2 | How Educators Can Find The Capital To Fulfill Their Dreams w/ John Gamba

Join us for a conversation with John Gamba Jr., Entrepreneur in Residence and Director of Innovative Programs at University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. 
 
In his role, John sits at the nexus of education, business, and technology to help generate, test, adapt, and disseminate best practices and tools for educators.

Also, as director of the Gamba Family Foundation, John helps to oversee a foundation that fund groups thoughtfully managed by growth-mindset leaders who put children first.

We’ll talk to John about:

• Where educators can find access to capital to fund their big education idea
• How access to education across borders for everyone can create a giant impact
• How he sees technology shaping the future of education
• How he can inspire the entrepreneur in you!

Join us for an opportunity to discuss your vision for education with John, and have him help you connect the dots (like he has done for so many other educators!)

Transcript

Jackie Guzda: 0:10

Good morning, my friends and welcome to lifelong educators. I can see that we have a number of people in our audience today. I see Dana and Katie and Pablo and Robert and Luke. Welcome everyone. This is the place to come. If you are interested in education and what big tech can do for the future of education, and especially for you, the entrepreneur who might be an educator might be just interested in education or a student, whatever. This is the place for you to come and build a community with us and start to share ideas about how you can bring your dreams to life. And today we have an outstanding guest is John Gamble. He is amazing, and he is the. He is the entrepreneur in residence and director of innovative programs at Penn for their graduate school of education and alongside him, we have the amazing Josh Turner Coff, who is the senior advisor to click to an online learning platform. So today we're going to be trying to answer your questions and help you, as we said, achieve your dreams. We are going to find out where you can find access to to build those We're going to find out, where all around the world, you can access these things and bring your dreams to life. And we're going to see how technology. Framing the future of education. I mean, myself, I'm an educator. I'm blown away by what these two gentlemen have, let me know so and how we can bring about the entrepreneur in you. Our audience. Just want you to know that you can put your comments, your questions in the chat, and you can talk directly to date both Josh and, to John. So having said that I am Jackie gusta. I'll be your host for lifelong educators. I'm a associate professor of the media arts at Western Connecticut state university. So. Good morning, gentlemen, how are you doing? Good morning.

Joshua Chernikoff: 2:36

Thank you. Good. Very good. Happy to be here.

Jackie Guzda: 2:40

Great. And John, you are our star. Thank

John Gamba: 2:44

you. It's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me to be on the show.

Jackie Guzda: 2:48

Look it's it's our honor. So what I'd like to ask you at first, this is, you know, it's a pretty big time. Entrepreneur in residence and director of innovative programs at Penn. So what exactly does that mean?

John Gamba: 3:01

Yeah, that's a, that's, that's a mouthful. Isn't it? Well, first I'll, I'll start by saying that, that, our Dean, Dr. Pam Grossman came out of Stanford and our executive director, Dr. Michael Golden, he himself is an entrepreneur. So in developing a catalyst at Penn GSE, Center within the graduate school of education that advances innovation in worldwide education. It was very important for them to bring in, people and professionals who actually have served in entrepreneurial capacity. So. Being an ed tech entrepreneur, myself that checked the first box and being somebody who has been involved in advancing innovation in worldwide education that checked the second box. We're a team of, change-makers who are truly committed to advancing innovation in worldwide education. And we do that. Through a continuum of programming that includes webinars and bootcamps and meetups and our signature program. the Milkin Penn GSE business plan competition, which is now in its 12th year has I've, come into my role. I've sort of pioneered two programs that have been added to catalyst at Penn GSE, our entrepreneur in residence program, where we meet and mentor and coach, ed tech, entrepreneurs, and entrepreneur breakthroughs. convening of, of entrepreneurs who talk about the Seminole issues and in education. So it's great to be here. It's great to be in this role. I am a graduate of the university of Pennsylvania, so it was, you know, part of a life dream to come back to the university and, and be, you know, serve in an administrative capacity.

Jackie Guzda: 4:35

Awesome. But you know, it always wasn't that way you were a corporate guy at first.

John Gamba: 4:40

Were you not? Yeah, I, I was, I don't know if I, I hesitate to say I was a corporate guy. I was a high tech consultant at KPMG in their strategy consulting. In, Washington DC. But before that, I have to say, I, I worked as a, investigator in the, Washington DC public defender's office. I actually had an aspiration early on in my career to be a litigating pro bono attorney. My hero at Penn when I was, when I graduated was a gentleman by the name of Morris. Who is the head of the Southern law poverty center. And I thought I was going to go on to a career of, of kind of, you know, litigating in courtrooms and, and, and, providing pro bono, defendant services to, to, those who are in need. Through that experience. I quickly learned that I do want to be a litigating pro bono attorney, and I turned my sights to, you know, corporate America and started my career at KPMG and had a great sort of training ground in business fundamentals and marketing and strategy and product development right around the time that the internet and the worldwide web, this is aging me quite a bit was become becoming the internet and, and worldwide web in the middle.

Jackie Guzda: 5:54

Wow. And you've veered all. So let me go to Josh for just a moment. Josh, how did you become the senior advisor to click to what's your, what was your path?

