B2Education Unpacked - The Education Growth Podcast

Stella James

B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast The gap between pitch decks and playgrounds. Between what gets built, what gets sold, and what happens when it meets children. Hosted by Stella James — former EdTech founder, commercial leader, and someone who's sat on both sides of the table — each episode unpacks why the gap between selling into education and succeeding in it is wider than most people admit. Real conversations with the founders building products, the leaders buying them, the implementers dealing with the fallout, and the people asking whether any of it actually works. If you sell into schools, lead an EdTech business, or work in education procurement — this is the show that doesn't pretend it's simple.

  1. 3d ago ·  Bonus

    Laura McInerney — What teachers say they want versus what they will actually use.

    Laura McInerney · Co-founder, Teacher Tapp · Fri 16 Oct · Cut 12 · Series One, Episode 7 · 11:01 · CHECK The person who signs and the person who uses it want different things. Laura McInerney has the data on how differently. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Seven of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     Why pitching features to school leaders loses deals you should be winning ●     The buyer and the user wanting opposite things ●     The Lamborghini question, and the trap in asking people what they want ●     Why cheaper and more streamlined reads as risk rather than value ●     Using data to stop yourself making an expensive mistake Laura McInerney is Co-founder of Teacher Tapp. The full episode is here. More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    Laura McInerney — What teachers say they want versus what they will actually use.

  2. 5d ago ·  Bonus

    Kristy Evers — What happens when the evaluation comes back negative.

    Evidence cuts both ways. Kristy Evers on what happens commercially when an evaluation does not go your way. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Six of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     Whether you can ever prove the product caused the outcome ●     What an evaluator does when a school is using a tool that is not working ●     The commercial consequence of selling something that was not right for the school ●     Short-term customers against long-term ones, and what trust is worth on renewal Kristy Evers is Director of Partnerships at ImpactEd Evaluation. The full episode is here. More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    Kristy Evers — What happens when the evaluation comes back negative.

  3. Oct 10 ·  Bonus

    Matt Tiplin — Does it actually do what the deck says?

    Matt Tiplin has sold education technology, inspected schools for Ofsted, and now buys. Three vantage points on the same question. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Three of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     What the technology delivers against what it claims ●     What the seller-to-inspector-to-buyer route teaches you about a pitch ●     What an educational outcome actually is, and how loosely the word gets used ●     Why the honest answer to "does it work" is usually a question about the setting Matt Tiplin is at Keys Inclusion Pathways. The full episode is here. More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    Matt Tiplin — Does it actually do what the deck says?

  4. Oct 7 ·  Bonus

    Ed Tranham — An eighty percent drop — funding does not predict survival.

    Early-stage education fundraising has collapsed. Ed Tranham's point is about which companies came through it. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Nine of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     What happened to early-stage education fundraising ●     Why a bootstrapped budget-planning tool outlasted the companies promising to revolutionise education ●     What raising money does and does not tell you about a business ●     Going direct to teachers, in the UK, the US and Australia Ed Tranham is Founder of The Assignment Report. The full episode is here. More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    Ed Tranham — An eighty percent drop — funding does not predict survival.

  5. Oct 5 ·  Bonus

    Jo Stone — You can buy the best technology in the world. If teachers don't use it, it's worthless.

    A trust buyer sets out, in operational detail, what a supplier is signing up to after the contract is signed. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Ten of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     Training time, and who is expected to pay for it ●     Continuous CPD rather than a launch day ●     The dedicated resource a trust expects on the supplier side ●     Monthly calls, and what they are actually for ●     Why the technology stays a tool and the human connection does the work Jo Stone is at Discovery Schools Trust. The full episode is here. More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    Jo Stone — You can buy the best technology in the world. If teachers don't use it, it's worthless.

  6. Sep 23 ·  Bonus

    Any platform that says it will save you days a week — it's not true.

    The most common return-on-investment claim in the market, taken apart by someone who sells into it. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Four of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     Why the hours-and-days-a-week claim does not survive contact with a school ●     What the freed time is actually for, which is the question suppliers skip ●     The leadership conversation that has to happen before any of it is worth anything Al Kingsley MBE is CEO of NetSupport. The full episode is here.  More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    Any platform that says it will save you days a week — it's not true.

  7. Sep 23 ·  Bonus

    You haven't told me what you're going to mitigate.

    Al Kingsley sells classroom management and safeguarding software, which is nobody's idea of a glamorous category. That is the point. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Four of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     Why deliberately unglamorous infrastructure products hold their ground ●     Why he never opens a conversation with the product ●     What he sees when he looks at a supplier's website, and what is missing from almost all of them ●     The question a buyer is actually asking, which is what problem goes away Al Kingsley MBE is CEO of NetSupport. The full episode is here.  More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    You haven't told me what you're going to mitigate.

  8. Sep 19 ·  Bonus

    You cannot honestly say your tool caused that.

    A school improves. Your product was in the building. Paddy McGrath explains why that is not the same as your product having caused anything. A bonus episode, cut from Series One, Episode Five of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast. In this one: ●     Why a supplier cannot claim its product caused an outcome ●     The confounding variables sitting between the tool and the result ●     What to say to a buyer instead, and why it lands better than the causal claim ●     Product focus against feature sprawl, and how far a company drifts from why it started Paddy McGrath is Director of Education at Everway. The full episode is here. ← replace the link target with the episode URL More on the commercial side of the education sector at seventhsibling.co.uk.

    You cannot honestly say your tool caused that.
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B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast The gap between pitch decks and playgrounds. Between what gets built, what gets sold, and what happens when it meets children. Hosted by Stella James — former EdTech founder, commercial leader, and someone who's sat on both sides of the table — each episode unpacks why the gap between selling into education and succeeding in it is wider than most people admit. Real conversations with the founders building products, the leaders buying them, the implementers dealing with the fallout, and the people asking whether any of it actually works. If you sell into schools, lead an EdTech business, or work in education procurement — this is the show that doesn't pretend it's simple.

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