Spend enough time on eduFire and you too can end up like Amy Walker
Another possible spokesperson for our company. 
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Unlocking value along the chain
Been following the conversation generated by Umair’s “Is Etsy the next Google?” post pretty closely. There are some interesting parallels to what we’re developing and what we’re going to develop. This comment in particular really struck me.
Etsy, like Amazon before them, can atomize the value chain, allowing individuals to hop on at exactly the point at which they create the most marginal value.
(His whole comment is well worth reading.)
Think about the education industry. Think about what a poor job the industry does in recognizing marginal value. Such a poor job that many teachers are increasingly frustrated, just about all feel they are underpaid and the satisfaction of students and parents…don’t get me started.
Now imagine a radically different system. One where you as a teacher (don’t read too much into the connotation of that word…just think “teacher = someone with knowledge to impart”) can step in and out of the value chain wherever (and whenever) you’d like. Wanna work a 40 hour week and support yourself entirely from your teaching? Go for it. Wanna teach a few things on the side because you’re passionate about them? Do that if you’d like. Wanna teach people one at a time? Here’s your opportunity. Wanna teach a huge class of people. Yup, we got that too.
Or maybe you actually want to do a ton of work up front and then generate a passive income stream from your teaching. That too is available to you (I have a friend currently embarking on just such a mission…fun case study to watch).
So one killer part of the equation is the ability to jump in and out of the chain of your own freewill (vs. traditional teaching which jams people into a limited subset of possible options).
The other killer part of the equation is that the market determines what the value is. That’s the other part that the education industry misses out. Instead of the market determining your value some HUHA executive is determining it.
I saw this first-hand working for Kaplan.
Mediocre GMAT Teacher? You get paid $20/hour.
Excellent GMAT Teacher? You get paid $20/hour.
Teacher of the Year? Well, let’s just say you likely don’t stick around long.
It’s semi-insane to me that such a system has lasted long. It’s all but a certainty that it won’t last much longer.
Just as Etsy and others are unlocking incredible value along the chain for people producing goods, there’s an amazing opportunity to produce value along the chain for people sharing expertise. That’s exactly what we’re working on and it’s gonna be a lot of fun to crack the NUT.
As my co-founder likes to say…l8es!
The Online Education Market is Officially for Realz
So many of you probably saw this already but GlobalScholar, a company that could be considered a competitor to eduFire, announced today that they raised $27 million. Kudos to Peter and the rest of the gang over there as you have to be doing something right to raise that much $$$ so soon after launching. My first reaction to the news was excitement. I’ve shared my thoughts on competition before so I won’t reiterate here but let’s just say that if there ever were doubts about whether online ed is a viable market this announcement should go a long way towards putting those to bed. Some of smartest minds on the planet are getting behind online education plays and there are some very good reasons for doing that.
While I admire some of the stuff GlobalScholar has done from what I’ve seen so far their vision of the future of education and learning is quite a bit different from ours. And that’s the beautiful thing about competing…as long as your vision hasn’t been realized yet by someone else there’s absolutely no reason to fear any announcement that any one of your competitors could make.
The next couple of years are going to be incredibly fun as all of us carve out our place in this quaint little $2 trillion industry. May the best men and women win and at the end of day what’s incredibly kick ass is that regardless of who “wins” the true winners are going to be teachers and students who are going to be able to leverage technology to lift learning out of its current muck and mire and turn it into something fulfilling, fun and affordable by everyone on the planet. And when you view it through that lens there aren’t really any losers in this battle.
OK, back to work!
How next billion will shape net
This definitely fits my investing hypothesis…
With more than a billion internet users worldwide, doubling that number, which should happen within the next decade, will obviously have a profound effect on the network, technology, the computer software industry, access to knowledge, and our environment…
…The next billion may also use different technology to access the internet. The recent introduction of the XO laptop - previously known as the $100 laptop - demonstrates how the developing world has different requirements and how the technology industry will have to adapt to those changing environments…
…The message of the Internet Governance Forum was that the next billion is an enormously positive story. A tale of improving economic condition that will allow for much broader participation in the communication, culture, and commercial opportunities most Canadians now take for granted.
How next billion will shape net
I have goosebumps.
Why Language is Important
They are technically the competition but they do make a good point as to why the subtleties of language are so important…
What eating locally has to do with eduFire
Eating local is all the rage these days as books like The 100-Mile Diet become increasingly popular. But eating local is only necessary because over the last few centuries (and especially the last couple of decades) it has become possible to have a meal composed of foods that have come to us from all around the planet. And while in some ways this can be a very good thing people are starting to realize that shipping foods thousands of miles has a cost as well.
So what the hell does this have to do with eduFire?
Well, when it comes to our education most people have been on a 100 Mile Diet, or rather a 10 Mile Diet, for their entire lives? Think about it…how many of your teachers growing up lived more than 10 miles from you? Chances are, for most of us, that answer is either zero or at most a small handful.
