Playing the Long Game: How to Build a Lasting EdTech Company

Elana Leoni:

Welcome everyone to our podcast, All Things Marketing and Education. I'm Elana Leoni, and I've devoted my entire career to helping education brands build their brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately grow their lead. Every week, my guests, who range from educators to EdTech entrepreneurs to experts in the field, will all share tips, strategies and insight in either social media, content marketing, and community building. I'm so excited to be your guide to help transform your marketing efforts into something that's truly authentic and consistently provides value for your audience. Enjoy.

Elana Leoni:

Hi, everyone. I'm Elana, and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. I'm so excited that you're here. I'm even more excited to let you know about the guest we have on today. His name is Burt Bower. He is the founder of TCI, the Teachers' Curriculum Institute. Burt's story is truly one of a kind, and I don't say that often. I know we have a lot of people in the industry that are passionate and full of impact, but when he told me his story, I paused. He has been at the helm for over 36 years, so 36 years, and he started it as a small bootstrapped EdTech startup. So from his humble beginnings as this bootstrap startup, he talks about becoming one of the leaders in core curriculum in K-13 education. And I want to overemphasize how incredibly rare having a founder and showing a company for over 20 years, let alone 36 years, our estimates are around it's about 5% of companies actually get to the point where Burt is at.

So I was just itching to ask him all of the good questions about how do you do it, how do you stay, how do you play this long tail game in education while being super scrappy? So he shares insights on how they actually had to transition from supplemental to core curriculum, and if you don't know what that means, you are in for a treat, and he has all sorts of advice on the pros and cons of both. He also talks about the importance of truly understanding educators' needs and why being in the classroom consistently is key to designing impactful products. What I love about this episode, he does not shy away from the challenges. He gives you open, honest advice throughout the podcast. So he talks about his journey or about competing with billion dollar publishers while he has to say super lean and teacher-focused. We discuss the current state of EdTech, including the rise of AI and how he thinks it can be used as a guide on a side to enhance human interaction in critical thinking in classrooms.

This episode is packed with so much valuable advice, whether you're an EdTech entrepreneur or you're an ed leader. If you're an EdTech entrepreneur, I think this is a really great case study to learn from somebody who's been at it from a long-tail perspective and how they really had to double down into product development, innovation and being as close as possible to what teachers truly want. For ed leaders, I know you'll find it incredibly fascinating and maybe even inspiring to hear how EdTech companies evolve over time in such a volatile industry like EdTech. Bert is full of passion and energy. He actually busted out an Aztec dance on the podcast to show the experience of one of his lessons, and although none of you will be able to see it in the podcast format, know that the clinking and clacking at one point is he's literally showing the dance. So I am so excited for you to jump in on this adventure with Bert. Enjoy.

Welcome so much to the show, Bert. Gosh, I am excited for selfishly the knowledge I'm going to get by talking to you, and I know that sometimes when I boast people up, they're like, "Stop. Stop," but you literally have decades and decades of experience in education, specifically at the helm of a company, and so I'm excited just to chat with you over coffee and learn alongside you. So welcome to the show.

Bert Bower:

Thank you. Super happy to be here, Elana.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. All right. Well, let's just get into it. So you have been at the helm of TCI for almost 36 years now, is that correct? Jeez. So talk to me a little bit about what drove you to initially found this company, and I want to get into the really good stuff around how EdTech has evolved as your mission and vision and your product within those 36 years, and then at the end, for those of you listening, we're going to get into the future, we're going to get into the current state with AI and all this stuff. But let's start at the beginning of Bert circa 36 years ago. What made you start it, and then let's get into that evolution.

