ecotext

ecoText offers digital textbook subscriptions to students.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the collegiate textbook market is worth $14 billion. This consists of an estimated 20 million undergraduate students who purchase 160 million textbooks annually.

But textbook prices have increased by over 85% in the last decade. Individual books can cost $300 to $400. According to the College Board, the annual cost for books and materials per student is more than $1,100.

This out-of-pocket cost to attend college has become a burden to many families. Many students and parents struggle to find up-to-date, affordable textbooks.

As a result, more than 65% of students choose not to purchase textbooks at all if they can’t find them used or at a lower cost. Only 20% purchase new books directly from publishers or authorized outlets like student book stores.

As John Fallon, CEO of Pearson, a leading educational publishing company, declared, “The $300 textbook is dead.”

This rise in textbook prices doesn’t just put students at a disadvantage. Educators can’t deliver the highest quality education if all of their students aren’t equipped with the right resources. Furthermore, textbook publishers fail to bring in revenue as fewer students purchase their products.

What’s the solution?

Several companies, including Chegg (NYSE: CHGG) and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), allow students to rent textbooks. Others offer digital downloads of books in an attempt to create open educational resources.

The problem is that students who rent these books, or acquire digital downloads, can’t take full advantage of them. More specifically, they can’t do things like highlight text, bookmark pages, or make notes.

ecoText offers these features and enables students to access more than 50,000 textbooks.

As the company says, ecoText “brings the traditional textbook to life” by allowing students to engage with publications on any smart device. Students have access to features like note-taking, bookmarking, highlighting, keyword searching, and more.

Textbook publishers, meanwhile, can benefit from this service by saving on printing and shipping costs. Furthermore, ecoText benefits the environment by reducing the number of trees used. A medium-sized school with roughly 15,000 students, for example, would equate to saving a forest the size of Fenway Park baseball stadium in Boston each year.

The company offers a free version of its service, which provides access to a consolidated catalog of books. Meanwhile, its premium version has more titles and additional features. ecoText charges students a flat rate subscription each semester.

Ultimately, the company aims to establish strategic partnerships with colleges and high schools. This would potentially accommodate every student with a premium account. These partnerships could also benefit schools as the company could inform them how students engage with the content in and out of the classroom.

ecoText is currently testing a beta version of its platform. It has 450 users across 25 universities, including Boston University, Arizona State, and Howard University. These users can take advantage of 50,000 titles for free.

Said Gloria Robinson, a student at Boston University, “When students are provided these materials like textbooks online and subsidized by the school, this idea is proactively shrinking our economic gap… Students don’t have to limit their ability to take certain classes because the materials are too expensive.”

And parent Jeanine Ulaskiewicz noted, “My daughter tried to share books, read the professor’s books, struggled with assignments because she had to make do with an older version and incurred more student debt because of this problem. My daughter even went to her Dean, but no aid was available. This is a real-world problem shared by many that ecoText would address.”

EcoText has a paid pilot program scheduled for fall 2020, when it will release the third version of its platform.

Team Background

Evan Shaw - Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer

Evan is responsible for the front-end development and user interface of ecoText’s platform.

He began his career as a web developer by building a website for a local business in Virginia where he went to school. From there, he became a software developer for MoneyGuidePro, a financial services company.

Notably, Evan worked as a software engineer for Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP), the social media platform with a $24 billion market cap.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech.

Joel Nkounkou - Co-Founder & CEO

Joel has a background in project management and product design.

He studied Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of New Hampshire, where he worked as a technician for the school’s InterOperability Lab. While there, he worked with hardware and software engineers and tested various computer-related programs.

After earning his Bachelor’s degree, he interned with Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), where he later worked as a product engineer. In between then, he was an entrepreneurial lead for the National Science Foundation, and co-founded O2 & You, a company dedicated to increasing air quality standards.

Prior to starting ecoText, Joel was a software engineer with Profit Tools, a computer software company.

Hans Massie - Chief Information Officer

In addition to his role with ecoText, Hans is an operations specialist with Public Consulting Group, a management consulting company.

He was a technology support agent for Liberty Mutual, an insurance company, and was a content maintenance specialist with SilverCloud, a financial services company.

Hans spent two years with Long Term Care Partners, an insurance company, working as a reporting specialist and a claims processor.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of New Hampshire.

Dylan Wheeler - Co-Founder & CTO

While attending the University of New Hampshire, where he studied Information Technology, Dylan interned with Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), a computer software company.

He also taught high school students a college-level course on Artificial Intelligence as part of an advanced studies program.

He was an associate with the university’s Rines Angel Fund, which focuses on private equity and angel investments into various startups.

Dylan worked as a part-time software developer for York IE Labs, an early-stage investment firm. He also founded Triumph Software, his own computer software business.

Nelson Thomas - Chief Marketing Officer

Nelson has had a passion for entrepreneurship since high school, when he started his own retail brand.

He also founded Campus Clips, a mobile service providing students in the New England area with haircuts.

While attending the University of New Hampshire, he interned with Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), working in the company’s marketing department. He also worked for a non-profit, founding an event called Bench Out the Stigma, which works toward destigmatizing mental health issues.

Nelson studied Communication and Media Studies at the University of New Hampshire.

Co-Investors