Early in Blended Teaching, we were confronted with a question: should we follow the legacy publisher model of hiring salespeople to travel from campus to campus, or do something different?

We're a tech company, not a publisher, so it felt right to do something different and go from first principles. Given that we partner with Instructors to create and distribute content to other Instructors, we thought it better that we rely on our community of Instructors to grow through word of mouth.

So that's how we grow. Instructors refer us to other Instructors. Some outcomes of this include:

When an Instructor refers us to another Instructor, and it results in Blended Teaching making money, we share some of that money with the Instructor who made the introduction and recommendation. We call this "Growth Share".

The Growth Share is calculated as 15% of the first year of revenue generated from that referral for the first 12 months from when that referral starts generating income for Blended Teaching.

There are many varied scenarios in which instructors have referred us to each other. Here are some common ones:

These are common situations we find with Instructors where we pay Growth Shares. But we are sure there are more!

Reach out to us and let us know the person you have in mind, and then feel free to connect us via email. We can take it from there. Sometimes all it takes is an introduction. By the time you introduce us to your friend, you've probably already told them about your experience and made your recommendation. So with that, we can take it from there.

Let's say you introduce us to Professor X, who decides to use Blended Teaching in the Fall semester in one section of 50 students, and then in the Spring semester for 3 sections of 150 students.

We need a few more assumptions before we make the calculations. Let's say (to keep things simple) that each student pays $100.00 for access, and that all students buy access in each class. Let's also assume that there is an intermediary that the students buy access from. Intermediaries include bookstores, payment processors, inclusive access programs, etc. They commonly take a cut of 3-30% of the money paid by students before transferring the rest on to us. And this payment can take up to 4 months to reach us. For this example, let's say the intermediary cut is 5%, or $5.00 per student.

You will get 15% of whatever we receive for 12 months from when we start receiving it. The math in this example is:

To keep things manageable, we pay growth share twice per year, in October and April.

At each of these dates, we pay the growth share relating to the access licenses that have expired in the preceding 6 months.

To explain that further - when a student purchases access, they get an access license to use the materials for six months. By the time their license expires, we will almost certainly have received the related money through an intermediary, so we will be in a position to pay the Growth Share related to that.

Your October payment will cover your Growth Share for all licenses that expired between May - September of that year.

Going back to the Professor X example above, 50 students purchased access licenses in the Fall, amounting to us receiving $4,750.00. You will be paid 15% of this, amounting to $712.50, in April.

We recognize that sometimes it can take a few introductions before someone is in a position to use Blended Teaching. In these cases, we use our judgement to make sure that the most equitable solution is achieved.

You will receive 15% of the money received by Blended Teaching in the first 12 points following when students start paying. This means, if an instructor tries out some materials for a semester for free, and then starts using a paid version thereafter, your share timer will start ticking from the moment they start using it on a paid basis.

We are fine to pay you a referral fee for any introductions that result in us earning income. Some universities and instructors are fine with receiving a referral fee for referrals within the department, some view it as a conflict of interest.

Your reputation is important, and your career is long. So our recommendation is to check with your university, and do what feels right for you.

We don't offer Growth Share related to your use of Blended Teaching. It relates only to referrals and recommendations that you are making to other instructors, and is in place of us having to hire salespeople.