Great. Thank you and welcome to all of our podcast listeners. Really happy to be sharing TCI's story today. That stands for Teachers', apostrophe after the S, as is we all kind of own this innovation. Teachers' Curriculum institute. So I was a social studies teacher for eight years in Mountain View, California. That's south of San Francisco by about 50 minutes. I taught all the social studies, high school courses, US history, world history, world cultures, civics, economics, et cetera, and during that time I also worked for the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education, really trying to figure out how to reach students in a diverse classroom, and I was doing all kinds of fun things in my class, but then I was asked, because I worked with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education, to write a series of textbooks. So I became a textbook author with D.C. Heath and Company, which was purchased by Prentice Hall, which was purchased later on by Savvas. And so those books are still out there. But I saw textbook publishing from the inside, not a pretty picture I might add.

al studies in when we started: 1989

we need the materials." So in: 1989

orresponding textbook." So in: 2000

We went in: 2005

Elana Leoni:

You're telling this beautiful story, and I know as an entrepreneur how hard it is to have that gumption to say, "This system is broken," or, "I have something uniquely valuable to give to it," and just do it and start and bootleg it. So you're telling me about these highlights and they're beautiful of the adoptions and where you went in the road, but I also want to hear about the ugly too, about the, oh my gosh, how do I bootstrap a company for how many years? I mean, you didn't take on funding until just recently, so that's 30-plus years of you just bootstrapping everything and then trying to go up against some of the biggest publishers in EdTech that have billion-dollar budgets. This is amazing, but what were some of the things right in the beginning? Maybe let's start about how did you know you could do this in the beginning, or maybe you didn't and you just had this belief and you gave yourself a runway.

Bert Bower:

Yeah, I think your EdTech people, I think that really what really it comes down to is just a couple very simple things. If I look at a high school social studies teacher who is a coach, he has a lecture and maybe a quiz bowl. That's it. How am I going to get him to teach the Great Depression in a better way? We have a game, it's called the Yahoo game. We've got all the parts to it. You play it with the kids, they bet, they bet, they make more money, they make more money, they go crazy. The bottom falls out, they lose everything. They have this incredible moment that feels like Black Friday to them where they've lost everything. And that's my whole thing. How do I get that coach to take on this? And you've got to create something that you take out to the schools and people will start using. That's the key.

And we took this out, we went into classrooms and cleaned. I would vacuum and then make them lunch, and then we'd show them this stuff and then they would take it and then they would go. It worked. This worked. I'm excited about teaching again. So that's one key to the whole thing is don't sit in your ivory tower creating something that you think will take on the world. You've got to either be a teacher yourself or you've got to go in the classroom and use it, and see people light up and be excited about it. And then the other part is just business and operations. I have a very good partner, Amy Larson, who was with me for years and years and years, and she was very, very strict and very, very cheap, and we did everything very, very inexpensively.

, which is good, but they had: 1200

Elana Leoni:

Well, it sounds like also too in the beginning you had this passion, you saw the opportunity, but then you validated it over time and made sure that... Because some of the times when I work with EdTech entrepreneurs, maybe they are a teacher and they're coming from the classroom, but sometimes we bring our own internal bias and say, "I am the teacher I'm building for," when there's a multitude and various teachers out there. So you went out in the classroom and validated and made sure there was this, what we call that product market fit, as much as possible at the moment. So making sure you're in the classroom.

Bert Bower:

Yes and no. I mean, we've certainly done that, but on the other hand, we've said, "You've got to change what you're doing." And we get a lot of customers who they don't want us because they want worksheets. They want a lecture. If you select to go with us, it means you want change, you want real interaction in the classroom. You're willing to put students in pairs and have them look at primary sources and walk around the classroom. You're willing to take them out and create a game of capture the flag to reinvent or reshow the American Revolution. You're going to be doing some wacky things.

If you're a TCI teacher, you're going to be like, "Oh, you're the weird teacher." Certainly we have people that just take it and use the textbooks in a very boring way, but what our message is we are trying to give teachers the most powerful curricular tool to stop what I call the silent violence in the classroom. Sit down, be quiet, don't interact. I'm exhausted. I only have so much time as a teacher in my life. I'm not necessarily that creative. We want to take those teachers and turn them into really fabulous teachers by giving them complete lesson plans, materials, EdTech that really creates classroom interaction.

Elana Leoni:

Mm-hmm. And it almost reminds me too, is I've done a good amount of work with my background coming from the George Lucas Educational Foundation in Edutopia of working with teachers that sometimes I just need a quick fix. Maybe I'm looking for exit tickets or I'm looking for some tactical things, but then we say, "Let me talk to you about project-based learning. Let me talk to you about meaningful tech integration. Let me talk to you about social and emotional learning." Yes, I said the SEL bad word apparently, but let's think about how we can transform teaching, but sometimes we need those carrots too.

