“It’s only worth it if you find something you truly care about–something you’re passionate about” -William Zhou
William Zhou is a 23 year old internet entrepreneur who created an incredibly successful education software company called Chalk.com. He started his first business in high school revealing that he became passionate about entrepreneurship at a young age.
After speaking with his teachers from high school about their experiences, he found that it was not very easy. This inspired him to try to change education for the better by creating Chalk.com, which is a mobile platform that allows teachers to manage their daily workload more efficiently. It solves the problems of lesson planning, assessment, and eases teachers’ pain by facilitating personalized education and driving student success. It is used in over 20,000 schools worldwide and has helped teachers to enhance their academic experience.
William exemplifies an entrepreneur in that he saw a problem and tried to solve it. However, he did state that he had some challenges within the business that he overcame. For example, less than 100 teachers paid for the product the first year. They decided to switch their business model to give away the productivity suite for free and charge schools and districts for premium features. Teachers helped to raise awareness within districts resulting in 100,000 teachers being reached and the sales increasing to 3000%. This shows how he was innovative and thought outside the box.
William explained that there are tons of problems in the world, and therefore tons of opportunities for people to make a difference. “Being an entrepreneur means to solve problems to make and shape the world into a better place,” he says. He also notes that people should pick a problem that they are passionate about and solve it. These are the main aspects of being a successful entrepreneur. I believe that William did a great job of using his passion for education as a way to help teachers in their daily lives.
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonma/2015/02/24/twelve-of-todays-most-impressive-young-entrepreneurs/#3547be497560
http://www.hatchpad.co/blog/entrepreneur-spotlight-william-zhou
What an obvious and large problem, yet it only took one person with a vision and a will to make things work. I checked out the website; it seems clearly organized, but it still has a large number of services provided. William’s decision to change his business model after one year is a good reminder that pivoting is okay, and we need to listen to our customers to really find out how we can offer services or products better. That is a much better solution than just increasing marketing or hoping that the idea catches on.