EdTech Startup Showcase

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everyone. You are listening to the EdTech Startup Showcase here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks for being with us. Another exciting episode in this series where we hear all about the latest startups in the EdTech space, the impact they're making for students, how they're influencing learning in a variety of ways.

I'm your host today, Ross Romano. I'm co founder of the Bee Podcast Network, and I also host The Authority and Sideline Sessions on the network, if you've heard those shows. And this is a special episode today. It is part of our National Literacy Month campaign that we're doing with Reading is Fundamental.

And so we're going to get into a new app here that's really supporting reading education. showing a lot of promise here to make an impact on this important topic that we've been discussing all month. My guest today is Kyle Wallgren. Kyle is the CEO of Edsoma. He's also a startup coach and an investor, and he has a long history in [00:01:00] entrepreneurship in addition to his work now in the EdTech space.

So it's going to be a great conversation from a variety of angles. to give everybody listening here a lot of value. Kyle, welcome to the show.

Kyle Wallgren: Thanks, Ross. I appreciate you having me on the show. It's a little different being on the other side of the camera for once.

Ross Romano: Right. Yeah. After you've been hosting your show and and it's nice every now and then to flip sides, right. To get to talk about the work you're doing. And I'd love to start out with kind of that big picture background about your entrepreneurial journey. As I mentioned, you know, you're a multi time founder.

And so I think that gives our listeners a lot to understand about. Your history and entrepreneurship, kind of how you've worked through a few different companies and then what brought you into the ed tech space.

Kyle Wallgren: Yeah, so I never intended on being an entrepreneur. I was never a goal or, you know, anything I even had on my radar. I ended up getting kicked out of school, high school actually, when I was [00:02:00] in like grade 9 going into grade 10. I suffered from literacy issues and school was never really my thing. So when I got kicked out of school, my mom said, you're gonna go get a job.

So that's what I did. And At that time I still really enjoyed rodeoing and I wanted to be a professional bull rider. That's what I thought I was going to do with my life is ride bulls professionally. And I ended up going down to Texas and working a deal where I could do trade labor for room and board.

And it would allow me to focus on rodeo without having any overhead costs. doing it and I got good at, you know, placing concrete and one day I came back for a rodeo in Canada and I was asked to do some concrete services by my dad and this was in 2008. And I did these concrete services for my dad at some of his rental properties and as we all know the financial crash of 2008, a lot of people Lost, [00:03:00] you know, a big part of their wealth, my dad being one of them.

And right after he pitched me this idea of starting a concrete business with them where I went and invested all my life savings into these tools and everything, The crash happened literally that week. So, it was either, you know, sink or swim at that point. He didn't have anything that he could bring to the table because he was supposed to be the silent investor.

I was going to do the work and his part of the deal fell through. So I just it was either, you know, walk away from all the money I'd put into buying tools and starting the company or make it work. So I got into concrete loved it. It's maybe one of the hardest jobs I've ever done. You can make really good money, but you're going to work for every job.

dollar that you do. And I just learned that saying yes and learning on the fly, especially when you're learning on the fly while setting up concrete, it's not like you can just ask it to stop getting hard and take a break while you figure it out. So it makes you think really quick. Think [00:04:00] really quick on my feet.

So I just kept saying yes, and the concrete turned into a concrete landscaping business. You know, I moved to a different city did that there and that business rolled into an oil field opportunity. A friend of mine, I was working on a drilling rig. A friend of mine called me and told me about a project he was on and I joked like, hey, I should do it.

do that because of the money he was making. He called me back a couple hours later saying Hey, I got you on this job. I need you to be here on Monday. And I'm like, I don't have a truck. I don't know how to drive a truck. And actually I'm on a fly in fly out job. And he just looked at me and said, or we didn't look at me cause this was before FaceTime, but just said, you need to figure this out.