But all right, so you're at this point where you've identified this concept, you're building this, and I love your talk about, "We did it very lean, we bootstrapped and I had a partner to make sure that we were only spending the minimal amount that we could so we could stay in the market as long as possible and figure out how do we truly have a product that can stick." You want to talk to me a little bit more about that journey of... Because what I see is that longevity, I mean because of the smart business, but also really making sure that your boots on the ground and listening to teachers.

Bert Bower:

a little Macintosh. That was: 1989

And then we had another transformation, which happened about three or four years ago, right around the time of the pandemic, at the end of the pandemic, where we asked our teachers, "What more do you want?" And they said, "We love your textbook. It's considerate. We love the activities. It's fantastic. We want videos," and that's a perfect example of what we're talking about. I said, "No. No, I'm not going to make you videos because that's worse than a worksheet. That's push play and go to sleep."

ith a group called [inaudible: 00:18:28

sformations since we began in: 1989

Bert Bower:

And kind of what happened was obviously at the pandemic, you had the Pear Decks, the Nearpods come in, give a great platform, wonderful platforms, but no curriculum, no core curriculum, no standards, but they were really needed. So these companies made hundreds of millions of dollars, did super, super well, but now that the pandemic is over, districts are not spending on that any longer and these programs don't have any content. Our programs are all the content plus the interactivity. So with these video activities, a student can do everything at home, watch the videos, answer questions, read the book online, and then come in and do a classroom activity, and it's really transforming what we've done.

Elana Leoni:

I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about the shift from, you've already alluded to this, but supplemental to core curricula, and maybe just talk a little bit about how this aligns a little bit with... You talked about the pandemic and purchasing and things like that, but I'm curious around you now in core curricula, what kind of freedom that offers you from a buyer perspective. And I think there's a lot of companies out there saying that they're selling supplemental curriculum or curricula, and is there a market for that anymore post-pandemic, I wonder.

Bert Bower:

There is a big supplemental market. There always will be, but I'll just be very honest with you. We were supplemental. We created these binders. So if you wanted to teach eighth grade US history, we had six binders that covered all of US history. So one school would buy the binders, it was $2,000, and then they would copy them and they'd pass them around and they'd fight over the slides and their teaching would be transformed, but all we got was $2,000. The way to make money in education is per pupil. So we created the textbook. Boom. Explosion. You've got to have a per pupil. Beyond that, supplemental, I'd never go into it again. Training, not so much. I'm just saying from my standpoint, core. Core is programs that can be adopted.

Bert Bower:

So we serve 3,721 governments. Those are the number of districts in the United States of America, and we pitch whether it's open territory, which means they can buy whenever they want, whenever, or a state adoption, which means the state adopts the materials. We have to pitch our programs to every single district. All these districts have money, they all have adoption committees, they all adopt core materials. They do not adopt supplementary materials. So it's weird, because if you look at... For example, a good example is we just got adopted in the state of Mississippi for our K-12 social studies. There's only two other companies, only two other companies that have K-12. Savvas and Houghton Mifflin. Houghton Mifflin are the other ones that have a full book bag for Mississippi. There's nobody else left.

Bert Bower:

I don't know. That's really hard if you're a supplemental, A, how are you going to make it, B, If you're listening to me and you say, "We want to go into core, how do you get into core?" I won't mention it, but there's a company trying to get into core right now and they're struggling. It's really a conundrum. I just don't know what to tell EdTech people given my trajectory and how EdTech has become a neat part of it. It's some of the building blocks of a whole pedagogical structure that we've created. But we're not EdTech, we're learning. We're core. We're adoptable materials. I don't know what you tell... I feel so dismayed about anybody going into EdTech and think they're going to make it supplemental, because I've been there. Elana, you may have some examples of EdTech companies that are still doing well in the marketplace that are supplemental.

Elana Leoni:

The reason why I ask you this is because there's a lot of different pathways in, and I think given your experience, you've already talked a little bit about supplemental, we've talked about core and there's definitely huge pros and cons with both of them, but then there's another pathway, and you've kind of alluded to it as well, is that maybe I just have the technology and it could be software, it could be hardware, and I don't have any curriculum aligned with it. And I see that path in EdTech too, and that's not necessarily a great path. So maybe let's talk about the little pathways we see EdTech entering in right now.

