The following transcript has been edited for readability. Timestamps have been removed and minor transcription errors corrected. Speaker comments and context have been preserved.

Opening Remarks

Rich Portelance

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. This is Rich Portelance from the EdGate Powers podcast. Today, we've got an exciting episode because I'm going to be talking to an old friend of mine, Kevin Gray, from Product & Process, LLC. Kevin has a deep history in edtech–he's going to share some insight. And as you know, we've talked about this before, that we're going to be coming into a webinar on September 15th–Kevin's going to join us. Kevin has a lot of background in operations, so I'll let him introduce himself. 

Remember that below there's going to be a link in the description to register for that webinar. So, please click the link to register. You're going to hear more about Kevin on that webinar, but today, we're really going to dig into Kevin's perspective. Kevin, why don't you tell everyone about yourself?

Kevin Gray

Oh, thanks, Rich, for having me. It's nice to be able to do this with you. As you said, I'm with Product & Process, LLC, so I run a strategic advisory firm. I help in two very specific ways: companies that have product problems. So sometimes, it's companies coming from an outside market, and they want to understand the market here better. And sometimes companies want to expand their reach here in the market. So I've done things like help evaluate curriculum and help analyze where there might be opportunities in the market. And on the process side, it's a lot of, as you said, a lot of operations work. I've worked in and around a lot of small companies and mid-size companies–I understand the challenges they face. And so, sometimes it's helping build a better editorial workflow, sometimes it's helping a company transition from a founder-led sales opportunity to a true sales team, and various things in between.

Discussion

Rich Portelance

Excellent. And Kevin has executive presence experience. You know, he's gone at this from a very high level–so I think your perspective is going to be really helpful to the audience today. As we both know, Kevin, growth doesn't happen by accident–it requires repeatable systems. Especially today, where, you know, the world of standards has been turned upside down, and here in the States we're dealing with a one-to-50 problem, not a one-to-one problem. So, discipline, process, and organizational efficiencies that can be consistently delivered and provide value. So, that's kind of how we're going to enter into this. 

When organizations begin growing rapidly, where do you usually see processes begin to break down?

Kevin Gray

Yeah. I mean, I think when you think about the evolution of an organization, it's really not a single organization just expanding, right? It's a series of evolutionary steps. You're “this-sized” business, and you have “this-sized” need, and then you're “this” kind of business, and you're “this” kind of business. I joked in my last company that we were– that at a certain point, we were between the kitten and the full lion stage. We were sort of that awkward, horrific, funny cat that you would see on the internet. And where folks get stuck is at those interim stages where they have built processes that worked for where they were at the beginning stage, and haven't figured out how to grow to the next stage. So, for instance, if you're a company that's working in one state, right, you have a challenge for dealing with state standards in that one state. But if you're starting to expand to six, or seven, or eight, the small-scale solutions you made, of, you know, just like, once a quarter going and grabbing the standards from that state's website and updating them, that doesn't scale to 50 states. And so, you start needing to look for other solutions: either building things internally, or working with folks like EdGate to start building out those processes so that you can focus and grow in other areas. So it's really about being attuned to saying, “Is what got us here still working? And if not, you know, how do we adjust and take it to the next level?” 

Rich Portelance

I appreciate that. And I would imagine you're seeing the same thing on the regulation side, because each state is dealing with a different set of regulations. Some require third-party reviews; some require other types of, you know, kind of administrative hoops to jump through. I can't imagine managing that all manually.

Kevin Gray

Yep. Yep. And again, it– yeah, it is then figuring out who to turn to who can help with that, be it an advisor or a third-party organization, to really help build that out. But yes, what you need to do for one, or two, or even 10 states is a lot different from 50 states. And that doesn't even get into when you start expanding internationally.

Rich Portelance

Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, Kevin. And, you know, kind of dig into operational efficiency and, you know, give me some thoughts on why that's so important for long-term success. You know, if I'm thinking five or 10 years down the line as a small- to mid-size business.

Kevin Gray

Yeah, I mean, it's really about not wasting opportunities, right? It's about making sure you've got the right people in the right seats, you've built the right processes, you're evaluating those processes, and you're executing those processes. Because if you're not, you're spinning in different directions. Like, we've all worked in organizations where it seemed like the organization was trying to go three places at once, where it didn't really have clarity on where they were going. So they didn't– they couldn't have clarity on how they were getting there. And, I mean, it'd be like if, you know, if three of your wheels in your car were turned in different directions–it just doesn't work. You've really got to have some processes that allow you to move forward in a very clear and coherent way. 