Cause I. Put my name on this for you. So, I was dealt with another challenge and I ended up building that company from nothing, a joke, what I thought was a joke into having, you know, 40 some employees in the oil field. That was a great business. And then in [00:05:00] 2015, the oil field crashed and some of my biggest customers went bankrupt and here I was thinking on my feet again and how could I make sure nobody got burned?

So, you know, we ended up selling all of our assets for that company and I was more or less starting over. And I just thought like how, if I had to start over from nothing, What's the fastest way to get back on your feet? And I thought if there was a lot more people to service in a more dense area, that it would be easier.

So I moved to Texas and I started my first business there. That business was in, or my first Texas business There it was in agriculture industry is in rodeo. I was lucky enough to be able to sell that company. I moved into live entertainment right in time for COVID to hit. And as you can imagine, live entertainment wasn't a thriving business and by the Accident again, fluke, somebody asking me a question, can you help me with this?

I ended up building a manufacturing plant and that [00:06:00] manufacturing plant went from zero to 46 million dollars or 48 million dollars in revenue in 18 months, but During that 18 month process, I, because of the border restrictions, I hadn't, wasn't able to see my kids in Canada. And one day my daughter called and asked me to teach her how to read.

And because I was a non reader it just it hit me really hard. Once I hadn't been able to pick up my kids, hug them, and put them into bed for 18 months. And This was the first time she'd ever asked me for anything, and as a father, I just felt like it was my duty to, to say yes. And when I dove into looking for a product to help her with, I just found out how big the problem was.

43 million American adults can't read the menu at a restaurant. And to me, that just seemed like It was a problem that shouldn't exist. So once again, I sold everything I had and decided that I was going to solve or be a part of the solution around the national [00:07:00] literacy problem. And here we are four years later Ed Soma's doing great things.

And now I'm in the industry, our literacy markets, (ad here)

Ross Romano: Yeah. And I love and appreciate that background. It ties together so many different themes and topics that we've talked about on this series on other series and connects to, you know, some of my own life as well. And then how much of the opportunities we end up pursuing are. The result of circumstances, right.

And where you are you know, my great grandfather started a cement business and you know, my grandfather sold that business when I was young or else the circumstances might've been that I ended up in that business, right. And you know, the same thing, like so many of us in entrepreneurship don't have this grand plan to be entrepreneurs.

We. you know, identify something that we want to accomplish. and [00:08:00] determine that's the way to make it happen, right? In your case, I want to be able to have a greater impact on reading skills and literacy. Well, the best way to do that, that I can see, is to create something. You know, I think many of our other Founders out there, whether they are educators who work in schools who never plan to leave the classroom or never planned to leave administration, but they end up with some great idea for a tool that they know will help a lot more students and they end up pursuing that or some others who think they have a product that is meant to do one thing and then they realize, wait a second, it makes a big difference over here too.

And those journeys are so. Interesting, because it's about that evolution of understanding our roles, our goals, how we can make a difference and kind of seeing that all of us can do it. I mean, my opinion, based on everything I'm seeing is that in the near future we, you know, we talk a lot here about career [00:09:00] connected learning and the future of work.

That almost everybody is going to do more than one thing. That means they'll change careers, you know, multiple times over the course of their life. They'll have side projects and side jobs in addition to their day job. Right? And, you know, AI facilitates a lot of that and just being able to stay on top of skill development.

But it also addresses, we're talking reading and literacy. these big challenges that you referenced that, you know, once you kind of are a little bit disconnected from the areas where people are struggling, it's easy to take it for granted, right? Once you know how to read, And when you're not, you know, necessarily either with young kids who are learning how to read and you're saying, wait a second, you know, this is hard.

How did I even, how did I ever learn this? Right. Or or adults, whether it's because of language barriers or just, you know, not having the [00:10:00] literacy skills saying, okay, there's a lot of people for whom this is a major thing and makes a significant difference. And yet until we. Look right at it and really think hard about it.