Bert Bower:

Well, for the LMSs, the field is crowded and it's now beginning to kind of, which we thought, kind of settle. So there's not a lot of room for someone to come in and do an LMS. As far as assessment goes, oh my God, there's all these multimillion-dollar companies that have these state contracts for assessment. You want to get into that? Good luck. That's the big what used to be Pearson, and is now Savvas. Those are those big multinational companies that are doing Star testing in California, et cetera. And so I mean, you're asking a great question. I've been from supplemental to core to EdTech, and I don't know, I am perplexed. I'm perplexed. To have an EdTech company now you need to be an SaaS company, you need to have a subscription base, you need to have a per pupil subscription base. That's period. That's the way your company will become valuable. That's a given. How you create that, if you're not going to be adopted as a core program...

Elana Leoni:

It's a hard one, and I know that I'm asking you that because we've had multiple pathways into EdTech, but after the pandemic, we certainly have seen a decrease in drying up of funding. We've seen a real need to get back to the essentials of what matters most and really center back on the curricula itself and then also center back on programs that can prove efficacy on things of learning outcomes, on things like student engagement. Are people actually using all this tech stack of product that the district has bloated over time within the pandemic? So we're seeing this paring down consistently, and I'm curious on how it's going to shape up even more in the post-ESSER funding next year, and then with the new administration too. So this is kind of the precipice of the question of asking you of just you've been around for decades, so it'd be nice-

Bert Bower:

And we've seen the ebbs and flows and we've seen the financial problems in education. We've sort of seen it all, and I'll give you a very simple answer to that. I was in Oakland two months ago and Oakland Unified adopted our high school social studies programs. So I went into the training with the teachers and with the coordinator for Oakland Social Studies, and I had a little conversation with him. I said, "Why did you select TCI?" And you might think, "Oh, your EdTech is so great," or, "Oh, your book is so great," or whatever. And he said, "I went in and I watched some of the classes and they were doing some really great things, and then what I did is I took in the pilot..." Because in the pilot, the teachers had to pilot three things.

So the students got three different programs and he just took aside students from the classrooms and said, "What do you think? What do you like?" And they all said, "We love TCI. We want to talk to each other. We want to learn from each other. We want to interact. We do not want to sit in front of a computer all day. We do not want to sit in front and reading a book. We want real academic, deep critical thinking. We want to learn about ourselves and each other and do all these really impactful interactions," and he said, "Boom, sold." This would be my main thing with EdTech is how do you put the human back into EdTech? How do you get EdTech to fuel human interaction?

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, there's so many different questions I want to ask you to follow up on that, and that's so key. That is so key, because you're not saying tech first and then let's figure out the rest. It's like not even learning first, let's put in the human behaviors of how they learn, how do they want to learn, how are they most likely to learn and get passionate about the subject, and then those layers fall into the core curricula and then the technology just within the toolbox, and that's a beautiful way to look at it.

Okay. I am in EdTech and I am trying to get into the pathway of purchasing. You said that when superintendents and buyers were thinking about adopting you at a bigger scale, they were able to look at you inside classrooms and pull out the students and say, "Hey, what do you think?" And that's a really great insight for those of you that are trying to get into schools and even just maybe upsell into bigger districts if you're in one school in a district. But how do you begin to navigate that purchasing pathway? I know every state is different. I know that there's general purchasing cycles, but the pandemic kind of upended some of that too. But talk to me a little bit about how you've navigated to align yourself with, gosh, I know the school board's going to be talking about this then, I know that they're going to be buying at this time. How did you position yourself? You obviously have brand recognition for decades too, so that helps.

Bert Bower:

Yeah, yeah. Well, the key is having teachers use the material, use the TCI approach, our method, and having them transform their teaching. We have so many teachers that said, "I was about ready to leave teaching and now with TCI I'm going to stay in because I'm having the best year of my life," and that's the most important thing. It turns out that in the United States of America, purchasing decisions are not the superintendent, are not the principal. There's stuff you have to do at the administrative level, yes. Teachers have so much power in the United States. They're the ones that sit on adoption committees. They're the ones that ask their department heads for some of the supplemental money. They're the ones that make the difference. And so that's great about having a company that is by teachers for teachers, we partner with these teachers and we support them.