Rich Portelance

That makes a lot of sense. So, you know, we're kind of on this idea of scale, and you've seen a lot within the education sector. How are they creating systems that can scale as they grow? Are you seeing some, like, certain things, or earmarks, or types of tools? What are you seeing out there? 

Kevin Gray

Well, I mean, I think it really– I'm going to have to take a step back and say it's really about keeping your ear to the market, and making sure you're understanding what the market actually needs. Not just that you have a good idea, but that there's a value in the market for it–that's first and foremost. And then it is about making sure you cover the non-negotiables, so making sure you've got standards, you've got accessibility, you're supporting the teachers in the right way, data privacy and really understanding data privacy, and then making sure that that's baked into your product strategy and your procurement strategy, and that you've done your homework to understand who can help you in those areas.

Rich Portelance

So, that's an interesting point you just said at the end: “Who can help you in those areas.” Are you– How often are you seeing these small- to mid-sized companies go it alone as opposed to finding partners within specific areas to enable them to grow?

Kevin Gray

I mean, part of my business is helping companies get over that hurdle. So I see companies who are trying to do all things for all people more often than they should. And a lot of the work that I do is just helping them understand who can be advocates, who can help, who can help with… again, with the standards, but– and who can help with data privacy, who can help with accessibility, and really figuring out where's your core competency, and how can you focus most of your energy on the core competency, and help other people who are really good at other things help you get to that that central point?

Rich Portelance

Okay. So, if you're going to scale within this space, and especially when you're going out to win a contract in a specific state–let's say you're going for a California contract–but then you want to find some repeatability. “What elements can I pull out and then go into Texas, and then go into Alabama?” That whole maturation process, you're seeing folks helping out. You're not– you know, the companies that are going alone, are they able to make that leap from one state to multiple states?

Kevin Gray

They are, but it comes with a cost, right? So, there's a client that I've worked with for years who– and actually, I would say this is really, really common. They're certainly not the only ones that have done this. They are the ones who recognized, “Hey, we could use some help here.” I see others still doing it who are saying, “Well, we'll do this state, and then once we get that state done, we'll have some time to do some planning, and then we'll go to the next state, and the next state.” Or, in the world that I came out of in the services world, “Well, we'll finish this project, and as soon as we get– then we'll have time to fix this one and this one,” and that just doesn't work. 

You really have to build that understanding, and you have to build time to develop that understanding in your processes. Sometimes that is something you can do on your own, right, if you have a role within your organization that can look above the day-to-day work and evaluate what do we need to do to make this scalable and repeatable. That's great if you've got that role. Sometimes you need outside partners, and that's where I get called in a lot is to say, “Okay, we keep doing this one thing over and over again, and we can't figure out how to break that cycle. You know, can you help us?” 

And sometimes an outside perspective is exactly what's needed to say, “Okay, well, because you've been doing this for so long, you may not recognize that there are other ways that you might attack the same problem.” Or, “Because you're so focused in this Texas bit that you might not recognize there are things, even if it's Texas to California, which is probably the biggest gulf there is.” Maybe there are even– maybe not from a content perspective, maybe not from a standards perspective, but maybe there are things you're doing from a workflow process that you could re-evaluate. Or maybe there are ways that you're handling this from a procurement process in terms of how you're approaching your procurement bit, where if you stop thinking about it as a one-off and start looking for larger systems, there are systems there, and, you know, give yourself the space and time, or find the help to be able to recognize those.

Rich Portelance

That makes a lot of sense. So, if you can go from one to three, or four, or five efficiently, it pays for itself in spades because now you've, you know, you tripled or quadrupled your chance of winning contracts, right?

Kevin Gray

That, and it protects your team, right? If you're going from “this” to “this” to “this”, and there's not necessarily, from an operations perspective, if there's not necessarily a larger vision, and you aren't helping the team see how their work is reused, you're going to burn through a lot of people. I've seen it, I've been guilty of it in the past, and I learned from that. It's really about finding what that larger vision and the overall connectivity is that's going to help you move forward in a way that's scalable, that not only protects your product in the market, but also protects your people, because, look, if you're churning through people on the back end, you may have the best product in the world, but that comes through it. It's just, it's a whiff, it's a hint, it comes through, the market knows, and you won't be rewarded for that. 

Rich Portelance

So, talk to me about the role of technology within that organizational effectiveness. Are you seeing some things that are trends? Or do you have an opinion about that?