John Gamba: 6:06

so

Joshua Chernikoff: 6:06

one of the things that John didn't mention that doesn't show up on a LinkedIn profile, or the first six minutes of this show is that he's also a really caring. Good person who still does a lot of pro bono work, mentoring people. And after I was able to sell my second company in the education space, John. Gave me a lot of wind in my sails to, go out there and start working with some companies and, hopefully, kind of following in his footsteps to, to mentor and collaborate with other CEOs in the ad tech space. And one of those was clicked too. And the CEO at who I've gotten very close with, who, for many decades, You know, kind of doing the same thing in person enrichment, he was doing camps and we both wanted to be in the ed tech space and, we figured out how to work together.

Jackie Guzda: 6:59

Wow. So, so John, you ran into Josh. How did you originally get into the area of education?

John Gamba: 7:08

Yeah, it's a great question. And thanks for the compliment, Josh, but you know, the, the feelings are mutual. Being able to, you know, work with you and coach you and mentor you and even learn from you in a lot of ways is, is, is bilateral. It's certainly not unilateral, you know, w I, I think of coaching and mentoring and advising, isn't it. Doing something to impart my knowledge, but to kind of set up collisions for whoever you're working with to kind of run into the answers themselves, to, to life's questions, especially as we're all on this ed tech entrepreneurial journey. So, right back at ya. after the, my career, start it at KPMG in corporate America, I had what I would consider my first life dream professional life dream come true in the late nineties, where I had an opportunity to work with my father. My father was a, corporate executive in a fortune 500 company. He was on his way to retiring early with an early retirement package. And he was like, huh, I'm overseeing and managing. A company with 80,000 employees, I'd love to get into this brave new world of internet, investing in internet technology development, and really figure out what it was all about. And I said, it just so happens in my early career. Dad, I want to learn from you who's been successful. And he became my mentor and my backer in a company called incubator, which was, a, ed tech. incubator of new, businesses, right at the time when ed tech was just starting to become a thing, you know, in 19 98, 19 99. So first life dream comes true. I'm working, with my dad, he, he backs me with a little bit of financial capital and we start looking at business plans in the ed tech space. Incidentally, this is the year literally when Blackboard, Michael Chasen from Blackboard was, was founded. and the, and the plot thickens with, with, with that founding story, because later, nine years later, the company that we founded through that incubator exited the Blackboard in a, in a, life-changing office.

Jackie Guzda: 9:07

Hmm. But your dad, wasn't always the CEO of a fortune 500

John Gamba: 9:11

company. No, no, that's a great question. As well, as I'd like to say that education is, is in our bones. As a family. My dad was a school board chair, chairperson in the seventies, of a small school district outside of Philadelphia. My mom has been a statistics professor at a community college. My sister was a Montessori teacher. So together as a family, the impact of education has always been. And has always been in our bones. my parents were both the first to graduate from high school, let alone college in their families. and you know, as they were, brought up there, their parents, my grandparents always said, education, education, education. That's really the. They took that to heart. And really the rest is history in both my mom and my dad's career, but especially in my dad's career, as he, retired from that, fortune 500 company and then went on to start investing in internet companies, including, backing our ed tech incubator. Hmm.

Jackie Guzda: 10:08

So your parents were heavily into education. What made them expand and reach out to others to give that gift of

John Gamba: 10:15

education? Yeah. as, as we started thinking and, and, and continued on our, on our careers, me and ed tech and my sister as a Montessori teacher and having some financial means, the family put up the resources to start the Gamba family foundation in 2008, and really decided to do anything and everything to try to close the achievement gap for inner city schools. So we started to invest, especially in Washington, DC, where my sister Beth is our executive director. Investing in things like the capital teaching resident residency and teach for America and, and city bridge foundation, really to advance what we consider the deeper learning movement, developing critical thinking skills, creative problem, solving skills in, in, in our future generation for college and career ready. So we're not a large foundation. We're not huge, but we, we like to celebrate that. We just gave away our million dollar to some of the causes that I just named. And we're very proud of, of what we've done. And I'm personally very proud of my sister as our executive director, being the champion of these causes and being judicious in who we invest in and what the impact is, for those investors.

Jackie Guzda: 11:31

Josh that's I'm looking at your face. And it seems that what John just said has inspired something in you. You want to.

Joshua Chernikoff: 11:41

I talked to John Gamba probably every other day on the phone or text every other day on the phone. And I had no idea that they had just given away their million dollar. So congratulations to the Gamba family foundation. And that's just the type of guy John is, in terms of, you know, just going about his business in the education space. And I think, you know, it's nice to work with people in the education space. you know, understand kind of that double bottom line doing good and, and also making some good money for your family. That's always helpful. but, you know, I just think that entrepreneurs out there can learn a lot from each other, from people like John, you know, and, and I've been lucky enough to surround myself with other great entrepreneurs. And if you take the time to listen like right now and learn, you know, it, it helps. Days months, years later.

Jackie Guzda: 12:31

Yeah. And by the way, Josh, Luke Hohmann is

Joshua Chernikoff: 12:34

saying hello to So was a good dude, looks Scott, Luke, and John. And I probably have a conversation at one point. It Luke's got a great company in first route. and he's championing an idea on participatory budgeting through PTA. So I think we'll have a good conversation about that.

