EdTech News Roundup

Part-time piecemeal work is replacing internships in some cases. Udacity just launched a program to help graduates from its programs find short term work from potential employers. Read More

This op ed in EdSurge encourages teachers to collect student impact data on edtech products to stop the problem of gimmicks in education products. Read More

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Charles LaCalleEdTech
How to Build Your Sales Pipeline

As a founder, one of the most important things you must worry about is your sales pipeline. These are the people who will buy your products and inevitably build your brand. It’s up to you to build a solid pipeline that continues to flow freely for many years to come. Here’s a guide to doing just that. 

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Charles LaCalleSales
Health Tech News Roundup

Where does healthcare go from here? The POLITICO podcast looks at what an Obamacare repeal could look like.

Telehealth is shifting toward provider driven models as consumers do not respond to payer-driven models. Health systems are making a bigger attempt to reach customers when they are actually looking for information, i.e. when they are searching online. This makes intuitive sense. Payers are the last place consumers want to go when finding information. 

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Charles LaCallehealth
New Data on the "Series A Crunch"

What is the Series A Crunch?

The Series A Crunch  is a well documented phenomenon in venture capital.  With the rise of micro VC firms and the growing popularity of sites like Angel List and FundersClub, it became relatively easy for startups to raise seed capital. However, there was no concomitant increase in funding options at the Series A stage. Lean financing documents at the seed stage offered a shorter runway, and the consolidation of large venture funds forced investors to look to larger investments at the Series A stage. The Series A Crunch  is a well documented phenomenon in venture capital.  With the rise of micro VC firms and the growing popularity of sites like Angel List and FundersClub, it became relatively easy for startups to raise seed capital. However, there was no concomitant increase in funding options at the Series A stage. Lean financing documents at the seed stage offered a shorter runway, and the consolidation of large venture funds forced investors to look to larger investments at the Series A stage. 

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Charles LaCalle
MPOWER Financing Raises $6M to Help International Students Study in the US

Higher education is expensive in the U.S., especially for international students who don't have access to federal student loans. It's a problem that inspired Manu Smadja and Mike Davis, to found Washington, D.C.-based MPOWER Financing. The two-year-old startup connects students to loans from investors without the need for a co-signer, attracting Indian venture capital firm Zephyr Peacock to lead a $6 million funding round. Previous investors also joined the round, including area-firms 1776 Ventures and VilCap Investments.

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EdTech News Roundup

EdSurge looks at how educators are using data in classrooms. They highlight the startups EdPuzzle and PearDeck. More

Teachers appear to be lining up behind Hillary Clinton as Trump calls to slash the department of education. More

All screen time for children is not created equal. Quality programming is very different from children zoning out watching less quality shows. More

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Charles LaCalle
Health Tech News Roundup

A partner at Google Ventures discusses what it would take for them to invest in a wearable startup. MedCity

Regenerative medicine has the potential to make a huge impact on healthcare by keeping costs down, improving quality of life, and changing the role of the doctor. MedCity

Digitally managed clinical trials are poised to accelerate results and reduce costs. Workflow and regulatory questions remain. Read More

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Education Reform for Startups

This panel dives into the new regulations for schools that impact education technology startups. How is regulation impacting the ability of edtech companies to operate within schools? Is regulation hampering innovation in public schools compared to the innovation in private/charter schools? Panelists will give an overview of the big trends in education reform and provide a overview of opportunities and hurdles for founders in edtech.

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Charles LaCalle
Storytelling for Startups

Great storytelling can be your most powerful tool for disseminating your vision. Stories are scientifically proven to stimulate different regions of the brain and change how we act in life. When we hear about a character that is moving, the motor cortex in our brain responds. When we hear a word like citrus, the olfactory portion of our brain lights up. Stories offer founders and marketers the opportunity to literally synchronize a customer’s brain with the message behind the story they are telling (scientists call this neurocoupling), and this obviously has profound implications for selling a product.

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Charles LaCalle
How to Find and Work with The Best Startup Advisors

Last week we hosted a panel about the importance of Advisory Boards for startups. Unlike a board of directors, an advisory board is much more informal and commonly utilized on an ad hoc basis by founders when they need help. Advisors make critical introductions, provide essential tactical advice regarding business strategy, fill in knowledge gaps, and signal to the market that your startup is worth engaging with.

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Edtech News Roundup

Success Academy reveals some of their secret methods. 

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff donates $8.5 to San Francisco public schools. 

There are thousands of edtech for school administrators to choose from. Here are some ways  that school administrators can go about choosing the right ones.

Here are a list of the 50 best apps that teachers are using, segmented by category. 

Stanford has created an artificial intelligence summer camp for girls to expand the way computer science, AI, and robotics is perceived. 

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Charles LaCalle
What we're reading in digital health news

Digital health companies raised nearly $224 million in August, with $70 million going to Accolade Health. 

Pregnancy apps are the second largest digital health app category. Here's how one startup is changing the way we think of prenatal care. 

Here are the factors driving digital health investment in China. There has already been over $1.1 billion invested in the space in the first half of 2016.

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