Comment by johnohara | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnohara | Hacker News Reader

Nice article Matt.

I taught high school CS for ten years and can tell you from personal experience that you are scratching at the surface of a very promising market. Most schools hand out the traditional lesson plan books at the beginning of the year during faculty meetings and in-services. They are a pita to fill out and maintain and frequently change year to year if you are worth your salt

However, I believe your sales would increase dramatically were you to target administrators and department chairs instead of individual teachers. $20 per instructor is well within their annual budget and they are very open to ideas that make day-to-day operations smoother.

Making it possible for parents to view the lesson plans would enable you to engage entire districts without much difficulty.

Well done.

Do you mean, specifically, the "lesson plan book" market?

Are there other similar things that teachers have to deal with, that he could expand into?

Any tips on the best way to approach admins or department chairs?

Start local. Work with a couple of elementary schools and a couple of high schools. Ask them to beta the product in exchange for feedback. Help them load it on their server and start with a small group.

And then make it work for them. You have a good product.

Most schools have a curriculum director (or someone in that capacity) in charge of coordinating classes, adding and dropping courses, etc. They usually interact with everyone from admins to teachers.

Principals are the decision makers but asst principals do a lot of the implementation.

You'll be able to cold call with no problem. And now's a good time of the year to lay the ground work for 2011-2012.

Here's the key: be functional and very useful. Schools are up to their eyeballs with the latest wiz-bang gadgets.

Your product may qualify under some kind of Federal Grant. Many schools have part/full time people whose job it is to manage grant applications. They'd be able to help you as well.

Thanks, great advice.

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