It can be easy, I think, for a lot of people to kind of think it's more of a fringe issue versus that's affecting tens of millions of people in this country. Um,

Kyle Wallgren: I would never guessed that the literacy issues were as high as what they were. You know, I thought it was a problem that I suffered with myself. And I think that's like kind of the bubble that people that can't read or suffer from reading issues kind of live in. They're like, well, everybody else can do it, you know, and that's just the belief it is.

I, I heard a story one time that, that when it was a lady that was asking about EdSoma products, she was telling me a story about how This lady was at the hospital and she was checking out and she, they handed her the paperwork for her to check out and they're like, just read through this and then sign the bottom of it.

And the lady handed it back and she's [00:11:00] like, oh, I forgot my reading glasses. Would you mind reading it for me? And they're like, well, oh here's a set of reading glasses. Just go ahead. And it wasn't until she handed the glasses to her when it dawned on her that she didn't need glasses, she couldn't read it, and it was just a way that individual navigated through hiding the fact that she couldn't read it, right, was by blaming it or passing it off on, Oh, I can't see this.

Can you read it for me? And I think there's a lot of people that really have gotten good at working around those things, especially with, you know, cell phones now and the way that works, you can really hide from it. So it's been interesting to learn the amount of people suffering from this issue.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And and one of the, I think, themes that's come up a lot in this series Everybody's a reading teacher. And we say that with respect to teachers. Like, it doesn't matter if you teach history, [00:12:00] or math, or whatever. If the students are still learning how to read, you're a reading teacher. If you're a parent, you're a reading teacher, right?

And but it's, but equipping everyone to fill that role, to understand that role you know, is not always easy. But, a barrier to what, you know, You can learn in all kinds of areas when you have those reading challenges, no matter what multimedia is available. It's just one of the foundational competencies for maximizing success in life.

Let's talk about EdSoma, you know, EdSoma giving access, of course, to to reading skills is a huge piece there, but yeah, talk about, what the product is, how it works, right? How it goes about helping kids learn how to read.

Kyle Wallgren: For sure. So, the thing that's a little bit different with EdSoma is it's actually built and developed and designed by a person that couldn't read. Um, So I took maybe a different approach [00:13:00] than what your standard reading software might look like. And I originally created it For consumer markets, right?

I wanted to be able to read with my kids from abroad and be able to connect. I remember as a child, some of my most fond memories of my grandmother was her reading me a story, right? And I still have those memories that I cherish today. You know, at 40 years old, so I wanted to give that concept to my kids.

Like, Hey, my dad, you know, even though we were separated, my dad made it important to bond with us in that mindset. So I originally built it for consumers. I just thought if there was a software that would help parents that couldn't read to their kids, that we could build this cherished moment and that child would see.

One, their parent learning with them which would break down a barrier and, you know, two, that child would also learn at the same time. So that was my thought process in originally creating EdSoma. [00:14:00] Today, we sell to schools. It wasn't until we were starting to do some research on, you know, cost to customer acquisition where we realized that we are constantly going to have to be finding new customers to come in and use our product because our ideal age is, you know, first through fifth grade.

So we've got five years with these individuals and then we're going to be looking. For new students every year to fill the hole of the students that are going on to sixth and seventh grade. But when you go to a school, they have a constant flow of customers. So we don't have to go searching for them anymore.

And that return would, you know, So it So it changed the projections on your return and, you know, your lifetime customer value could be infinity as long as, you know, you keep that school happy. So, it just, we changed the model dramatically. We also real, we didn't, one of the things you mentioned before is you don't really understand your product sometimes, and [00:15:00] it's more than what you believe it is.

I was showing, a teacher, what we were doing before we were in the schools and there was a screen on how it was collecting data that was just there for us to like strengthen the product. It wasn't there for anybody else to see, but they saw that and they're like, what's this information that you're collecting on the side?

