Thought Leaders in Online Gaming: Jumpstart Games CEO David Lord (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What are the trends in your space that are worth discussing?

David Lord: The primary trend that is happening is this integrated classroom. We also have the Google Classroom. There’s this unified front where everything is tied together so that the solutions are delivered to classrooms in an easier way. They also apply to more students because they’re not as rigid. Integrated classrooms, adaptive learning, lower cost of entry are real big trends right now.

We’ve got a lot of assessment software out there. The trends that we’re seeing is a move to open resources. People are trying to develop the ecosystems and lower barriers to entry to get into those schools. It’s still a highly-fragmented market. I think there’s just a tremendous opportunity in the ed tech space of trying to get adaptive learning product that can drive outcomes and efficacy.

Sramana Mitra: Where do you see open problems? If you were starting a company today, what would you do?

David Lord: I’d be taking advantage of the infrastructure being built by other companies and the open standards that are evolving in classrooms. The open standards are allowing tight integration and moving past the security issues which are sizable. If I were starting a company today, I’d be focused on leveraging those capabilities that are being built out and building solutions in whatever category in the ed tech space that leverages that opportunity to get to a large number of classrooms and students.

Sramana Mitra: Can you comment on monetization of ed tech? It has been an issue in that there have been a lot of different initiatives, companies, and ventures. Monetization has been a problem. How do you view that?

David Lord: Yes, it’s a problem. It will continue to be a problem. You’re living in timeframes and government spend models. If you’re selling directly, it’s a tough market. We’re trying to solve it by doing it differently. We’re trying to get our products into schools as an add value hoping that we’ll continue our growth in the consumer marketplace and that parents will see the value of having those products at home as well. We want to have tightly-integrated products between the consumer and school versions and try to monetize more on the consumer than the schools knowing that the schools have very tight budgetary constrains.

Sramana Mitra: What about the industry strategy?

David Lord: The industry strategy is you either go big or go small. I just came back from Bett, which is a big ed tech show in London. Every monetization option out there was presented. It’s an evolution. It continues to be an evolving trend of various models and I don’t see any one as the standard right now.

Sramana Mitra: Great. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Online Gaming: Jumpstart Games CEO David Lord
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