How Do You Sell An Innovative Tech Product To Non-Techies?

The Challenge

We were tasked to create a business plan for an ed tech startup with a transformative tech product for the education sector. Even better, this product was developed after years of testing and had solid proof of its positive impact on minimizing the achievement gap amongst participating students. The startup's biggest challenge was converting its powerful product into a digestible, consumer product, while retaining the sophistication and respect of a powerful education tool. 

 

Key Discoveries

Investor Value: During our market research, we discovered a solid value proposition backed by market data, that pointed to the inevitable application of technology to solve the startup's main thesis. Our client had created an early, first-to-market product, and our mission was to highlight this significance to investors through the product's impressive performance after years of testing, the purchasing power of its target market, and the target market's high potential for product adoption (proven by current, and growing consumer trends) despite a lack of exposure to similar products.

Consumer Value: With a target market of Millennials (ages 16-36) located in 92% of US states, we relied on market trends and consumer behavior to solidify our case for this specific tech product's entry into the education sector. We utilized this data to also guide the best approach when branding and building the business model, so that the startup's target market would adopt the product with ease, and confidence in its performance. We wanted to find the sweet spot between powerful education tool and hip new tech product. Our final deliverable let the technology speak for itself when it came to its power as an education tool, and we used the startup's business model as a platform to get creative with its pricing (subscription-based, comparable to Netflix and Birchbox), marketing, and sales strategies in a fashion that spoke to the Millennial consumer. 

 

Deliverables

  • Business Launch Package
  • Pricing Strategy
     

All identifying information about the startups presented in the case studies above have been removed to honor non-disclosure agreements between Ascent Strategy and its clients.