I give a presentation, for example, and the teachers are like, "Oh my God, we love this. How do I get this?" And I say, "Write a grant, get on an adoption committee, whatever. If you are not adopted, if your grant is not accepted, I'll give you all the materials for free." And in fact, we did that. We gave all of our materials for free during the pandemic, and boom, that made a huge difference. So it's really about changing individual teacher behavior and making them so much more successful and so much more interactive and happy in the classroom. Once you've done that, you can figure out everything else.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, and I want to double down on, I feel like it was almost this... I want to throw more chips into the poker pot and talk a little bit more about what you said because I work with so many EdTech companies and we tend to get myopically focused on the superintendent, the admin, and we say, "Let's create," and we should be creating materials that help them with their jobs and attract them and give them value, but we cannot forget the educator.

And I loved how you said and talked about the power that educator has, and when you think about the ecosystem, maybe you can kind of talk a little bit, but when I talk to EdTech, it's not even like... I hate saying bottom up, top down, but it's working and empowering and showing the educator the power, and then also making sure we're keeping the people with purchasing power in the discussion. But I just loved how you talked about that because sometimes when we get into runways with... Maybe they have VC funding, they say, "The best way to funding and purchasing is just to focus on the admins." They don't say they don't care about the educator, but they just focus on the admin.

Bert Bower:

They might have an LMS and that's good, they're doing the right thing, but if they're trying to create a classroom tool... For someone to implement our material, it can take up to two years, and the last person, the last person we talked to is the person in the purchasing department and the superintendent. That's the last person we even talk to. We do two years of work with teachers and students in the classroom and convince them to find the funding, convince them to get on an adoption committee, convince them, and that is fantastic because then they're fighting for us, they're bought into us. And there's huge fights. There's huge fights when it comes to TCI and a traditional publisher because many times the district, the administration doesn't want the kids to get out of the seats.

Many times there's very traditional teachers who want to control the classroom and only lecture, and they're against the other teachers who want to create and bring in a tug of war, and the tug of war is the metaphor for the American Revolution. We have a sunken ship or we create a sunken ship in the middle of the classroom and students dive into it and get artifacts and analyze the artifacts. So they're really working like they are archeologists, but there's so many people that don't want to set up a sunken ship in the classroom. And so that's what we have to do. We have to convince people to change their teaching. We don't have to convince superintendents or purchasers or any of that. We do it and we're good at it, but it's all secondary. Number one is how do you get a fifth grade teacher to tape out the grid of the sunken ship and put in the artifacts and have kids dive in and get those artifacts? That's the secret.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, and those are the memorable learning experiences that teachers and students will take on for the rest... Those memories, because it's the impactful longevity of learning. So why don't we shift gears a little bit? We talked about the past. We talked about maybe some advice on what pathways to take in the current state of EdTech, but TCI has made some significant shifts. What are the shifts in the industry? We talked a little bit about funding that you're paying attention to now, and where do you see just in general, maybe not just for TCI, but what are those big opportunities? And we talked some challenges already facing EdTech right now.

Bert Bower:

Again, there has been a complete collapse with the EdTech market, and I would say it's a great moment for recalibrating and thinking about learning. How can EdTech, the future of EdTech... EdTech is with us. It's fantastic. I love it. It's such a great way, such a great way to deliver curriculum, because now for example, with our video activities, we thought, "Oh, this was going to be a great thing. The kids are going to go home, they're going to do them at home," blah, blah, blah. And that's not what happened at all. The teachers have globbed onto these video activities. They're now doing it full class. They're now putting students in pairs to do it. They're now giving it to a substitute to do it. They're now giving it to students who were not in class for two or three days.

And we're creating a tool that has a life on its own, and I think that the future of EdTech will be for creative people who understand the classroom to use EdTech to create true interaction. And TCI with these video activities, nobody has anything like it, but I'm not 100% happy with it. I think there's so much more that we can do. If you think about interactivity, if you think about visuals, if you think about video, if you think about all the things that we can do with a computer, which are amazing, and how do we use EdTech to create even more? And we're coming up with all these new ideas at TCI.

