Belgium. The company is helping English learners speak confidently through blended-learning tools for pronunciation instruction. They are working with both higher education institutions and corporations.
We talk about: What's missing in language learning, how to best support teachers, the sales cycle with higher education institutions, finding partners to create content, having a truly user centered approach, collecting data to improve the experience and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"The teacher can't really give personalized feedback to their students, because they are too many in class. And they have limited time. But, also they don't have the same problems so they need really personalized and individual feedback to get better."
"So the competitors are usually working on speech recognition technology, so they have activities where users can read one word or one sentence, and they give one percentage…we saw that it was not that pedagogical to have that approach, because you can't give enough information or tips to students to be better."
"We really created a service for teachers. So when they start with us they have a workshop so they can understand everything in the project to introduce the tool to their students. They have everything ready in their toolbox…they usually use Flowchase as a flipped classroom approach."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview engaged early-stage EdTech founders from across Europe who are a part of the EdTech Garage network. We get straight to the point in 20 minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In the 9th episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Aleksandra Maravic, founder of Beyond the Box, a subscription based skills platform for enterprises based in Italy. Her vision is to eliminate the skills mismatch by 2030.
We talk about: Attracting customers & talent, the power of accelerators & mentors, feeling lonely as a founder, supporting different generations in the team, building products people love and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"…attract the people that you want to work with you even if they're just customers…"
"COVID and the pandemic forced us to change our mindset… It fastened the development of a EdTech startups, but we still have a long road to go."
"It always helps to be surrounded by people that are in this vertical or with mentors that can help you see things from a different point of view."
"…build a product that people love. Because if you have a great go to market, but customers don't like your product, it will be a long and hard ride. …you can always fix the go to market strategy with test, failures, experience. But, if you build a good product, it means that you're really obsessed by their problem, and you can make a difference."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview engaged early-stage EdTech founders from across Europe who are a part of the EdTech Garage network. We get straight to the point in 20 minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In the 8th episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Jack Daly, founder of 8BitCADE & STEM studio, based in the UK. 8bitcade makes fun, DYI, game consoles to teach STEM topics. They offer their services in the K12 segment in a B2C model.
We talk about: The future of STEM education, being a designer, agility & time to market, using other founders to get insights, how lack of experience can both be an asset and a challenge and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"The frustration led to a big ambition, to take on the educational sector and change it and create my own alternative curriculum."
"I'm not a fan of marketing, I prefer to make a good product that sells itself."
"Schools have always been quite delayed; they're about five years behind where we are as consumers…"
"Just network and talk to founders rather than investors. Get that insight and knowledge because they've gone through the same process."
"If anything, I almost wish every entrepreneur was a designer, because at the end of the day, the things we learn as a designer, the design process, is very similar to what an entrepreneur should be going through."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview engaged early-stage EdTech founders from across Europe who are a part of the EdTech Garage network. We get straight to the point in 20 minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this 7th episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Eduardo Nunes, CEO of Kendir Studios, a company based in Porto, Portugal. Kendir Studios is a development studio for educational role playing and adventure games. They offer their services in the K12 segment in a B2C model.
We talk about: Impact of gamification on learning, the value of stories in games & learning, the challenge from investors and educators looking at educational gaming, being the first in a new segment and motivating teams in EdTech.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"We focused on why gamification was failing. Due to the pandemic, we saw a lot of platforms, a lot of tools coming out. And we noticed that those weren't having the effects that we wanted in students, especially young students."
"To build a game which has a story and a universe, which starts in one point, and at the end of the school year ends in a completely different point. And which took the students through a journey of 10 months of learning. It's something that no one did, and no one does."
"The biggest challenge is always the perspective from the investors and even educators. … All of these people are still in 2.0. visualization. So basically, they're looking at the EdTech world, and the technologies that are being developed about three or four steps behind what we're doing. … They usually struggle when they start thinking, okay, but if this is a full game, how are kids going to learn? And so we need to really dig deep and demonstrate."
"…we all want to be a part of something greater. That's why I started the company. That's why I keep pushing on this project, even when I feel like quitting. Because in education we're working for, I know this sounds cliche, but we're working for a better future for us and for our children. … And that's going to help you stay with the project for quite a while even when things get rough."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. In this podcast series we interview engaged early-stage EdTech founders from across Europe who are a part of the EdTech Garage network. We get straight to the point in 20 minutes and publish new episodes roughly every 2nd week. You can find the transcript from each podcast on the site below.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this 6th episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Miska Noponen, CEO of Annie Advisor, a company that proactively finds students in need of support and helps them when it's most impactful, increasing student satisfaction and decreasing dropout rates. They offer this service for K12 and Higher Education schools & institutions and are based out of Helsinki, Finland.