Kevin Gray

Well, I mean, I would be foolish not to mention AI because I think every conversation is related to AI. And I would suspect that every company is probably playing with it in one way, shape, or form, right? Starting to experiment with it, play around, see how it can help you improve processes. With that said, it's not a panacea–it's a tool. 

And so, I've seen a lot of companies, even pre-AI, grab the latest thing. Maybe it's this project management software, or this accounting software, or this procurement software, or, you know, this license, without really truly understanding what the need was that drove the decision to implement that. And if you make those decisions without really truly understanding the need, evaluating the need, or articulating the need, you may be doing more harm than good. The technology may actually end up being a hindrance where you build a lot of processes around a specific piece of technology, instead of the technology really advancing the processes that you want to advance. 

Rich Portelance

Thinking through, Kevin, you know, I want to look at it from the procurement team perspective a little bit. Are they becoming more interested in what's behind, you know, the actual product that's getting delivered to them? Are they– you know, so If I'm a company, you know, you work with these companies that are delivering, answering RFPs (requests for proposals), and actually putting things in play. Are the procurement people asking more questions about, you know, the system itself, or..? 

Kevin Gray

They're asking a lot of questions about AI, right? That's certainly… that is not settled law by any means. I would say that's probably the biggest question that I'm seeing in RFPs. And what companies are trying to have to figure out on how to navigate what role does AI play in the product. What role does AI play in the process? And how do you negotiate that in the procurement process? 

If you're a company that, you know, that– for instance, if you're a company that uses AI for content creation, and/or is using AI to aggregate data, there's going to be some questions about how that technology is used, and how, you know, how it's incorporated, what it’s doing with data, it's that kind of thing. I think those are areas where we're seeing a lot of questions. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. That– And that's only appropriate and makes a lot of sense. Are they concerned about the security aspect of AI?

Kevin Gray

Yes. Yeah. I mean, those are conversations we've been hearing for two or three years, which is really understanding security, the intellectual property issues; those are all concerns. Student privacy, student data, all that.

Rich Portelance

Kevin, you know, I wanted to jump into CTE (career and technical education) a little bit, because it's coming into play as people– you know, operationally as people are building out, not only just answering an RFP, but now they've got this other element that, it seems to me, is taking a lot more time and gravity, you know, it's taking on weight within companies. Are you seeing the same thing? Are you seeing CTE playing a bigger role? 

Kevin Gray

Yeah, I mean, I think first of all, there's a… Obviously there's a big conversation about the role of higher ed, and careers, and career readiness. But we've also been seeing a lot of investment in CTE for– It's not new. I started tracking this about five years ago. What I think is– And obviously, CTE had been around before that. It was just– that was when I started sort of paying attention to– “There’s something going on, there's some noise here.” 

You know, one thing that's really interesting in the CTE market that's different from, say, the math or literacy market is that it's a lot more decentralized, and it is less beholden to several of the major players. So, if you look at literacy in any given state, yeah, you can make a reasonable guess as to who's going to be on the– if it's an adoption state, you can imagine who's on the adoption list, and such. If you walk into a classroom in any state, you can make a reasonable guess without naming any names. There's 10, 15, 20 companies you would expect to see from core to supplemental. 

Rich Portelance

Yeah.

Kevin Gray

CTE is a lot different because it has a lot– a lot– it has different kinds of players. So there are the traditional publishers, there are traditional edtechs, but also remember that the unions, for instance, have a stake in this and are creating material. Industry has a stake in it as well. If you walk into an automotive CTE program, it may– or an engineering program, you may see some very specific technology. You know, it might be Ford, for instance, that's providing the technology the students are working with, and then the curriculum that goes along with it. So it's a much broader and democratized market. 

It's a little more fragmented in terms of getting into the space, but there's a lot of movement in that space. And that's an area that I advise for clients who have products, or capabilities, or skill sets in that area. I'm advising them more and more to lean into it, because I think there's a lot of movement in that space.

Rich Portelance

Yeah. Well, I think the statistic is that there are seven CTE standards to every one academic standard. It's something along that range. So it creates more complicated systems and ecosystems than traditional academic standards. What challenges does that create for organizations in trying to manage, align, and connect all of that information?

Kevin Gray

Yeah, I mean, first of all, you have 16 different CTE pathways, right? And then each one of those CTE pathways has its own branches. And so, you know, what's interesting is… what I have found is that it's hard to be a CTE player that addresses all of those. There are a few–there are some really good companies out there that do that. If I were advising a company to get into the CTE space, I would say, pick a couple pathways and figure out which ones you can align with best. You can grow into those other ones, but, you know, trying to address everything for the CTE market, particularly if you're content-oriented, that's pretty challenging, because there's a really big difference between health sciences, agriculture, business, and biotech, right? Those things, like, there's a level of specificity around each of those, and that's a real challenge. So, don't try to be everything to everyone at once. Pick a few lanes that you think you can do really well–focus on those. 