Jackie Guzda: 12:51

Yeah. And actually, you know, in time we can talk more about that project. And if there are any others of you out there in the audience right now who have something to say or want to share your project or share your idea with both Josh and John, put it in the chat and we'll open it up. So I want to ask John, Josh had mentioned that intersection between doing good and also. Making a buck. We need both. And as you know, teaching, you know, John, you know that Josh, you know, this teaching is a calling and I recall during, A meeting in the state of New Jersey, where a teacher asked the governor, why teachers don't make more money. And the governor said, well, you knew what this business was like when you got into it, except the low pay. But you guys are offering opportunities to people who want to teach in a different way outside of the classroom. I mean, it might be in the classroom, but you're talking about a different economic model, profits for educators. So I'm going to ask John first, can you tell us one project that you've seen in your time? Either at Penn or through the Gamba family foundation that you supported and did both made money for the educator and did good.

John Gamba: 14:22

Yeah. first, let me just acknowledge your comments on the, the importance of teaching and the vocation of teaching. And as I shared, that's very much a cornerstone of our investment thesis at the Gamba family foundation. I've given speaking engagements where we talk about the LeBron James thing of teaching. What does that mean? The LeBron James thing of teaching is we know our day has come. When we wake up and we watch a show like sex in the city, and the three stars are excited about dating a teacher, not a lawyer, not a doctor, not an athlete. That's when we know our time has come I've I've yet to see that. but, I'm very interested in the LeBron James thing of teaching, making sure that we're keeping the vocation of teaching ascendant. and I'll share a story. I work with probably, 250 ed tech entrepreneurs, every year, many of which are practicing teachers, practicing administrators, those who have a lot of experience working inside the classroom. I love working. ed tech entrepreneurs who have actual teaching in classroom or practitioner experience, share one example to answer your question directly. A, a husband and wife team in Providence, Rhode Island, Sylvia and Jared hall, founded a company. called Gabon, where it started there. Why was they wanted to have a connection with their son, Austin, who learns differently? They were having trouble with what a lot of parents have trouble with, which was when Austin was coming home from school and they asked, Hey Austin, how was school today? Fine. What'd you learn? Nothing How many, how many of us can kind of relate to that as we get, have, have children who move into their, their teens in their high school years, and Jared and Sylvia wanted to do something about that. So instead of just kind of dreaming up and creating a new product or service, they went and they talked to Austin's teacher and Austin's teacher said, Hey, I, I have a pretty good relationship with Austin. I have an idea next time that Austin leaves the classroom, I'm going to prompt him. With what he learned, what he felt good about today. What inspired him today? And I'm going to listen to what he says, because he's pretty communicative in the, in the classroom. Then I'm going to email you what he said, and we're going to see what happens in Gabon was born. So the next day, the end of the day, end of the school teacher went up to Austin and said, what inspired you today? And Austin said, onion, skin, and lake water And that had been the subject of a biology unit, where they had a trip to the lake where they put onion skin in and they were talking about what happens, in, in a reaction from water to that, to that onion. He went home and his parents that night said, Austin, what happened at school? Nothing. What'd you learn nothing? Was there anything about onion skin in Lake water And Austin's eyes lit up, said, yeah, we went to the lake. And we learned about molecules and atoms and, you know, dad there's this nucleus and there was a conversation and I kind of get chills about that fine founding story, because as Gabon was born, they started. Thinking to themselves because Sylvia and Jared have a technology background. Jared works at Google and Sylvia has a marketing social media background. They started saying, what if we created the tip, the Twitter for family engagement, a network that prompts the student to have conversations. with Their parents at an appropriate time, over a sustained period, what would happen? Well, they brought this model to the university of Pennsylvania's graduate school of education. And this is kind of how it works at catalyst. At Penn GSE and our researchers lit up. They were like, it's settled science. We know that a more engaged parent is a higher achieving student, but what happens when the student initiated. That communication. And what happens when that gets sustained over time? So we worked with to come up with a research design to actualize that vision, develop it over a technology, which Jared and silver Sylvia are leading. And now it's just. Been groundbreaking, they're delivering it to military connected families and asking a central questions of what happens with habitual student led communications with military connected families. They're deploying it to different school districts. They're deploying it in, in general education as well as with students with disabilities and, unbelievably groundbreaking. If you asked them, they would say none of that would have happened if they didn't have those raw conversations and kind of co-created or co-constructed Gabon with the insight of that classroom teacher. So that would just be one example of, of, just, a really interest, product or service that was born out of the classroom with two caring parents. That's now being sustained. and, and, and, and scaling, over.

Joshua Chernikoff: 19:21

Wow.

Jackie Guzda: 19:22

That's amazing. And you know, as an educator, I know how important it is to have parental support for your students and their success. So I've got, I've just got to ask you, did, do you have any data as how well goodbye. Worked for instance, like inner city families.

John Gamba: 19:41

Yeah. So, so right now that research design is asking those essential questions. So one is, what, what happens when a student initiates the conversation with the. And that gets the, and that happens over a sustained period of time. So what happens when you go one full week with it happening every day, one full month, one full semester. And they're testing those types of questions after, after they look at those essential questions, they're also looking at the engagement levels. Does Austin do the students actually display a more self confidence? Do they display more self-awareness and is it actually translating into student success? Are they actually does that motivation? Does that conversation translate into positive performance in school? On the flip side, we're also attracting and, and this is very much a part of the research. Are the parents finding it, easier to connect with school. So think of it as a Yelp rating. So thumbs up, thumbs down based on that initiated conversation. So it's not just the conversation, it's the impact of the conversation and how that's translating into social, emotional learning skills, how it's translating into actual student success and performance on tests. And. Performing to develop the whole child and we, and we're, and we're doing this in several different, proving grant grants, urban ed, rural ed, military, connected families, suburban environments and looking at the different trends of where this student led habitual, communications with parents is actually working best, extracting that data and trying to build on that as we, as we continue to co-construct the product.