And we broke it down and she's, the teacher said to me that this is your product right here. It's great that you're, reading and you're showing kids what they're getting wrong and right, but this data that you're collecting that we didn't intentionally collect, it was just there for functionality of the software, this is what's important.

Giving this data to parents and teachers for them to see how those students are doing and how they're growing and where the areas they're having will save them hours, hundreds of hours. And that's when we pivoted and really started focusing on, well, how can we put this in schools and how can we service schools?

Ross Romano: Yeah. So what have you learned about [00:16:00] what makes EdSoma unique? Whether it's about, you know, the way that it, the product functions or your approach, especially I'm curious about anything you've heard from the market in that regard, right? There's a lot of. Reading tools, literacy apps, et cetera. So when you're talking to an educator, they're familiar with the multiple ones, like, what are some of the things you're hearing that are really making a difference?

And they're saying, Oh, this is what I really like about it, or this is what stands out.

Kyle Wallgren: Yeah, so, there's a lot of products out there that take a gamified approach to learning. I think we've seen that trend spike during COVID. One technology was all of a sudden being adopted in school at a lot faster pace, so it was how do we keep kids engaged. We're at a world of content right now where content is changing and being developed and designed for the individual by the individual.

So, you know, when a kid goes home and sits on Roblox or Minecraft and they're [00:17:00] building their own world and what they are imagining or dreaming in that day it's hard to get them to go back and want to read Charlotte's Web. You know what I mean? And that was kind of the process that was in place.

Schools were circling back to, you know, content that had been outdated. You know, curriculums are very designed for a pass fail. And they weren't really focused on individual user engagement, whereas software, you have to focus on that. So we took the approach of like, letting kids pick the books we were testing.

Like, hey, if you're going to spend some time on our app, Tell us what book you'd like on there. And so we did that just to test the technology behind it. But all of a sudden, kids having that ability to pick out of the content that we had licensed at that time, we saw that they, that really drove engagement.

So we pivoted our model at that time to focus on consumer driven content and give the kids the selection of [00:18:00] how they're going to learn and what they're going to learn about. You know, it's more, a kid in Texas is more interested in the, in football than they are salmon fishing in Alaska and vice versa.

You know what I mean? The kid in Alaska might be more interested in learning about salmon fishing than they are football, but curriculum didn't give those kids that. option. So we built our platform so kids could have the option on how they want to learn, what they want to learn about, and then focusing on the challenges that individual child's having and making recommendations based off their interests in the area of strengthening that they need.

Ross Romano: Yeah. I mean, the motivation is. Like, you know, a determining factor in learning, right? And when it comes to reading am I interested in the thing that I would be reading? If so, I really want to be able to read it. Cause I want to know what it says, not, you know, if it's hard for me, I might be a little bit less motivated because this is a challenge and I don't really care about [00:19:00] it.

And you know, another thing that I like, especially the way you described it, with the way it can work at home and all, is of course, you know, it's not necessarily one to one causal, but there's going to be a correlation between if a parent is unable to or struggles with reading and, you know, how their child's going to learn how to read, right?

If they're not reading at home and all of that, kids might still learn it at school, but there might be some lag in when they start to pick up their skills. There might certainly be some, that period where they're not developing as much of an interest in it, because it's just not something they're exposed to as much.

where it might be something, you know, to the example you gave, right, with the medical forms and the reading glasses, the same kind of thing where a parent feels a little, you know, embarrassed or so they're sort of hiding [00:20:00] from it and they're just kind of shying away and avoiding the subject with their kids and then, you know, it's not really helping anybody, right?

And with an app like this, that parent and child can engage in it together. Everybody can be learning from it and it's not preventing, you know, anybody in that dynamic, right, who is struggling in some way. It's not preventing everybody from being able to engage. And and it's so critical, the work that happens in schools because of Everybody having access to that and it not being something that's isolated to just, oh, these families are doing it, these families aren't, but also to have that integration with what can happen at home and have that connection between school and parents and students and everybody operating together.