And going back to earlier, I mean, here's a, you know, shameless plug for EdGate, right? You know, they have the standards. Don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to collect and manage the standards for all these areas; let them do that heavy lifting. You focus on the content, make sure the content is aligned and addressed to those. But pick some areas you can do really well, work with partners, and then get into that space.

Rich Portelance

We certainly appreciate the vote of confidence, and you're right, you know, EdGate does have the documented standards, you know, and augmented, and put those into a format that they can be read, and managed, and aligned, which is really critical. On the customer side or the company side, are you seeing that the systems that are in place are adequate to handle CTE and that..?

Kevin Gray

It depends where they're coming from. I'll say particularly because I work with a lot of international clients who are looking to get into the market, and might have, say, a, you know, what they call “ICT” (information and communication technology) overseas, which is sort of what we would consider IT (information technology). The single most common thing that I say to an international company coming into the U.S. seems to be, “You don't really have a system to deal with standards within your product, and you need to, because that's going to be one–” It won't be the only barrier, but that will be a massive barrier in adoption within the U.S. So, U.S.-based companies, because we all grew up with it, we tend to live and breathe it, and it's, for them, more of a product of how do I scale this? Overseas companies, I cannot say enough, don't come to the market unless you have a plan for dealing with the strategy with standards. Make that some of your early go-to-market strategy, because it cannot be understated how important that is in the U.S. market.

Rich Portelance

Well, that's a great segue, because I was going to ask you a little bit about that experience on the international side. So, if you put yourself in the seat of a– let's say you’re a COO (chief operating officer) in an international company, you are coming into the U.S., you know, what are the things that you're putting in place right away? Like, what other advice, because you've just given them some good advice, what other systems and things are you putting in place in order to be successful in the U.S. market? 

Kevin Gray

Yeah. I see a lot of companies that come into the U.S. market and say, “I want to go into Texas,” right? I would say there are a few folks who maybe could go into Texas right away, but that's not for most companies coming over. Or they'll say, “I just need some sales and a marketing team, and then I can take off.” It doesn't have to be me, although this is a service I offer to companies, but you need some level of market understanding. In my past roles, when I moved into the U.K. and internationally, we did our due diligence working with experts in those communities to help us understand the context. And I would say the same thing for the U.S. market: understand where your strengths are, understand who you're competing with. I have a rubric that I've developed that is, you know, 60-some aspects of the U.S. market, from curriculum to procurement challenges, different personas, how it affects a teacher, or a parent, or whatever. And I really try to help companies understand how they lay over that rubric, also how their competitors overlay in that rubric, and also the general category they're in. Just because something is, you know, really effective and useful in Europe, doesn't mean it's necessarily going to have a play here. I talked with a company who was really excited about tying to the UN (United Nations) Sustainable Development Goals, and they thought that would have a large footprint in the U.S. And while I think those are very notable goals, it just doesn't have much presence here. So, really understanding that if that's your play, that's going to– that– that… You may not be speaking to the market in a way the market needs to understand. So do, whether it's for me or someone else, and there are a lot of other really qualified people out here who do this work, do the due diligence to understand how your category functions here, how your product aligns or misaligns with existing products in the space, and understanding the strategy. 

The other thing is, this is a terrible analogy; it's probably overused, but don't eat the elephant all at once, right? Pick a small spot that is really well aligned with your product, find the right representatives in that geographic area, start building, you know, building connections and a network, and grow from there–that “land and expand" idea. And while you're doing that, collect efficacy data, run some RCTs (randomized controlled trials), you know, build pilots, and build data on what works, because that's going to help you grow exponentially. It's frustrating for overseas companies, because they see a, what, $300-plus-billion market and want a piece of that. But if you don't come in the right way, you're going to come in, you're going to make a big splash, and you're going to fold. We've seen it time and time again. So do your homework first before you get in.

Rich Portelance

So, I feel like you and I are doing a “mind meld”, because where I wanted to go next was exactly kind of what you just touched on, which is: is there a specific cadence or an order in which you would recommend that international companies come into the market from a state perspective? So, you say, you know, go for, you know, a state like Texas first, and then it makes it easy to get into these other tech states, or, you know, what would you recommend for somebody just kind of looking at the market? How do they approach it, and how do you find success?