Joshua Chernikoff: 21:22

Don't tell the whole gab on story, because they sound like a great guest for us. I think.

John Gamba: 21:28

Yeah. They tell the story a lot better than me and, and they will be terrific in terms of, you know, sharing the story and, and really being humble. You know, the thing about that, the, the founding story coming out of the classroom being so committed to your, to your son. Want to have a relationship with and then developing a technology. That's research-based where you're measuring the outcomes. It's almost the prototypical venture that we like to work with at catalyst defend GST.

Joshua Chernikoff: 21:58

Let me ask the question. How important is that founding story? You know, when you're, when you're out there as an entrepreneur and you're talking to investors, whether whatever stage it is, seed, whatever, how important is that, that founding story to people who were living.

John Gamba: 22:12

I think it's critically important. So I, I also give them a master class called pitch perfect presentations. And, you know, I have my notes, like literally right here, because it's one of my favorite masterclasses. And I say, number one, open with a personal story, quote, a relatable addict anecdote. And I actually show examples of that. the, the best pitches really open with that, with that founding story. When you see Sylvia and, and Jared give that pitch, they always start with the hi. How'd you do at school today? Fine. What'd you learn nothing and you just kind of lean in on that. And when, when I leaned in on it, Should I be embarrassed to say that that's how I feel about my 12 year old. You know, I'm supposed to be this engaged parent who's working on these projects, but I struggle with some of the same things because my son thinks I'm a nerd and doesn't want to have a relationship with me in a lot of ways. But if I can be prompted with things that he's into interested in star wars and YouTube channels and, and, and interestingly enough, you know, international policy. Then maybe I should be prompted to initiate that conversation in instead of just waiting. And so that's why the power of Gabon has worked so well and why the story really resonates. So now we've

Joshua Chernikoff: 23:23

got again, And now Jackie, we've got a cohort based course by John Gamba, which we already have two people who want to sign up for it. So we're doing pretty well. Great.

Jackie Guzda: 23:32

We certainly are. And, and Josh, you're, you have a daughter who is like leech six or seven,

Joshua Chernikoff: 23:38

six and a half when you're, when you're half that's a lot, so six and a half.

Jackie Guzda: 23:42

Yeah. So John just told you what the future holds for you. So, but I hear that they returned back to the fold when they turned to. Or so,

Joshua Chernikoff: 23:53

so

John Gamba: 23:54

yes, and then they're going

Jackie Guzda: 23:55

to be your biscuit. So we do have a comment in a chat, gentlemen. hi, Josh and John. This is from Seth and he says, my name is Jeff. I am the founder of BIA maker club. We are the modern day woodshop for teaching with 3d printing and computer aided design. So does that spark any inspiration in U2 gentlemen? How, Zeff might be able to be helped from your support?

John Gamba: 24:23

Yeah. I mean, I, I I'll jump in. I, you know, I think project lead the way is a, is a great model to, to, to think about how the maker movement has, has absolutely revolutionized the deeper learning movement as, as I talked about earlier. So the idea of actually. building things we like to say learning by doing, you know, is some of the ventures that we're working with. We're not teaching math, we're doing math, we're not teaching language arts, we're doing language arts. And so, I th I think absolutely, you know, when I think about, yeah, I'm doing an episode later this afternoon about a workforce development and this, this con this concept of what is the future generations look like? What does college and career readiness really look like? And it really is about hands-on experiential. Solving real problems for college and career readiness. there is, an interesting report out. it was quoted, I think in salt cons, one world schoolhouse that said 85% of the jobs that a third grader would consider. Haven't been invented. I mean, so, so, so, so critically important to have models that was shared in chat related to, you know, you know, real, real world problem solving, taking something from beginning to end and, and being able to build something, whether that's physically or even a digital portfolio to demonstrate that you're a real world problem solver, that you're a critical thinker. That you're there, that you're able to work with a team to actually build something, solve something. And, and, and, and present that in a, in a, in a, in a truly a specific.

Joshua Chernikoff: 26:06

John's able to look at it from up here. John's able to get it from up here. Absolutely. When I, when I hear what Jeff has going on, be a maker, you know, I'm still, although I've tactically moved on from being the CEO of my two companies, you know, I want to get in there with the CEO and learn more about being a maker and, you know, Zeff, are you thinking about going into school? Was this an in-person play. which definitely makes sense. And who do you go through? Is it through school districts or principals or PTA's, and then you also have to, at this point think hybrid as well, you know, and, and certainly we have an option, out there's lots of options out there. There's one good one out there. Of course, in terms of doing a cohort based course online and the entrepreneurs that I'm talking to right now, a lot of them are in the enrichment space. And we're talking about being hybrid ready? You know, do your cohort-based courses in person if possible, also offer them online to a worldwide audience. And then even if your in-person courses happen to be canceled because of COVID or, you know, the power goes out in Jeff's case, you know, and the printer doesn't work, you could potentially go online.

