Item 1A.    Risk Factors

        In addition to the other information set forth in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, you should carefully consider the factors discussed in the "Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Risks Related to Our Business Model, Our Operations and Our Growth Strategy

We have a limited operating history, which makes it difficult to predict our future financial and operating results, and we may not achieve our expected financial and operating results in the future.

        We were incorporated in 2008 and launched our first client program in 2009. As a result of our limited operating history, our ability to forecast our future operating results, including revenue, cash flows and profitability, is limited and subject to a number of uncertainties. We have encountered and will encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in the technology industry. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties are incorrect or change due to factors impacting our targeted markets, or if we do not manage these risks successfully, our operating and financial results may differ materially from our expectations and our business may suffer.

We have incurred significant net losses since inception, and we expect our operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future, which may make it more difficult for us to achieve and maintain profitability.

        We incurred net losses of $20.7 million, $26.7 million and $29.0 million during the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively. We will need to generate and sustain increased revenue levels in future periods to become profitable, and, even if we do, we may not be able to maintain or increase our level of profitability. We anticipate that our operating expenses will increase substantially in the foreseeable future as we undertake increased technology and production efforts to support a growing number of client programs and increase our program marketing and sales efforts to drive the acquisition of potential students in these programs. In addition, as a public company, we will continue to incur significant accounting, legal and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. These expenditures will make it harder for us to achieve and maintain profitability. Our efforts to grow our business may be more costly than we expect, and we may not be able to increase our revenue enough to offset our higher operating expenses. If we are forced to reduce our expenses, our growth strategy could be compromised. We may incur significant losses in the future for a number of reasons, including unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown events. As a result, we can provide no assurance as to whether or when we will achieve profitability. If we are not able to achieve and maintain profitability, the value of our company and our common stock could decline significantly.

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Our business depends heavily on the adoption by colleges and universities of online delivery of their programs. If we fail to attract new colleges and universities as clients, our revenue growth and profitability may suffer.

        The success of our business depends in large part on our ability to enter into agreements with additional nonprofit colleges and universities for their offering of degree programs online. In particular, to engage new clients, we need to convince nonprofit colleges and universities, many of which have been educating students in generally the same types of on-campus programs for hundreds of years, to invest significant time and resources to adjust the manner in which they teach students for an online degree program. The delivery of degree-granting programs online at leading nonprofit colleges and universities is nascent, and many administrators and faculty members have expressed concern regarding the perceived loss of control over the education process that might result from offering content online, as well as skepticism regarding the ability of colleges and universities to provide high-quality education online that maintains the standards they set for their on-campus programs. It may be difficult to overcome this resistance, and there can be no assurance that online programs of the kind we develop with our clients will ever achieve significant market acceptance.

Our financial performance depends heavily on our ability to acquire qualified potential students for our clients' programs, and our ability to do so may be affected by circumstances beyond our control.

        Building awareness of our clients' programs is critical to our ability to acquire prospective students for our clients' programs and generate revenue. A substantial portion of our expenses is attributable to program marketing and sales efforts dedicated to attracting potential students to our clients' programs. Because we generate revenue based on a portion of the tuition and fees that our clients bill to the students enrolled in their programs, it is critical to our success that we identify prospective students who meet our clients' admissions criteria in a cost-effective manner, and that enrolled students remain active in our clients' programs.

        The following factors, many of which are largely outside of our control, may prevent us from successfully driving and maintaining student enrollment in our clients' programs in a cost-effective manner or at all:

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Negative perceptions about online learning programs.   As a non-traditional form of education delivery, prospective students will subject our clients' online degree programs to increased scrutiny. Online learning programs that we or our competitors offer may not be successful or operate efficiently, and new entrants to the field of online learning also may not perform well. Such underperformance could create the perception that online programs in general are not an effective way to educate students, whether or not our clients' programs achieve satisfactory performance, which could make it difficult for us to successfully attract prospective students for our clients' programs. Students may be reluctant to enroll in online programs for fear that the learning experience may be substandard, that employers may be averse to hiring students who received their education online, or that organizations granting professional licenses or certifications may be reluctant to grant them based on degrees earned through online education.



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Ineffective program marketing efforts.   We invest substantial resources in developing and implementing data-driven program marketing strategies that focus on identifying the right potential student at the right time. Our program marketing efforts make substantial use of search engine optimization, paid search and custom website development and deployment and we rely on a small number of internet search engines and marketing partners. If our execution of this strategy proves to be inefficient or unsuccessful in generating a sufficient quantity of high-quality prospective students, or if the costs associated with the execution of this strategy increase, our revenue could be adversely affected.



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Damage to client reputation.   Because we market a specific client degree program to potential students, the reputations of our clients are critical to our ability to enroll students. Many factors affecting our clients' reputations are beyond our control and can change over time, including

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their academic performance and ranking among nonprofit educational institutions offering a particular degree program.

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Lack of interest in the degree offered by the program.   We may encounter difficulties attracting qualified students for degree programs that are not highly desired or that are relatively new within their fields. Macroeconomic conditions beyond our control may diminish interest in employment in a field, and that could contribute to lack of interest in degrees in the disciplines offered by our clients.



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Our lack of control over our clients' admissions decisions.   Even if we are able to identity prospective students for a program, there is no guarantee that students will be admitted to that program. Our clients retain complete discretion in their admissions decisions, and any changes to admissions standards, or inconsistent application of admissions standards, could affect student enrollment and our ability to generate revenue.



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Inability of students to secure funding.   Like traditional college and university students, many of the students in our clients' programs rely heavily on the availability of third-party financing to pay for the costs of their educations, including tuition. This tuition assistance may include federal or private student loans, scholarships and grants, or benefits or reimbursement provided by the students' employers. Any developments that reduce the availability of financial aid for higher education generally, or for our clients' programs in particular, could impair students' abilities to meet their financial obligations, which in turn could result in reduced enrollment and harm our ability to generate revenue.



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General economic conditions.   Student enrollment in our clients' programs may be affected by changes in the U.S. economy and, to a lesser extent, by global economic conditions. An improvement in economic conditions in the United States and, in particular, an improvement in the U.S. unemployment rate, may reduce demand among potential students for higher educational services, as they may find adequate employment without additional education. Conversely, a worsening of economic and employment conditions may reduce the willingness of employers to sponsor higher educational opportunities for their employees or discourage existing or potential students from pursuing higher education due to a perception that there are insufficient job opportunities, increased economic uncertainty or other factors, any of which could adversely impact our ability to attract qualified students to our clients' programs. If one or more of these factors reduces student demand for our clients' programs, enrollment could be negatively affected, our costs associated with student acquisition and retention could increase, or both, any of which could materially compromise our ability to grow our revenue or achieve profitability. These developments could also harm our reputation and make it more difficult for us to engage additional clients for new programs, which would negatively impact our ability to expand our business.

Disruption to or failures of our SaaS technology could reduce client and student satisfaction with our clients' programs and could harm our reputation.

        The performance and reliability of our SaaS technology is critical to our operations, reputation and ability to attract new clients, as well as our student acquisition and retention efforts. Our clients rely on this technology to offer their programs online, and students access this technology on a frequent basis as an important part of their educational experience. Accordingly, any errors, defects, disruptions or other performance problems with our SaaS technology could damage our or our clients' reputations, decrease student satisfaction and retention and impact our ability to attract new students and clients. If any of these problems occur, our clients may, following notice and our failure to cure, terminate their agreements with us, or make indemnification or other claims against us. In addition, sustained or recurring disruptions in our SaaS technology could adversely affect our and our clients' compliance with applicable regulations and accrediting body standards.

