Jeremy Friedman is a co-founder and CEO of Schoology (Meet our Executive Team , n.d.). Schoology was founded by four college students who saw how education technology was not meeting its potential to improve the learning experience for students and instructors (It All Started in the Classroom, n.d.). Together they designed an LMS to meet the needs of the real education world (It All Started in the Classroom, n.d.). Schoology has raised over $57M of funding, with Seires D funding being lead by JMI Equity (Schoology, n.d.). Their system is offered to educators free of charge, with revenue generated from their Enterprise level product and premium add-ons (Madda, 2014). The original system was designed in 2009, while the four founder were students (Madda, 2014). The company launched in 2009 and now has more than 12 million users worldwide (Meet our Executive Team , n.d.)
Jeremy has seen five years of triple-digit growth as the leader of Schoology (Meet our Executive Team , n.d.). He was recently in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Education with only a BA in Economics from Washington University and has stayed with the company since graduation (Meet our Executive Team , n.d.). While intense growth often requires a new leader, this does not seem to be the case at Schoology. One strategy was to focus on creating an open platform that could integrate with what schools were already using and one that could be customized as needs arise, rather than creating solutions for unknown potential problems (Madda, 2014). Friedman is quoted as saying, “There’s a stigma that there’s a different set of objectives abroad, but at the end of the day, everyone’s trying to help students” (Madda, 2014). Beyond the original founders are four highly qualified individuals on the executive team, ranging from CTO, EVP-Marketing, VP Finance, VP team development (Meet our Executive Team , n.d.). It is likely through gathering such top talent that Friedman and Schoology were able to make the right moves to attain their growth thus far. Alan Veeck, from Meakem Becker was also an original investor, who stayed to advise even after finishing in his incubator (Moran, 2010). The venture firms who continued to invest in subsequent rounds all have experience in edtech and were likely helpful in opening doors (Schoology, n.d.).
It’s quite interesting to me how only one of the original four founders has a degree in computer science. I would have thought it opposite, with the need for many coders to be involved to have anything useful. To have moved from a protoype/idea in 2009 to the current size is a demonstration of what is possible with a great idea and great implementation. I believe that Friedman is an innovator, having been involved with the idea from conception and being able to bring it to market around the world in under a decade.
References
How Does an LMS Go Viral Worldwide? Schoology Shares Secrets to Growth – EdSurge News. Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-11-19-how-does-an-lms-go-viral-worldwide-schoology-shares-secrets-to-growth
It All Started in the Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.schoology.com/about Madda, M. J. (2014, November 19).
Meet Our Executive Team. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.schoology.com/team Moran, G. (2010, September 20).
Schoology. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/schoology
The Rise of the Virtual Classroom. Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217320
