77: Course Hero CEO and Co-Founder Andrew Grauer- using empathy to build teams and products
The recent uptick in online learning has drastically changed what has long been a stagnant industry: education. Course Hero capitalizes on these changes, providing a massive affordable library of online supplemental resources for both students and teachers. Through their model, Course Hero wants to fix the nearly universal problems each student experiences. Founder and CEO Andrew Grauer joins Scott Britton and Andrei Newman on the Built by Humans Podcast to discuss how to build on a good opportunity, what the future of the education industry looks like, and why it’s so important to put company culture first. Here are some quick takeaways: When creating any product, make sure to prioritize understanding and empathizing with the problems of your end-user. Finding a widely shared pain point can be key here. When building a business in a typically low-speed industry like education, it can be better to start with discipline: keep your fixed costs low and wait for expansion stages. The future of education will likely solve for learning speed and cost. Technology that makes education widely available and easy to learn will rise in the coming years. A large portion of today’s students are parents or workers - many are working to pay off debt and many don’t graduate after 6 years. Companies that try to act as an alternative to college and supplementary resources like Course Hero aim to fix this problem. Building your company’s culture always comes before building a product. Treating others well and building a community of trust is necessary for overcoming inevitable future challenges for your business - make sure to be intentional in your day-to-day interactions with coworkers. The “pod model”, when done effectively, is a great way to maintain the shared culture at a large scale. Split into teams, and try to balance team autonomy with cohesive leadership.