So it's not about using EdTech to create really cool, neat gizmos that kids are going to sit there isolated and watch. It's about how creative can you be to use EdTech to get students to interact with each other, with a teacher, with the information? Huge opportunity. Huge opportunity to reinvent EdTech, but it takes creativity and it takes risk-taking and it takes understanding the classrooms. But the number one thing I would say to EdTech entrepreneurs is how long have you taught? What is it you're creating? Go into the classroom yourself and use it. Go in, find out what's happening. So go back to the classroom, go back to the roots and get involved with true interaction.

Elana Leoni:

Mm-hmm. And I like the way you framed it as maybe this is an opportunity to pause and go back to the roots intentionally. So really recalibrate and figure out what matters most, not only to you, but to the teachers, the students and the buyers ultimately depending on their business model. But I love that. I think it's also very timely right now, and we really think about the uncertainty in the industry. When there's a lot of uncertainty, what never goes away? What never goes away is that we're always looking for those learning outcomes, but you're going deeper and saying, "How do I align it with just general human innate behavior? How do students truly want to learn? Let's not go against the grain here," right?

Bert Bower:

Exactly.

Elana Leoni:

All right. I would be remiss to not mention AI. I feel like we need to talk about it and its impact on the industry. When we think about the future of EdTech, and we've seen this onslaught of a lot of different EdTech companies coming in with AI solutions, but then the bigger players are also saying, "Hey, I've got AI components to it, we've got data privacy, we've got all sorts of things in the midst here," but just how do you see AI shaping the industry going forward? Maybe I'm talking to you 10 years from now on a podcast and we're like, "Well, how do we get into EdTech now? What are the challenges and opportunities now?"

Bert Bower:

I think it's part and parcel of what we've been talking about. We use AI all the time at TCI and it is fabulous and I use it to create curriculum. I have a question, I have a wondering. The other day I was creating curriculum on the Aztecs and I am going to have the kids watch a video of an Aztec dance, and then they're going to stand up and they're going to have to try to mimic the Aztec dance. So they're going to have a real bodily kinesthetic experience, but I don't know that much about dance. So for curriculum, I use it. I go in and I go, "How would you explain to a seventh grader how to use an Aztec dance?" And they come up with great they need patterns, they know rhythms, they need all this stuff that I wouldn't know, and then I put that in. So it's not ever going to develop a creative, innovative, fun curriculum, but it's going to be a guide on the side. We use it like that.

With our video activities. We have what I would actually consider low levels, mid-level stuff with a drop and drag, a true or false, all of that, but AI allows us to go deeper. So we are reluctant to have the students do a lot of writing because the teachers don't like to look at the writing, but we are already experimenting with AI that is fantastic, that is an AI editor. So the student can write something and then can give it to the editor, and editor can say not, "Here's what to say," it can say, "Look around your neighborhood. Do you see other buildings with Greek facades? What buildings are those?" And we feel that we can use an AI editor to really improve higher order thinking skills. But again, as a guide on the side, and at TCI we are very careful to put guardrails around all of our information. It doesn't get out there. So when students are using it, they're getting only the scholar-vetted material that we create. They're not getting incorrect material from all out.

So that's fabulous. We use it in our operations. So I think that, as I said, the internet, the textbook, slides, whatever, all along we have building blocks and AI is a very exciting building block to add and to use. But again, how do we use it in a way most people don't see it? Everybody's, "Oh, we are going to put humans out of business. Oh my God. It's terrible." How do we use it to enhance human interaction? And that's what we want to do. Nobody wants the computer to be taking over their lives or telling them what to do, but they certainly need a guide on the side, and I think that's the future of AI. It's just like when the internet came out. It's a more complete cool version of the internet and bring it on.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, I love it. And when you were saying kind of guide on the side and those were the words in my mouth is like, "How do we use it to compliment?" And then you're also taking it and saying, "This is an opportunity and not being afraid of it as well because you've been through those changes." When I was working at Edutopia, the George Lucas Educational Foundation, when the internet came up and you could literally Google everything, at some point that is a tool, but how do we make things really aligned with higher order thinking skills, with critical thinking? How do we make sure that we're still raising those types of learners? They're going to be more needed than ever when we think about all of this stuff going on in the internet, so how do we really keep the eye on what matters most? And I loved your note around recalibrating to that and making sure that whatever you're doing in EdTech does that.