We talk about: Identifying student well-being, the limitations of a data-driven approach, the benefits of a diverse team, team energy & workload challenges in startups, testing assumptions and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"…student well being has become more and more critical, also, throughout the pandemic. And the research related to that has highlighted that students are generally not doing great."
"And schools data in general is either lacking or it's kind of a mess. So it doesn't scale as a solution either."
"…a lot of markets and countries who didn't originally think so much about student well being and were more oriented on the pedagogics and the academic achievement have kind of come around during this specific time."
"…a big challenge that probably all startups work with is managing energy and workloads in your team. And it's not something we talk about in startups a lot. We try to keep this illusion of endless youthful energy in a startup team that they can do everything and anything. And there is no need for free time, or recuperation, or sleep or anything like that."
"…the most common mistake I see also when mentoring edtech startups is that people work from a lot of assumptions they have not validated."
"If I were to design a money wasting machine .. I would have a huge product team build a lot of stuff before testing it with actual users."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this 5th episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Alex Tep, founder of Bunsen, a company building a B2B marketplace for school supplies for K12 and Higher Education, based out of London, UK.
We talk about: Challenges of teachers in K12 in the UK, selling into education institutions, finding business angels, building marketplaces, recruiting developers and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"Some schools still order from paper catalogs and telephone orders and they've been doing that since the mid 20th century."
"In terms of angels, the best thing I can say is to build relationships with people - like in the EdTech Garage."
"…always end your conversations with those three questions. Who's the best person you know? Do you know them? Can you introduce them to me?"
"We're free for schools - we charge businesses that sell to schools that can afford to pay. This helps us avoid one of the biggest problems of selling to institutions and that is limited budget."
"So, these customers that you're serving, are people who have this extremely difficult problem at hand, and you should be really sympathetic to that, and really ask yourself; certainly don't make the job more difficult for them. And certainly always tie it back to this problem that they care about; is my product helping with children's learning."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this 4th episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Didem Cikse, co-founder & CEO of Hub21, a K12 company building a new way to help kids & teens aged 7-17 to master their technology skills guided by passionate tutors from top universities, based out of Turkey and London.
We talk about: Combining online and offline learning, finding a co-founder, the talent crisis in tech in Turkey, support needed to scale to new markets and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"There is a lack of interaction between the education system and the digital innovative world. To increase this interaction, we decided to start Hub 21 learning in 2019."
"Digital talent in Turkey, they prefer to go with European startups and companies that pays in USD or euros."
"It's super hard for early stage founders to discover new markets alone. So it's important to find your peer support, especially in the early stage. As a founder, you have limited time and budgets, and maybe you have only one chance to discover one market."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/edtechgarage/)
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this 3rd episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Santiago Cabanas Oyarzun, the founder of Loop Media, a company taking on the social media industry by providing unfiltered news for youth, based out of Spain.
We talk about: The importance of user testing, negative side effects of filter bubbles, getting a team that can execute and more.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"…we've definitely been talking to a lot of users - sending them the first versions, seeing exactly how to build it out. But, one thing is to have a conversation. And the other thing is to see how they're actually using it with metrics. "
"Maybe you're scrolling through Instagram, and you like burgers, it's okay that it just keeps giving you burgers and barbecue content. And you don't want to see vegan content. But, when it comes to politics, it's a bit different. We think."
"And definitely, the big idea is what motivates them - not building a blog aggregator, but taking on the social media industry and the media industry."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources.
• Join the network on edtechgarage.org
• Follow us on Linkedin
Host: Frank Albert Coates
In this second episode of EdTech Founders from EdTech Garage we interview Miguel Molina-Cosculluela, founder and CEO of Analytikus, a company based out of Italy and LATAM that personalizes education through analytics and AI.
We talk about: The pivot to becoming an EdTech company, Building trust with educational institutions , How to scale the business and Hiring.
Outtakes from the conversation:
"We are kind of a teenager feeling the growing pains of moving from seed to series A."
"And even though you may sell it as a product or a solution, there's a consulting approach. And that is not scalable."
"Always think about hiring A-people because if you start hiring B-people, soon enough, they're gonna hire C-people."
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. Learn more on edtechgarage.org.
Host: Frank Albert Coates
Welcome to this first edition of the EdTech Founders podcast from EdTech Garage with your host Frank Albert Coates. Today we have Jens Aarre Seip with us who is the CEO & co-founder of Curipod, a K12 startup based in Norway specialized in helping teachers make interactive lessons.
The EdTech Garage is a network for early-stage European EdTech startups where founders can scale up faster through the founder community, matchmaking and specialized resources. Learn more on edtechgarage.org.