Kevin Gray

Yeah, I think it depends on the company and what their offering is, but almost never do I recommend that they start with Texas, right? Because of the legal and procurement challenges there, right? If you are a giant publisher coming from overseas, and you have millions of dollars to spend, and you can afford to hire the right lobbyists, and the right sales team, and the right experts in Texas, then Texas is probably a really good opportunity for you. There's a lot to be made there. If you do not have a war chest that you can throw at this, I probably wouldn't start with Texas, or California, or Florida. I would be looking for states, and even smaller than states. You know, maybe large districts where your product is really in alignment with what that district or that state is trying to do. And again, this isn't just curricular–this is all products up and down in the edtech and education publishing space, but it really, really– it really is: what is your goal, and what kind of product are you bringing? And where can you find the best fit to get some early wins? And in my opinion, it is much better to start small, get some early wins, and grow from there. We know that one of the single biggest drivers for adoption for a product is another similar district recommending it. So, build those ground-level partnerships upwards. Unless you have a million dollars to spend, and then go to Texas, and there's some really good folks who can help you with that, and I'm happy to, you know, share some names.

Rich Portelance

Well, I would agree with your approach. I mean, we were approached by lobbyists to try to enter into and manage Texas bids. It's a bear and a behemoth to kind of do that. But, you know, if you can knock off, to do a sports analogy, make some layups, and you get three or four, you build some credibility, you build some– you– you– you perfect your systems, whether it's the technology or the human operational elements to that system, so that you can then go after bigger contracts. And it sounds like you and I are on the same page there.

Kevin Gray

Yeah. And I would also say the same is true for startups in the U.S., right? If you are– if you are… You know, if you're just starting up, land somewhere where you can get some early success, where you can get some evidence of the product working. You haven't asked me about evidence yet, but I know you're going to, so I'm preemptively going to talk about that. And there was a memo from the U.S. Department of Education today that was talking about screen time, and the screen time is all tied to evidence. Does it work? How do you know it works? Does it support the student? Are they learning? You know, what are the goals they're learning? So, finding ways, whether you're coming from outside the U.S. or you're growing within, to get some evidence that your product works, and to get some feedback from the market, and some alliances in the market to help, you know, to help you grow. For me that's– that's– There will be others who recommend different approaches. For me, I think if you want sustained growth, that is the same way to do it. 

Rich Portelance

Well, you know, again, we're right on the same page, because that was where I was going next is looking at, you know, it's one thing to prepare and be ready and to submit RFPs, but having the empirical evidence about your product, your content, and that it is effective, you know, so, how do you build that process, what does that look like for a small- to mid-size company, and what is the state expecting? 

Kevin Gray

Yeah. Yeah. I think– I mean, there are all the ESSER tiers, right? And there– that you should determine which ESSER tier you're trying to address. What that looks like is making sure you've got– you've done your homework to have… You know, perhaps you've done some RCTs, some user testing, but it's really about… what– you know, how can you test this in the market and show that it's working? It's not just how many people are using your product–it's does that usage translates into student outcomes? And those are the kinds of things that you're going to need to be measuring.

Rich Portelance

It's interesting, because, you know, you do all this work, and Jim McVety and I were, when we spoke, and his podcast is up on our YouTube channel as well, and so if you're watching this, please watch the Jim McVety interview. We talk about, you know, ultimately you're doing the work for the student, the outcome, and assisting the teacher to be able to deliver that content effectively and efficiently, and you can't lose sight of those end goals. And it's– I would imagine it's easy to lose sight as you go through and try to make all this operational efficiency just to win the contract.

Kevin Gray

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, there are easier ways to make a lot more money than being in edtech, right? That is not the reason that most of us do it. You know, you can live a comfortable life in edtech, but at the end, it always comes down to, I think for every single one of us, if you're sincere about being in the space, it comes down to: are you making a difference? Are you making a difference in a student's life, in a classroom, in a class's life, in a teacher's life? And so, it is really easy to lose sight of that, especially if you are… you know, second, or third, or fourth up the stream. You know, I came out of the content development world, so, you know, for a lot of my career, we never saw the products that were used. We, you know, occasionally we would get involved in sort of supporting an adoption or something like that, but we were so far upstream that sometimes it felt very divorced from that. But I think where we all come back to is that grounding of why are we doing this? We’re doing this because we want this to make an impact–we think this is going to make an impact in the lives of one or many students.