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Our market may be limited based on the types of nonprofit colleges and universities we target for online degree programs.

        We primarily market our integrated solution to selective nonprofit colleges and universities, a market that is necessarily limited. Some of the contracts we enter into with our clients contain limitations on our ability to contract with other institutions to offer the same degree program, and maintaining good relations with our clients may mean that we may be less likely to approach certain institutions that they regard as their direct competitors to offer similar programs, even if we are allowed to do so under our contracts. Moreover, because of the long-term nature of our client contracts, and because of the relationships of trust we strive to build with our current clients, we generally will not be able or willing to terminate our existing client relationships to pursue a competitive program with another college or university, even if it may prove to be more profitable to us. Instead, we may continue with a program that does not generate expected levels of revenue to us, or one from which we may not be able to fully recover the program marketing and sales expenses we incur in attracting students to enroll in the program, if, for example, the client limits enrollment in the program. As a result, the nature of our contracts and our relationships with our clients could restrict the overall revenue potential of our business.

We have agreed to incur, and we may incur in the future, costs to terminate some or all of the exclusivity obligations in certain of our client contracts.

        Certain of our client contracts limit our ability to enable competitive programs with other schools. We have determined that enabling some of these contractually prohibited competitive programs may be part of our business strategy. To eliminate some or all of the exclusivity obligations in certain clients' contracts with us, we have agreed with certain clients to do some or all of the following: make fixed and contingent cash payments over time, reduce our revenue share over time, and/or make minimum investments in marketing under certain conditions.

        We may determine in the future that enabling additional contractually prohibited competitive programs is desirable, and we may therefore agree with additional clients to incur costs similar to those above to reduce or eliminate the exclusivity obligations contained in their contracts with us.

        If the competitive programs we ultimately enable fail to reach scale or cannot be scaled at a reasonable cost, or if we need to incur contingent costs in connection with our offering of competitive programs, our ability to grow our business and achieve profitability would be impaired.

Our clients may disagree with our decision to offer competitive programs under the contracts we have with them.

        Our contracts with our clients include terms addressing the parties' respective rights to offer competitive programs. For example, some of our contracts permit us to offer competitive programs with other schools whose potential students are not academically qualified or otherwise interested in the program we offer with that client. Some of our other contracts prohibit us from offering competitive programs with specific schools. In addition, any contract limitations on our ability to offer competitive programs are inapplicable if our client either refuses to scale the program to accommodate all students qualifying for admission into the program, or raises the program admissions standards above those described in the contract at the time it was executed. If we elect to offer competitive programs in reliance on these contractual provisions, our clients may disagree with our interpretation of those provisions or with our interpretation of the facts surrounding our decision to offer a competitive program. Any disagreement with our clients over our decision to offer competitive programs could result in claims for breach of contract and equitable relief, and could cause damage to our reputation and impair our ability to grow our business and achieve profitability.

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Attracting new clients for the launch of new programs is complex and time-consuming. If we pursue unsuccessful client opportunities, we may forego more profitable opportunities and our operating results and growth would be harmed.

        The process of identifying specific degree programs at the selective nonprofit colleges and universities, and then negotiating contracts with potential clients, is complex and time-consuming. Because of the initial reluctance on the part of some nonprofit colleges and universities to embrace a new method of delivering their education services and the complicated approval process within universities, our sales process to attract and engage a new client can be lengthy. Depending on the particular college or university, we may face resistance from university administrators or faculty members during the process.

        The sales cycle for a new degree program often spans one year or longer. In addition, our sales cycle can vary substantially from program to program because of a number of factors, including the client's approval processes or disagreements over the terms of our offerings. We spend substantial effort and management resources on our new program sales efforts without any assurance that our efforts will result in the launch of a new program. If we invest substantial resources pursuing unsuccessful program opportunities, we may forego other more profitable client relationships, which would harm our operating results and growth.

To launch a new program, we must incur significant expense in technology and content development, as well as program marketing and sales, to identify and attract prospective students, and it may be several years, if ever, before we generate revenue from a new program sufficient to recover our costs.

        To launch a new program, we must integrate components of our solutions with the various student information and other operating systems our clients use to manage functions within their institutions. In addition, our content development staff must work closely with that client's faculty members to produce engaging online coursework and content, and we must commence student acquisition activities. This process of launching a new program is time-consuming and costly and, under our agreements with our clients, we are primarily responsible for the significant costs of this effort, even before we generate any revenue. Additionally, during the life of our client agreements, we are responsible for the costs associated with continued program marketing, maintaining our SaaS technology and providing non-academic and other support for students enrolled in the program. We invest significant resources in these new programs from the beginning of our relationship with a client, and there is no guarantee that we will ever recoup these costs.

        Because our client agreements provide that we receive a fixed percentage of the tuition that the clients receive from the students enrolled in their programs, we only begin to recover these costs once students are enrolled and our clients begin billing students for tuition and fees. The time that it takes for us to recover our investment in a new program depends on a variety of factors, primarily the level of our student acquisition costs and the rate of growth in student enrollment in the program. We estimate that, on average, it takes approximately four to five years after engagement with a client to fully recover our investment in that client's new program. Because of the lengthy period required to recoup our investment in a program, unexpected developments beyond our control could occur that result in the client ceasing or significantly curtailing a program before we are able to fully recoup our investment. As a result, we may ultimately be unable to recover the full investment that we make in a new program or achieve our expected level of profitability for the program.

If new programs do not scale efficiently and in the time frames we expect, our reputation and our revenue will suffer.

        Our continued growth and profitability depends on our and our clients' ability to successfully scale newly launched programs. As we continue aggressively growing our business, we plan to continue to hire new employees at a rapid pace, particularly in our program marketing and sales team and our

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technology and content development teams. If we cannot adequately train these new employees, we may not be successful in acquiring potential students for our clients' programs, which would adversely impact our ability to generate revenue, and our clients and the students in their programs could lose confidence in the knowledge and capability of our employees. If we cannot quickly and efficiently scale our technology to handle growing student enrollment and new client programs, our clients' and their students' experiences may suffer, which could damage our reputation among colleges and universities and their faculty and students.

        In addition, if our clients cannot quickly develop the infrastructure and hire sufficient faculty and administrators to handle growing student enrollments, our clients' and their students' experiences with our solutions may suffer, which could damage our reputation among colleges and universities and their faculty and students.

        Our ability to effectively manage any significant growth of new programs and increasing student enrollment will depend on a number of factors, including our ability to:

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satisfy existing students in, and attract and enroll new students for, our clients' programs;



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assist our clients in recruiting qualified faculty to support their expanding enrollments;



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assist our clients in developing and producing an increased volume of course content;



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successfully introduce new features and enhancements and maintain a high level of functionality in our SaaS technology; and



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deliver high-quality support to our clients and their faculty and students.

        Establishing new client programs or expanding existing programs will require us to make investments in management and key staff, increase capital expenditures, incur additional marketing expenses and reallocate other resources. If student enrollment in our clients' programs does not increase, if we are unable to launch new programs in a cost-effective manner or if we are otherwise unable to manage new client programs effectively, our ability to grow our business and achieve profitability would be impaired, and the quality of our solutions and the satisfaction of our clients and their students could suffer.

