Students are always strapped for cash.\u00a0 Textbooks cost a bundle.\u00a0 Some schools are now renting textbooks to students who cannot afford to buy new and\/or for whom used texts are unavailable.\u00a0 Many students hope to get by without buying the textbook.\u00a0 But that can be a risky option.<\/p>\n
Three entrepreneurs decided to solve this dilemma by creating a company that produces open-sourced, online textbooks matched to a popular textbook in a particular subject that students can access for free.\u00a0 Free!!\u00a0 How do they do that?\u00a0 Well, with a major venture capital investment and a lot of contracted consultants, including me.<\/p>\n
I worked on the college Biology textbook: mapping content, validating the content others mapped, and synthesizing the content of still other consultants into cohesive chapters that covered the same topics in the same order as in the chapters of the reference Biology textbook.\u00a0 We consultants scoured the web for the best open-source materials on a particular topic.\u00a0 The end result is an interactive text with graphics and video clips embedded within the text.\u00a0 It looks great and functions well.\u00a0 And it\u2019s free<\/a>.\u00a0 Boundless Learning also has free textbooks for college Economics and Psychology.\u00a0 They plan to produce free textbooks for more subjects in future months.<\/p>\n I was involved, in one way or another, in the creation of about 40% of the chapters.\u00a0 So, believe me when I say, \u201cThis was a huge endeavor.\u201d\u00a0 Student-user input will be used to tweak and modify the text for an even better learning experience.\u00a0 Is this the future of textbooks?\u00a0 Maybe, for a subset of the most commonly-used texts; but probably not for the vast majority of textbooks for at least two reasons:\u00a0\u00a0 it is not that easy to re-create a textbook using open source material; and professors are unlikely to willingly give up both the prestige and revenue stream of writing and publishing textbooks.<\/p>\n What is this firm that is creating these free textbooks?\u00a0\u00a0 Boundless Learning<\/a> was founded in March, 2011, in Boston, MA by three serial entrepreneur friends (Aaron White, Ariel Diaz, and Brian Balfour) with venture capital funding of $1.75 million<\/a>. While their track record as entrepreneurs and knowledge of funding sources surely played a large role in obtaining those funds, improving education and educational products is very \u2018sexy\u2019 right now.\u00a0\u00a0 Bill Gates<\/a> invests millions in schemes to improve education. Peter Thiel (of PayPal) has his own take on higher education: skip it and start a business.\u00a0\u00a0 He is providing fellowships to 20 young entrepreneurs under age 20<\/a>.<\/p>\n Anyone who pays attention knows that education does need an overhaul, so the Boundless Learning Trio made a smart decision to move into this potentially lucrative field; which makes it intriguing that they are giving away their product.\u00a0 Their ultimate goal appears to be to hook students with the free textbooks, and then to later offer premium services that will include \u2018online tutoring, prep test help, and premium study aids.\u2019\u00a0 This is smart marketing, but will their funding carry them through until they are profitable?\u00a0 This seems doubtful, so I presume they are looking for more funding from their original investors and from new investors.<\/p>\n Another concern is over how they will differentiate their premium products from those already offered by the Princeton Review or Kaplan, among many others.\u00a0 How is the Boundless Learning team going to shake up the market for online tutoring and test prep?\u00a0 And are those really the premium services they should offer?\u00a0 In a phone conversation I had with Arial Diaz on October 18, 2011, I asked him about the viability of the premium services Boundless Learning is thinking about offering.\u00a0 He admitted that even though students do have plenty of disposable income for pizza and movies, it may be difficult to turn free textbook users into paying customers.\u00a0 Currently, only about 10% of those students who downloaded a textbook use it once a week or more.\u00a0 At least 50% of the students appear to use it only to study for exams.\u00a0 This is a major hurdle the team will have to overcome if they want to move these students into premium products.\u00a0 Students may not know what they really need to succeed.\u00a0 Tutoring and test prep have their place, but if Boundless Learning really wants to be on the cutting edge of an educational revolution, the team needs to think beyond the typical products.<\/p>\n