I read Steve Case's The Third Wave when it came out in 2016 and I was immediately hooked by the premise:
Case posited that the Internet's First Wave (1980s-90s) was dominated by infrastructure-building (laying the fiber optic cables under the ocean), the Second Wave (2000-2015) was the app economy and social media craze, and the impending Third Wave would bring the rise of the "Internet of Everything"-- an unprecedented level of connectivity that would transform industries like healthcare and education.
As an entrepreneur still early in Allovue's founding journey, I was completely intoxicated by this prediction and saw Allovue as a key player in edtech's Third Wave, ushering school districts into a new era of K-12 finance.
In hindsight, K-12 largely skipped over the First Wave, crash-landed into the Second Wave, and was quickly disappointed when the industry didn't rocket into edtech's promised land of Third Wave insights and connectivity.
I often described Allovue in the unsexiest terms imaginable: it's plumbing; it's the wiring behind the walls; it's workflow; it's infrastructure. If we want the magic of the Third Wave of K-12 Finance, we have to first do the foundational work of laying the fiber cables-- the slow, unglamorous work of codifying a chart of accounts, position control, workflow, processes, and quality standards.
The Third Wave of K-12 Finance still shines brightly in my mind's eye.
We just need to finish building the power grid before we can ride that wave into the future. Surf's up! 😉 🌊 🏄🏻♀️