Advait Shinde, co-founder and former CEO of the educational software company GoGuardiana decade passed building a business that optimizes digital learning experiences at scale—up to a $1 billion valuation.

It started in 2014 when Shinde and his co-founders Aza Steel, R. Todd Mackey and Tyler Shaddix “accidentally defined the market perfectly,” says Shinde. entrepreneur. Although investors gave them “pretty dismal” feedback about market size and associated challenges, the trio bet big on the influx of devices into the classroom, including Chromebooks, and they were successful.

GoGuardian closed a Series A round in 2015, but didn't spend the money because school districts paid multi-year contracts upfront, making a “very cash generators“model.

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Shinde was done CEO, of GoGuardian in November 2017 and led the company through an impressive period of growth. With Shinden at the helm, GoGuardian acquired edtech companies Pear Deck, Edulastic and TutorMe; launched its gamified learning product Pear Practice; and the insured investments they gave to the company unicorn the status.

“The challenge of running the company at this scale was very different from the challenge of running it when it was 10 times smaller.”

However, earlier this year, Shinde decided he no longer wanted to be CEO of GoGuardian.

“The challenge of running the company at this scale was very different from the challenge of running it when it was 10 times smaller, even 100 times smaller,” says Shinde.
“After a lot of introspection, I realized that the things I'm most excited about and probably the best had a lot more to do with early stage product development and working with smaller teams.”

According to Shinde, GoGuardian needed a leader who could help the company continue to thrive at its current scale and beyond. So, after several conversations with the board, the company decided who would be the ideal candidate: someone who could fit into GoGuardian's unique culture and had an aptitude for solving problems. That criteria led them to Rich Preece, former CEO of legal services company LegalZoom.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of GoGuardian. Rich Preece.}

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“Do I have unique experience where I can add value?“

Prior to joining LegalZoom, Preece spent 17 years at intuition and proven degrees in TurboTax and QuickBooks, but he had no experience in edtech and admits that being CEO of GoGuardian “wouldn't have been the most natural fit.” However, Preece kept one open minded and reviewed several points that ultimately solidified his decision to take on the role.

“One is, Am I passionate about space and mission?” explains Preece. “The second thing I look at is the quality of the products. And then the third element that I look at is, Do I have unique experience where I can add value?“

According to Preece, Shinde's enthusiasm was contagious from their first conversation.

Furthermore, as the father of a 12-year-old, Preece had first-hand experience with “one of the fundamental problems in education in the U.S. and around the world” — that teachers with dozens of students “necessarily set the standard for the middle third.”

“If you're in the top third, you're not necessarily going to accelerate as much as you could,” he says. “GoGuardian's products (unlock) personalization and customization for educators (and) allow the educator to pull the lower third up, meet the middle third where they are, and accelerate the upper third beyond where they would have otherwise. “

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Ultimately, Preece felt his expertise could benefit GoGuardian going forward.

“I was fortunate to build knowledge about how companies scale and how do you ensure operational rigor around those good products and how that operational rigor benefits both employees and customers as we scale,” says Preece.

“(We) work very closely together in terms of the long-range strategy and the overall architecture of the company.”

Preece moved into the role of CEO in April and Shinde became executive chairman of the board. It's Preece's first time serving as CEO of a company, and he says people warned him it could be an interesting and challenging dynamic when a founder is still involved. However, Preece and Shinde took steps to ensure working together it wouldn't be a problem.

From the beginning, Shinde and Preece had open conversations about their roles to ensure alignment. “He and I work very closely together in terms of the long-range strategy and the overall architecture of the company,” says Preece. “But then, on a day-to-day basis, Advait is still very much involved in the engineering community, where he is an innovator and a leader.”

Despite the increase in remote work relationship, the pair were also intentional about meeting in person many times. At a dinner party, they even brainstormed a situation where they disagreed to determine how well they could navigate their differences. “These are relationships that you hope to build over a significant period of time in the future,” explains Preece, “so doing that work up front and putting in the extra time, care and attention has certainly paid off.”

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“Anticipate where there may be differences in approach, value systems or principles.”

Shinde agrees – and advises anyone LEADER going through a similar transition to do the same.

“Be fully aware of how high the stakes are and how emotional intelligence will be critical to navigating the way forward,” says Shinde. “And then anticipate where there may be differences in approach, value system or principles, and step forward to identify where you misalign and steer. We did a lot of that work before.”