Advisory and Expert Network
For investors and education companies.
I’ve been on all three sides of this market.
I advise investors and education companies on the K-12 buying decision: who actually decides, what a school will renew, and why a product that demos in June is dead by March.
Four levels, four different sets of incentives. Most of what goes wrong happens in the gaps between them.
- Mid-level leaders
- Deans, coaches, grade-level leads. The daily user, and whether the tool gets opened in the spring.
- School leaders
- The discretionary buyer, and the person whose departure churns the account.
- Regional leaders
- Standardization pressure, and where school autonomy gets overruled.
- Charter CMO executives
- The enterprise contract, the procurement bar, the renewal decision.
I built one. DeansList. We grew it from 0 to 275 schools and it’s in 1,000+ now, though I’m not with the company any more.
Then I bought them. At KIPP I ran the $10M+ edtech vendor portfolio. That included the national ACT/SAT evaluation across 48 high schools. We ran structured interviews and elimination rounds on efficacy and pricing, and took 15 vendors down to 8.
And I still do the work they’re supposed to serve. Fifteen years of it. I can tell you what a school will do with one.
Diligence and expert-network calls, market reads, go-to-market and pricing for education companies, and advisory retainers. Sessions run 30 to 60 minutes and I take them on short notice.
Book an advisory or diligence call (opens in a new tab) Or write me: chris@habetlerconsulting.com