Adeel Khan: Leadership is Creating Clarity

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to My Biggest Lesson, the show that brings you the key learnings from

[00:00:06] the most influential founders, executives and investors in the Colorado tech community.

[00:00:10] My name is Adam Burrows and I'm Chris Erickson. Together we are the co-founders of Range

[00:00:16] Ventures, an early stage venture firm based in Denver. You can find out more about

[00:00:21] what we're up to at range.vc. Our guest this week is Adil Khan, founder and CEO

[00:00:29] of Magic School. Magic School is one of the fastest growing products for K12 ever, with

[00:00:34] over 2 million educators using the product in just its first year. We were fortunate

[00:00:39] to lead the seed round in Magic School last August and the company just announced a $15

[00:00:44] million Series A led by Bing Capital Ventures very recently. Before starting Magic School,

[00:00:49] Adil was a Teach for America fellow, a teacher, a principal and a successful

[00:00:54] founder of a charter school here in Denver. Adil, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:06] Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

[00:01:07] Yeah, excited to have you here. So before we jump into the biggest lesson and talk a bit about Colorado,

[00:01:13] would love our listeners to actually get to know a bit more about you. I'd say you have a more

[00:01:18] non-traditional background for a lot of the tech founders we have on here. So if you could share

[00:01:22] a bit about your background and then tell us how your background led to you founding Magic School.

[00:01:28] Yeah, again, thanks for having me. Really excited to share more about Magic School and so much

[00:01:33] of our story is tied up in my own. That started as an educator after college and I joined Teach

[00:01:39] for America. And I think the premise of Teach for America is you go into a community where

[00:01:43] the schools need help. And that was very much the experience that I had in going to become a

[00:01:50] teacher. I was a special education teacher, an English teacher in a high school in the

[00:01:54] Atlanta area. And while we had really amazing educators, a really amazing community and great

[00:02:00] kids, the school just wasn't serving them the way that they deserve to be served. You know,

[00:02:04] join Teach for America with this idea that I know that I'm not going to regret helping kids

[00:02:08] for two years and it's a two year commitment and I'm not sure what I'm going to do after,

[00:02:12] which a lot of people join Teach for America with that idea in mind. And

[00:02:16] I joined in state, I fell in love with it and like love the kids, love the community

[00:02:20] and felt like this real sense of injustice that was happening in our public school system.

[00:02:25] And I wanted to be a change maker. And it's weird to say because most people don't think

[00:02:31] that like a principal is like a glamorous job and it's not, it's really hard work. But I wanted

[00:02:36] to be a principal very soon into being a teacher because I thought of leadership as like an

[00:02:41] opportunity to make a big change in the system. And being a principal would allow me to make a

[00:02:46] greater impact on the students that I was serving at the time. And I've been like

[00:02:49] a leadership three my whole life. I'd like been reading leadership on so I was a student

[00:02:52] body president in my college, all that stuff. So leadership, it just kind of been on,

[00:02:56] was always on my mind even in my first days in the classroom. I ran really fast at that goal,

[00:03:01] moved from my Teach for America school to a school in Atlanta where the founding principal

[00:03:06] was there and I didn't know that you could found a public school. So that was really exciting

[00:03:10] to me and the school that I'm a part of that was led by an amazing principal was just,

[00:03:15] you know, I knew I wanted to found a school like that. That brought me after kind of a

[00:03:19] Stanton graduate school to learn how to be a principal, brought me to Colorado where if you

[00:03:24] didn't know this Denver is kind of like the education reform capital of the world.

[00:03:27] There are about a quarter of the public schools in Denver public schools are public charter

[00:03:31] schools and I knew that there'd be an opportunity to found a school here greater than most

[00:03:37] ecosystems in the world. I always say like Denver is kind of the Silicon Valley of

[00:03:41] public education if you think about like all the innovation that happens here. So ran really

[00:03:47] fast at the goal and was an assistant principal and principal of residence program

[00:03:51] and then founded my own public high school in Colorado called Conservatory Green High School

[00:03:55] in the Central Park neighborhood. And it is my dream manifests incredible school with a very

[00:04:00] simple promise that we're going to love the heck out of kids. We're going to hold them to

[00:04:03] really high expectations and believe in them deeply and great things will happen.

[00:04:07] And they very much did. The majority of the kids who go to the school are from

[00:04:10] low income backgrounds. Majority are kids of color and 100% of them are accepted to

[00:04:14] four year colleges year after year and it's the top performing public high school in Denver.