Our financial performance depends heavily on student retention within our clients' programs, and factors influencing student retention may be out of our control.

        Once a student is enrolled in a program, we and our client must retain the student over the life of the degree program to generate ongoing revenue. Our strategy involves offering high-quality support to students enrolled in our clients' programs to support their retention. If we do not help students quickly resolve any educational, technological or logistical issues they encounter, otherwise provide effective ongoing support to students or deliver the type of high-quality, engaging educational content that students expect, students may withdraw from the program, which would negatively impact our revenue.

        In addition, student retention could be compromised by the following factors, many of which are largely outside of our control:

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Reduced support from our clients.   Because revenue from a particular program is directly attributable to the level of student enrollment in the program, our ability to grow our revenue from a client relationship depends on the client continuing to offer its online program to students, as well as the growth of enrollment in that program. Although our contracts with clients generally require that the client expand enrollment in their programs to include all qualified applicants, our only recourse if they choose not to do so is termination of the exclusivity limitations on developing programs with other colleges or universities that are included in our agreements with our clients. Despite the agreements we have in place with our clients, our clients could limit enrollment in their programs, cease providing the programs

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altogether or significantly curtail or inhibit our ability to promote their programs, any of which would negatively impact our revenue.

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Lack of support from client faculty members.   It takes a significant time commitment and dedication from our clients' faculty members to work with us to develop course content designed for an online learning environment. Our clients' faculty may be unfamiliar with the development and production process, may not understand the time commitment involved to develop the course content, or may otherwise be resistant to changing the ways in which they present the same content in an on-campus class. Our ability to maintain high student retention will depend in part on our ability to convince our clients' faculty of the value in the time and effort they will spend developing the course program. Lack of support from faculty could cause the quality of our clients' programs to decline, which could contribute to decreased student satisfaction and retention.



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Student dissatisfaction.   Enrolled students may drop out of our clients' programs based on their individual perceptions of the value they are getting from the program. For example, we may face retention challenges as a result of students' dissatisfaction with the quality of course content and presentation, dissatisfaction with our clients' faculty, changing views of the value of our clients' programs and degrees offered and perceptions of employment prospects following completion of the program. Factors outside our control related to student satisfaction with, and overall perception of, a program may contribute to decreased student retention rates for that program.



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Personal factors.   Factors impacting a student's willingness and ability to stay enrolled in a program include personal factors, such as ability to continue to pay tuition, ability to meet the rigorous demands of the program, and lack of time to continue classes, all of which are generally beyond our control.

        Any of these factors could significantly reduce the revenue that we generate from a program, which would negatively impact our return on investment for the particular program, and could compromise our ability to grow our business and achieve profitability.

We currently have, and for the foreseeable future expect to continue to have, a small number of programs that contribute a meaningful portion of our revenue and generate positive earnings and cash flow. Therefore we expect that the loss, or material underperformance, of any one of these programs could hurt our future financial performance.

        Of the programs we operate, only a small number contribute a significant portion of our revenue and generate positive earnings and cash flow. As a result, the material underperformance of any one of these programs could have a disproportionate effect on our business.

A significant portion of our revenue is currently attributable to programs with the University of Southern California. The loss of, or a decline in enrollment in, either of these programs could significantly reduce our revenue.

        Our two longest running programs, launched in 2009 and 2010, are with the University of Southern California, or USC. For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, 34% and 43%, respectively, of our revenue was derived from these two programs. We expect that these programs will continue to account for a large portion of our revenue until our other client programs become more mature and achieve significantly higher enrollment levels. Any decline in USC's reputation, any increase in USC's tuition, or any changes in USC's policies could adversely affect the number of students that enroll in these two programs. Further, the faculty or administrators of these two schools could become resistant to offering their online programs through our solutions, making it more difficult for us to attract and retain students. These graduate schools are not required to expand student enrollment in their online programs and, upon the expiration of their contracts, they are not required to continue using us as the

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provider of their online programs. If either of these programs were to materially underperform for any reason or to terminate or not renew their relationships with us, it would significantly reduce our revenue.

The loss, or material underperformance, of any one of our programs could harm our reputation, which could in turn affect our profitability.

        We rely on our reputation for delivering high-quality online programs and recommendations from existing clients to attract potential new clients. Therefore, the loss of any single client program, or the failure of any client to renew its agreement with us upon expiration, could harm our reputation and impair our ability to pursue our growth strategy and ultimately to become profitable.

If our security measures are breached or fail and result in unauthorized disclosure of data, we could lose clients, fail to attract new clients and be exposed to protracted and costly litigation.

        Maintaining security of our SaaS technology is of critical importance for our clients because it stores and transmits proprietary and confidential university and student information, which may include sensitive personally identifiable information that is subject to stringent legal and regulatory obligations. As a technology company, we face an increasing number of threats to our SaaS technology, including unauthorized activity and access, system viruses, worms, malicious code and organized cyberattacks, any of which could breach our security and disrupt our solutions and our clients' programs. If our security measures are breached or fail as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance or otherwise, we could be subject to liability or our business could be interrupted, potentially over an extended period of time. Any or all of these issues could harm our reputation, adversely affect our ability to attract new clients and students, cause existing clients to scale back their programs or elect not to renew their agreements, cause prospective students not to enroll or students to stay enrolled in our clients' programs, or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability. Further, any reputational damage resulting from breach of our security measures could create distrust of our company by prospective clients or students. In addition, our insurance coverage may not be adequate to cover losses associated with such events, and in any case, such insurance may not cover all of the types of costs, expenses and losses we could incur to respond to and remediate a security breach. As a result, we may be required to expend significant additional resources to protect against the threat of these disruptions and security breaches or to alleviate problems caused by such disruptions or breaches.

We have grown rapidly and expect to continue to invest in our growth for the foreseeable future. If we fail to manage this growth effectively, the success of our business model will be compromised.

        We have experienced rapid growth in a relatively short period of time, which has placed, and will continue to place, a significant strain on our administrative and operational infrastructure, facilities and other resources. Our ability to manage our operations and growth will require us to continue to expand our program marketing and sales personnel, technology team, finance and administration teams, as well as our facilities and infrastructure. We will also be required to refine our operational, financial and management controls and reporting systems and procedures. If we fail to manage this expansion of our business efficiently, our costs and expenses may increase more than we plan and we may not successfully expand our client base, enhance our solutions, develop new programs with new and existing clients, attract a sufficient number of qualified students in a cost-effective manner, satisfy the requirements of our existing clients, respond to competitive challenges or otherwise execute our business plan. Although our business has experienced significant growth in the past, we cannot provide any assurance that our revenue will continue to grow at the same rate in the future.

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        Our ability to manage any significant growth of our business effectively will depend on a number of factors, including our ability to:

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effectively recruit, integrate, train and motivate a large number of new employees, including our program marketing and technology teams, while retaining existing employees;



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maintain the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture and effectively execute our business plan;



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continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls;



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protect and further develop our strategic assets, including our intellectual property rights; and



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make sound business decisions in light of the scrutiny associated with operating as a public company.

        These activities will require significant capital expenditures and allocation of valuable management and employee resources, and our growth will continue to place significant demands on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure.

