How do I validate an edtech idea involving companies and universities?

I presume you have an ed-tech offering for your target customer (Univ. and Companies) . Their customers are students and employee, so tell them how your offering create value for their end customer and thus benefit them. I have mentored 6 successful ed-tech enterprises. Feel free to setup a call to replicate success in your venture.

You need to first build relationships into this space so you can reach people. Can you get references to people at the unix and companies from your current network? You may have to partner with someone who has the connections.

This is a tough one, and the truth is you're going to deal with a lot of rejections with any idea. Even with our newest product, which is generating 5-figures in MRR, we only heard responses from ~20% of people we outreached.

Here are a few tips to make it easier, that we've done ourselves:

1) Who are you talking to at the companies and unis? If you're cold outreaching to just random or general info@ or help@ email addresses, you'll likely to be ignored. Think about how many emails a company gets a day. How can you be different?

2) I'll typically use LinkedIn, or look at their website, and then use a tool like hunter.io to find the email address of the #2 or #3 in charge. I usually avoid the #1 because I assume everyone emails him, and the #2 and #3 are slightly more accessible.

3) When I do an outreach attempt, I try to make it slightly funny and different so it stands out. I also keep the sentences very short, and I don't use big words. This makes it MUCH easier for people to read if they're busy. If I don't hear back, I follow up two days later — and usually try with a simple video hello using the tool useloom.com.

No affiliation to any of the tools mentioned above, I just like them.

If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out for a call. I've done a lot of outreach and sales to grow our products, and I've learned from some of the best sales people in the SaaS industry. Hope this helps!