Why is that important? Well think about the food example…imagine if you grew up eating only foods produced within 10 miles of where you live. And then all of a sudden…you now could eat any food produced anywhere on the planet! How would that change things? The answer is obvious…it’d be a radical shift in how you view your food.
I feel the same is true for education. The fact that most people have learned most of the their lives from people in close proximity to them means that there’s a good chance that they’ve developed a somewhat limited set of perspectives. And there are certainly hundreds/thousands/millions of people that they could have learned from who weren’t available to them for purely geographical reasons.
We’re aiming to change that.
Imagine how different your childhood would have been if in the morning you would have had a physics lessons from rock star geophysicist in Germany, then learned Mandarin from someone in Shanghai in the afternoon, then wrapped up the evening with a lesson in South American history from someone living in Buenos Aires. How frickin’ cool would that be?
The technology to do this has only recently emerged. And I don’t think any of us (myself included) fully realize just how much it’s going to change things. Just like the dude at the start of the century couldn’t fathom eating golden pineapple from Hawaii and goji berries from Tibet I don’t we can fully fathom just how much things are going to change in the upcoming years and decades.
What do eBay, Google and Facebook have in common?
As far as I’m concerned the three biggest success stories on the Web in the last decade have been eBay, Google and Facebook. (You might be able to make an argument for MySpace but I guess I’d take $15 billion in the bush over $600 million in the hand :)). I shared with Otis at lunch today my feeling that these three companies have one very important thing in common. And I feel it’s that one thing that caused them to move from the realm of very successful to mega-successful. In fact, in retrospect it’s the thing that these companies did that MySpace, Yahoo, and other contenders to the throne didn’t do.
Wanna take a guess?
First person with the an answer that’s reasonably close to what I think wins a soon-to-be-created eduFire t-shirt. Anyone with an answer better than mine gets one too.
The Best Place to Invest Your Money is…Online Learning?
Looking to make a little extra Lira? Increasing evidence points to online education as a way to do this. Maya tips me off to an article published on BloggingStocks.com over the weekend about Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix.
With the stock market down 11% from its October high, we are officially in correction territory. But not all stocks are created equal…Apollo stock is up 89% in the last year. Its most recent year’s revenues of $2.8 billion have grown at a 22% compound annual rate in the last five years and its net income was $434 million, growing at 22%.
Hmmm…cut to South Korea. Ever heard of a company called Megastudy? If not, check out this mind-blowing article from BusinessWeek. Megastudy is an education company in South Korea deriving a huge chunk of revenues from its online operations. Now check out its 2-year stock chart below:
In the words of Borat, “Wawaweewa!”
Or perhaps you’re looking for the Black Swan effect in your investing life and to find that hundred-bagger or thousand-bagger. Well, it might be wise to follow what the top VCs are doing. Two of the top five (or arguably top three) VCs have invested in online education companies (Sequoia into TutorVista and Benchmark into Grockit). Another company (Tutor.com) recently secured over $13 million in capital.
Although I’m sure I’m biased it seems like a pretty good spot to put your money right now whether you’re playing the market or looking to invest in the next Google or Facebook.
On Being Hated…
Just got this great little post from Seth Godin…
And CNET hates Google
And newspapers hate Craigslist
And music labels hate Napster
And used bookstores hate Amazon
I’m trying to decide who I’m looking forward to have hating us most…
Rosetta Stone?
Berlitz?
Online universities?
Primary and secondary schools?
The best way to learn a language…for now
We’re burning the midnight oil at eduFire these days getting ready for our upcoming launch. We brought in the first wave of testers over the last couple of weeks (thanks to all of you who helped!) and the feedback was great. You’ll be hearing more as we get closer to lifting the gates.
In the meantime, as a bit of a teaser we’ve launched a new language learning blog at blog.edufire.com. We’ve spent a ton of time scouring the net for the best resources you can use to learn the language of your choice. Stuff like One Semester Spanish Love Song, Learning French with Hugh Grant, How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour by Tim Ferriss and of course the infamous 10 Things to Say to Pick Up a Girl (which has been viewed 230k times on YouTube).
We’ll be adding 100s of additional articles, podcasts and videos in the coming weeks so if you have any suggestions for stuff we shouldn’t miss please post in the comments. We’re hoping to make the blog one of the best resources out there for learning languages which should nicely complement what we’ll be rolling out in a little bit. We’d love your feedback too so if there’s anything you think we can do to make it even more helpful to you please let us know.
Have a great weekend everyone!
P.S. If you’re on Facebook and learning Spanish you can install our “Learn Spanish @ eduFire” Facebook application by clicking the link below. It’ll update your Facebook profile with new posts to the blog and allow you to easily share great Spanish learning resources with your Facebook friends. We’ll be adding applications for our other languages shortly!
Learn Spanish @ eduFire Facebook Application
P.P.S. Totally forgot to mention that Kareem made it dead simple to subscribe to the blog for the language you’re learning. Just go to http://blog.edufire.com/subscribe-to-a-language/ and put in your email address or click on the RSS link to add it to your feedreader. Then sit back and let the learning begin!