Jackie Guzda: 27:17

Great. Thanks for those comments, gentlemen. And at the end of this broadcast, I will ask you to put in the chat how, how anybody in our audience can get in touch with you today. So we have another comment from Katie. Becker Who says grateful to be listening and learning today. Loving the story of Gabon My name is Katie Becker. I'm the C I am the co-founder of future holders, a platform for gamification of leadership, finance, and entrepreneurial skills. in Kids We are founded out of an innovative independent school Aspen academy in Colorado, by teachers and educational leaders. I am a former teacher and school principal excited about this new opportunity. So, John, what can you say to Katie?

John Gamba: 28:03

One of my other, favorite subjects, game-based e-learning what I'd say to Katie is that the research, again, I always come back to working at a major research university shows that there are three, truly distinguishing factors, when it comes to digital learning platforms, this has been studied, Ted Mitchell, former under secretary of education, Kaitlin Donnelley, who runs avalanche ventures, did a study called alive in. The Swamp And the alive in the swamp study said looked at a thousand ed tech education, digital learning platforms, and notice that about 950 of them failed 50 of them, 25 of them did fairly well. And 25 of them did super well. And they're the usual suspects that you hear about the new zealous and the Poptropica and the dream boxes and the, Nearpods and, and the question was asked the research, looked at what made them successful And what it came down to and I'm oversimplifying it. But for, for the, for the comment in the chat was three things. One was that the technology was truly engaging. students, these days really want to have a fortnight or a Minecraft like experience that includes leveling-up Badges rewards and points. I would recommend a lighthouse report called synoptic gaming. I'll put it in the chat that talks about how we can take game theory from the gaming industry and inject it into the education space to create motivation. And to build engagement for students. So the first distinguishing factor of those successful products and services was truly engaging. Technologically advanced second is pedagogically aligned. So when she's talking about a platform like this, the question will be asked, does it align to standards? And more importantly, does it align to pedagogy? So after using this product or service, can we be sure? That there was an actual positive outcome as it relates to either performing well on assessments, which are still what teachers are, are, are measured on or more importantly, not my, my view, deeper learning movement has it developed true critical thinking and metacognitive skills. And so that pedagogical alignment has to be there. It has to be measured and has to be tracked and reported. Third is what, what the report was calling true systems change was the implementation. Of this platform that, that, I'm sorry. The name escapes me shared. Who was it? Katie. Katie. it does it actually represent transformation in the education space? What does that mean? Well, many times. entrepreneurs get the engagement in the technology, right? They get the pedagogical alignment, right. But they don't know how to implement it into the normal scope and sequence or the instructional episode of a typical K-12 class. So figuring out how to PD and fuse or professional develop infuse the product. So the teacher knows actually how to actually implement it With fidelity along with, lesson plans and unit guides is, is definitely a key as well. And what we're finding is those ventures Katie's venture that does all three of those things. Very well maximizes their chances of having success for implementing something like that in the K-12 or the higher ed ecosystem.

Jackie Guzda: 31:21

It's absolutely awesome. And I would like, I'd like to bring something in, because I see parallel John, between something you do outside of ed tech and your Antech ventures. you are an Ironman athlete or you not.

John Gamba: 31:39

I am, I have completed three iron mans, five half iron mans, and I was lucky enough to qualify for the half Ironman world championships in Clearwater, Florida in 2010, that all said, I like to say the older I get the better I was, I am no longer competing. I'm doing more training, actually, a physically challenged athletes. And, but what a unbelievable rewarding experience to, to kinda, if anybody wants to check this out, my old blog was Golfer Turned triathlete, where I had this. Crazy. You know, I don't know what it is, but this crazy, I want to be a scratch golfer. I kinda did that. And then one day I woke up and said, I think I could swim across this lake. As I hooked a nine iron into the lake and said maybe triathlon was going to be for me. And, and the rest is history.

Joshua Chernikoff: 32:27

I'm no therapist or psychologist, John, but, do you think that the scratch golfer turned Ironman turned successful? Entrepreneur has some kind of thread in your body of never giving up.

John Gamba: 32:39

Yeah. I mean, I think so. So, so we've talked a lot about this, Josh. So, Jackie asked, you know, how do you, how do you kind of thread this all together? and, and I think about this notion of periodization, which is when, when I was at my best and able to, compete at that kind of level. I, I, the difference was always how I could bring it back instead of pushing forward. So that's one of the first things that I'd share. What I mean by that is the Hay's in the barn. So we would train for a period of time, hit our peak and then rest. And the growth happened in our rest. We'll bring that to business. Classic agile, classic sprints, go, go, go, go, go. Post up through your SDLC, your software development life cycle, the, the, the new build, and then take your team and rest you can't just go, go, go, go, go. Or you'll burn out. In the case of triathlon, you'll get injured, which I was injured many times because my coach, my mentor would say ease off the Hay's in the barn. And I would do one more 10 mile run thinking that I could get a little bit more. fitness When I actually needed to rest. So I draw those types of types of parallels. I'll bring it all kind of together that the great entrepreneurs and the great, great athletes, represent, or have that paradox of humility and will humility to be coached, humility, to be advised. And will to run through walls and to do whatever it takes to win. Those that have both, which are rare, are the ones that typically are, are the, the, the entrepreneurs that are, that are mega successful. Hmm.

Jackie Guzda: 34:16

That's great advice, dad. Thanks for sharing that with us. so, so the people in our audience today and the people who will see this broadcast repurposed in different forms, They're going to be interested in accessing capital to make their dreams happen. Now you've told us what it takes inside of ourselves to have that will, to have that humility. How do you go out there and get the If you're just somebody like Katie or Zeff in our audience?

