Edupreneurs

Edupreneurs use their educational expertise to create products and services for the education market, including teachers, students, counselors, librarians, school districts, colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, education-related corporations, professional education associations, and parents. According to Coursemethod.com, some of the most profitable edupreneurism activities include creating online courses or training programs, becoming a personal trainer or coach for educators, creating a learning app for mobile devices, launching a niche learning or teaching blog, organizing a seminar circuit or face-to-face training workshops, founding and launching an online or in-person learning academy, hosting masterclasses or webinars, writing a book or magazine articles about education-related topics, and creating tutorial videos and how-to guides. Another option is to create a company that assesses course materials to ensure that they meet accessibility and quality assurance standards and, if necessary, designing new or redeveloping old courses and instructional materials

Once they come up with an idea, aspiring edupreneurs try to assess market demand by finding answers to the following questions by conducting online research, reading industry publications, and talking with education professionals, parents, and other potential customers.

• Who will purchase my product or service?
• What are the competitors, and how is my product or service different from them?
• How will I market and distribute my product or service?
• What will I charge?

If the product or service still seems promising after these and other questions are answered, the aspiring edupreneur gets to work. He or she prepares business and marketing plans (if they haven’t already done so), starts to develop the actual product or service (e.g., writes the book, creates an organizational plan for a charter school, talks with app developers about the development process), raises funds to pay for its production or development, and attempts to create “buzz” about it via traditional media channels and social media.

Once the product or service is launched, the edupreneur must continue to promote it and may improve it based on customer feedback or their own analysis of its weak points. They also are responsible for running their business, which includes hiring, training, and managing staff; handling financial issues (such as invoicing and creating and managing budgets); and tackling other responsibilities that are involved with being a business owner.