Techstars Startup Week Cincinnati 2018

An unlikely story - two teachers-turned-tech directors built a software platform for a school district just north of Cincinnati.  Not entrepreneurs.  Just two people trying to make their lives easier and free up the time for a lot of teachers so they could focus on the kiddos.  This led to a startup called Abre.

The biggest challenge for any startup isn't sales.  It isn't understanding finance and accounting.  And its not marketing.  If the product doesn't fit the marketplace you intend to serve then all the other things don't matter.  But for Abre, the product-market fit was built into the proposition.  The product was initially designed to make the jobs of the two co-founders easier and better for their internal customers, teachers.  That "fit" has translated to over 100 other schools adopting it and over 500,000 monthly active users in less than nine months of operations.  Now they spend their time focusing on all those other challenges as the fast growing startup grows up.  

This panel style Q&A will reflect on those critical early decisions and experiences like "why open source it?", "how did you decide to start the company?" and "what have been the biggest challenges in leaving the school for a startup?"