Before You Call Us
What we actually think about education technology. Not what sounds good in a pitch.
“Start with the problem, not a product.”
The first question we ask isn’t “What do you want to build?” it’s “What are you trying to accomplish?” Then we often follow with, “Will technology even help here?” Some of our most valuable engagements involve zero lines of code.
7-year foundation advisory partnership, renewed every year.
See how this played out →“Just because we can build it doesn’t mean that it should exist.”
Everyone can deploy a chatbot. We’ve turned down projects that don’t create value for education. The projects we take on put learning at the center, and use technology responsibly to support teacher judgment, respond to learners, and enhance thinking. We want technology to strengthen teaching rather than replace it.
AI coaching platform for 6M teachers - announced to 17,500 at ISTELive 23.
See how this played out →“The best technology partnership is the one you can walk away from.”
We don’t create dependency. Every project gets open standards, documented architecture, and no proprietary lock-in. Our longest partnerships last because clients stay by choice, not because leaving would be too painful.
Decade-long partnership on an open-source credential registry. Apache 2.0 from day one.
See how this played out →“If you don’t design it up front, you’ll pay for it later..”
We’ve navigated COPPA, FERPA, and SOC 2, but compliance is just one example. Teams that rush to build end up retrofitting what should have been designed from the start. We help you define what matters and design it into the system from the beginning, whether that’s how to support learning, what data to collect, or how accessible the experience needs to be.
Write-only permissions, no data retention, zero-revision district IT security reviews.
See how this played out →“What seems like a technology problem is often a human-systems problem.”
We’ve seen it a hundred times: an organization thinks they need a better platform, but the real issue is misaligned incentives, unclear ownership, or a process that no tool can fix. We start with the human systems because that’s where the leverage is. Once you see the real problem, the right technology becomes obvious.
“More engagement doesn’t mean more learning.”
Engagement tactics can keep people clicking, but they don’t build understanding. Learning requires productive struggle and it happens best with relationships, effort, and time. We design systems to keep teachers in the loop and learners doing the thinking.
Patterns we’ve seen repeat for a decade
We’re not naming names. We’re naming mistakes.
The project that started with a solution.
When the problem is never clearly articulated, you build exactly the wrong thing.The client who selected a vendor that locked them into a product.
When you buy before you know what you need, you end up having to deal with product limits instead of your goals.The platform that tried to retrofit COPPA.
Compliance bolted on after launch always costs more than designing it from the start.The AI deployment that ignored learning.
A chatbot pointed at the open internet is not an education tool.The organization that confused a demo for a product.
What works for 50 users breaks with 10,000 users when there’s no solid architecture behind it.The foundation that funded a product build without understanding the technology.
When decisions aren’t grounded in the tech, you get tools that look promising but can’t deliver on their goals.Still nodding along? Let’s talk.
No pitch. No proposal. We’ll ask hard questions and give you honest answers. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll tell you that too.