A dyslexia test costs HOW MUCH!? (Jamie Wace, Talamo)

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A 'snackable' 2-minute case study
Use these to build pattern recognition for how real entrepreneurs think about the problems they're solving.

The following feature is not sponsored by Talamo.

Case Study: Talamo

With Jamie Wace, Founder & CEO

Visist Talamo.co.uk

What problem are you solving?

Dyslexia identification is inaccessible to most of the population because it’s too expensive.

This means that, generally, only the middle class is assessed.

So, what's Talamo?

An automated dyslexia screening assessment that encourages entire classes to be accurately screened at once.

How did you come across this problem?

I was one of the lucky ones; I had an expensive dyslexia diagnosis, and I knew how important it was.

However, when we looked at the space, we could see that the price of a formal dyslexia assessment was £400-£800, meaning that most children wouldn’t get support due to prohibitive costs.

We suspected it might be possible to change the landscape for dyslexia screening because of our background in large technical and design projects for big companies—the space looked as though it hadn't been given a lot of love, and we wanted to create something that actually worked.

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Notice how Jamie and his team looked at their backgrounds and the state of competition to assess tractability—not the feasibility of any single idea.

How did you know it was worth solving?

Traction.

Whenever we mentioned it to someone, people were excited.

For example, when we did a demo of a prototype of the product at a conference, we got 20 school sign-ups instantly.

We actually tried to solve a ‘vitamin’ version of the problem first (a ‘nice-to-have’, not a ‘need-to-have’). We tried to get assessors to conduct more assessments via a remote-first formal diagnosis platform. But we eventually decided that it wasn’t ambitious enough.

Highlight

Receiving a staged acquisition offer from one of the UK’s biggest companies.

How can we help you?

We’re always looking for school partners. If you work in education, please click here!

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Key Takeaway
For me, the main point here is that Jamie has a deep and personal connection to the challenges of dyslexia screening, which seems to have given Talamo the staying power to endure a significant pivot.

How are you connected to your problem?

I hope you enjoyed this case study—I'm excited to do more of these for companies of all shapes, sizes, and stages of growth.

If you'd like to share the problem you're working on, have ideas for improving ProblemKit, or want to let me know about other topics you'd like me to explore, just go ahead and reply to this email. 📧

Wishing you lots of problems,

Alex