John Gamba: 34:50

So I'm going to be, I'm going to be as, as brief on this one, but very passionate about it and, and, and serve a layup or service softball up for Josh because he was at GSB. I was not a as CGSB and this is a conference that is kind of the preeminent, convener of education, technology companies, policy makers, investors, for sure partners, I think cleanser. Yeah. GSP is

Jackie Guzda: 35:20

Silicon

Joshua Chernikoff: 35:21

valley

John Gamba: 35:23

for geniuses. That's right. And it's, and it's every year I was hearing John was not invited. Correct. but, but I'll say this, Josh. Everybody was talking about efficacy, efficacy, efficacy, efficacy, efficacy, investing, efficacy in your products. Well, what does efficacy, I'm going to say true efficacy is going to make the difference in your ability to raise capital in this space. How do I look at efficacy? Everybody talks about it differently, but I'll break it down into three key points. Number one. Is the sequence by which you're developing your product or service too many entrepreneurs come to me with a product and say, I want to sell it. I want to get it out there. I need, that go to market. I got go, go, go, go, go. And I say, hold on. The sequence should be, what is your theory of action or your theory and your theory of change and what is your logic model and what is the underlying research that proves that this is the right product or service? To be differentiated that could be invested in sustained and scale over time, Gabon Right. It's great that you wanted to connect with Austin, but what's the research basis for student led, habitual communications with families. And I advise the entrepreneurs on the sequence to start. With that logic model, start with your lean business canvas, where you're looking at your problem, your solution, your Tam, Sam, som your key metrics that you want to measure and not get ahead of yourself for all of your skis by getting too focused on the product or service. So one is the sequence This is the path to efficacy in my view. And I'm not God, I just try to make, apply collisions 2 though is transferability in transferability. We see a lot of ventures that come to us and say, I got a contract in south Jersey with the superintendent. I'm like, how big is the district 700 students? And I say, well, how are you going to transfer that contract or transfer what you're doing in cherry hill, New Jersey to LA USD, where they have a millions. I'm not sure. So how do you get through the sequence of the underlying research into an MVP that can actually provide the intended outcome in a specific, practitioner arena and then transfer that To another larger district that has a whole different type of designated funding buckets and purchase decisions and, and, and way that the glacial pace by which education needs to be navigated. So the transferability is the second key gate to efficacy. And then third is the scalability. I see a lot of ventures that get to that series, a$15 million in value rate, raising a million or two, they're getting bigger and bigger, but they're not able to. think about how to scale from 15 million to 150 million, which I had the luck of, of, of being part of in, in my nine year run, where we exited for 182 million. And that scalability component is critically important. Your business model with the underlying research has to be there. Your evaluative model on how you're measuring outcomes has to be. there The enterprise with your team and your OKRs I'm a big John Doerr measure. What matters fan, right? Your objectives and key results have to be in place. Your system specifications. This is B E S T right. Best practice for getting to efficacy. Ultimately through scale has to be there. What is the security, privacy, accessibility, interoperability standards, and specifications that are being built into your product to ensure that you can sustain and scale your growth. And then ultimately the tactical implementation. What are you doing to get your product and service in front of customers after good customer discovery? And then Co-created or co-construct what you're developing with many adaptations in many pivots along the way to me is the key to scalability, you know, moving forward and back to alive. In The Swamp The research says those that really take it along that spectrum and push it through, accordingly do well and, and are, are able to get an investment, sustain their value, ultimately scale to exit. and we're seeing that now. And we can get into that moment, you know, the capital markets, which are astronomical, never been bigger if we want to dive into that, but I'd love Josh's perspective on what. Well,

Joshua Chernikoff: 39:45

I mean, first Jackie, I mean, let's pause 41 minutes into this show and realize that we're doing. You know, what we set out to do on lifelong educators. We're doing, you know, we've got a community of people who have joined, granted, some of them are my family, but they're here and they're listing and that's good. but we've got a lot of great entrepreneurs as well. And then, you know, I literally, I have a pen here and I'm looking down, I'm not looking at my phone, I'm writing things down, you know, theory of action, transferability and scalability. You know, we are, we're lifelong educators, you know, we're also lifelong learners. So I think first and foremost, John is just to point out that, you know, we, we set out to produce this community and starting to come So, you know, obviously I think what you said makes a lot of sense. and I wrote it down and I'll start studying

Jackie Guzda: 40:31

it. Absolutely. And you know what that's part Josh of what makes it so exciting is that we're always learning and we're always learning new things that can make us amazing. Much more amazing than we ever thought we could be. And we can just touch it so many different people all around the world. So I have on that line a, a, a comment in the chat and it says, be on John. I am the founder and CEO of carousel of languages, a foreign language, program for infants, toddlers, and young children. We have successfully transitioned to remote live sessions and I am researching options for carousel digital development, your

Noise: 41:13

suggestions.

Jackie Guzda: 41:17

And this is from the Trisha corpsman,

John Gamba: 41:19

Bongiorno. Josh, you want us to start?

