Growing pains / Educational sector startup in launch phasehttps://cursos.redsaberes.com/

EmilyJS·Jun 11, 2021

Hi powerful ladies! I´m a partner and Director of Development for a Chilean-based start-up that offers asynchronous, online PD for Ed. Teams with internationally recognized thought leaders. One of the partners is really married to the idea of selling the platform as a subscription so we´ve spent the past 8 months building up a content bank. We launched in April and since then have closed only 1 sale. At this point 90% of our team is dedicated to development and only 1 person is working on sales (part-time). These are the issues I´m looking for advice on: 1) I feel like the other 2 partners aren´t very strategic in their approach to the business or sales. It´s a lot of reaching out to contacts without much follow-up, nor is there much sales strategy behind it and as a data-driven professional, I find it really frustrating. I end up putting together metrics and presenting them but I´m starting to resent it because I´m also in charge of managing the team, developing the course, managing several different webpages, marketing strategy and implementation and I just don´t feel like my partners should be doing more in their areas. 2) The sales strategy hasn´t delivered desired results as of yet. We are leaning heavily on content marketing (webinars, blog, newsletters) with a push towards scheduling meetings with prospects. We generate about 100 leads per week, that my partner contacts via email. About 2% end up in a meeting. The data is telling me that we don´t have enough contact points with them, and that the channel is only email, so we´re going to start calling. Any best practices on getting a meeting with decision makers, specifically in education? And / or high quality lead generation? 3) Also just any experiences that you´ve learned from with respect to the launch and initial sales phase of a new business is highly welcomed. I´ve worked as a consultant and for well-known companies in the local industry, but this is my first time going at this as a start up. THANKS!!!!!!

angelicaliberato·Jun 12, 2021

Hello Emily, I'm building an edtech so I can understand the situation.I checked the website. Is the business model B2B, right?. Generate sells in an edtech can be hard if the business model is not well focused and defined. What your company is doing at this moment, I see it more like a business model validation, having in account that the company seems to be in early stage yet.The meetings are for what specifically? Generate sells, leads?. Those persons that are registering in the email, are they teachers, business owners?, why are they register? what they hope to see?. Because if they are not decision makers, maybe they are just registering to see and have access to the content. Are the startup doing follow-up to the subscribers?, more than different points of contact, I would consider more have different points in common with the customers.The 2% with who the startup is doing meetings, are they decisions makers? What they saying about the product? Are they dispose to pay for it?. If the focus of the company is to offer content, what kind of content will be? For? How? And why?. Ask the people if what the startup is doing is solving is a problem that they are having, and if they are dispose to pay for it. Have a differentation and a strong value proposition clearly defined, is something important to develop in this point.Glad to discuss it more about it if you wish

EmilyJS·Jun 23, 2021

Thanks Angelica!!! I would love to set up a call if you´re available. Most of the leads that end up in meetings are with decision makers and we´ve gotten a lot of positive feedback and interest, but haven´t closed any sales yet. We did a pretty extensive look into the painpoints for the different stakeholders and most of our hypotheses have been confirmed through meetings with potential clients. Those that haven´t, we´ve taken out of the communication. The biggest issues we´re having are: communicating our model (subscription) in an environment in which the subscription model is relatively new and taking a sale from an expression of interest to a signed contract. Thanks for taking the time to respond!!!

angelicaliberato·Jul 08, 2021

Hello EmilyI understand. Maybe probably the problem is not having a good funnel canvas well defined and not communicate clearly the purpose of the business, like you say it.What do you mean by, "subscription model is relatively new"? How is the business model different from the current ones?

EmilyJS·Jul 12, 2021

Hi! Yes - we´re definitely working on clearly communicating our value proposition in a way that is easily understandable and actionable from a client standpoint. What I mean by "subscription model is relatively new" is that in the Chilean market there are not a lot of businesses operating with a subscription model, so it adds a level of complexity when trying to explain how the business works to potential clients. :)

angelicaliberato·Aug 14, 2021

Are you from Chile? Because I know an chilean accelerator that I think that can help you.

EmilyJS·Aug 24, 2021

Yes!!! Let´s talk!!

angelicaliberato·Aug 26, 2021

Sure I have DM you.