Today’s Feature Friday is not about a single feature but rather about initially prioritizing user engagement and growth over other features and in particular over discovery and analytics. The idea here is simple but still often ignored. If you have engaged users then their activity will generate the data you need for discovery and analytics. In some ways this is a corollary to the idea that lots of data combined with simple algorithms tends to beat more sophisticated algorithms run over less ...

I love it when a plan comes together. The plan in question is the Edmodo Platform. When we invested in Edmodo in the fall of 2010, the company was just beginning to really grow its network of students and teachers. One frequently asked question was how Edmodo would be able to keep offering its features for free. I remember going to the ISTE conference in 2011 and having several teachers come up to me concerned that they would have to stop using Edmodo once it would start to charge. I assured ...

After yesterday’s Twilio announcement, this will make two funding posts in a row but that’s just how it worked out: Edmodo today announced that the company has raised $15 million in a round led by Greylock and Benchmark. Reid Hoffman and Matt Cohler will be joining the Edmodo board. We are super excited about how this allows Edmodo to continue growing and deliver on their vision of connecting and empowering students and teachers. Congrats to the team at Edmodo!

Do you have a passion for creating technology to better connect teachers with each other and their students? Then you should consider working at Edmodo. The company, which is based in San Mateo, provides a free and safe social network for K12 education. Since we invested last year, Edmodo has grown dramatically to well over 3 million users worldwide. Edmodo is achieving the kind of scale that presents interesting engineering challenges and exciting opportunities to assist schools and teachers...