[00:04:20] And from there I went on to coach principals for a year and then I took some time off.

[00:04:24] I'd been doing so much. I've been running so fast at this goal. Founder to school from 10

[00:04:29] employees to 80 employees to graduated our first class of seniors and I was exhausted and ready

[00:04:35] and also led through the pandemic you know the in and out school and had to figure out

[00:04:40] what virtual school looked like for a year and a half. It was a lot. Did some travel all around

[00:04:45] the world came back to Colorado and it was right around November December 2022. This is

[00:04:49] right when generative AI was changing the world. ChatGBT was dominating the headlines and

[00:04:56] it just struck me as I've been kind of a tech geek my whole life as I had had some time on

[00:05:01] my hands. I was looking for my next opportunity to play with it and I was just struck by how

[00:05:05] much utility there was for schools and educators in this new transformative technology.

[00:05:10] And started by kind of bringing that to you know former colleagues and saying hey check out

[00:05:15] all these cool things that chatGBT can do. Confirm my suspicion there was a lot of utility

[00:05:20] in generative AI for educators and then I found that like people weren't using it very much

[00:05:24] in schools and it was like a little slunky. The user interface wasn't friendly to educators

[00:05:28] who already had 20 million jobs so like adding prompt engineer to that list wasn't going to be

[00:05:33] likely in the cards and then you know with some nudging and support from friends who'd been

[00:05:38] kind of in tech they were like you know you can do this. I've seen you build something before

[00:05:42] yeah you might not know tech very well but you know how to build things and you know education

[00:05:46] so go for it. And that's all it required was a really simple nudge so kind of bootstrapped

[00:05:50] in that MVP together of a product called Magic School which we launched literally one year ago

[00:05:56] today. Today is Magic School's birthday so super special day for how far we've come.

[00:06:01] And that launch was a loom video with me in my living room which is where I'm at right now

[00:06:07] saying this is this platform I built with some really cool tools I think will help educators

[00:06:12] and a year later it's we've acquired over 2.1, 2.2 million educator users.

[00:06:19] I believe we have reasonably we have an educator at every single school in America

[00:06:23] and beyond internationally that's a hard number to calculate because using Magic School it's

[00:06:28] more likely if you're an educator that you've heard of Magic School than not heard of it at

[00:06:32] this point and all within a year we're partnered with over 3,500 schools and districts

[00:06:37] around the country many of which are here in Colorado, Boulder County Schools,

[00:06:41] Aurora Public Schools and some new partnerships with a lot of the school districts around town

[00:06:47] and yeah it has been an absolute dream but that's the long and short of it.

[00:06:53] That's an amazing story and one of the things that we love so much about meeting you in

[00:06:58] Magic School was the journey from start of being an educator your passion for that and

[00:07:04] what led to the insight to start Magic School. So one of the things you mentioned Colorado being

[00:07:10] an amazing place to innovate as an educator also would love to hear your perspective on Colorado

[00:07:16] Tech you've been in Colorado a while but sort of newer to sort of the Colorado tech scene.

[00:07:21] What excites you about what you see here and are there any companies besides Magic School

[00:07:26] that are you know earlier stage that you're also keeping your eye on that you're excited

[00:07:30] by? I'm so new to the startup and technology space in Colorado so a lot of this has been

[00:07:35] me learning the story of tech in Denver and the greater Colorado ecosystem. So a couple

[00:07:44] just like insights I've gained is somebody who's lived here for a decade and had no

[00:07:48] idea this even existed is one it's like a really robust and like supportive ecosystem.

[00:07:53] I got to be a part of Denver Startup Week this year and I was just so inspired from

[00:07:58] how many people showed up the energy the excitement the different kinds of companies

[00:08:02] that were represented. There's so many great things happening in Denver around

[00:08:06] the tech startup scene so that that's just been inspiring and genuinely new to me.

[00:08:11] I've had friends working in tech and you know the company that comes to mind

[00:08:14] in like the tech space as like another one that you know isn't smaller than us but like I

[00:08:20] admire is certainly Guild. I have one of my closest friends is an engineer at Guild so I'd

[00:08:24] heard about his story and the things that were happening that had been happening there

[00:08:29] and obviously like they've done an incredible work and we're definitely a company that we admire.

