Four Ways to Maintain Growth When Resources are Scarce

For most ed-tech companies in 2026, the levers that drove growth in prior years are simply not available the way they once were. Significant new investments in headcount and new systems are not on the table. In order to drive growth, companies have to get incrementally better with the team and the resources they already have.

A lot of that leverage exists with the Functional Leaders who are running sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams from day to day. They are shouldering more responsibility right now than they may ever have before. How well they perform and how well they are supported will have a direct impact on whether the company finishes the year where it needs to be.

Here are four places to focus.

Build Pattern Recognition Faster

When a Functional Leader hits an obstacle they haven't seen before, the decision-making process slows down. This can be costly when the margin for error is thin. Pattern recognition – the ability to quickly read a situation, draw on relevant experience, and move forward with confidence — is one of the most valuable things they can develop. The problem is that building their pattern recognition organically, through trial and error, can take years.

The question is how to accelerate it. The most reliable path is to provide structured exposure to how others are navigating the same challenges. Peer groups, industry-specific resources, and professional communities built around the ed-tech context can reduce that learning curve significantly. When a Functional Leader hears how several counterparts at comparable companies handled a similar situation, they are able to make decisions more quickly and with greater confidence.

Keep One Eye on the Landscape

When striving to maintain growth, there's a natural instinct to put one’s head down and execute. However, this type of urgency can cause Functional Leaders to miss things that matter a great deal to their work: shifts in district spending trends, changes in federal funding priorities, policy developments that affect procurement decisions, and technology trends that are reshaping customer expectations.

Keeping an eye on the landscape requires being intentional about it. Carve out 45 minutes per week to stay current on district spending trends, federal funding developments, and policy shifts that affect how K-12 customers buy and make decisions. Keeping up with trade publications, industry events, and webinars are worth the investment, even a modest one, because the context they provide changes how Functional Leaders may approach decisions in their own organizations.

Retain Your Top Players

As growth expectations hold steady or increase, organizations naturally lean more heavily on their strongest team members. However, if those leaders aren’t adequately supported, burnout is a real possibility.

Three things can help: First, be explicit about strategic priorities. Functional Leaders should know not just what is important, but what is less important right now. Clarity about what success looks like removes a significant source of stress and lowers the cognitive load for everyone. Second, invest in their development, even if the investment is modest. In a time when promotions are hard to come by, demonstrating a commitment to someone's growth is one of the most powerful retention tools available. Third, create access to external thought partnership. Functional Leaders who have peers outside their own organization to pressure-test decisions are more resilient and more effective. That's not a soft benefit; you’ll see the impact in how they lead their teams.

Reduce Cross-functional Friction

Nearly half (45%) of ed-tech companies consider cross-functional siloing as a major obstacle to growth. It rarely surfaces as a single problem, though, yet it quietly makes everything take longer than it should. Functional Leaders, who often spend a great deal of time managing across, are the first to feel the impact of this cross-functional friction. They are also well positioned to help solve it.

Deepening Functional Leaders’ understanding of adjacent departments, not just in a general sense but with real curiosity about how those teams operate and what they need, reduces the misalignment and back-and-forth that slows things down. When teams have a genuine understanding of how adjacent departments operate, execution gets faster and fewer resources get wasted on misalignment and rework.

For many companies, maintaining steady growth this year won't come from a new product launch or a major hiring push. It will come from getting steadily and incrementally better at the fundamentals that have driven success so far. That means putting Functional Leaders in the best position to help keep the business moving forward. In a year where capacity is the real constraint, that's where many companies will find their biggest growth driver.