That it, there's just more encompassing exposure to reading and being able to read materials that are of interest and a variety of books [00:21:00] and having it become just more of a consistent process.

Kyle Wallgren: for sure. And I think that there's like a major misconception. I'm, I'm guilty of about what I'm going to say with what parents believe school should be, you know, there's a lot of parents that will say, Oh, my kid goes to school for, you know, six, eight hours a day. They don't need to be coming home and doing homework or, you know, and I think that, I was one of those people, you know what I mean?

My kids went to school, why do I need to spend time with them at home? But what we don't realize is that those teachers have, you know, between 25 and 35 students in their class, and your child might not get the individual attention on a daily basis that they need. And Being able to take those resources home and having a parent sit down, and it's very minimal effort, having a parent sit down and spend 20 minutes with them to focus on something afterwards, like the teacher set the foundation for them, it's still fresh in the child's [00:22:00] mind, this is how we do it, but to really make it be Retained might take an additional 20 minutes at home, and we overlooked that as parents.

You know, our kids have sports and activities afterwards, parents are busy, right now they're working multiple jobs with the way the economy is, but we overlooked that. I once heard a speaker that I really respect. His name is Jesse Etzler. He said that if you spend 18 minutes a day working on something, one, individual focus, that over time you can become one of the top 1 percent in that field with just 18 minutes, 18 minutes commitment a day.

And that's not a whole lot, you know what I mean? We spend more time thumbing through Instagram on a day than 18 minutes, you know, so if we can just drive 18 minutes into what our children need. I think we can really change the path that our kids are on and, you know, ultimately help support the education system because it is being overwhelmed right now.

Ross Romano: Yeah, [00:23:00] it reminds me of something I heard from a teacher relatively recently who was talking about a student who I think it was reading, it might have been math, but I'm pretty sure it was reading, but a student who started the school year, You know, assessing at two grade levels behind and by, you know, kind of the second half of the school year was testing at grade level had made a ton of progress and the parents asked, well, how do we get him above grade level?

Right? And the teacher said, well, what are you working on at home? Nothing? Well, that's where that opportunity is, right? Because we can make, okay. A lot of progress here, but certainly that extra opportunity is focusing on this, spending a little extra time. I think that's one of the opportunities that's opened up by some of the re you know, rethinking around homework and not assigning a huge amount of mandatory [00:24:00] homework and certainly not weighting all of that work toward home, right?

Trying to do more of the actual. work in school when the teacher's present and students can ask questions and get guidance versus the traditional method where it's like teacher gives a lecture and then students do all the work at home and right that there's a lot of challenges around that but That means that there's more time available to say, okay, we want to work more on this, or here's an area and to really see it as something that can be more fun and aspirational because it's not, oh, you have two hours of assignments to do tonight and you're tired.

You know, you, maybe you went to soccer practice, you got home and now you're up late. Because you have homework to do say, let's spend that 20, 30 minutes and just make it a routine and just make it something that doesn't have that pressure around it. And it's not going to be graded. It's just something we can [00:25:00] choose whatever we want to work on and do it.

And but. Then it's a, you know, it's a collaboration between parents and teachers and schools and students and you know, everybody can be a part of that and and it's great to have tools that enable that and that help to, I guess, forward along that perspective that We're all on the same team at this,

Kyle Wallgren: Right.

Ross Romano: all want kids to learn and to be successful and there's a way for everybody to participate in that, to have an understanding of how they can do it which again is one of the challenges that, especially a lot of time, parents can feel is, I want to help my child, I just don't know what to do. I don't know how.

And if I'm not You know, having a lot of conversation, largely, you know, usually because of time constraints, right? Directly with the school about [00:26:00] that I'm just feeling a little lost for what should I do? Should I focus on this? Focus on that? And having tools that can function both at home and in school can help to make that process a little more streamlined.