Rich Portelance

So, I– And I– That's exactly what, you know, the focus should be. And when you talk about impact, I'm curious from your perspective; we talked a little bit about AI before and how it's impacting the space–it's impacting the work that you do. Where do you see it having the greatest impact on process improvement and scalability?

Kevin Gray

Oh wow… That's a good question because there are so many different ways this could go, right? It could, you know, that there are really good use cases for using AI to help build out products. With that said, there are some really poorly built out AI products. So, I think being aware of what it does and doesn't do well. I use it a lot for data analysis. If I'm helping clients try to crunch numbers to see what happened on a project, or happened, you know, in a workflow, it can be incredibly useful. But again, there's also a lot of– there's also a lot of garbage. So, it's really, you know, making sure that you have a good understanding of how you're using the tool, because it can do– it can write your marketing materials, it could create your product for you, it could deal with all your own personal procurement issues, all that. But it's always– I go back to something I said before. It's always about what is the need that you're trying to solve, and then figuring out is this the best tool to help do it, and is it doing it in a way that is better than other tools that I might use?

Rich Portelance

That's a good point. You know, don't use it just because you know it's AI–use it because it actually improves the process, right?

Kevin Gray

Yeah.

Rich Portelance

So, if I look out three to five years, what do you think will separate education companies that are able to scale successfully from those that struggle?

Kevin Gray

Well, I'll point back to that U.S. Department of Education memo: if you can't prove that your product is solving a problem, being used effectively, and you know who should be using it, and you have evidence that it improves learning–if you can't do those things, you're probably dead in the water. There's just less and less, and less tolerance for that, and there are more rigorous ways you need to be able to show that. So I think if you're a company right now and you don't have that, probably a number one priority is thinking, “I know this works, how can I prove it? What do I need to do to be able to show that this does what I know it does?” 

Rich Portelance

Is there– is that a full-time role in a small company, or how do you handle that to get the empirical data so that you can prove it?

Kevin Gray

Yeah, I think it's– I think it's a role within the organization, and I think it's also looking at partnerships. There are really good organizations that do third-party evaluations that can help run, you know, different programs. You know, probably building partnerships with universities to do some testing and some studies of that data is also useful for certain-sized companies, but I think– I mean, it sort of depends on the size of the company. If you have one product and one offering, you may or may not need a full-time role for that; you may be able to bring that in fractionally. If you are a large provider with a lot of different products, that might be the scale where that needs to be not just a single role, but perhaps a team. 

Rich Portelance

And where does that function sit in an organization chart typically within the edtech environment? Where do you see it sitting?

Kevin Gray

Well, I think we're still figuring it out, because I don't think enough companies have that in the– you know, built in. I would put it in a… sort of– in the sort of chief academic officer-type role, right? That you're putting this under the folks who best understand the impact and best understand how this is going to be used in the classroom. So, it doesn't have to necessarily be in that role, but in that sort of column of curriculum and student engagement.

Rich Portelance

That makes a lot of sense to me. If you could give a piece of advice to an education company preparing for its next major procurement opportunity, what is it?

Kevin Gray

Make sure you get the fundamentals down. You can prove the product works, you can prove it's accessible, you can prove the student data is protected… you know, it's those things. Make sure you can– that it meets the state standards. It sounds really basic, but it's surprising how often those are overlooked. Have a strong case for those.

Rich Portelance

That's excellent advice. And hey, just reminding everyone: on September 15th, Kevin Gray is going to be on the webinar. The link is below. Please sign up for the webinar. It's going to be a great conversation with two other industry experts. We're calling it an executive forum because we really think that, you know, if you're leading an edtech company, you should be listening to these folks who have the experience, who have been there, and watching companies, both domestically and internationally, trying to come into new markets and create opportunities. So, you know, I'd like to kind of get to a wrapping point, but I'm curious about systems you're seeing today that actually make a difference during the time of procurement. Are you seeing some, like, boy, when they have this system in place, this really made a huge difference?

Kevin Gray

I mean, it really is about things like the standards, the accessibility, the, you know, and privacy. Those things are not just sort of checkboxes anymore. You need to have a solid strategy for those, and if you don't, you're going to get dinged.

Rich Portelance

Yeah.

Kevin Gray

And efficacy. I mean, again, I'm a broken record here, but those are the things like, can you prove it does what it does? Can you prove it reaches all learners? Can you prove that it's meeting the obligations of the state from a curricular standpoint? And can you prove that the data is protected? If you, like, those are so tantamount, and if you can't do those… Yeah, then you got some more work to do.

