My guest for today is Laura Warnier, the Chief Growth Officer for the online tutoring platform GoStudent, which is (as of this recording) the only EdTech unicorn in Europe. She oversees partnerships, marketing, international expansion and breaking down silos while boosting collaboration for the company.
In this ‘fast-paced’ conversation, Laura and I discuss
👨👩👧 How, just over 3 years ago, she became the second fulltime employee of a company that is currently valued at more than 3 Billion (with a B) Euros; and the surprising truth about parents’ willingness to use online tutoring leading up to a pandemic.
🎓 The challenges of growing and operating in the fast paced, creatively destructive and high-growth startup universe as a part of the usually slow, methodical and very traditional education space.
💹 How Laura and her team have approached solving the growth problem faced by every startup that needs to penetrate and earn market share—and how they have helped create legitimacy and professional consistency in a service that is traditionally served by a “shadow” market.
⚖ How GoStudent found the right balance between price, quality and availability and has successfully overcome the argument that “if it isn’t expensive, it can’t be high quality”, We also touch on how this works in terms of paying and rewarding tutors.
🛎 The decentralized nature and structure of the company and how this allows them to be extremely local in terms of service, sales pitch and pricing, in more than 25 countries.
📶 How the online tutoring company has positioned their service to eliminate any connection with stigma or shame, and actually reposition tutoring as something for solving problems, achieving more and becoming a regular part of education.
🕑 The importance of partnerships with schools, governments and businesses and how GoStudent is currently approaching this, with the acknowledgement that things are still very early days.
📈 Examples of where GoStudent has faced challenges and completely failed, but have used these as opportunities for continued growth and success.
👨💼 What hypergrowth actually is, and how Laura defines it and, ultimately manages and finds flow within it.
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