About the Episode

An interview with Chris Hull. Chris is a former 7th grade social studies teacher who grew dissatisfied with the tools he had to do his job and decided to create some of his own. He's now the CPO and founder of Otus, an all-in-one learning management, assessment and data system.

We talk about a lot, including:

• The vision behind Otus and how a global pandemic has made everyone interested in online learning in a pandemic
• How someone goes from teaching into building a company, some of the ways he's learned to do it and some of the mistakes he's made
• The different types of stakeholders he has to deal with across education, and how he balances the needs of all of them
• The pros & cons of interviewing kids for UX interviews, and how they're both the best and worst people to ask for feedback
• Whether there are any challenges selling into schools, and whether they're as stuck in the past as they appear
• Bringing agile principles to learning and importance of empiricism and constant learning
• How he's set up the teams to deliver value across his product lines and how the film Ratatouille inspired his ideation process
• The importance of setting a vision then stepping back & ensuring the teams have autonomy
• How teaching kids has primed him for the stresses & strains of foundership & leadership, and whether kids are harder work than adults
• Whether he's instinctive or data driven, how to step away from your biases, and when it makes sense to go with your gut
• The importance of focus, picking your bets and how "priority" has been, and should remain, singular

And much more!

Contact Chris

If you want to catch up with Chris, you can reach him on LinkedIn, Twitter or check out his company Otus

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