Paul Mishkin – Founder, CEO
Venture Name: IXL Learning, Quia Corporation
IXL Learning is a company that provides subscription-based learning services to users for various subjects from junior kindergarten to high-level math. It delivers it’s product mainly through their site. It can be used personally for self-practice or in a classroom facilitated by a teacher. Before it started the math practice program for which the company became famous for, it started out as a website that served as a platform for teachers and learners to create and customize learning materials, then IXL introduced interactive online textbooks for language learning. His company started out with very simple and limited products. Then over the years, more and more items were added to their site. And as the times changed, so did their target teachable subjects though their company’s goal “to develop educational technologies that people can’t live without” never changed.
Paul Mishkin studied at Harvard it is where he received his Bachelor’s in Computer Sciences and completed his graduate studies in Educational Software design. His team at his company consists of many highly qualified personnel with educational backgrounds quite similar to his own and all of them have a lot of experience in the field and work they do.
Personal Reflection:
I initially chose this education venture to research on because I am a user on this learning site as well and I’ve always thought this was a great tool to use in my classrooms. After researching on this company and its founder Paul Mishkin, I not only think it’s a great tool to use but that the people in the background are great inspirations as well. He and his team may have started the company to create a platform for educators to share interactive educational materials, but over the years, with the changes in society and trends, they kept up with the changes and kept developing their products. This is an inspiration to me, as I have had thoughts of creating interactive language learning materials as well, and Paul’s story is similar to how my idea grew from just making education resources for educators. His company’s story has taught me that we can always start small, we just need to start somewhere then go from there. If we don’t start, we won’t get anywhere.
