EdTech founder finishes AI pipeline, finds the market gone
A founder ran an EdTech company for seven years, at its peak employing 60 people with $2M in (ARR) and ranking top-3 in Europe in its category. When emerged, the founder initially dismissed it as hype, but revenue fell 20% year-over-year the following year. Betting the entire company on survival, the team spent about a year building its own to generate the company's core product: academic papers.
The effort paid off technically — success rate rose from 70% to 98.6% and cost per page dropped from €17 to €2, eliminating the need for freelance writers and customer complaints. But while the pipeline was being built, the market collapsed further, down 70% year-over-year. The founder is now left with a working pipeline and no clear market to sell it into, covering payroll out of personal savings with roughly two months of runway left.
The whole effort took 18 months and cost €1.5M.
Key points
- Seven-year-old EdTech company, once 60 employees and $2M ARR, top-3 in Europe
- Revenue dropped 20% then 70% year-over-year after LLMs disrupted the category
- Spent 18 months and €1.5M building an in-house
- Success rate improved from 70% to 98.6%, cost per page from €17 to €2
- Now has a finished pipeline but no market for it, about 2 months of runway left