Amplio’s mission to reinvent special education

We have all come across the many news reports on tech entrepreneurs who have raised millions, turned their startups into unicorns or have gone public on the stock market. But like with every tale, these success stories also began in a small humble office with a dream that didn’t seem possible and included many hurdles and disappointments on the road to success. How did it all begin? What did the early days in a company that made it to the top look like? And what can entrepreneurs that are only getting started learn from those that have already made it? All of this and much more will be featured here in our new series “It all started with…”

ID

Established: 2015

Founder and CEO: Dr. Yair Shapira

Sector: Edtech

Capital Raised: $36M

Yair Shapira.

Where did the idea come from?

25 years ago I finished my Ph.D. in Biomedical engineering, on the topic ‘Effects of mental stress on human voice’. A year later my son, Niv was born. When he started speaking, at the age of two, he also started stuttering. This is very common with young children, and typically passes before the age of six. Yet as he grew up, his stutter remained and started interfering with Niv’s capability to express himself. We took Niv to every expert we could find, in Israel and abroad. Surprisingly, he found his speech fluency time and time again, only to lapse back to stuttering a short time afterwards.

At the same time, my personal career was flourishing. I became an executive in various global startups, covering technology, marketing, business development and sales. Some of these companies were very successful, and some were definitely not…

As time passed, Niv grew up to be a confident and talented teenager, who also stutters severely. One evening we had dinner at my mother’s, and Niv was really stuck. He was frustrated and left the table. My mom looked at me and my wife, Shirley, and said: ‘You both have PhDs in Biomedical Engineering. Can’t you just invent something that enables Niv to speak fluently?’ At that second Amplio was born.

It turns out that Niv is one of tens of millions of children, who are challenged with special needs – speech and language disorders, learning challenges like dyslexia, attention deficit, autistic spectrum and other deficits. For many of these children, if not treated well and in time, life might be very poor. The average life expectancy for children with learning disabilities is 16 years shorter than the average. Two thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Amplio’s mission is to help all children with special needs meet their potential using the powers of technology.

How did family and close friends react?

Naturally, everyone was very supportive of the ‘project’. When it boiled down to leaving my day job and focusing on Amplio, a lot of skepticism was met. Mainly around making a business out of this very specific need.

But when there’s enough fire, other people’s skepticism is your own fuel. There’s nothing more motivating to an entrepreneur than other people saying ‘this won’t work’. Now, your success is not only in helping kids in need, not only in creating wealth for your shareholders and team members, it’s also in proving those naysayers wrong.

How did your days and nights look like as startup entrepreneurs?

We all know that startups are a rollercoaster. Whether you look at a year, a month, a week or a single day – it has epic highs and profound lows. What I didn’t know is that the amplitude of these exponentially increases as the startup matures. The achievements and challenges in the first days are merely a shadow of those we currently experience.

It really is a hard job. Not so much in the workload itself, which is high but not uniquely high, but rather in the commitment and mental load. You are committed to a mission that, by definition, is hardly achievable, otherwise it wouldn’t be a startup, and which you deeply know you, and only you can achieve. You are committed to your team, who every morning choose to follow your lead, in a challenging environment. You are committed to your investors, who bet their capital on you; personally on you. And, you are committed to your family, who are intimately a part of this rollercoaster, sacrificing a normality, even though they never chose it. It is a lot to carry.

How did the founders treat each other?

I had two great co-founders. Dr. Yoav Medan, who regretfully passed away recently, and Prof. Ofer Amir. They were extremely generous with their time, knowledge and network, which was very helpful in the first year.

How many rejections did you receive?

In the first years of Amplio, we did not have a clear product-market-fit or go-to-market. We had to knock on every possible door to find customers or investors. At that time I heard phrases like ‘on my dead body children will be treated with technology’, from the lead speech pathologist of an HMO, only later for her to beg to use the Amplio platform. I had over 400 rejections from investors, who now wish they would have invested early and gain a huge return on their seed investment.

Here is the good news - once product-market-fit is there, you can just feel the friction dissolving. Suddenly you hear your audience repeating what you just said, or even pitching it to others. Somehow, investors say ‘I do’ in the first slide of your deck.

What was the atmosphere like in those years?

Well, we were a tiny company floating in space, trying to find what works for us. We were playing in no category, and sought a category to be the creator of. It was, and still is, uncharted waters, which we had to navigate in.

Our biggest asset was a team of superheroes. They were all ultra-high-velocity jacks of all trades. We tried new marketing campaigns within hours, released new products within days, passed tough regulations within weeks and micro-pivoted frequently. All that, just to find the path of least resistance.

Amplio’s seed investors believed that there is a huge need for technology in this traditional space, and trusted the team to find a way to impact children in need with technology. This clear north is our guiding star. From the board, through the company’s management, to each and every team member, we focus on the same two KPIs – (a) changing the lives of (b) as many children as we can.

What was the market like back then?

The market in 2015 was in many ways different than today. A decade ago, a seed round was 6 or even 5 digits, which you were extremely grateful for, and the Israeli Innovation Authority was the best source of funding for great early stage startups. You may still remember those good old days when all team members were meeting in the office every day. So employers hired team members according to their location, and employees who live in Haifa and work in Tel-Aviv would commute for hours every day. It was different, but the basic challenges remain the same.