Kyle Wallgren: For sure. And I think that, you know, anybody that's successful in anything, it's because they prioritized it. And just finding, taking time and prioritizing these things is, you know, a major part of what has to take place.

Ross Romano: Yeah. What's, uh. there's been some exciting developments, I think, with the company over the past year or so. You know, of course, it's a relatively new company anyway, so you've seen the natural growth, but also in addition to you know, some exciting investments and other things. What's what are some of those things?

Kyle Wallgren: Yeah, so we've been super blessed. When we were pitching the idea I was walking through the airport and one of the guys that was helping me with it saw Shaquille O'Neal on TV and was like, that's who we need to help us marketing it. And I was like, yeah, let me just pull out my phone and call him up [00:27:00] kind of thing.

Fate works in, you know, mysterious ways. And I opened up my LinkedIn and there was, you know, Shaquille's agent, you know, as people I might know. And I was like, what the hell, you know, so I shot an email saying what we were working on. And they thought the idea was good enough to put in front of Shaquille, you know, and obviously these guys.

Flag or get all kinds of offers every day. Shaquille is one of the biggest personalities there is in the country, but I got the chance to put it in front of him and talk to him about the product. And I really just want to come on as a marketing partner. But Shaquille said that, you know, he believes in what we're doing and that it needed to be focused on.

And the only way he was going to get involved is if he could become a partner. So, you know, Shaquille came on early on as an investor. We've got to. Talk at some of the biggest events because of Shaquille's brand, you know, at events like TechCrunch where we've been, we're able to talk about Insoma, you know, a month after we launched our first [00:28:00] pilot.

So we've been very fortunate in there. And then, you know, our first customer, our first paying customer was New York City Department of Ed, which. is very rare as well. Most people don't start in New York. But New York was our first customer and you know, it's the biggest district in the country. It's the hardest district to get into in the country and we started there.

So we've been super blessed. We also just recently had a guy by the name of Charles Thornburg join our board. Charles is, Many would consider an education technology savant. He's built multiple different companies, scaled them and brought value to millions of kids lives across the country. So we've been super lucky over the last year, couple years in every direction that we've got to go.

We, but we've got great people involved. They see the mission and they ultimately want to get involved to make a difference in a child's life.

Ross Romano: Yeah, I mean, I think that example, obviously, there's got to be some good fortune [00:29:00] involved, right? Some things just have to work out. And and you have to be lucky enough to have engaged with you be interested, but it's, you know, there's a thought process that's valuable for founders to go through.

And one of those things is, how do I acquire influence? You know, I have this little formula that I think about a lot, which I say intent plus influence equals impact. So it's like, do you have a clear mission? Are you focused on an important problem? You know, and do you have a good solution? That's one part of it.

Then you also need the influence piece, which sometimes that's money. You know, it's capital. Sometimes it's network. It's, you know, having a platform, right? And when you those two things together, then you can have the reach to make a difference. And that's, you know, the case here, right, is if This could be the best reading product [00:30:00] that exists, but if there's not enough capital to keep developing it, or to market it, or to get in front of the right people, or, you know, you don't have the right partners who can help to start the right conversations, it's just really hard to get anywhere.

And especially in the education space, that's such a difficult space to navigate. to work through some of the timelines that it takes to, you know, in the procurement process, right? And all the various requirements and all of that that it's hard to make it all the way through there without having that foundation of the right investments.

The right investors, the investors who really, like you said, care about what you're doing and believe in it and say, My goal here is not to, you know, in, in one year, I expect to get to exit this and, you know, let's rush along and try to scale or whatever, and completely lose sight of our purpose here.

Like, let's focus on [00:31:00] growth. Let's focus on the long term. And those are things that you learn, you know, through experience, sometimes through painful experience, but but it's also part of the strategy that even if you know that it's difficult and it's gonna take some luck that it's like We have to think about how do we do that and what's going to allow us to maintain, stay true to our vision, but also to be able to build and build sustainably without having to totally change course.

