Dive Brief:

• Issues with growth, market potential, and the questionable sustainability of "freemium" business models are among the reasons EdSurge finds as contributors to ed tech firms failing.
• As examples, the publication zeroed in on Geddit, Taught It, and MommaZoo, three fairly new companies that shut their doors in the past six months.
• When it comes to what these companies could have done differently, some mention wishing they had "targeted a more tightly defined group of users rather than all teachers," while others say they would have charged users from the get-go.

Dive Insight:

Venture capitalists and private equity investors have been eager to invest in ed tech in recent years. That said, getting some initial capital doesn't mean it's smooth sailing. Actually figuring out what is needed in the classroom is just step one. When we spoke with ClassDojo co-founder Sam Chaudhary  a few months ago, he explained how open to change ed tech entrepreneurs must be. Chaudhary and his partner Liam Don had initially planned to build an app that dealt with collaboration in schools, but quickly changed their game plan after spending weeks speaking with educators to figure out what the most pervasive issues in the classrooms were. At the time, they decided to go with classroom management as a problem to solve, but even that main issue has evolved with an ever-increasing focus on communication.