Picture this: you’ve spent years developing, researching, and refining a program to help a distinct population of students. But then you find out that, because you don’t have expertise with the business side of things, your proven approach might not reach the very learners it was designed for.
You consider the traditional option of getting your intellectual property into the hands of a publisher– but come to realize that their focus is on the bottom line and their distant corporate approach is not aligned to your mission.
Making money from educational projects has always been a bit of a sticking point.
Teaching and learning experts see needs around them and they create solutions. They aren't motivated by money. They are motivated to help others build knowledge, skills, and abilities. They develop teaching and learning models, materials, products, events, curricula, services...anything needed to create the desired impact.
But as these projects continue to intersect with the reality that K-12 is a marketplace, business needs and educational vision begin to fight for attention and resources.
Since funding to get a marketplace-ready solution off the ground is finite, confusion about "What's next"? begins to stifle momentum.
The experts and their small team can't serve everyone who wants their program, but they don't know what "business plan" they fit into.
It is at this crucial point where corporate values fail to serve the needs of learning organizations and the experts who lead them.
What is missing in this gray area?
To start.... trust. It is unacceptable to the educational expert to hand the keys of their project over to a profiteer.
While they aren't against profit, they insist that their mission be kept intact. An agreeable level of control in how their project gets marketed and sold is a non-negotiable.
So what's the middle ground?
A values-based, transparent process for commercialization. A realistic path to revenue. A strategy to capture market demand. A defined product lifecycle. A vision of success that is custom and appropriate.
What is needed is expertise for educational commercialization.
We built Cogrounded because we believe educational experts deserve to see their program make a broader impact and for them to carry forth that success into their next great idea. Education will be better because of them, and the work we do to ensure that has become our mission.
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