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.

Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What about the financing strategy of this business? You’ve done venture-funded companies before. You’ve had exits. You were coming into this business with your own personal needs. Did you bootstrap the beginning? Did you fund it right away?

Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double click down on pricing in all these different products. How has your pricing evolved? What was the pricing on the first version, which was just masterclass style?

Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: So, in terms of your chronology, what came in what order? You were doing the recordings—these webinars were a key first step.

Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: So let’s double-click down on that. I’m not going to go into all the previous projects because it’s going to take time. You want to focus on the current one. Let’s start with the AI part of that. What is the AI part of what you’re doing in the current project?

Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson (Part 1)

Jon has identified a gigantic hole in high school college counseling and is plugging it with AI.
You have read interviews with the entrepreneurs behind Empowerly and Prepory, companies going after the same problem, but with more manual solutions. College Guidance Network is doing so with AI.

Bootstrapping an EdTech Startup with a Paycheck to over $5M: Karyn Koven, CEO of LanguageBird (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: And what were the numbers? 10 people in the beginning, and then how did that grow?

Bootstrapping an EdTech Startup with a Paycheck to over $5M: Karyn Koven, CEO of LanguageBird (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Who were these people that you got an audience with?

Karyn Koven: I think it was because I had a background, and it was based on my reputation amongst other counselors and school officials.

Sramana Mitra: They were referring students to you?