How did your office/home look?

In the first years we rented a small residential apartment and worked from there. It was cozy, which aligned with the ultra-fast work we had to do. The direct communication between all team members, and the evident lean atmosphere, fueled a similar approach to work.

As we grew, it became too crowded. We moved into an office in a worn building. This was the least effective time in Amplio, much because of the office. The atmosphere mirrored the building.

When we moved into our current offices in Rockville, Haifa and Tel-Aviv, things dramatically changed. We were back on the fast track.

Who was the competition, the nemesis?

Amplio is creating a new category. Hence, competition is tradition. We are leading the way in using modern technology to help children with special needs. As such, we are awarded large, government level contracts, that impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in each contract.

One of our most exciting challenges is in creating an evolution in a traditional market. Special education has been slowly evolving, adopting technology only as point solutions. Amplio is educating the highly skilled professionals in the field, on harnessing the powers of modern technology – AI, NLP, VR and others – to help the children in need.

Who was the idol, role model?

We don’t believe in idols nor in role models. Isn’t it the second commandment that states: “You shall not make for yourselves an idol”? There is no one company that continuously succeeds. Different companies take completely different approaches and succeed, while others follow and fail. There is no recipe to follow. Every company is different and every period is different.

There’s a lot to learn from others – from success and failure. The challenge is to choose what’s right for your company and when. I think that the only commonalities you’ll find in successful entrepreneurs are: conviction, agility and an analytical approach.

How has your product evolved since then?

Being the impetus for establishing Amplio, we, naturally, started with stuttering. It didn’t take long to learn that the need is by far larger. Thus we expanded from stuttering to all speech-language disorders, covering 23% of all students in special education in the US.

As we launched our product, customers, including governmental agencies, also asked about other areas of need. So we expanded to dyslexia, which constitutes an additional 32% of students in special education.

Moving forward, we are already working and piloting technologies targeting additional disorders. We are also scouting for acquisition targets, offering profound technological solutions for children in special education.

Yair Shapira's Do's and Don'ts tips:

Do’s

1. Have a clear north and be persistent on voicing it. Very few companies have a unique and highly-protected technology that solves a known pain better than others do. If you are not one of those companies, your biggest asset is that you have identified a pain that others are not yet recognizing, or are not yet recognizing that there could be a remedy. Entrepreneurs see a vacuum, a hole in space that others do not. This is the problem you are committed to solve. This vacuum is your north.

In Amplio’s case, as surprising as it may be, the hidden pain is that children with special needs are likely to grow up to be adults with special needs. The industry, to a large extent, gave up on many of these kids. We have not.

2. Until PMF – the company is about you. Once you reach it – it’s your team. It’s your idea and your dream. Your first challenge is to develop a product that the market wants and a way to approach the market. No one else, in the entire world, has the vision, the understanding and the obsession you have. Thus, no one else can solve this puzzle. It’s all about you.

Your next challenge is to scale. That is not a unique challenge. It has been solved by others. Therefore, your task is to build an organization that can deliver – its DNA, structure and talent. It then becomes about your team. Don’t worry, you can still be workaholic after PMF.

3. It’s a hard job. You need a running buddy. Luckily, I had co-founders as running buddies in the first days, great seed investors who are supportive even in rainy days, and an excellent mentor, who continuously pulls me up. Get one too.

Don’ts

1. Surrender to temporary trends and modes. You’re here for 6-10 years. The high-tech market is known for exaggerating short-term trends. Concepts that are ground truth in one day, turn out to be complete fluff the next day. “Eyeballs”, “Marketplace”, “Revenue multiplier” – were temporary KPIs and tomorrow there will be new ones. I recommend focusing on long-term KPIs – profit and growth, which will free you up from dependency on investors.

Temporary trends are further exacerbated when it comes to human resources. If it doesn’t make sense to you, just don’t do it. Don’t follow those who offer a “happiness squad” to their employees. It’s not fair to your investors, and immoral to your employees.

2. Blindly adopt playbooks. There are no recipes. There are so many consultants, internal and external. Almost all of them have one trick – Ctrl+C followed by Ctrl+V. They take something that they know from a previous company and attempt to apply it to your company. They bring you an amazing process, wrapped in a shiny document – “the customer journey” or alike. It makes them look smart, but might not be relevant for you.

Start with asking them – Was it followed in the previous company? Did it really work? What KPIs has it moved? In most cases, it did not. If it did, it’s definitely worth looking at. See what similarities and differences you have with that previous company, and consider adopting the applicable elements.

3. Be afraid of setbacks. Reach rock bottom, shake off your dust and rise up. Roller coasters are a common analogy for startups. Our endurance as entrepreneurs is being put to the test very frequently. But once in a while, we reach rock bottom – a setback so deep that others would just give up. But that’s not us. We see rock bottom as the floor of the pool. It’s an opportunity to stretch our legs, gain momentum and jump up. As long as we are on the roller coaster, we’re in the game.