Hey, Gimkitters! I have some really exciting news for you: I managed to secure an interview with Jeff Osborn (co-founder of Gimkit)!
In this post, you can learn a little bit more about Jeff and his story with Gimkit.
And if you like this, I'm sure you'll love some of my other posts here.
Why did you join Gimkit? What motivated you to get into the education industry?
When Josh first released Gimkit, I came across it on Product Hunt. At the time, I was looking for ways to learn more about Education because I wanted to try to apply my experience and expertise in marketing and startups to something I cared deeply about. I’d recently had my second child and started to get interested in finding ways to improve education.
I reached out to Josh to let him know I loved what he built and to offer free help in exchange for the opportunity to learn about building an EdTech product. I thought I might be able to give him some pointers to send him on his way, but we clicked and I soon became the mentor for his school project, which was why he built Gimkit in the first place. Oh yeah, he was still in high school when he made Gimkit lol
What is your favorite part of working for Gimkit? What keeps you invested?
I LOVE helping educators and students have fun in school. It’s incredible hearing and seeing all of the students Gimkit has positively impacted. It’s easy to stay invested when we get student art, fan mail, and teacher stories about how Gimkit helped their students daily.
If you could've done one thing differently in Gimkit's past, what would it be (if anything, lol)?
Oh I don’t know… It’s always easy to see how something went and say “I wish I’d not done it that way!” But I think we learn the most from our mistakes and our failures. Without the mistakes Josh and I made with Gimkit, we wouldn’t be where we are with it. Everything we’ve done led us to where we are. People are always so focused on the destination, but, as my grandma Pat used to say, “half the fun is getting there!”
When you joined Gimkit, did you ever imagine that it would get this big and have so many people using it?
Not at all! Like I said, I thought I might meet with Josh and his parents once or twice, give some pointers, learn a thing or two, and that would be it. And even before that, when Josh started working on Gimkit as his school project, he set a goal of getting 10 teachers to use it. A great goal, but a bit lower than where we are now!
Would you say there are any great challenges that you face in helping expand Gimkit more?
There’s a ton of challenges! It took us a little while to figure out Gimkit’s role. Initially, we tried to grow the company faster than it was ready for and we hired people we weren’t ready to manage. Again, through our mistakes, we figured out what the product and business were and learned to guide it rather than to force it. There are always going to be challenges, but we try to learn from them and get better.
That said, the pandemic was probably the largest challenge we faced. When it first started, we lost a ton of business overnight because Gimkit was more of a live game show at the time. But we were already working remotely and we had a small, nimble team. Because of how we’d been running the business, we were able to weather the storm and when school came back in the fall, Gimkit took off due to some changes we made to the product to make it better for remote learning, including adding Assignments. If we hadn’t already been running the business in a lean way, we’d have been sunk. And if we hadn’t adapted on the fly, we might not have taken off when school came back with a focus on remote learning.
There will always be things like the pandemic you can’t control. Having sound business fundamentals and staying focused on a great product is key though, because when those things pop up, you don’t have to change what you’re doing.
Within the next several years, how do you see Gimkit further improving the educational environment?
We’re planning to continue on the path we’re on, which is staying focused on making games students love to play. An educational game that isn’t fun won’t engage students. So, we try to stay creative and continue to work on our goal to make learning memorable for educators and students.
Outside of Gimkit, what do you do in your free time?
I’ve got two kids, so a lot of dadding. I love film and sports. I also enjoy camping and hiking and I try to get the kids and myself outside as much as possible.
What's one thing that you want Gimkitters to know about you?
Hmmmmm, not sure. I’m a big fan of tacos and Mexican food.
If I'd told you when you were younger that you'd be working for a company as successful as Gimkit now, would you have believed me?
Sure! But I’m not sure younger me would’ve thought I’d have helped build it. My father was self-employed so I had a good role model for working for myself. I’ve always worked for smaller companies, which I think is a great way to learn how to run a business. And when I met Josh I was working for myself, but I didn’t have a sense at any point that I might be involved in running a business used by millions of students and teachers. I’ve helped advise companies with high levels of success and usage, but I don’t think I imagined that I’d help run and own one.
I’m glad I can be a part of something that helps improve education, which I didn’t expect when I was younger. I struggled in school and graduated high school resenting my school experience. I thought there was something wrong with me. As I got older, I realized that education is critical but our system isn’t reaching and supporting all students as well as it should. I started thinking of education in this country as a broken system that could be fixed, as opposed to thinking I was just bad at school.
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