        There are no guarantees that we will be able to effectively manage any future growth in an efficient, cost-effective or timely manner, or at all. In particular, any failure to implement systems enhancements and improvements successfully will likely negatively impact our ability to manage our expected growth, ensure uninterrupted operation of key business systems and comply with the rules and regulations that are applicable to public reporting companies. Moreover, if we do not manage the growth of our business and operations effectively, the quality of our solutions could suffer, which could negatively affect our reputation, results of operations and overall business.

We may expand by acquiring or investing in other companies, which may divert our management's attention, result in dilution to our shareholders and consume resources that are necessary to sustain our business.

        We may in the future acquire complementary products, services, technologies or businesses. We also may enter into relationships with other businesses to expand our ability to provide our solutions in the United States and in international markets. Negotiating these transactions can be time-consuming, difficult and expensive, and our ability to complete these transactions may often be subject to conditions or approvals that are beyond our control. Consequently, these transactions, even if undertaken and announced, may not close.

        An acquisition, investment, or new business relationship may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. In particular, we may encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel, or operations of acquired companies, particularly if the key personnel of the acquired company choose not to work for us, the acquired company's technology is not compatible with ours, or we have difficulty retaining the customers of any acquired business due to changes in management or otherwise. Additionally, we may encounter difficulties integrating the acquired companies with our standardized accounting systems as necessary to provide us with the accounting controls needed to comply with our continued financial reporting requirements as a public company. Acquisitions may also disrupt our business, divert our resources, and require significant management attention that would otherwise be available for the development of our business. Any problems or delays associated with the integration or the failure to complete the integrations on a timely basis could adversely affect our ability to report financial information, including the filing of our quarterly or annual reports with the SEC on a timely and accurate basis. Moreover, the anticipated benefits of any acquisition, investment, or business relationship may not be realized or we may be exposed to unknown liabilities, including litigation against the companies we may acquire. For one or more of those transactions, we may:

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issue additional equity securities that would dilute our shareholders;

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use cash that we may need in the future to operate our business;



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incur debt on terms unfavorable to us or that we are unable to repay or that may place burdensome restrictions on our operations;



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incur large charges or substantial liabilities; or



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become subject to adverse tax consequences.

        Any of these outcomes could harm our business and operating results.

We face competition from established and emerging companies, which could divert clients to our competitors, result in pricing pressure and significantly reduce our revenue.

        We expect existing competitors and new entrants to the online learning market to revise and improve their business models constantly in response to challenges from competing businesses, including ours. If these or other market participants introduce new or improved delivery of online education and technology-enabled services that we cannot match or exceed in a timely or cost-effective manner, our ability to grow our revenue and achieve profitability could be compromised.

        Our primary competitors include EmbanetCompass and Deltak, which were acquired in 2012 by Pearson and John Wiley & Sons, respectively, both of which are large education and publishing companies. There are also several private companies, including HotChalk and Everspring, providing some or all of the services we provide, and these companies may choose to pursue some of the institutions we target. In addition, colleges and universities may choose to continue using or to develop their own online learning solutions in-house, rather than pay for our solutions.

        Some of our competitors and potential competitors have significantly greater resources than we do. Increased competition may result in pricing pressure for us in terms of the percentage of tuition and fees we are able to negotiate to receive from a client. The competitive landscape may also result in longer and more complex sales cycles with a prospective client or a decrease in our market share among selective nonprofit colleges and universities seeking to offer online degree programs, any of which could negatively affect our revenue and future operating results and our ability to grow our business.

        A number of competitive factors could cause us to lose potential client opportunities or force us to offer our solutions on less favorable economic terms, including

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competitors may develop service offerings that our potential clients find to be more compelling than ours;



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competitors may adopt more aggressive pricing policies and offer more attractive sales terms, adapt more quickly to new technologies and changes in client and student requirements, and devote greater resources to the acquisition of qualified students than we can; and



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current and potential competitors may establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties to enhance their products and expand their markets, and our industry is likely to see an increasing number of new entrants and increased consolidation. Accordingly, new competitors or alliances among competitors may emerge and rapidly acquire significant market share.

        We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors. In addition, competition may intensify as our competitors raise additional capital and as established companies in other market segments or geographic markets expand into our market segments or geographic markets. If we cannot compete successfully against our competitors, our ability to grow our business and achieve profitability could be impaired.

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If for-profit postsecondary institutions, which offer online education alternatives different from ours, perform poorly, it could tarnish the reputation of online education as a whole, which could impair our ability to grow our business.

        For-profit postsecondary institutions, many of which provide course offerings predominantly online, are under intense regulatory and other scrutiny, which has led to media attention that has sometimes portrayed that sector in an unflattering light. Some for-profit online school operators have been subject to governmental investigations alleging the misuse of public funds, financial irregularities, and failure to achieve positive outcomes for students, including the inability to obtain employment in their fields. These allegations have attracted significant adverse media coverage and have prompted legislative hearings and regulatory responses. These investigations have focused on specific companies and individuals, and even entire industries in the case of recruiting practices by for-profit higher education companies. Even though we do not market our solutions to these institutions, this negative media attention may nevertheless add to skepticism about online higher education generally, including our solutions.

        The precise impact of these negative public perceptions on our current and future business is difficult to discern. If these few situations, or any additional misconduct, cause all online learning programs to be viewed by the public or policymakers unfavorably, we may find it difficult to enter into or renew contracts with selective colleges and universities or attract additional students for our clients' programs. In addition, this perception could serve as the impetus for more restrictive legislation, which could limit our future business opportunities. Moreover, allegations of abuse of federal financial aid funds and other statutory violations against for-profit higher education companies could negatively impact our opportunity to succeed due to increased regulation and decreased demand. Any of these factors could negatively impact our ability to increase our client base and grow our clients' programs, which would make it difficult to continue to grow our business.

If we do not retain our senior management team and key employees, we may not be able to sustain our growth or achieve our business objectives.

        Our future success is substantially dependent on the continued service of our senior management team. Because of our small number of clients and the significant nature of each new client relationship, our senior management team is heavily involved in the client identification and sales process, and their expertise is critical in navigating the complex approval processes of large nonprofit colleges and universities. We do not maintain key-person insurance on any of our employees, including our senior management team. The loss of the services of any individual on our senior management team, or failure to find a suitable successor, could make it more difficult to successfully operate our business and achieve our business goals.

        Our future success also depends heavily on the retention of our program marketing and sales, technology and content development and support teams to continue to attract and retain qualified students in our clients' programs, thereby generating revenue for us. In particular, our highly-skilled technology and content development employees provide the technical expertise underlying our bundled technology-enabled services that support our clients' programs and the students enrolled in these programs. Competition for these employees is intense. As a result, we may be unable to attract or retain these key personnel that are critical to our success, resulting in harm to our relationships with clients, loss of expertise or know-how and unanticipated recruitment and training costs.

If certain awards under our stock plans are deemed to have not expired in accordance with their terms, we could be liable to certain award holders for substantial amounts.

