Why Hello

This page

is nothing but words. 1,125 of them beyond this upcoming period to be exact. But we hope you’ll hear us out as we make our case for doing the work we do. If you read on, you’ll get to know us better. If you know us better it will make your decision easier, either way. So, here’s what we think, how we think, and why we do what we do.

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What we think:

There is a scenario where campus stores go away. Publishers, their sales teams, and those who support their technology could work exclusively with institutions to provide content directly to students via the learning management system, bypassing the college store entirely. This is in fact happening today as often as it can. On the surface this looks like an obvious evolution. Supply chains in normal markets should be made more efficient when they can be, and the advent of digital content allows content to travel through piping that does not route through the campus store. In fact, a campus store that sits in the middle of this transaction when it doesn’t have to, doesn’t make sense.

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But higher ed is not a normal market.

The person who decides what content needs to be purchased (i.e. the faculty), isn’t the one purchasing the content (i.e. the student). This information and power asymmetry is called the principal-agent problem and it’s a recipe for rising prices and decreasing quality that plays out exactly that way, every time. Academic freedom, corporate understanding of how this non-normal landscape works, and piping which protects the digital content from outside market forces prevents organic checks and balances from coming into play.

The outcome of this non-normal arrangement isn’t trivial. It drives costs up. We’ve had the chance to survey students in live audiences with these questions: “Have you taken a class without getting the required materials because you can’t afford them?” And “Have you changed courses or fields of study entirely because you could not afford the course materials?” The results of such questions are staggering, with nearly half of all students answering in the affirmative. These are real world moments when a student’s trajectory changes. Nobody can live life twice, so we’ll never know the result of these pivots, but no doubt, less students have pursued the paths they set out to pursue, inclusive of dropping out of school all together, for a really crappy reason: “I couldn’t afford the textbooks”. Our ad-hoc surveys are corroborated by statistically significant surveys that can be found here:
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So what does the campus store have to do with it? In our estimation, a lot.

The campus store is the only party at the table that has the chance, and sometimes even the mandate, to look out for the student. Only the campus store can bring data, programs, and transparency to bear that help keep this market in check, giving students the best possible shot at pursuing what they set out to pursue. If the campus store takes this role seriously, it will likely always be the best party at the table to stand up for students because it can hold and act on information objectively whereas the broader content community (publishers) cannot.

So what do we think? We think campus stores should stay. That’s the easiest way to sum it up. So long as they add value to that role, resulting in a net positive for students.
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How we think:

We like to believe that we’re truth seekers. We try to take in data and deal with it honestly, and then offer a significant amount of transparency to those we work with. We think being transparent and authentic is just a plain easier way to operate. It’s sustainable because we don’t spend energy on positioning and politics. We think our level of transparency will attract people we want to work with, and not those we don’t. And that’s a good thing for everyone.

Give our transparency a test drive. If you’ve had a chance to visit every page of our website, ask yourself, what don’t know about us? If you want to know our pricing, it’s on the pricing page. If you want to know how contracts work, well, there aren’t long-term contracts, but that’s also part of the pricing page. If you want to know how our system works, there’s fifty video clips on our features page. If you want to know how installation happens, it’s on our installation page. If you want to know how support works, it’s on our support page. If you want to know what we’re bad at, it’s on our what we’re bad at page. We hope if you’re ever surprised by us, it’s because we sent you an ice cream sandwich in the mail, not because you uncover something about us you didn’t know.

We also think of software as being fun and friendly. Technology in this market can meet mainstream user experience with the right engineering and design team. This market isn’t exciting. We could lie and say it is exciting, but it’s not objectively exciting. That doesn’t mean it’s not super worthwhile and that the software shouldn’t be great to use.

We think through a somewhat rebelliously professional optimistic frame (if that’s even a word). It’s not as scandalous as it sounds. It means we have a bias for pursuing what makes sense for the rightness of it and leaving out the jargon and pretense along the way. And somewhere in it all, we believe we can bring lasting change to campuses and improve student outcomes along the way.

We think that what we do know is way (way) smaller than what we don’t yet know. So we think listening and paying attention matters. That doesn’t mean we can build everything we’re asked to. It means we’re always looking for the best path forward and weighing what can be done to make sure we stay on it.
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Why we do what we do:

This industry is surrounded by the past. That’s not a dig. It’s an observation. The challenge is that we see nobody on the horizon that understands the market in the ways we do or that is motivated by the same things that motivate us. We understand this market. We believe there is good to do here, and that if we work hard we’ll be rewarded by that hard work while doing something meaningful. Believing that what we do can actually change the trajectory of a market as important as this one, is enough for us to show up and push forward each day.

We hope this page has helped you in some way. We’d love the chance to work together, and if not, we’re still glad you stopped by.

All the best,
‍Hello

‍(ya, we know that’s a weird goodbye 👋 )
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