Kyle Wallgren: Yeah. And I just want to add to that, like early on, I thought that scaling meant that you were going to raise capital and having multiple millions in revenue was the most important thing to do to raise that first round of capital. But sometimes, you know, growing fast is not the best answer, especially when your product's young.

You need to really make sure that your product is going to be. Sticky and that they're going to keep coming back and using it. So focusing for a little bit of [00:32:00] time on your product in a smaller group sometimes makes more sense than growing it as fast as possible. You know, some of our biggest challenges is that we did have so many customers.

Right off the bat, right? So navigating that was, is it definitely a different challenge than not enough? But it's still, you know, concerns when outside capital is coming to the table, like, how are you going to sustain this? Are you going to be able to keep growing at these rates? Do you feel like you've actually found product market fit because we haven't had enough time to see if we're getting the renewals, you know, a bunch of questions that it shakes up. (ad here)

So.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. What have you, so you know, listeners here we referenced it a little bit earlier, but you've been hosting a podcast called the business of education and talking to a lot of people from all different parts of education and ed tech and How has that process, in addition to, you know, your work here with Insoma, but also having those conversations, like, [00:33:00] enhanced your understanding of the space, the things you're working toward, how to overcome some of the challenges that are present, right?

To, to knowing, okay, I really want to make an impact in this industry. And this industry doesn't often make it easy, right? It's a challenge. But Certainly, you know, there's a lot of people out there who have good angles on that and have worked through some of that. What are some of the things you've learned through that?

Kyle Wallgren: Yeah, so I started that podcast for very selfish reasons not to like promote and like promote myself by any means, but I felt like there was people that had gone through or are going through the same challenges that I am in the ed tech space in real time, and I wanted to know how they were navigating those waters.

And for me, I always was told that bringing value to somebody else's life is the easiest way to get somebody to help you. So instead of saying, Hey, can you help me with this? I'm going to them and saying, Hey, can I help? You promote your product. And in doing [00:34:00] so, I get to ask them the questions underlining what I'm really being challenged with, you know, and whether it's from like finding product market fit or going to market or, you know, cheap marketing strategies.

I had a lady on the podcast the other day with a child's education product that had the most ingenious launch strategy there was. She picked journalists with kids to be her test. group. And because these journalists with kids were testing the product and falling in love with it, when she was ready to launch it, she had 50 journalists write articles about it on day one because they loved it.

You know what I mean? And she didn't have to pay for any of that media. So I've just, I've got to learn from really smart people that think outside the box, creative ideas on how to look at problems. And so that, that's my reason for doing the podcast. You know, ultimately I want other entrepreneurs. So we want viewers, especially in the ed tech space, to maybe have a [00:35:00] shortcut to the answers they're looking for.

So we, we reshare those podcasts for everybody else to be able to watch them and learn from them. But I do it, you know, very selfishly because I want to learn from that individual.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's the, that, that creativity and creative thinking is so critical. And you know, the ability to communicate a compelling story and to the right people. And you know, you need to either have, definitely have that ability or a whole lot of capital and, you know, ideally both, but you, but in order to kind of get anything out there, whether it's an education or anything else, right?

You have to motivate people to act and a great way to motivate them is To relate to them, tell them something that's interesting and something that's going to help them and make their life better. You know, sometimes capital means you motivate them by just wearing them down. Okay.

I'm going to give this a shot because I just, [00:36:00] they keep coming at me over and over again, but I don't know how sustainable that always is, but. really being able to tap into the right people. I mean, there's nothing more powerful than relationships and then a network and,

Kyle Wallgren: Yeah, and

Ross Romano: you know,

Kyle Wallgren: I've been lucky. I've said that from the word girl, but I got to do some coaching from a guy by the name of Dave Meltzer, and one of the things he taught me in coaching is the first thing you need to ask is how can I help you? And if that's the question you lead with, people are more susceptible to giving you a little bit of their time.

