Summary:

• Our guest today is Brian Tobal. Brian used to be a teacher at the Harlem Children's Zone, then worked as a researcher, and then he spent the last few years building lots of educational software, and curriculum for schools, universities and businesses. Now, Brian has started SchoolHouse with his co-founder, to have parents get together and create microschools or learning pods in their own homes or in flexible spaces.
• In this episode, Brian and I discuss what it takes for an educational program to find product-market fit. This means that the students are happy and engaged, they are succesfull in their learning goals, and the experience is amazing for everyone involved, so that they all keep coming back for more.

Listen and take note of how to find this magical fit in any learning experience you create.

In our discussion, we cover:

• 06:38 - "The founding principle is that the teacher's attention is the most valuable piece in the educational brew or ecosystem. If you really want to have a high quality educational experience, you'd increase the amount of teacher attention that each child is receiving."
• 09:21 - "The bet was that we could take outstanding teachers and give them high autonomy, and it would produce better educational outcomes. And that turns out to be true."
• 13:45 - "You're abstracting away whatever's unnecessary, you're matching the right teacher (with the right philosophy and experience) with the family and what they're looking for. And then a group is formed around that. So it's a bit like product-teacher-market fit. Market being the family. You're basically making sure that the right teacher and the right family are interacting ."
• 23:04 - "The most interesting thing to me is that when we removed all the prescriptive schedules and cells and bells, (I can't remember who said that, but I thought it was a good phrase), they move faster. That's interesting. Let's push on that. Let's use that."
• 27:37 - "Maybe the way of thinking about it: If you have an assembly line, attention doesn't matter. If you're a sculptor, attention is everything. And our teachers aren't on an assembly line anymore. They're working with the marble in front of them."

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• Can a School Have Product-Market Fit? by Brian Tobal
• What is the Orton-Gillingham Approach?
• Bloom's 2 sigma problem
• Live Q&A with SchoolHouse CEO Brian Tobal

Where to learn more about Brian:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/briantobal
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-tobal-a4946911
• Website - https://www.getschoolhouse.com/
• Email - [email protected]

Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 

• Website - www.enrollhand.com
• Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
• Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/