Kicking off 2016 strong, Panorama Education - the local edtech startup that brings data and analytics to schools - has announced it's doubling the size of its Boston office space. This expansion, although monumental itself, is following a slew of accomplishments the company made last year. And Panorama is positioning itself for more developments to come.
From a more pressing point of view, Panorama expanded its office space after it doubled its employee headcount in 2015. But it’s fair to say that the growth in personnel is symptomatic of the traction that the startup has recently made.
It had serious traction in 2015
Last year, it raised $12 million in Series A funding and signed several major school districts, such as those in Dallas and Seattle. And, don’t forget, Panorama added its Playbook platform, which allows teachers to seek advice from other teachers on how to solve key issues inhibiting the learning process for their students. Through further development of Playbook, the startup hopes to make an impact within school communities domestically and internationally. However, it will also likely impact its own company.
Aaron Feuer, co-founder and CEO at Panorama, told me, “We started off giving schools the tools for analyzing data and reporting, but that was only building 80% of the bridge. No one cares about 80% of the bridge.”
"We need to take that foundation and 10x everything.”
“Our Playbook is the difference between giving schools just data and giving them an entire improvement cycle to work with,’ he continued. “It’s become an improvement tool - not just a data tool.”
With Playbook, schools have started to work through the "data, analyze and action" steps needed to make improvements. Feuer said that some schools are flipping the process to make it experimental, as a way of assessing whether certain adjustments are positively changing the learning experience for students, parents and teachers alike.
Looking ahead
Despite the strides Panorama made in 2015, Feuer isn’t basking in glory just yet. There’s still work to be done, especially as Playbook is in its infancy. In the next year, he said the company plans to double in size again, dedicating itself to developing the platform further and garnering feedback from users along the way.
Feuer explained, “We’re going to be focused on expanding the potential of the platform. It feels like we’ve covered ground and have it built on a foundational level....that was just a starting point. We need to take that foundation and 10x everything.”
"I tell the team that we have to be pushing ourselves now that we’ve finished the easy part," he went on. "This is the hard part. We have to make it matter."
Image via Panorama Education.