So I know we could talk about this AI, specifically your evolution, picking your brain on the advice, all of the things, but let me close out with one question, which I think will end us on a really cool positive note as well, is I always like to ask my guests, because there's so much, you're putting your heart and soul into your company, and that can be draining, it can also be rewarding, but how do you continue to keep inspired? Are there things you do that maybe you jump away from EdTech and education? Are you reading or watching or do you do things that really just inspire you and keep your level up as you start continuing to figure out how do I navigate this path in EdTech as a company founder?

Bert Bower:

It gets back to the basics of what I talked about. My whole thing is yes, I'm a CEO, yes, I run the company and all that, but I'm really kind of like innovator number one, and I have so many innovations that I'm thinking about in the future, and what I do is I'm here in my office, but next to me, I have a room and I have a table in it and I have a bunch of Legos and I have a bunch of drawing pads, and I have grandkids of all different ages and I have their parents. So I am constantly working with my grandchildren, I'm constantly working with my sons, showing them these ideas and pushing the boundaries.

So it's really fun to, when you're in the middle of creating something... I think rather than getting all hung up on there's so many pitfalls like funding and standards and convincing other teachers and the diverse classroom and all of that, I literally sit and create curriculum every day still, and I just think, "How would I use it with my students? How would I use it with my grandkids?" And then I bring them in and sit them in front of the computer and we do stuff and you see what works and you see what is kind of boring, and it's really cool.

I was doing the Inca, Maya and Aztec in this medieval seventh grade program that I mentioned, and we did lots already. We had four chapters on them before, and we have one final chapter where we have to do Inca, Maya and Aztec and kind of compare them, and I did what our developers do, I came up with a story line. So there's a movie called Jumanji, Chris Rock is in it, and Kevin Hart, et cetera, and a group of four goes in and tries to figure out how to get out of the jungle in a video game, and so I applied that. And so now we have a game, it's called Ulama, which is the Aztec word for ballgame, and the kids have to go in and select between four academic areas, like archeology and anthropology and mathematics, and they have to decide who on their team is best at answering these different challenges.

And then we have all these challenges where they have to create a corbel arch, where they have to go over, they have to stand up and go over an Inca rope bridge. They have to do all of these super interactive things. And it's like so much fun. It's so much fun to come up with these ideas. And I have developers on my team who are so creative, and that's really where it all comes down is how can you create a piece of curriculum? How can you create a video activity that people just go, "Oh my God, I love the sunken ship. I do it every year."? That's golden to us. That's all that matters. We just want to hear, "I love this activity. I did it with my students. They're never going to forget."

Elana Leoni:

Mm-hmm, and when they never forget, they apply that and they learn more. And you're also creating just really important memories, and learning is fun and active and interactive and all the things. So Bert, thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, your passion. For those of you that heard some clunking at some point, know that he got up and literally did somewhat of an Aztec dance. So that's a first on our show. I just want to thank you for everything. For those of you that want to learn more about TCI, we will put that all in the show notes and we'll let you know how you can get in contact with Bert. Any last thoughts, Bert, for our audience as we sign off?

Bert Bower:

What a wonderful opportunity. I'm down creating curriculum, working with staff as a CEO, doing this all the time, and I really appreciate you coming and putting me on your show and giving me an opportunity to blow hard about all this stuff, because it's really a treat to me and it helps me think about what I'm doing and how I can help others. I want EdTech to be successful. I want EdTech entrepreneurs to be successful, and I am available to do whatever I can to help.

Elana Leoni:

Nice. Well, thank you all for listening and we will see you all next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care, and please, whatever you listen to, I always say, make sure when you are listening, think about one or two takeaways that you can apply immediately, and one of them that's really coming to mind is sometimes it's really okay, especially now, pause, recalibrate, and figure out what matters most as it relates to the students, the users, the industry. So thank you all. We'll see you next time.

Thanks again for listening to All Things Marketing and Education. If you like what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can find more episodes at leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast. You can also continue the conversation with us on Twitter, @leonigroup, or on LinkedIn. And don't forget, if you enjoy today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We're so appreciative of every single subscriber and review we get, and it helps us reach even more people that need help. So we'll see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.