Rich Portelance

You're floating in the breeze. 

Kevin Gray

Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Portelance

It– you know, it's a big undertaking. You know, talk to me about the timing, because I don't know if there's misconceptions. I know when I first came into the market with my company 12, 14 years ago, you know, it might have been a four or five month process to land a contract. What is it today? 

Kevin Gray

I've always heard 12 to 18 months of building the relationships. I mean, you might get some contracts, and this is really whether you're selling to schools and districts, or you're selling to other companies within the space, but we are a space that's 12 to 18 months. We're really relationship-driven as well. That's how you get the opportunities in the first place is building those relationships. I talked about that earlier where recommendations from one school to another are really critical. And yeah, and then– and then the time it takes to be able to build that out, build the relationships to get the RFPs, and then have all the relationships you need to be able to answer the RFPs.

Rich Portelance

Yeah. So that's a long time. So from an operations perspective, you not only need to have the systems, but you need to have the capital to, you know, to build that run rate to get to the point where 12-18 months out, then, you know, we're finally seeing some traction. 

Kevin Gray

Yeah.

Rich Portelance

And you go from there. So that's super helpful. I'm curious, have you seen– And I just want to talk about EdGate for a second and the ExACT tool, because I know EdGate continues to try to not only improve the tool, but expand, you know, what it does. And, you know, it has the reporting, it has the standards access, you know, it can do the alignment components, you know we have the humans in the background that do the initial correlations, but then it can realign to different states. Have you kind of gone through that process? 

Kevin Gray

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, Rich, it's no secret. I've been an advocate for EdGate for a long time. I worked with one of their competitors for years, so I understand the needs and the challenges, and, yeah, I think that can be incredibly useful. Particularly when we're talking about… I’m going to point back to something we said earlier. If you're thinking about how you're building something out for one state and you want to be able to reuse it for another, that prep work of not just, “Hey, I'm building this for Texas and I don't know what I'm going to build next,” but building it in a way where you're capturing the data, the reasons for why you built it, and what curricular standards it hits allows you to, say, go into EdGate’s ExACT system and say, “Okay, what other states…” You know, you can use data to say, “I built this for whoever. What other states closely align with this? Those are maybe markets I should be taking a look at,” and I think that's really powerful.

Rich Portelance

Yeah, I look at this space, you know, I think that, you know, EdGate’s kind of hit in the middle of the, you know, the meat of the matter, but there's expansion on both sides. I think that the process of developing standards is completely unregulated and all over the place. And anybody who's looked for standards, they're seeing that, well, there might be a PDF here, something might be in Excel format, it might be a Word-formatted document, it's like, you don't know what you're going to get.

Kevin Gray

Yeah.

Rich Portelance

I think that there's going to be some roll up and some standardization of that side of it. And then with CTE on the other side, you know, we're starting to look at the extrapolation to the portrait of a graduate, and getting into skill-based, you know, components and other things. So, I just think that I see this continuum. I, you know, are you kind of seeing the same thing as you look at this space?

Kevin Gray

Yeah. I mean, I know that EdGate supports CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Global Reporting Standards and I think that's really important, because I think the CASE standards are starting to represent a standardized way that the standards are shared, and I know that one edtech is looking at partnerships outside the U.S. to find ways to do that. With that said, although all standards can be in CASE Standards, some states are better about it than others, so that's a challenge. And then, I know there's also a lot of discussion about how we capture skills, how we capture the portrait of the graduate, and even beyond that, how do we capture nonacademic data about students that is also relevant, right? What other things, beyond just how they met these specific standards, are there ways that we can systematize the other experiences students have had? So, for instance, studying abroad, and the nonacademic intangibles that you get, such as learning to function in an ambiguous environment, right? How can we capture those? And I think that's an open question that I think there's a lot of people doing work in that area.

Rich Portelance

I just have a couple more questions, Kevin. I know we're getting tighter on time, but there's a couple of important things that I want to get to because you've got the perspective. Where do you see the greatest opportunities over the next several years for companies entering or building out in this market?

Kevin Gray

Yeah, I mean, I would say it's two things. One, if you're looking internationally, there's a lot of movement towards the Middle East, there's a lot of movement to Asia, and there's a little less movement to Latin America. I think that's interesting. I also would say do not overlook Africa–there's a lot of really interesting stuff happening there. I'm working with a South African company right now that's doing some really interesting work. They are building really cool products and bringing them to the U.S. market, and there's a lot of pent-up demand that can be adapted. 

