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Ep. 1: Decoding the EdTech Founder

Summary

Karl Rectanus, founder and CEO of LearnPlatform, joins Dan Herr and Matt Rooney to share the founder's perspective on private equity outreach, relationship-building, and the exit process. Karl built, scaled, and exited LearnPlatform — an ed tech data and analytics platform tracking student and teacher engagement across 11,000+ products — making it his fourth successful education innovation organization. The episode offers an inside look at how a founder evaluates, screens, and ultimately selects a private equity partner.

Karl describes the systematic approach he used to manage a growing volume of PE inbound — from twice-monthly outreaches in 2018–2019 to three or four per day by 2022. He created a short survey that he sent to every inbound contact, achieving a 90–95% completion rate and saving what he estimates were thousands of hours of unproductive conversations. His screening criteria evolved with the business but consistently prioritized sector experience in education, diversity at the partner level, and alignment with LearnPlatform's identity as what Karl calls an "impact-centered organization" — one where the mission to improve education decision-making actively drove business model, product strategy, and financing decisions.

The episode culminates in Karl's account of LearnPlatform's exit process: roughly 100 parties engaged across financial, strategic, majority, and minority tracks, with Needham & Company running the process. Karl reveals that 50–60% of those parties had prior relationships with the company, and that pre-existing relationships provided a clear advantage — through deeper management meetings, faster trust-building, and better mutual understanding. His advice to BD professionals centers on a core principle: treat all relationships as long-term, ask founders what success looks like, and give value before you ask for anything.

Key Takeaways

  • Screen inbound systematically. Karl's short survey for PE outreach achieved 90–95% completion and served as both a time-saver and a signal of genuine interest.
  • Prior relationships create real advantages in processes. Roughly 60% of the ~100 parties in LearnPlatform's process had prior contact with Karl, and those firms carried deeper understanding into management meetings and final rounds.
  • Ask what success looks like. Karl's recommended opening question for BD professionals: "What does success look like for you as a business and as a leader?"
  • Impact alignment accelerates scale. LearnPlatform's impact-centered model — where mission drove decision-making — attracted top talent (60% female, 43% non-white), reduced turnover, and aligned the sales team around deliverable promises.
  • Trust is built by setting and exceeding expectations. Karl's trust-building framework: set clear expectations, deliver on them, and let that track record compound over time.
  • Speak the founder's language. PE professionals who could translate financial lexicon into education-sector language — demonstrating authentic market engagement — were far more compelling than those leading with check size and AUM.
  • All relationships are long-term. Adopting this mindset shifts BD from conversion-rate thinking to relationship investment, producing faster yeses, faster nos, and fewer long maybes.

Guest Background

  • Karl Rectanus — Founder & CEO of LearnPlatform, a data and analytics platform for education. Fourth-time education entrepreneur and former teacher. After the exit, led K-12 strategy and platform strategy at Instructure for just under a year before transitioning to advisory and board roles focused on impact-centered organizations.

Topics Discussed

  • Breaking Through the Noise — Karl describes what makes PE outreach compelling from a founder's perspective: sector expertise, authentic language translation, clear strategy articulation, and willingness to visit in person.
  • Value-First Outreach — Karl endorses the Techstars "give first" philosophy, recommending that BD professionals offer connectivity, introductions, and collaboration before asking for anything in return.
  • M&A Process Dynamics — Detailed account of LearnPlatform's exit from the founder's side: banker selection bake-off (six banks, chose Needham & Company), ~100 parties engaged, dual-track process (minority/majority/strategic), and the decision framework that prioritized strategic alignment and "1+1=3" potential over price alone.
  • Origination and Deal Sourcing — Karl's perspective on the sourcing lifecycle from the target's chair, including how the EdTech Top 40 data product attracted PE attention organically and how his tracking spreadsheet of 175+ firms became part of the eventual process source list.

Notable Quotes

"There's only one way to build trust. It's to set expectations and then go beat or exceed those expectations." — Karl Rectanus

"The second an early stage business development person starts to see all relationships as long-term, it becomes not about the first call or the no or the, you know, making 50 calls or shooting out X number of emails and what kind of conversion rates." — Karl Rectanus

"What does success look like for you as a business and as a leader?" — Karl Rectanus

"We're an impact centered organization. The impact that we were trying to drive drove our decision making, and it actually helped accelerate the scale of the business." — Karl Rectanus

"It's not only correct and morally and ethically right to do this, it's like good for business." — Karl Rectanus

Frameworks & Concepts

  • Fail Test — Karl's method for evaluating entrepreneurial decisions: define what absolute failure looks like rather than success. If the fail test is passed, proceed; if the outcome is merely "a few good shots on a 104 scorecard," recognize it as failure. Applied at LearnPlatform's founding: the fail test was raising $250K at the ASU GSV conference. They raised $350K — "We failed at failing the test."
  • Impact-Centered Organization — Karl's term for a company where the intended impact (positive outcomes for customers and the sector) drives the business model, financing strategy, product strategy, and operating model — rather than being an afterthought or a drag on growth. Karl argues this approach accelerated LearnPlatform's scale, reduced turnover, and attracted top talent.
  • All Relationships Are Long-Term — Karl's principle that once BD professionals internalize this mindset, conversations deepen, connectivity increases, and the "long maybes" that stall both sides are replaced by faster yeses and faster nos.

Cross-References