Joshua Chernikoff: 41:23

Yeah. I mean it, you know, when it comes to the curriculum part, I think that's a, there's an opportunity there to find curriculum developers. Certainly we can talk about that. when it, when it talks. When you talk about deliverability of your product, you know, I think it's, it's trying to find the most seamless way to reach as many people as you can. And again, we we're, we're here because of a platform click to, and a platform that I believe in. So shameless plug, I have to do it because there's entrepreneurs here who like myself. Potentially we're only able to do in person. And now given that we've, a COVID opportunity here, we've crossed into, an opportunity where kids can learn online and, you know, hopefully think about click two is your opportunity to, seamlessly. You're learning online so that, you know, the kids in Florida can learn French with the kids in Washington state and all over the world. so I, you know, that would be my part in terms of reaching a worldwide audience and scaling your business to John's point,

John Gamba: 42:26

I'll go macro first. And microsecond because I want to build on something Josh said earlier, that I think is really critical and important in Seminole. So macro first never has this been a greater time to be in the education space. So Holland IQ projects that the education space in general will be a$10 trillion industry by 2030. And you're really just looking at the market opportunity. So that's number one. Number two is. No other micro space, ed tech is growing. As fast as, as, as ed tech. So ed tech was growing at 13%. Kager over the last say five years, that's grown to 16% during the time of COVID. So what industries besides ed tech, where a billion learners are moving online is growing at, at, at that kind of growth. And, and you really need to think about that. Probably about a hundred million, a hundred billion dollar spend on global ed tech five years ago, it's supposed to be 500 billion this year. That kind of growth is insane in terms of the opportunities, to, to, to really, you know, differentiate and ultimately scale three is the capital markets. we know that this year will be a record year. We had$10 billion invested in the space, the first half of 2021 last year. 16 billion, probably gonna be somewhere on the order of 25 billion with the U S leading, where are we seeing, that, that those investments? Well, number one, we know that, the masterclass raised over a hundred million, a hundred million dollars. we know that, age of learning and online, digital learning, product, raised, I think over 300 million, and Kajabi. Right. One of the leaders in developing online learning applications just raised$550 million. So astronomical investments in this space, super exciting in terms of education in general, ed tech, specifically in the capital markets that sort of macro. So I, I wouldn't be any more excited to be in an area where you can do good and do well. So that gets me very excited as an entrepreneur who is purpose-driven to Josh's point. Now with the pandemic. And we like to say, never let a crisis go to waste. We have unbelievable channels of development, so we can sell directly into schools who are often doing hybrid learning models within school and at home. Direct to consumer models, which is figuring out how to actually provide learning solutions into the home paid for by consumers or parents and hybrid models where you might want to do a deal with a publisher or do a deal with a distributor, or do a deal with an LMS where they're. promoting or prompting your product or service, you know, through their learning management system, try to be careful the buzzword bingo, and a lot of these acronyms, but I, I think from a macro level, we've never seen an opportunity this big in this space ever remember 500. Million was invested in 2010 in the ed tech space, 25 billion this year. That is just insane growth. And it's the usual suspects. It's the ALS it's the GSPs. It's the new markets. It's the rethinks. They're all doing incredible, work. And when you, when you ask them, what is the difference in who you're investing in? What will they do? Efficacy and, and, equity, they'll talk about equitable access, equitable experiences and equitable And John, just to,

Joshua Chernikoff: 46:03

to, you know, you kind of did the ABCs of investors who, who, you know, we were fortunate at cook to, to sit down with, a bunch of them at ASU GSV and a mentor of mine at one point, you know, told me, you know, don't, don't start building your network. and getting to know people when you're, when you're in a crisis, do it long before. And so I think, you know, Jackie, to your question of, of raising capital, it starts with relationships, you know, and it starts with getting comfortable. your founder's story and the direction you want to go and telling those efficacy stories and building on them and failing of course, and failing that's part of it as well. but I think, you know, from, from my standpoint, you know, a few years younger than John at this point, you know, in a few more failures under my belt, which you can learn from. It's important to go to places like ASU GSV. it was an in-person conference, but you know, we have online conferences as well and start building that network start joining these chats. So we just saw a company flow ops that I'm getting to know as well, you know, and just start talking to people and hearing the good, the bad and the very ugly you know, about your business only. So you and your business.

John Gamba: 47:17

Yeah, I'll build on, I'll build on that, Josh, you know, so-so in the spirit of lifelong learning, you know, the magic three that I think are important. So learn launch in January is an important conference, south by Southwest EDU. I love that conference in Austin and ASU GSV. You know, these, these are, these are sort of the, you know, the, the, the triple crown of, of, of ed tech. But then it's also important to subscribe with your Google alerts and to subscribe to different newsletters. And Serge is a ma is a must, you know, 78 million ed ed week. the ed tech podcast. a lot of these things we have, we have partnerships with that I think are. Important, this, this thirst for learning this thirst for being coachable, this thirst for, for, for, for developing relationships. I, I agree is important. And then in terms of Josh's comment on be careful about going out and trying to raise at a time of crisis, I would, I would flip that a little and say, turn a crisis into an opportunity. What about that crisis? Can you leverage to differentiate your product and service and take advantage of it? The the, the opportunity, for example, anybody who's in the digital learning space, trying to sell into schools right now will know that the ARP and the Sr programs as for one, two and three, 13 billion, 54 billion and$122 billion, respectively is an unprecedented amount of. Capital that is being poured into schools so that they can spend that on digital learning solutions, solutions that close the learning gap or, or address COVID slide and things that are, are particularly, geared towards students that have been historically underrepresented or marginalized. So if you don't know. How much of that ARP, where those extra funds are going into school districts and El and your, your, your, your area. Look it up because it's publicly accessible. And you need to know because those are liquid funds that could be spent on your product. Jackie,

Joshua Chernikoff: 49:19

just one thing for the entrepreneurs out there who are trying to scribble as much as I am learn launch south by southwest.edu, ASU GSV, subscribe to things like ed surge and shameless plug entrepreneurial breakthroughs for John Gamble, which I believe is two o'clock east two day. He's doing double duty. and that's, just a fantastic monthly, group to join, you know, very similar to this smart entrepreneurs. And it's great to be around other entrepreneurs because you can see and hear, the struggles. And so you kind of feel like a community and then learn from that together and get to different places in your business and life together.