        Each of our 2008 Stock Incentive Plan and 2014 Equity Incentive Plan provide that vested stock option awards issued under those plans expire upon the occurrence of certain events. For example, each plan provides, among other things, that stock options expire and are no longer exercisable upon

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the earlier to occur of 90 days after a separation of service, or, depending on the specific circumstances of the grantee, 5 or 10 years after the grant date. Award recipients under these plans have failed and may fail in the future to exercise their stock options within the prescribed time frame or may otherwise fail to comply with terms and conditions of the plans or the corresponding award agreements resulting in the expiration of those option awards. Award recipients with expired option awards have disagreed and may disagree in the future with our or our Compensation Committee's interpretation of the provisions in the plans or the award agreements. Any disagreement between us and holders of expired option awards regarding the expiration of those awards under the terms of the plan or award agreements could result in claims for breach of contract and other claims that could subject us to costly litigation that could require management time and involvement, regardless of whether such claims have merit.

We may need additional capital in the future to pursue our business objectives. Additional capital may not be available on favorable terms, or at all, which could compromise our ability to grow our business.

        We believe that our existing cash balances and the available borrowing capacity under our revolving line of credit, will be sufficient to meet our minimum anticipated cash requirements for at least the next twelve months. We may, however, need to raise additional funds to respond to business challenges or opportunities, accelerate our growth, develop new programs or enhance our solutions. If we seek to raise additional capital, it may not be available on favorable terms or may not be available at all. In addition, if we have borrowings outstanding under our credit facility, we may be restricted from using the net proceeds of financing transactions for our operating objectives. Lack of sufficient capital resources could significantly limit our ability to manage our business and to take advantage of business and strategic opportunities. Any additional capital raised through the sale of equity or debt securities with an equity component would dilute our stock ownership. If adequate additional funds are not available if and when needed, we may be required to delay, reduce the scope of, or eliminate material parts of our business strategy.

Our employees located outside of the United States and the international residents applying to and enrolling in our clients' programs expose us to international risks.

        Operating in international markets requires significant resources and management attention and subjects us to regulatory, economic and political risks that are different from those in the United States. We have a branch office in Hong Kong for program marketing and student support. Because we have employees in Hong Kong, we are subject to Hong Kong's compensation and benefits regulations, which differ from compensation and benefits regulations in the United States. Further, acquiring international applicants and enrollments for our clients requires us to comply with international data privacy regulations of the countries from which our clients' programs draw applicants and enrollments. Failure to comply with international regulations or to adequately adapt to international markets could harm our ability to successfully operate our business and pursue our business goals.

Future programs or other offerings with colleges and universities outside the United States could expose us to risks inherent in international operations.

        One element of our growth strategy is to expand our international operations and establish a worldwide client base. We cannot assure you that our expansion efforts into international markets will be successful. Our experience with attracting clients in the United States may not be relevant to our ability to attract clients in other emerging markets. In addition, we would face risks in doing business internationally that could constrain our operations and compromise our growth prospects, including:

•

the need to localize and adapt online degree programs or other offerings for specific countries, including translation into foreign languages and ensuring that these programs enable our clients to comply with local education laws and regulations;

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•

data privacy laws that may require data to be handled in a specific manner;



•

difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations, including employment laws and regulations; different pricing environments, longer sales cycles, longer accounts receivable payment cycles and collections issues;



•

new and different sources of competition, and practices which may favor local competitors;



•

weaker protection for intellectual property and other legal rights than in the United States and practical difficulties in enforcing intellectual property and other rights outside of the United States;



•

compliance challenges related to the complexity of multiple, conflicting and changing governmental laws and regulations, including employment, tax, privacy and data protection, and anti-bribery laws and regulations such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act;



•

increased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities;



•

restrictions on the transfer of funds;



•

adverse tax consequences, including the potential for required withholding taxes for our overseas employees;



•

unstable regional and economic political conditions; and



•

fluctuations in currency exchange rates or restrictions on foreign currency.

We might not be able to utilize a portion of our net operating loss carryforwards, which could adversely affect our profitability.

        As of December 31, 2016, we had federal net operating loss carryforwards due to prior period losses, which, if not utilized, will begin to expire in 2029. Our gross state net operating loss carryforwards are equal to or less than the federal net operating loss carryforwards and expire over various periods based on individual state tax laws. These net operating loss carryforwards could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities, which could adversely affect our profitability. In addition, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, if a corporation undergoes an "ownership change," which is generally defined as a greater than 50% change, by value, in its equity ownership over a three-year period, the corporation's ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes to offset its post-change income may be limited. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. We have completed an analysis of the stock ownership changes through December 31, 2016, and determined that a greater than 50% ownership change of one or more of its 5-percent shareholders occurred. Absent a subsequent ownership change, all of our net operating losses subject to the ownership change should be available. Therefore, despite the fact that an ownership change occurred, such change is not expected to limit our ability to utilize carryforward net operating losses before expiration. In addition, we may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership. If a future ownership change occurs and limits our ability to use our historical net operating loss carryforwards, it would harm our future financial statement results by increasing our future tax obligations.

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We engage some individuals classified as independent contractors, not employees, and if federal or state law mandates that they be classified as employees, our business would be adversely impacted.

        We engage independent contractors and are subject to the Internal Revenue Service regulations and applicable state law guidelines regarding independent contractor classification. These regulations and guidelines are subject to judicial and agency interpretation, and it could be determined that the independent contractor classification is inapplicable. Further, if legal standards for classification of independent contractors change, it may be necessary to modify our compensation structure for these personnel, including by paying additional compensation or reimbursing expenses. In addition, if our independent contractors are determined to have been misclassified as independent contractors, we would incur additional exposure under federal and state law, workers' compensation, unemployment benefits, labor, employment and tort laws, including for prior periods, as well as potential liability for employee benefits and tax withholdings. Any of these outcomes could result in substantial costs to us, could significantly impair our financial condition and our ability to conduct our business as we choose, and could damage our reputation and our ability to attract and retain other personnel.

Risks Related to Regulation of Our Business and That of Our Clients

Our business model relies on client institutions complying with federal and state laws and regulations.

        Higher education is heavily regulated. All of our clients participate in Title IV federal student financial assistance programs under the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, or HEA, and are subject to extensive regulation by the U.S. Department of Education, or DOE, as well as various state agencies, licensing boards and accrediting commissions. To participate in the Title IV programs, an institution must receive and maintain authorization by the appropriate state education agencies, be accredited by an accrediting commission recognized by the DOE, and be certified by the DOE as an eligible institution. If any of our clients were to be found to be in non-compliance with any of these laws, regulations, standards or policies, the client could lose some or all access to Title IV program funds, lose the ability to offer certain programs or lose their ability to operate in certain states, any of which could cause our revenue from that client's program to decline.

        The regulations, standards and policies of our clients' regulators change frequently and are often subject to interpretation. Changes in, or new interpretations of, applicable laws, regulations or standards could compromise our clients' accreditation, authorization to operate in various states, permissible activities or use of federal funds under Title IV programs. We cannot predict with certainty how the requirements applied by our clients' regulators will be interpreted, or whether our clients will be able to comply with these requirements in the future.

Our activities are subject to federal and state laws and regulations and other requirements.

        Although we are not an institution of higher education, we are required to comply with certain education laws and regulations as a result of our role as a service provider to higher education institutions, either directly or indirectly through our contractual arrangements with clients. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations could result in breach of contract and indemnification claims and could cause damage to our reputation and impair our ability to grow our business and achieve profitability.

Activities of the U.S. Congress could result in adverse legislation or regulatory action.

