Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. Was there an inflection point that you experienced as you built the business?

Jon Carson: I think I’m in it right now.

Sramana Mitra: You are in it right now? Tell me more.

Jon Carson: You keep hearing me say I want to fix the guidance problem. I think I can say with confidence, I’m the only person in the U.S. looking at high school guidance as a total system. Because I’m the only person doing that, I get into high places. I’m at a very high level at LinkedIn. I’ve got a meeting with a CEO. The single most high-leverage individual in K-12 is Dave Schuler, who runs the National Superintendent’s Association. His members are all the CEOs.

There is a hunger to fix this problem. If we don’t fix it, we are sowing the seeds of social unrest. You can’t have millions of kids face-planting into life. AI is accelerating this. So, the inflection point is: a number of the biggest platforms in the country are circling. They’re saying this has to succeed because I’m the only one thinking this way.

Now I have to put together a coalition of partners, anchored with the superintendents.

Sramana Mitra: The high school business is hitting its inflection point?

Jon Carson: Yes. But the colleges too. They are in unbelievable pain. This past year was terrible. International full-pays dropped 40%. Big, beautiful student buildings—empty. It goes on.

How many trillion-dollar industries do you know that have no solution for the economic buyer? Not many. That pressure is getting high.

I’m going around with a parent-first solution that includes the student and captures a ton of data at the top of the inquiry funnel. Some of the biggest platforms don’t have an AI solution. They’ve been looking and building labs, but have no real products.

I’ve got a meeting in 20 minutes with another one. They’re all telling me one of the biggest needs in higher education is a solution for parents.

COVID was an enormous inflection point in two ways. First, parents who weren’t very involved got a front-row seat when kids were home. They didn’t like what they saw and became more involved. Second, kids have seemingly lost 1–2 years of maturity. Parents are more involved in college decisions, especially as tuition rises and AI threatens entry-level jobs. I have hard data on this.

Colleges now need to offer something meaningful to parents. Right now, all they get is name, address, and email. I can give them 20–26 pieces of profile data on a family—because families are filling out forms to get personalized AI guidance.

I’ll always get more data than, say, the University of New Hampshire, because it’s in the family’s self-interest. The biggest platforms are realizing they’re far behind. They look at my IP and say, “I could build that, but it’ll take 18–24 months, and you’re not standing still.”

So maybe they should just partner—and not take the EBITDA hit.

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting AI application in EdTech. Quite compelling.

Jon Carson: One thing that helps entrepreneurs is finding a powerful metaphor early. I found one: the system looks like a car.

Your kid is the driver. The counselor is in the backseat. You, the parent, are in the passenger seat. It’s broken in four ways. One, the kid is distracted—they always were, but it’s worse now. They’re also anxious. They’ve never been on this journey.

Sramana Mitra: They don’t know what they don’t know.

Jon Carson: Therefore, you’ve implicitly agreed there must be an adult authority figure in the mix here for this to work out. Let’s go to the counselor. Contracts are for 180 days/year. They’re never around in summer vacations, weekends or nights not around evenings or weekends—when families actually talk. That’s a perfect market failure. They have high caseloads. Their time is crowded out by mental health stuff. They’ve limited expertise as they’re trained in social work.

Let’s now talk about the parents. They’re sitting in the passenger seat, anxious, because they live with the kid. They have the context of how important this is. They’ve no manual or GPS. They’re financially and emotionally invested but have no tools.

The only way out is enabling the parent. The kid won’t get less distracted. The counselor won’t work a second shift. So we have a parent-first solution.

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting.

Jon Carson: If you’re the National Superintendent’s Association, you have a massive problem called school choice. The average parent is worth $10,000 if they cross the street to another school. So you want to give your members tools to retain parents. You need to learn a new word: retention.

In Florida, 30% of kids are now out of public schools. In Arizona, it’s 35%. It’s a huge problem if you’re running a fixed-cost model.

Sramana Mitra: But not everyone can afford private schools.

Jon Carson: In school choice states, you get a $10,000 voucher. That’s what I mean—every parent is worth $10,000. The voucher comes out of the school district’s budget.

Sramana Mitra: So you’re looking at a potential acquisition in the next 18 months?

Jon Carson: I believe in optimizing optionality. I’ve never been ready to sell any of my businesses, but if someone wants to talk, let’s talk and see what happens.

Sramana Mitra: What category is most likely to want this business?

Jon Carson: There’s one company in particular—and I don’t want to jinx it—but the conversations with LinkedIn have gotten very interesting. They don’t have a K–12 strategy.

I connected with a C-suite executive after a show. I said, “Guidance was never up to the moment—and AI is about to turbocharge everything. They’re definitely not ready.”

I also mentioned I’m talking to the National Superintendents Association about scaling “guidance in a box.” Since then, we’ve been in ongoing conversations.

Sramana Mitra: I see. Well, good luck. Very interesting story. Loved listening to you. Learned a lot. Let’s keep in touch.

Jon Carson: Look me up next time you’re in Lexington.

Sramana Mitra: Will do. Bye-bye. Take care.

Jon Carson: Take care. Bye-bye.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M does not charge equity, offers an AI Mentor in 57 languages, and offers a distinct advantage over other accelerators including Y Combinator.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson
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