Even the best product can fall short when it enters the wrong environment.
EdTech teams often invest significant time and resources into building strong products—refining features, polishing UX, and collecting feedback from users. But the real challenge isn’t always inside the product. It’s around it.
If you want your solution to gain traction and sustain adoption, you need to understand the full ecosystem your product lives in: who influences adoption, who resists it, and where critical misalignments can have an impact.
At The Boedeker Group, we believe one of the smartest moves a product team can make is to map the full landscape before pushing forward. Here’s why it matters—and how to do it well.
The Product Ecosystem: More Than Just Users
It’s easy to define your user as the person logging in, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In education, adoption is rarely a one-person decision. There are gatekeepers (department chairs, curriculum committees), champions (tech-forward faculty), skeptics (experienced instructors wary of change), and influencers (administrators, IT staff, even students).
Each of these groups holds different priorities. If you’re not accounting for those dynamics, even a great product can get stuck.
Higher ed IT purchasing decisions increasingly involve cross-functional teams, including faculty, IT staff, finance administrators, and academic leadership. Without a clear understanding of how these roles intersect, EdTech products can fail to gain traction despite strong technical performance.
Case in Point
An EdTech provider worked with TBG to expand into new course areas. But before scaling, we identified where users had quietly adjusted the experience to fit their needs—highlighting friction points that didn’t show up in support tickets or survey responses. That research led to strategic content, accessibility, and delivery recommendations that broadened appeal and improved alignment across decision-makers.
When You Don’t Map the Ecosystem
Misalignment doesn’t always show up as direct pushback. Sometimes it looks like stalled decisions, partial adoption, or enthusiasm from one stakeholder group—and silence from another.
Some common signs:
- Faculty are bought in, but IT slows implementation.
- Admins approve budgets, but instructors opt for legacy tools.
- Product demos are well-received, but no one follows up.
Without mapping the full decision-making network, these friction points are easy to misread—and hard to fix.
Gartner reports that in complex buying environments, 83% of software buyers are part of a buying committee. Ignoring even one of them can stall the entire process.
How Research Closes the Gap
Ecosystem mapping isn’t guesswork. It requires talking to the full range of stakeholders and asking the right questions:
- Who has formal decision-making power?
- Who influences that decision informally?
- Where are priorities aligned—and where do they diverge?
- What concerns go unspoken in group settings?
At TBG, we use stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and structured decision-mapping exercises to move beyond assumptions and surface real dynamics.
This research allows product teams to:
- Design messaging that speaks to varied needs
- Prepare reps with tools to address role-specific objections
- Spot gaps in training, onboarding, or value delivery
Strategic Wins from Seeing the Whole Picture
When EdTech companies map their ecosystems effectively, they:
Build onboarding strategies that address multi-role dynamics. Different stakeholders need different types of support. A faculty member may need quick-start guides, while IT needs technical documentation.
Create messaging that resonates with each stakeholder type. Value propositions for academic leadership often center on outcomes and ROI, while faculty prioritize ease of use and relevance to curriculum.
Anticipate friction points before they affect adoption. Understanding that budget cycles or IT backlogs could delay implementation helps teams set expectations and stay proactive.
Uncover blind spots that would have slowed growth. Research often reveals overlooked stakeholders or outdated assumptions about how decisions are made.
In one TBG engagement, we helped a client develop a digital product in a course area with historically low digital adoption. Through targeted feedback and class testing, we identified early roadblocks. As a result, the client launched with a solid base of interest—94.4% of participants said they were likely or very likely to adopt.
Final Thought: Zoom Out to Move Forward
Your product doesn’t exist in a vacuum—and neither should your strategy. Success hinges on your ability to see beyond the user interface and into the institutional dynamics that shape adoption. The teams that consistently win are those that listen widely, plan holistically, and lead with clarity.
Mapping your product’s ecosystem isn’t just one more item on the research checklist. It’s the foundation for everything that follows—from messaging and onboarding to sales traction and long-term retention. Without it, even strong products risk being misunderstood, underutilized, or quietly replaced.
At TBG, we help EdTech companies uncover what the market isn’t saying—yet. Our ecosystem research gives your team the insight and foresight to act with confidence.
Ready to move from assumption to alignment? Let’s talk.