        The process of re-authorization of the HEA began in 2014 and is ongoing. Congressional hearings were held in 2013-2016 and will continue to be scheduled by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce and other Congressional committees regarding various aspects of the education industry,

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including accreditation matters, student debt, student recruiting, cost of tuition, distance learning, competency-based learning, student success and outcomes and other matters.

        The increased scrutiny and results-based accountability initiatives in the education sector, as well as ongoing policy differences in Congress regarding spending levels, could lead to significant changes in connection with the reauthorization of the HEA or otherwise. These changes may place additional regulatory burdens on postsecondary schools generally, and specific initiatives may be targeted at or have an impact upon companies like us that serve higher education. The adoption of any laws or regulations that limit our ability to provide our bundled services to our clients could compromise our ability to drive revenue through their programs or make our solutions less attractive to them. Congress could also enact laws or regulations that require us to modify our practices in ways that could increase our costs.

        In addition, regulatory activities and initiatives of the DOE may have similar consequences for our business even in the absence of Congressional action.

Our business model, which depends on our ability to receive a share of tuition revenue as payment from our clients, has been validated by a DOE "dear colleague" letter, but such validation is not codified by statute or regulation and may be subject to change.

        Each institution that participates in Title IV programs agrees it will not "provide any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment based in any part, directly or indirectly, upon success in securing enrollments or the award of financial aid, to any person or entity who is engaged in any student recruitment or admission activity, or in making decisions regarding the award of title IV, HEA program funds." All of our clients participate in Title IV Programs.

        Although this rule, referred to as the incentive compensation rule, generally prohibits entities or individuals from receiving incentive-based compensation payments for the successful recruitment, admission or enrollment of students, the DOE provided guidance in 2011 permitting tuition revenue-sharing arrangements known as the "bundled services rule." Our current business model relies heavily on the bundled services rule to enter into tuition revenue-sharing agreements with client colleges and universities.

        Because the bundled services rule was promulgated in the form of agency guidance issued by the DOE in the form of a "dear colleague" letter, or DCL, and is not codified by statute or regulation, there is risk that the rule could be altered or removed without prior notice, public comment period or other administrative procedural requirements that accompany formal agency rulemaking. Although the DCL represents the current policy of the DOE, the bundled services rule could be reviewed, altered or vacated in the future. In addition, the legal weight the DCL would carry in litigation over the propriety of any specific compensation arrangements under the HEA or the incentive compensation rule is uncertain. We can offer no assurances as to how the DCL would be interpreted by a court. The revision, removal or invalidation of the bundled services rule by Congress, the DOE or a court, whether in an action involving our company or our clients, or in action that does not involve us, could require us to change our business model and renegotiate the terms of our client contracts and could compromise our ability to generate revenue.

If we or our subcontractors or agents violate the incentive compensation rule, we could be liable to our clients for substantial fines, sanctions or other liabilities.

        Even though the DCL clarifies that tuition revenue-sharing arrangements with our clients are permissible, we are still subject to other provisions of the incentive compensation rule that prohibit us from offering to our employees who are involved with or responsible for recruiting or admissions activities any bonus or incentive-based compensation based on the successful identification, admission or enrollment of students into any institution. If we or our subcontractors or agents violate the

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incentive compensation rule, we could be liable to our clients for substantial fines, sanctions or other liabilities, including liabilities related to "whistleblower" claims under the federal False Claims Act. Any such claims, even if without merit, could require us to incur significant costs to defend the claim, distract management's attention and damage our reputation.

If we or our subcontractors or agents violate the misrepresentation rule, or similar federal and state regulatory requirements, we could face fines, sanctions and other liabilities.

        We are required to comply with other regulations promulgated by the DOE that affect our student acquisition activities, including the misrepresentation rule. The misrepresentation rule is broad in scope and applies to statements our employees, subcontractors or agents may make about the nature of a client's program, a client's financial charges or the employability of a client's program graduates. A violation of this rule, FTC rules or other federal or state regulations applicable to our marketing activities by an employee, subcontractor or agent performing services for clients could hurt our reputation, result in the termination of client contracts, require us to pay fines or other monetary penalties or require us to pay the costs associated with indemnifying a client from private claims or government investigations.

If our clients fail to maintain their state authorizations, or we or our clients violate other state laws and regulations, students in their programs could be adversely affected and we could lose our ability to operate in that state and provide services to our clients.

        Our clients must be authorized in certain states to offer online programs, engage in recruiting and operate externships, internships, clinical training or other forms of field experience, depending on state law. The loss of or failure to obtain state authorization would, among other things, limit a client's ability to enroll students in that state, render the client and its students ineligible to participate in Title IV programs in that state, diminish the attractiveness of the client's program and ultimately compromise our ability to generate revenue and become profitable.

        In addition, if we or any of our clients fail to comply with any state agency's rules, regulations or standards beyond authorizations, the state agency or state attorney general could limit the ability of the client to offer programs in that state or limit our ability to perform our contractual obligations to our client in that state.

If our clients fail to maintain institutional or programmatic accreditation for their programs, our revenue could be materially affected.

        The loss or suspension of a client's accreditation or other adverse action by the client's institutional or programmatic accreditor would render the institution or its program ineligible to participate in Title IV programs, could prevent the client from offering certain educational programs and could make it impossible for the graduates of the client's program to practice the profession for which they trained. If any of these results occurs, it could hurt our ability to generate revenue from that program.

Our future growth could be impaired if our clients fail to obtain timely approval from applicable regulatory agencies to offer new programs, make substantive changes to existing programs or expand their programs into or within certain states.

        Our clients are required to obtain the appropriate approvals from the DOE and applicable state and accrediting regulatory agencies for new programs or locations, which may be conditioned, delayed or denied in a manner that could impair our strategic plans and future growth. Education regulatory agencies are generally experiencing significant increases in the volume of requests for approvals as a result of new distance learning programs and adjustments to the significant volume of new regulations

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over the last several years. Regulatory capacity constraints have resulted in delays to various approvals our client institutions are requesting, and such delays could in turn delay the timing of our ability to generate revenue from our clients' programs.

If more state agencies require specialized approval of our clients' programs, our operating costs could rise significantly, approval times could lag or we could be prohibited from operating in certain states.

        In addition to state licensing agencies, our clients may be required to obtain approval from professional licensing boards in certain states to offer specialized programs in specific fields of study. Currently, relatively few states require institutions to obtain professional board approval for their professional programs when offered online. However, more states could pass laws requiring professional programs offered by our clients, such as graduate programs in teaching or nursing, to obtain approval from state professional boards. If a significant number of states pass additional laws requiring schools to obtain professional board approval, the cost of obtaining all necessary state approvals could dramatically increase, which could make our solutions less attractive to clients, and our clients could be barred from operating in some states entirely.

If the personally identifiable information we collect from students is unlawfully acquired, accessed or obtained, we could be required to pay substantial fines and bear the cost of investigating the data breach and providing notice to individuals whose personally identifiable information was unlawfully accessed.

        In providing services to our clients, we collect personally identifiable information from students and prospective students, such as names, social security numbers and birth dates. In the event that the personally identifiable information is unlawfully accessed or acquired, the majority of states have laws that require institutions to investigate and immediately disclose the data breach to students, usually in writing. Under the terms of our contracts with our clients, we would be responsible for the costs of investigating and disclosing these data breaches to the clients' students. In addition to costs associated with investigating and fully disclosing a data breach in such instances, we could be subject to substantial monetary fines or private claims by affected parties and our reputation would likely be harmed.

