Okay, So, um, how did I get where I am? Meaning a founder of a startup. Well, it's, um, goes back to my research. Actually, I'm a former professor at the University of Illinois and, ah, longtime researcher. After leaving the University of Illinois and coming up to Minnesota based in Minneapolis, I was hired to do research at University of Minnesota, Stanford and smother great research institutions over these 20 years and in all of those, um, research, ah, areas. My particular research thesis is to examine, um, barriers to post secondary attainment for students who are either socially, racially, geographically or otherwise challenged, or who face barriers to getting into postsecondary education. I've also done a lot of research on the economics of education. Bottom line is that education pays off all investments in education, payoff for the greater good and for the individuals. Good. So the research, um, insides that I had in particular were what led me to think about the product that I built, but I had to say it was also is being a parent when my twins were marching through middle school in approaching high school. Uh, nothing like the real thing to drive all these research insights home. So Ah, what I was experiencing at home was that we were receiving test scores and a report cards, comprehensive exams, growth scores, all sorts of data points around how our Children were doing. And as a social science researcher, I love that sort of thing. And I was making sense of it on my own or kind of on the fly, developing these very loose, rudimentary algorithms for my Children based on benchmarks that I know that they needed to hit. That's correlated with her likely successor at the next level. But it really struck me. I thought, Wow, I'm a mom with a PhD. So what is your everyday busy parent? Ah, and student doing with this data That's really just sitting there and it's back. We're looking data, by the way. So I was really ruminating on it and I thought were so custom. Now, in this era of the quantified self, with the Fitbits in the apple watch and mint dot com to track our finances or whatever the case that I thought, well, we really need a Fitbit for education. So I pitched the idea to the National Science Foundation because they have, um, funds to commercialize research based ideas. And I was fortunate enough to get that, um, that research award which developed ahead enough money to develop the prototype. Um, so that was that's how I sort of got to where I am today. I'm sure we'll talk about the development of the product in the company more, but you're the question about the incidents and experiences that shaped my career path. Well, I think I think it be interesting for your listeners to know that while I have first of my family to go to college, my father was even a high school dropout. So within one generation, yeah, the educational benefits that have accrued have been enormous. It's moved me from being a raised as a working class kid to moving up to upper middle class adult, and I attribute it all to the fact that I invested in myself through education, and I really think that gets lost in a lot of discussions around education that it is truly an economic engine, so it's shaped my research agenda. Of course, I want to see more and more students go on to obtained something beyond a high school diploma and, ideally, at least a two year degree. So that's what's inspired me to work on. This start up is that, Ah, I I feel like I have almost night vision goggles. Having been so immersed in educational research, I can see things that I know everyday families air, not seeing within all that data, and I want to make sense of it for them and make it super clear and super simple for them to, uh, see it, use it and benefit from it.

I think like a lot of people who are idea people you ruminate about things. You think about things. It's sort of just marinades there in your head for a while. And, uh, I really don't think the starting point of my company happened until that National Science Foundation money came along and I started getting customers. That's when I thought, OK, maybe there's this is more than a research project. Um, but I did have a really seminal pivotal point when it came to use your behavior, which is a really important thing to understand. And that is that I, uh I'm sure some of your folks listening no things like my fitness pal or my diet tracker or whatever. Some of these APs and something suffer tools require the user to input data like I ate so many calories today or I walked somebody steps or whatever. I I ate so many calories. I I had so many beers or whatever and then that data is analyzed by the tool. But knowing human behavior, they will. They will enter that data maybe once or twice, but not daily. So you start to see user use rates dropped considerably, and I originally thought about my users inputting the data themselves, like voluntarily clicking radio buttons that answered questions almost like a survey. But I thought, That's a barrier. You know. Not a lot of people are gonna take the time to do that, especially the students I want to reach. So my pedal point was when I realized that the school district's already collect and house all of this important data. Ah, the wonky term for it or called student information systems. There are a lot like learning management systems that are in colleges and universities, but student information systems or with the high schools and middle school zoos. So knowing that that data existed already in these data, warehouses were there. My pivotal, my pivot, was really to to to understand and learn how to plug into that data warehouse and extract the data from it, and then have that date of working for the student in a personalized way without ever bothering the student. All they have to do is log on

more about what my product does so that people who are listening can follow along with what I'm talking about. So what I've built is an, um, goal setting and up on and progress tracking application. Like I said, it plugs into data warehouses, pulls the student data through, ah, students, personalized profile. So we know their GP A their attendance rate, that sort of thing. But what they do is they set goals for themselves. Like, what do they aspire to do now? We build in an automatic, um, de focal of graduation from high school high school graduation for everybody. That's the default that's already set. They can add above and beyond that. And then we tracked her progress toward those goals, tracking the credits that they're taking or whether they've taken the right credits and their attendance, that sort of thing. We give them a heads up. We have push out texting email messages to the parents and students if they start missing too much school, which is predictive of them, family in a class, or if they're missing credits that would keep them from graduating high school or being eligible for the two year or four year colleges that they aspire to. So that's what your turn is. It's a goal setting and progress tracking app for high school students and their families. We've also built the dashboard for the school counselors to track the students, but it's really designed to be like a Fitbit or an apple. Watch for the parents and students to keep on track of their educational progress. So now about the team, um, the initial team, Uh, what was challenging is that I'm not a software developer. I am an educational professor. And yet I've jumped up this product idea that is a software tool. So of course I had to hire that. And, um, software developers are expensive. And again, I'm coming from Minneapolis. It's ah, it's It's got plenty of talent here, but there's actually a negative unemployment rate so that there are more people demanding the services of software developers, and there are actually suffer developer. So the cost is at a premium, believe me. So it's sussing out and hiring the right person. You know, that was initially a challenge, and I feel fortunate that I attracted Cem talent because they they love the mission of the product honestly, and a lot of people can resonate. It resonates with a lot of people about what my product is and what it's trying to accomplish. And everyone tells me they wish they had a product like your return when they were in school. So, um, that has been challenging and then to raise the money to be able to afford this software developers has been the next big challenge. Um, and it's hard, you know, raising the money. You have to be also acquiring customers in order to raise the money in order to pay your staff. So I say, Ah, I'm in a constant mode, challenged of being able retained top talent with the kind of salary that they command. So that's their biggest challenge. Um, and about the team in general. There also, you know, being a startup. I try not to hire ah, full time staff into a lot of contracting, you know, part time sales and marketing, part time social media consultants, part time customer support. Uh, I just don't have the funds right now looking forward to the day when we get a big investment from an outside VC firm. But so far between National Science Foundation, A T and T Social Impact Fund has invested in us and some a few angel investors. We're We're kind of an anemic operation right now, but we're getting a lot of attention nationally, especially after the 18 t investment and, um, in the NSF. But, um, this year, you know, we'll see kind of a tough year to be out there selling two schools when they're in such a crisis right now.