[00:08:36] It's tough for me to I am so in my own world. I think about my own company every second of

[00:08:41] every day and I think that I'm just so unbelievably excited about what we're about

[00:08:46] and the way this has happened. Good as a founder should be right and should be focused.

[00:08:52] That's great and I think that's one of the things that I love about Colorado Tech is sort

[00:08:58] of the welcomeness and openness right and sort of the people want to help and connect with

[00:09:03] each other and I think that that makes everyone in the ecosystem better overall.

[00:09:09] So let's switch a deal to sort of the reason we're here. We'd love to learn the

[00:09:13] biggest lesson that you've learned in your career. What's the lesson? How did you learn it

[00:09:19] and how does it influence how you work or interact with people today?

[00:09:24] Maybe a novel thing that I'd share is I've thought of myself as a leader since I was like

[00:09:28] again 14 years old reading books and that's really weird. So like while I'm not that old

[00:09:33] maybe I'm maybe I am getting older. I have thought of myself as a leader in terms of

[00:09:38] decades pretty quite a while right like three decades and one of the things that I continue

[00:09:45] to see in my different experiences and like in some ways running like founding a public

[00:09:49] school is much harder than having a tech startup. In some ways it's different but

[00:09:54] like there are some very difficult things about having a school. One thing that occurs in all

[00:09:58] of these circumstances I have has been brought to me in this experience that resonates with

[00:10:03] my first one is so much of leadership is about creating clarity. So like and founding

[00:10:09] something is about giving people direction through clarity. So I'm trying to think of

[00:10:14] something that really illustrates that for me. I've had this like mirror held up to me

[00:10:20] but you know one of the superpowers of magic school is we're able to move extremely fast.

[00:10:24] Like I think speed is like a core competency of why we've been able to be so successful

[00:10:28] in an incredibly competitive environment of AI and AI and education is also a hot button

[00:10:34] thing. Is that our team typically knows exactly what they are doing this week,

[00:10:42] what our goal is this week, what we need to accomplish. The most clear example of that

[00:10:47] from this last like two months has been when we launched the business side of the platform

[00:10:52] started monetizing we had all of this revenue that was contracted that we have to convert

[00:10:59] where we were essentially coming up on our first renewals as a company. We had a lot

[00:11:03] of outstanding revenue that needed to be renewed and you know we had a short period

[00:11:08] to kind of get people to be convinced this is something that they wanted to

[00:11:13] make a commitment to or schools and districts all over the country and world

[00:11:16] make a commitment to in the following year. So every single function of the organization

[00:11:20] was focused on what can we do until that big date of renewal. Most of our contracts are on

[00:11:26] a school year contract so there's like an actual date when they renew that is not very

[00:11:30] spread out. So every function knew what they were doing. The engineering team was building

[00:11:34] right features to make sure that the customer was really happy and really excited about

[00:11:38] that renewal. Our customer success team was making sure to do outreach, communicate really

[00:11:43] clearly all the value that had been driven to our customers through data dashboards,

[00:11:48] through direct reach out monthly meetings. So everyone knew what we were going toward

[00:11:53] and every function had a part of that goal that they could attach to and then you know

[00:12:00] at the end of it we could all celebrate together when we you know we accomplish this

[00:12:03] big moving thing. And the next thing for us is the start of next school year. So we're all focused

[00:12:08] on the start of next school year doing everything we can that's like another and it was a basketball

[00:12:13] analogy it's like that's tip off for Magic Schools. Like the school year starts right

[00:12:16] around August we're gonna have everything ready for when you know teachers are coming out from

[00:12:20] their summer hibernation and vacation and we want to be really ready to deliver the

[00:12:26] absolute best platform for them, for both the customers and also our users to feel really

[00:12:31] excited about the school year again and remember that Magic School is there for them and can

[00:12:36] support them. I want to go back to something that you said earlier in the conversation about your

[00:12:41] school leadership time right? I think you mentioned you went from sort of 10 to 80 people

[00:12:45] right during that time and you know I know you're a little bigger than that now at Magic

[00:12:50] School but you're gonna go on the same type of journey there as well. How do you think

[00:12:54] about maintaining that clarity as the team scales and the org gets bigger? Are there things that

[00:13:03] you you know are already thinking about that you're gonna have to change how you technically

[00:13:07] do things or something like that just as you scale down the road? Yeah I think that you know

[00:13:12] it's a big focus of the company right now is like the word clarity is a thematic thing

[00:13:16] that is happening as we're growing each of our functions is that you know what how are we

[00:13:21] documenting our processes and creating processes where there used to be real really casual kind of

[00:13:27] conversation or very easy because there were direct lines of understanding between the smaller team.