We are required to comply with The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, and failure to do so could harm our reputation and negatively affect our business.

        FERPA generally prohibits an institution of higher education from disclosing personally identifiable information from a student's education records without the student's consent. Our clients and their students disclose to us certain information that originates from or comprises a student education record under FERPA. As an entity that provides services to institutions, we are indirectly subject to FERPA, and we may not transfer or otherwise disclose any personally identifiable information from a student record to another party other than in a manner permitted under the statute. If we violate FERPA, it could result in a material breach of contract with one or more of our clients and could harm our reputation. Further, in the event that we disclose student information in violation of FERPA, the DOE could require a client to suspend our access to their student information for at least five years.

Risks Related to Intellectual Property

We operate in an industry with extensive intellectual property litigation. Claims of infringement against us may hurt our business.

        Our success depends, in part, upon our ability to avoid infringing intellectual property rights owned by others and being able to resolve claims of intellectual property infringement without major financial expenditures or adverse consequences. The technology and software fields generally are characterized by extensive intellectual property litigation and many companies that own, or claim to own, intellectual property have aggressively asserted their rights. From time to time, we may be subject to legal

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proceedings and claims relating to the intellectual property rights of others, and we expect that third parties will assert intellectual property claims against us, particularly as we expand the complexity and scope of our business. In addition, our client agreements require us to indemnify our clients against claims that our solutions infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties.

        Future litigation may be necessary to defend ourselves or our clients from intellectual property infringement claims or to establish our proprietary rights. Some of our competitors have substantially greater resources than we do and would be able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation to a greater degree and for longer periods of time than we could. In addition, patent holding companies that focus solely on extracting royalties and settlements by enforcing patent rights may target us. Regardless of whether claims that we are infringing patents or other intellectual property rights have any merit, these claims are time-consuming and costly to evaluate and defend and could:

•

hurt our reputation;



•

adversely affect our relationships with our current or future clients;



•

cause delays or stoppages in providing our solutions;



•

divert management's attention and resources;



•

require technology changes to our software that could cause us to incur substantial cost;



•

subject us to significant liabilities; and



•

require us to cease some or all of our activities.

        In addition to liability for monetary damages against us, which may include attorneys' fees, treble damages in the event of a finding of willful infringement, or, in some circumstances, damages against our clients, we may be prohibited from developing, commercializing or continuing to provide some or all of our bundled technology-enabled solutions unless we obtain licenses from, and pay royalties to, the holders of the patents or other intellectual property rights, which may not be available on commercially favorable terms, or at all.

We may incur liability for the unauthorized duplication, distribution or other use of materials posted online.

        In some instances, university personnel or students, or our employees or independent contractors, may post to Online Campus various articles or other third-party content for use in class discussions or within asynchronous lessons. The laws governing the fair use of these third-party materials are imprecise and adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, which makes it challenging to adopt and implement appropriately balanced institutional policies governing these practices. As a result, we could incur liability to third parties for the unauthorized duplication, distribution or other use of this material. Any such claims could subject us to costly litigation and impose a significant strain on our financial resources and management personnel regardless of whether the claims have merit. Our various liability insurance coverages may not cover potential claims of this type adequately or at all, and we may be required to alter or cease our uses of such material, which may include changing or removing content from courses or altering the functionality of Online Campus, or to pay monetary damages.

Our failure to protect our intellectual property rights could diminish the value of our solutions, weaken our competitive position and reduce our revenue.

        We regard the protection of our intellectual property, which includes trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, domain names and patent applications, as critical to our success. We protect our proprietary information from unauthorized use and disclosure by entering into confidentiality agreements with any party who may come in contact with such information. We also seek to ensure that we own intellectual property created for us by signing agreements with employees, independent

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contractors, consultants, companies and any other third party who may create intellectual property for us that assign their copyright and patent rights to us. However, these arrangements and the other steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property may not prevent the misappropriation of our proprietary information or deter independent development of similar technologies by others.

        We have also begun seeking patent protection for our processes, including two patent applications pending in the United States. These pending applications are directed to computer-implemented processes that facilitate asynchronous student responses to teacher questions. We cannot predict whether these pending patent applications will result in issued patents that will effectively protect our intellectual property. Even if a patent issues, the patent may be circumvented or its validity may be challenged in proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In addition, we cannot assure you that every significant feature of our products and services will be protected by any patent or patent application.

        We also pursue the registration of our domain names, trademarks and service marks in the United States and in jurisdictions outside the United States. However, third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe on our trademark or service mark rights, third parties may challenge our trademark or service mark rights, and pending or future trademark or service mark applications may not be approved. In addition, effective trademark protection may not be available in every country in which we operate or intend to operate. In any or all cases, we may be required to expend significant time and expense to prevent infringement or enforce our rights.

        Monitoring unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly. Our efforts to protect our proprietary rights may not be adequate to prevent misappropriation of our intellectual property. Further, we may not be able to detect unauthorized use of, or take appropriate steps to enforce, our intellectual property rights. Our competitors may also independently develop similar technology. In addition, the laws of many countries may not protect our proprietary rights to as great an extent as do the laws of the United States. Further, the laws in the United States and elsewhere change rapidly, and any future changes could adversely affect us and our intellectual property rights. Our failure to meaningfully protect our intellectual property could result in competitors offering services that incorporate our most technologically advanced features, which could seriously reduce demand for our solutions. In addition, we may in the future need to initiate litigation such as infringement or administrative proceedings, to protect our intellectual property rights. Litigation, whether we are a plaintiff or a defendant, can be expensive, time-consuming and may divert the efforts of our technical staff and managerial personnel, whether or not such litigation results in a determination that is unfavorable to us. In addition, litigation is inherently uncertain, and thus we may not be able to stop our competitors from infringing upon our intellectual property rights.

Our use of "open source" software could negatively affect our ability to offer our solutions and subject us to possible litigation.

        A substantial portion of our cloud-based SaaS technology incorporates so-called "open source" software, and we may incorporate additional open source software in the future. Open source software is generally freely accessible, usable and modifiable. Certain open source licenses may, in certain circumstances, require us to offer our solutions that incorporate the open source software for no cost, that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon, incorporating or using the open source software and that we license such modifications or derivative works under the terms of the particular open source license. If an author or other third party that distributes open source software we use were to allege that we had not complied with the conditions of one or more of these licenses, we could be required to incur significant legal expenses defending against such allegations and could be subject to significant damages, including being enjoined from the offering of our solutions that contained the open source software and being required to comply with the foregoing conditions, which could disrupt our ability to offer the affected solutions. We could also

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be subject to suits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition and require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our products.

Individuals that appear in content hosted on Online Campus may claim violation of their rights.

        Faculty and students that appear in video segments hosted on Online Campus may claim that proper assignments, licenses, consents and releases were not obtained for use of their likenesses, images or other contributed content. Our clients are contractually required to ensure that proper assignments, licenses, consents and releases are obtained for their course material, but we cannot know with certainty that they have obtained all necessary rights. Moreover, the laws governing rights of publicity and privacy, and the laws governing faculty ownership of course content, are imprecise and adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, such that the enforcement of agreements to transfer the necessary rights is unclear. As a result, we could incur liability to third parties for the unauthorized duplication, display, distribution or other use of this material. Any such claims could subject us to costly litigation and impose a significant strain on our financial resources and management personnel regardless of whether the claims have merit. Our various liability insurance coverages may not cover potential claims of this type adequately or at all, and we may be required to alter or cease our use of such material, which may include changing or removing content from courses, or to pay monetary damages. Moreover, claims by faculty and students could damage our reputation, regardless of whether such claims have merit.

