e-Learning Entrepreneurs

e-Learning Entrepreneurs

Education by Dave Szymanski | Tampa Bay Editor

Brent and Rachel Fisher have created a company that offers online education to businesses, non-profits and organizations, such as school systems.

The stories are at once disturbing and almost unbelievable. For example, a Wisconsin substitute teacher played a rap song in class, encouraged female students to come up and dance, then spanked them while they danced. He was fired.

And that's a more tame example.

Brent and Rachel Fisher are working to make such stories disappear through their e-learning company that develops online courses and provides hosting and tech support.

Their Palm Harbor online education company, SIM Inc., has created a study program called The Sub Hub, which trains substitute teachers in appropriate classroom behavior, including topics such as touching and sexual conduct, student privacy, bullying prevention, conflict resolution and stress management. It also helps school districts with legal liability in misconduct cases.

SIM also has two other programs: One, for students, is on curing test-taking anxiety and another, for teachers and counselors, is on building leadership skills.

It has had triple-digit revenue growth the past three years. Recently, it signed a long-term contract with the National Recreation and Parks Association to build a 400-hour course for park staff which it will host on the SIM servers.

Brent, 36, is president and CEO. Rachel, 33, is COO. The husband-wife couple, who moved to Tampa from Manhattan, live in downtown Tampa in a flat above a restaurant.

SIM, which began in 2004, helps guide companies or organizations to incorporate strategic e-learning solutions that leverage business assets. SIM will provide consultation and develop and deliver a customized e-learning solution.

The roots of the company go back to Brent Fisher's childhood. His mother was a trainer who traveled around the country for Quest, training other instructors who taught courses on living and coping skills for adolescents.

She would come home and talk nightly about her experiences. Years later, she would ask her son if there was a way to better market her training programs.

Fisher was born in Jacksonville but attended middle and high school in Palm Harbor and East Lake in Pinellas County. He started college in Florida and also attended Colorado State University.

Fisher's mom would later join the SIM advisory board.

"I think you're just a product of your environment somewhat," he says.

After doing Internet marketing after college, Fisher used credit cards and personal savings to create SIM in Palm Harbor in 2004. Next month, the company is moving across the bay to Tampa so it can better recruit tech talent.

Opportunities in a crowded field

SIM has niche products, but it operates in field jammed with competitors.

"There are maybe 50 to 100 companies doing what they are doing in education, plus hundreds in the e-learning arena," said Steve Roden, CEO of LearnSomething Inc., an e-learning company based in Chapel Hill, N.C. that produces training for drug and grocery store staff.

At one time, there were128 learning management companies, firms who sold software to help school districts manage student records. After the dot-com boom and bust, in 2000, a lot went out of business. Now there are 10 to 15 record-management companies.

In the e-learning industry, there's the learning-management side and the software-creation side. Then there's the content-creation side, which publish the content, recruiting Web sites.

The good news is that revenue projections for the e-learning industry are in the hundreds of billions of dollars, says Roden, who has worked in the industry for more than 20 years.

"Most of the people, the survivors of the dot-com crash, in e-learning are doing well," Roden says. "There's a good rebound."

Why? Because the Web ended up being a valid, convenient, cost-effective, flexible training vehicle, Roden says.

For example, Los Angeles pediatrician William Peters developed a Web site where 13 million people a year come for training on child care. "Consumer education on the Web is exploding," Roden says.

This year, consumers and companies will spend $18 billion on Web-based consumer education and Web-delivered merchandise. By 2012, it is expected to climb to $61 billion.

The growth vehicle

Currently, SIM's main growth vehicle is The Sub Hub, an online series of training programs for substitute teachers.

In its first year of distribution, school districts in Florida and 11 other states bought The Sub Hub. In Florida, it is in use in Hernando, Polk, Dade, Marion and Charlotte counties. SIM is talking with Collier, Hillsborough and other Florida counties.

Three of the top five school districts in the country have adopted The Sub Hub. Miami Dade is already using it. New York and Boston are contracted to begin in January, by which time, SIM expects The Sub Hub to be in use in 18 states.

School districts can require the online training or make it optional for substitutes. Many school districts, including Florida, offer live training, but the frequency of the classes and the continuing need for more teachers has created a need for more instruction.

SIM COO Rachel Fisher, a teacher and curriculum designer, headed the team that developed The Sub Hub. Joining her were teachers, software engineers and sitting and retired superintendents.

The growth of Sub Hub comes in part from legal and ethical problems involving substitute teachers, who in some cases are not much older than their students, and who, in some cases, do not get much policy training.

One SIM customer, a school district, had a substitute charged with statutory rape. Seminole County had a situation with a substitute making inappropriate jokes in class. One teacher in Hillsborough admitted to sleeping with her 15-year-old student.

"From a business perspective, it's a real liability," Rachel Fisher says. But with the Sub Hub training, school districts can verify that a substitute in legal trouble was properly trained in district policies before the violation happened.

Most school districts struggle with substitute recruitment and retention. The online training helps with recruitment and retention as well because teachers feel the district is making an investment in their future.

Congress is working on adding a provision to the No Child Left Behind Act that all substitutes be trained in public schools. They are working on attaching funding.

Online training can be more cost effective for school districts than hiring trainers. Some districts, especially those concerned about recruiting, pick up the cost of the programs. Others feel more comfortable passing it on to teachers. A five-course program for a K-12 teacher costs about $20.

In the next year, Brent Fisher wants to add three more major non-profit customers. He is going to Washington soon to meet with one, but wouldn't disclose the organization. He wants to maintain the company's triple-digit revenue growth.

In five years, Fisher hopes the company goes public, or is preparing to do an IPO.

"We have a couple of growth strategies," Brent Fisher says. "There are a lot of niche providers. There's going to have to be consolidation in the industry. But first, we need to continue to grow our company."

REVIEW SUMMARY

Company: SIM Inc., Palm Harbor

Industry: Online education

Key: Help companies and organizations, such as school systems, train staff using online education programs.