School management, codified
The dizzying day-glo d̩cor at Spiral UniverseӪs White Plains headquarters fits the creative nature of the educational software startup.
When developing the Spiral 2.0 web-based school management system three years ago, CEO Reuben Kerben sought to echo Web 2.0 offerings Gmail and Salespace, but in the educational sphere.
“We sort of straddle the line between some of the open-source systems like Moodle and Sekai versus some of the more expensive, proprietary systems like Blackboard, so we are kind of defining a new space between those,” said Andrew Fader, a customer relations associate at Spiral.
“We started calling a couple of schools here and immediately we start conversations with them about how to get them started on Spiral,” Kerben said. “Schools today usually have very antiquated purchasing cycles. They tend to use the same software they”™ve had for the last 20 years and they don”™t want to change. It”™s only when the new generation comes around when there start to be changes.”
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A self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur, Kerben was the type of person who began businesses while his friends frequented summer camp.
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He launched fifth startup Spiral Universe in 2007 through a collaboration with partner Andrei Volgin, who Kerben met during a school software presentation.
“It would be difficult to compare us to any one company in particular,” Kerben said. “A lot of our competitors are singularly focused and focus on one particular segment of the market, such as only private schools. Our business model has been intentionally disruptive.”
By providing the software initially free of charge, Spiral upped its waiting list to 1,000.
It is available in six languages in more than 30 countries; there are four subscription packages.
“The first package is completely free and that”™s what most of our customers elect to use,” Kerben said. “The way we monetize this is by selling value-added services whether it”™s online learning services, tutoring, enrollment in language courses or purchasing educational content.”
Spiral offers Web-based management for school email, grades, attendance records and more.
The beta version of the software was released last summer and this spring, the production version will be released.
“You can access all of your school”™s information from home, from work or while you”™re on vacation,” Kerben said. “You can upload all your files, get all of your assignments, and it doesn”™t really reside on your computer. With Spiral, you can really access it from any computer with access to the Internet.”