[00:13:34] Two I think having the right functional leader in the right place and having like the right

[00:13:39] people report to the right places and then three I think I always thought about when we

[00:13:44] were expanding our team as a school that I think about here too is that the folks who are

[00:13:49] early on the team are so core in carrying forward the culture and the message of like what why we

[00:13:55] were started who we are the way we do things because systems can cure a lot of ailment that

[00:14:00] happened in like the growth phase but culture can't be systematized and often it's like the

[00:14:05] people that you put um the other people who were in like kind of those those first stages

[00:14:11] who understand why we've been successful and can keep kind of that energy going

[00:14:15] and it's important that they know they are leaders in that there is much leaders in that as I am as a CEO

[00:14:20] of the company and they carry that both burden and privilege of like with new people they're

[00:14:25] going to ask you before they ask me how do we do things around here you know are our values just

[00:14:30] things that are on a wall or are they actually things that we deliver on and we think about

[00:14:34] we make a part of our decisions and people will read that based on the way people operate

[00:14:39] and what they hear from like your the legacy employees that have been around more than even

[00:14:42] the leader so empowering those folks who've been a part of that early journey to to be leaders is

[00:14:49] I think really important. Yeah I think that you know getting the early culture right and the

[00:14:54] early leaders is so critical and and unwinding mistakes is really painful as well right in

[00:15:00] the same vein with it um as you think about that you know how have you thought about bringing

[00:15:07] the the values and the clarity and the ability to lead into your hiring process right because

[00:15:13] you've brought on some great leaders already they're doing exactly what you want from a

[00:15:18] leadership and clarity culture perspective have you started to systematize anything into your

[00:15:23] hiring process to help maintain the same things or you know those leaders are deeply involved

[00:15:29] and and they're going to naturally maintain it how are you thinking about that as you

[00:15:33] continue the next phase of growth? We're doing a lot of calibration right now around like what

[00:15:38] we're looking for in each role and each candidate so that one we can be really really aligned on

[00:15:43] like the need that we're filling with the role before we kind of start like interview processes

[00:15:48] or start a search um and we're staying really close to the processes we're making sure that

[00:15:55] like processes are really thorough we benefit a lot from being a pretty hot company right now

[00:15:59] in like AI space where a lot of people work and it's there's a mission and impact here

[00:16:04] that I think is really compelling to get some really attractive candidates and also even though

[00:16:09] those folks are brilliant and talented we're uh that we are we are so inspired by the people

[00:16:14] that we get her talk to in these processes there's also the part like do they fit our

[00:16:19] culture and are they the right person for magic school so we need to calibrate on what

[00:16:24] that means because you know Stanford Harvard really person who checks every box on like the

[00:16:32] on the resume side uh the reason why you interview them is to find out if they're right for us

[00:16:36] and we need to count on that and then we after we do the calibration it's like let's get three

[00:16:40] or four really incredible people uh through like our final phase we have like projects they

[00:16:46] do the pretty thorough interviews that we're doing now um and trying to make those as

[00:16:51] consistent as possible so we can have a really fair and equal framework and then debriefing those

[00:16:55] folks and coming up with me who we think the best fit is amongst people who we generally think

[00:17:01] are really qualified like and that's a good problem to have is right these folks we think

[00:17:05] can do the job but like who's going to do it best who's like the best fit for where we

[00:17:09] are in this moment uh so that we can make really good decisions yeah I think it it's it's

[00:17:17] interesting you know the both the culture piece and the clarity piece um I think sometimes companies

[00:17:24] don't learn the importance of until they get bigger and they learn the importance of it

[00:17:28] because things have gotten messy right but you have the experience of having built things

[00:17:33] before not in the same vein but where clarity all these things are just as important right

[00:17:38] type of thing so I think you have a really big unfair advantage is you go into this insane

[00:17:43] phase of growth that that you're having so deal where can our listeners you know follow along what

[00:17:48] you're up to what magic school is up to so they can see the latest yeah you can connect with me

[00:17:53] on linkedin it's a deal con I'm like I now become a little bit more of a regular writer

[00:17:57] of things uh fun new persona I've taken on uh so I share my thoughts along there magic

[00:18:03] school is on every social media thing in the world magic school ai we're frequent posters

[00:18:09] well deal thank you so much for joining us