Jackie Guzda: 49:59

And John, the name of your podcast again, is

John Gamba: 50:01

what entrepreneurial breakthroughs you can go to John calendly.com. Slash John Gamba. And you'll see an overview of upcoming topics. This today is a breakthroughs in workforce development with two rockstar entrepreneurs in the workforce development space. CISA from pedal and David from higher cause next month is breakthroughs in, in students, safety and security. Rockstar, founder, who is a former Navy seal who has come up with a weapons detection technology for four schools that is, they just raised their series, a over$20 million former Wharton graduates just every month, we try to feature an entrepreneur and talk about how they've broken through, with a lot of the, the, the values that Josh talked about, right. Grit. Fail fast, fail, smart, test and measure, adapt and pivot. A lot of these messages come through when we ask how how'd you do it? You know, how did you know Gabon was featured? A couple of the other ventures that have come through our programs have been featured in entrepreneur breakthroughs. Josh was featured with some of the products and services that he's been a part of. So he's been in a illustrious, a guest at entrepreneur breakthroughs as well. Carolyn's dot com slash John Gamba.

Joshua Chernikoff: 51:14

The last thing that should be on that list. Is to have good, smart, caring, successful entrepreneurs in your corner as well. And, that's who John has been. So show up for that. You'll learn from him. You'll learn from the other people. We're all kind of cut from the same place.

Jackie Guzda: 51:30

Very good. So unfortunately we are running short on time and I'm loving this conversation, guys. I think we've gotten a lot of good information out to our community, but John, I want to give you a, I want to give you a hypothetical question.

Noise: 51:47

Oh, so you. Look

Jackie Guzda: 51:52

to the future of and not only here in the states, but around the world, right. To underserved communities, where they don't even have internet What do you see in the future? And what would you like to imagine?

John Gamba: 52:12

So I, I really like to. Think about education through an equity lens. And what that means is thinking about first, entrepreneurs, founders who come from, historically underrepresented or marginalized communities. I feel like th those entrepreneurs know best how to serve and support. Models and frameworks that are going to address, address the issues that we need to address in, in public education. second is when I think about equitable access, I think we have a lot to do to invest in and ensuring that our most. Marginalized or underrepresented students have access to high quality public education. And that is not the case right now. If you look at our rankings, I think we're 28th and 29th respectively in, in, in math and English language arts in compared to other industrialize nations. It's ridiculous that we have, a country that has these, this kind of means, and this kind of wealth and this kind of growth, GDP growth. And we can't figure out how to provide equitable access to great education systems for students who need it. Second is equitable experiences. I think that we need to be thinking about cultural inclusivity and we can go on forever about the whole CRT crisis and, the Politicization of education, which is really scary and dangerous. People don't really know what the school choice movement is and what charter schools really represent. And the difference between a for-profit or nonprofit charter management organizations Or charter school. But we need to be thinking. about Experiences in the classroom that are culturally responsive to the types of students that are, that are in there. So a whole look at content and curriculum is critically important. That's my dream. That's my vision. And then finally, as equitable outcomes, we need to really think about indices. Like an equity index to determine if that's being delivered by the$122 billion that was supposed to go to those students who are underrepresented, does that represent true equitable equity or true equitable outcomes? And there's a lot of work being done right now at, at my university. Penn's graduate school of education. That's looking at that exact issue. To determine or define this is the vision. This is the goal. And this, these are the tactics and strategies that we're going to implement to get there.

Noise: 54:41

Josh final thoughts

Joshua Chernikoff: 54:44

you asked and you got it. You know, it seems like a perfect path, for education for many, many years. And of course I'm with John, on the equity, you know, from, from my businesses. being able to reach some of those underserved communities was actually hard, because of the way my businesses were set up, it was a blind spot that I always knew about. and, and, I'm happy now at this point that technology can help, me and my businesses and the other businesses I work with to reach some of those underserved communities. I agree with division, John has there and we're going to go out and execute it.

Jackie Guzda: 55:16

Awesome gentlemen, I cannot thank you enough for sharing your knowledge with us today. And I want to ask everyone, please join our Facebook group because we have other exciting guests, not as exciting as John. But we have other guests who can help you achieve your goals and achieve your great, your dreams by joining this group by building this community, because that's what we are all about at lifelong educators. So having said that, I hope you all join John on his podcast at TPM today. again, it's calendly.com/ John Gamble. So thank you everyone. And I will see you next week. Facebook live at 1130 lifelong educators.

John Gamba: 56:03

I enjoyed being here. Thank you so much. It was really a privilege. Bye bye. Thank

Noise: 56:07

you guys.