Ross Romano: yeah, absolutely. So, we're getting toward the end of this conversation, but I basically, there's two different you know, parallel paths here to wrap it up and it's kind of closing thoughts. The first I'd love to hear along the lines of, You know, to the potential EdSoma user out there, the, parent or the educator [00:37:00] who, you know, is facing the challenges of reading instruction, right, facing the challenges of helping kids learn to read and figuring out how to go about it.

What's the message you would send to them just about, you know, optimism, hope about the fact that this is doable and that there are solutions.

Kyle Wallgren: Man, I guess hopes may be the biggest thing we all need to focus on right now. You know, there's so many setbacks that literacy creates, so spending some extra time today is going to, you know, shorten the outcome in the future. And I think that we really need to be shining a light on that, you know, for our educators and our kids.

But speaking to educator, you know,I don't understand, but I see the lack of resources and lack of time that they have. And we built EdSoma with that in mind for educators. You know, we want to provide more time back to you and that's our ultimate goal. So you can have more time in your class to focus on the things that are important instead of [00:38:00] analyzing all the problems.

We want to show you what the problem is so you can focus on the solutions because that's where teachers are really great at. And I think that's where they really enjoy it. Part of teaching is the solution aspect of it. So we want the, we want teachers to be able to focus on that area from a parent, you know, don't be scared of things you can't do.

It's going to be so inspiring to your child. So you tackle the tough things that when times get tough for them, that they're going to go out and tackle tough things too. Right. So if, Those who can't do will just pick it up and try. I think it'll tell a story that'll change their child's life. So that's the mindset that we're going at this issue at.

Ross Romano: So, the last one is for other founders, like in ed tech. Any final idea? Thought, you know, based on there, there's the challenges of that journey as well, right? And working through, but knowing that the work matters. You know, anything that you've learned that you would share with others [00:39:00] that are in your position.

Kyle Wallgren: Ah, man, there's so much to to tell them, but this is going to be hard. So if you're the faint at heart, maybe look at something different cause the education sector, there's a lot to learn, but I don't think, and I've been fortunate enough to make millions of dollars in other areas that, but none of it has been more rewarding.

now, knowing that I'm goin a child's life for the be than any amount of money So the hard work that you nights that you stay up, and it's not very often t So at Soma,

Ross Romano: Excellent. So, for anybody out there who wants to connect with you to learn more or to get Edsoma, where should they go? What should they do?

Kyle Wallgren: I would just

Sign up page for information, or you can book an appointment with our sales team. For the parents, it's still in the app store. We are going to be taking it out of the app store [00:40:00] here to do some changes over the next six months, just to upgrade it and update it for them, because we can believe we have a better product now.

But to reach out to me, LinkedIn is an amazing tool. I love LinkedIn and I use it a lot for networking, but if you're not a fan of networking my email is Kyle. At Ed soma.com and Ed Soma is E-D-S-O-M-A.

Ross Romano: Excellent. Uh, Listeners will put all that info in the show notes. We'll link to the website. We'll put Kyle's social there. So you can check out if you want to learn more about the product, you can go right to the website to find out how to get it. If you want to connect with Kyle about anything else that we've talked about here, you can do that at those channels as well.

And if you just are interested in learning a lot more about edtech startups, about the current challenges in the space about what's working and about, you know, what this collaboration and partnership with schools look like. Please do subscribe here to the EdTech Startup Showcase. We'll hear about a variety of great tools and founders that are operating and everything [00:41:00] from supporting, you know, students with IEPs, to reading and literacy, to career exploration, to everything in AI and more student portfolios, a little bit of everything there.

So, subscribe to learn about that and continue to follow along with our literacy series here across the network. Kyle, thanks again for being here.

Kyle Wallgren: Thank you. I appreciate you for having me.