I'd also– We've touched on workplace skills, I'm going to say something that might sound a little counterintuitive: it definitely would be paying attention to CTE and workplace skills, and I would be paying a lot of attention to what's happening with higher education, career, and workforce, but I would say don't sleep on your liberal arts education, right? As we're wrestling with really thorny questions about how we're using AI, and what places AI have, and I'm saying this mostly because I have a liberal arts background myself, so I might be a bit biased, but the kind of thinking that you learn in those programs is the kind of thinking that's helping shape those really, really thorny questions. So I would say, yes, we should be focusing on CTE. I think there's a lot of work to be done in that area, but I wouldn't… I think the pendulum may swing pretty far in that direction, but it's going to swing back. And so, I wouldn't lose sight of those core critical thinking skills that you get in, and I'm not just talking about higher ed, even in K-12 in a liberal arts education.

Rich Portelance

No, thank you for that. That's– and– that's a really unique and powerful answer with some deep insight. So, I appreciate you sharing that. If there was one operational improvement that every education company could make tomorrow, what would it be?

Kevin Gray

Well, I'll go back to what I said before: evidence. Make sure you have your evidence in line. That's probably not as operational as it is foundational, but make sure that you're building in evidence, and then those other foundations, making sure that you've got a place for, you know, ensuring that you meet those other categories. I'm willing to bet there's one of those areas that every company in the market could improve upon in some way, shape, or form.

Rich Portelance

Yeah. And you've point– you've been pointed in kind of talking about evidence a number of times in this interview, and I appreciate it and it's important– It's worth repeating because it's so important if you're going to win RFPs without the evidence, it, you know, it's almost impossible today, right? Because there's plenty of competition out there. And what I see is a retraction of companies, right? Are you seeing the same thing? Like–

Kevin Gray

Yeah, I– 

Rich Portelance

–states are squeezing a little bit more now?

Kevin Gray

I mean, I'm going to flub the numbers here. I think somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 products is what an average district might use. If I don't have that number right, use it for illustrative purposes. There's an astounding number of products that school districts are using. They don't have the extra funding anymore–they’re going to be squeezed a bit. And so, there is  a lot of drive towards outcome-based contracts, and that really gets back to evidence. If you can't show that you're making a difference, it's going to be challenging. I think this evidence bit– I mean, again, just going back to the memo that the U.S. Department of Education put out today, it was about screen time, but it was tied to evidence right? If there's so much concern about whether students are on a screen for too long or not enough–well, not “not enough”–but are they on a screen for too long, it comes down to evidence. There are things that students can learn with screen time at the appropriate age, with the appropriate level, and the appropriate amount of time that– that… that's the right media. It works really well for that. But it is about making the case for, that, ultimately, you have the right tool that's solving the right problem. 

Rich Portelance

So, if I march ahead five years, and I put a pin on the calendar, do you– what do you think is the most differentiated item that education companies that thrive have compared to those that struggle? Is it the evidence, or is it something else? 

Kevin Gray

I think it's the evidence, because, look, good evidence that your product works transcends, you know, political arenas–it transcends trends, right? I think being able to show that it works, and then, you know, if it works, then you've got a large spread adoption in the market that's going to champion your product, and then that goes to the other things we're talking about, like the sharing of information. So, if you can prove it works and you've got users who are using it, I know I sound like a broken record, but I think it's so important, because it just– it underlines everything else, and it sort of gets past all the other, you know, stuff in the space. Build a really good product, show that it has value in the market, show that it is helping students and teachers, and you stand– I can't promise anything, but you stand a much better chance of succeeding having done that than just sort of hoping or using anecdotal evidence, and… yeah.

Closing Thoughts

Rich Portelance

Well, Kevin Gray, CEO and president of Product & Process, LLC, I appreciate all your time today. I'm looking forward to this webinar, which is going to be a fantastic kind of continuation of what we've talked about, and how your thoughts on, you know, process improvement, making sure that there's empirical evidence that backs what you do, having the right kind of processes throughout the business, and how that dovetales with what Jim brings to the table from a marketing standpoint, and Max from a CEO seat, I think it's going to be a great conversation. I'll let you have the last words, Kevin. Anything to wrap up with?

Kevin Gray

Do the fundamentals. Make sure you've got the fundamentals right, and then find the right partners to help you do it. You don't have to do it alone, but make sure you've got those in place and you stand a much better chance than not of being successful.

Rich Portelance

Well, thank you very much for joining me today, Kevin. 

Kevin Gray

It's been a pleasure. 

Rich Portelance

Yeah, my pleasure.