Here's a quick true story about an EdTech entrepreneur to follow Friday's email on "things that don't scale"...

Last year, I went to an EdSurge event where I heard an EdTech founder named Megan speak.

Megan told an awesome story. When she started her company, she knew the problem she was solving. Her mom was a teacher doing tutoring on the side. She saw how hard it was for her mom to run the admin side of the business and do the actual tutoring. She wanted to help tutors save time managing their calendars, setting appointments, collecting payments, and tracking student progress.

So what did Megan do?

She started a service, which was basically she and her small team using text messages, emails, spreadsheets, etc, all behind the scenes, to help their first clients. Nothing was automated. Little to nothing was run by code. It was Megan helping people solve their problems.

Megan O'Connor is the founder of Clark, which was acquired by Noodle just a few short years after she started the business.

Do you think those early days of manually texting students to remind them of their appointments helped make Clark a better product? I do.

What did you do (or are you doing) to get initial traction for your company, before adding automation and delegation? Reply and let me know.

Thanks for reading,

Gerard Dawson