Knewton isn’t an easy product to explain. Analyzing hordes of data, it adjusts lesson plans for students in real time across subjects, determines how they learn, and suggests the best way to help them. It’s one of those technology experiences that takes on something huge and makes it effortless as if by magic. For the last four years, Robbie Mitchell and his team have been inventing ways to describe an entirely new suite of education possibilities. As Knewton’s Head of Marketing and Communications, he has not only helped shape the company’s identity, but also the way it approaches marketing to get the most traction possible. Today, he runs the marketing team like an independent agency within the organization complete with its own engineers — a strategy he highly recommends for small teams that need to get a lot done fast. So far so good. Knewton has landed huge deals with titans of the education world like Pearson, Houghton Mifflin, and Microsoft. In this exclusive interview, Mitchell explains how he devised the in-house agency model, how it's given the company an edge, and why other startups should consider doing the same.