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock and Our Status as a Public Company

Our quarterly operating results have fluctuated in the past and may do so in the future, which could cause our stock price to decline.

        Our quarterly operating results have historically fluctuated due to seasonality and changes in our business, and our future operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. You should not rely on period-to-period comparisons of our operating results as an indication of our future performance. Factors that may cause fluctuations in our quarterly operating results include, but are not limited to, the following:

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the timing of our costs incurred in connection with the launch of new programs and the delay in receiving revenue from these new programs, which delay may last for several years;



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seasonal variation driven by the semester schedules for our clients' programs, which may vary from year to year;



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changes in the student enrollment and retention levels in our clients' programs from one term to the next;



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changes in our key metrics or the methods used to calculate our key metrics;



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changes in our clients' tuition rates;



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the timing and amount of our program marketing and sales expenses;



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costs necessary to improve and maintain our SaaS technology; and



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changes in the prospects of the economy generally, which could alter current or prospective clients' or students' spending priorities, or could increase the time it takes us to launch new client programs.

        Our operating results may fall below the expectations of market analysts and investors in some future periods, which could cause the market price of our common stock to decline substantially.

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The trading price of the shares of our common stock may be volatile, and purchasers of our common stock could incur substantial losses.

        Our stock price may be volatile. The stock market in general and the market for technology companies in particular have experienced extreme volatility that has often been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. As a result of this volatility, investors may not be able to sell their common stock at or above the price paid for the shares. The market price for our common stock may be influenced by many factors, including:

•

actual or anticipated variations in our operating results;



•

changes in financial estimates by us or by any securities analysts who might cover our stock;



•

conditions or trends in our industry, the stock market or the economy;



•

stock market price and volume fluctuations of comparable companies and, in particular, those that operate in the software and information technology industries;



•

announcements by us or our competitors of new product or service offerings, significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships or divestitures;



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announcements of investigations or regulatory scrutiny of our operations or lawsuits filed against us;



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capital commitments;



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investors' general perception of our company and our business;



•

recruitment or departure of key personnel; and



•

sales of our common stock, including sales by our directors and officers or specific stockholders.

        In addition, in the past, stockholders have initiated class action lawsuits against technology companies following periods of volatility in the market prices of these companies' stock. Such litigation, if instituted against us, could cause us to incur substantial costs and divert management's attention and resources from our business.

If equity research analysts do not continue to publish research or reports, or publish unfavorable research or reports, about us, our business or our market, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

        The trading market for our common stock will be influenced by the research and reports that equity research analysts publish about us and our business. Equity research analysts may elect not to initiate or to continue to provide research coverage of our common stock, and such lack of research coverage may adversely affect the market price of our common stock. Even if we do have equity research analyst coverage, we will not have any control over the analysts or the content and opinions included in their reports. The price of our stock could decline if one or more equity research analysts downgrade our stock or issue other unfavorable commentary or research. If one or more equity research analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our stock could decrease, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.

Provisions in our corporate charter documents and under Delaware law may prevent or frustrate attempts by our stockholders to change our management and hinder efforts to acquire a controlling interest in us, and the market price of our common stock may be lower as a result.

        Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may make it difficult for a third party to acquire, or attempt to acquire, control of our company, even if a change in control is considered favorable by you and other stockholders. For example, our board of directors has the authority to issue up to 5,000,000 shares of preferred stock. The board of

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directors can fix the price, rights, preferences, privileges, and restrictions of the preferred stock without any further vote or action by our stockholders. An issuance of shares of preferred stock may result in the loss of voting control to other stockholders, which could delay or prevent a change in control transaction. As a result, the market price of our common stock and the voting and other rights of our stockholders may be adversely affected.

        Our charter documents also contain other provisions that could have an anti-takeover effect, including:

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only one of our three classes of directors will be elected each year;



•

stockholders are not entitled to remove directors other than by a 66 ² / 3 % vote and only for cause;



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stockholders are not permitted to take actions by written consent;



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stockholders are not permitted to call a special meeting of stockholders; and



•

stockholders are required to give us advance notice of their intention to nominate directors or submit proposals for consideration at stockholder meetings.

        In addition, we are subject to the anti-takeover provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which regulates corporate acquisitions by prohibiting Delaware corporations from engaging in specified business combinations with particular stockholders of those companies. These provisions could discourage potential acquisition proposals and could delay or prevent a change in control transaction. They could also have the effect of discouraging others from making tender offers for our common stock, including transactions that may be in your best interests. These provisions may also prevent changes in our management or limit the price that investors are willing to pay for our stock.

Concentration of ownership of our common stock among our existing executive officers, directors and large stockholders may prevent smaller stockholders from influencing significant corporate decisions.

        Our executive officers, directors and current beneficial owners of 5% or more of our common stock and their respective affiliates, in the aggregate, beneficially own a substantial percentage of our outstanding common stock. These persons, acting together, are able to significantly influence all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election and removal of directors, any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets, or other significant corporate transactions. The interests of this group of stockholders may not coincide with our interests or the interests of other stockholders.

If we fail to maintain proper and effective internal controls, our ability to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis could be impaired.

        We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the rules and regulations of the NASDAQ Global Select Market. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. We are required to perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal control over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in our Form 10-K filing for that year, as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This may require us to incur substantial additional professional fees and internal costs to further expand our accounting and finance functions and expend significant management efforts.

        We may in the future discover material weaknesses in our system of internal financial and accounting controls and procedures that could result in a material misstatement of our financial statements. In addition, our internal control over financial reporting will not prevent or detect all errors

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and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the control system's objectives will be met. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to errors or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and instances of fraud will be detected.

        If we are not able to comply with the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in a timely manner, or if we are unable to maintain proper and effective internal controls, we may not be able to produce timely and accurate financial statements. If that were to happen, the market price of our stock could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the stock exchange on which our common stock is listed, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, or other regulatory authorities.

Because we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future, capital appreciation, if any, will be your sole source of gains and you may never receive a return on your investment.

        You should not rely on an investment in our common stock to provide dividend income. We have not declared or paid cash dividends on our common stock to date. We currently intend to retain our future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business. In addition, the terms of our existing credit facility preclude, and the terms of any future debt agreements is likely to similarly preclude, us from paying dividends. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our common stock will be your sole source of gain for the foreseeable future. Investors seeking cash dividends should not purchase our common stock.

We incur increased costs and demands upon management as a result of being a public company.

        As a public company listed in the United States, we incur significant additional legal, accounting and other costs. These additional costs could negatively affect our financial results. In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure, including regulations implemented by the SEC and the NASDAQ Global Select Market, may increase legal and financial compliance costs and make some activities more time-consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management's time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If, notwithstanding our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards, we fail to comply, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.

        Failure to comply with these rules might also make it more difficult for us to obtain some types of insurance, including director and officer liability insurance, and we might be forced to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. The impact of these events could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors, on committees of our board of directors or as members of senior management.