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A Digital Tutor Your Kids Might Actually Use
Plus, eMags founder on the pod talking Substack, fake news, media disruption
Heyyyo,
FIRST! A huge shoutout to my brother Steven Galanis for Cameo’s recent Series C $100m fundraise at more than $1bn valuation. Welcome to 🦄 status! And, to fellow Chicagoan Nick Kokonas, who sold Tock to Squarespace for $400m. BOOM.
Ok, onward. I love when things line up! Yesterday Coursera IPO’d, $COUR opened at $39.70 and closed at $45.75 (I bought 500 shares at $38.80) — today’s pitch review is a digital tutor called Everydae 🤷♂️
Undoubtedly, Coursera had a hell of a year growing alongside pandemic-related demand. But, will the future of education be digital? I’m not really sure. My gut says supplementally, yes. Over the next few years people (young and old) will be turning to education to jumpstart careers and there is no question higher ed will be faced with a major headwind (and I think that momentum is Coursera’s to lose).
Investor-wise, this is an interesting time to rebalance the stonk portfolio — market prices scream bubble and pull back, but none of the regular signals are there.
Personally, I am looking at high performing stocks that I believe in long-term like Zoom and figuring, they’re as high as they’re gonna be and trading down into stocks that should see some gains post-Covid like Sea Limited, Square, sports betting stocks like Penn and other “party stocks”. Also, companies like Coursera that are new to the public arena and will benefit from previous quarter performance.
To be clear, I’m not leaving my position with Zoom, Peloton, etc. but I am reducing my exposure there and setting up for a new era of top-performers.
Shout-out to Founder Institute: the world's largest pre-seed accelerator, is proud to offer the best applicants from the Technori community with the Technori Fellowship to participate in our Chicago Virtual 2021 program for free ($799 USD value). 👉 sign-up now by going to https://fi.co/join/Technori.
For my newbs; every week I breakdown a startup pitch with the added hook that you don’t have to be a rich guy to invest (if you don't know what that means, click here).
If you like what you see here and haven’t already subscribed, please do 👇👇👇
On The Pod: Substack (this platform) just raised $65m at $650 valuation and newsletters are hot as shit. Meanwhile, mainstream media is under siege. Somewhere between Substack and “pick-your-side” media platforms is reality — and a consumer product that you will both trust and enjoy. I genuinely think eMags could be that.
Here’s my podcast with eMags founder Andrew Degenholtz 👉 https://spoti.fi/3cG7uot
Follow me on Twitter @kitun.
Scott
#pitchreview time!
Company Bio
Everydae offers an engaging way to learn and use artificial intelligence to personalize each student's journey by creating a digital tutor that's fun, affordable and accessible on any device.
Digital education tools are everywhere. Truth be told, I don’t think many of them work at all. As the husband of a teacher, son of a teacher, grandson of a teacher and nephew and cousin to many teachers… tutor apps are largely a waste of time. That said, pandemic education is no joke and many students and teachers have gravitated to anything that’ll help students adjust. So, let’s start with the short comings… Most are totally unrealistic and assume kids actually want to learn more than they get in the classroom and are willing to spend countless hours working on extra shit (gtfo). Kids spend all day on TikTok (where believe it or not, they learn a TON). So, whatever tech you build to assist in learning is not competing with class time; it’s competing with social media. For that, I like Everydae — it’s clearly built with TikTok and micro engagement in-mind, rather than “replacing” teachers.
Meet the Founder
Watch my full interview with Everydae’s CEO Christine Outram, here.
Christine is an award winning entrepreneur. Invented The Copenhagen Wheel, a TIME Magazine Best Invention. Prior to founding Everydae, she was formerly Chief Product Officer at Veritas Prep. she built the adaptive study app ORION and was named Top 36 Most Creative Women (Business Insider) and Top 100 IOT thinker.
Traction
Named a 1000X company by Neil Patel and the Angels & Entrepreneurs Network
91% of trials CONVERT into paid subscriptions
CEO was named one of the Top 36 Most Creative Women by Business Insider
Monthly Recurring Revenue increased each month in 2020
Course creation was sped up by 500%
User engagement and lifted our DAU:MAU ratio from 18% - 36%
Accelerated our roadmap by years to produce 6 additional Math, Science and English courses in Q4 2020
Terms & Takeaway
Invest in Everydae here 👉 http://invest.everydae.com/wefunder
Security Type: SAFE
Valuation Cap: $12,500,000
Raised (as of publishing): $289,774
Minimum Investment: $250
Here's what I like: Despite my teacher-wife’s disagreement, I’m a firm believer that education is about to meet with some MAJOR disruption — a full tilt on how students (and parents) view and value education. There’s simply too much bullshit going on; from wackadoo curriculums to an over-reliance on standardized testing. Costs are fucking ridiculous while access to information is ubiquitous. In any business (yes, school is business), you must evolve your value prop and adjust spend.
Everydae is doing just that by allowing students to access support (not replacement) without compromising the institution itself (for now). If anything, it puts pressure on schools to double down on experience and application, while it and curriculum hammer away on theory and practical understanding, i.e. homework.
And doing so in a modern fashion.
I love the price point and product-market-fit, I think the investment value is fair and the tailwinds favor Everydae — it reminds me of a hot language app called Toucan that essentially uses micro engagements to aid language adoption.
Here's what I don't love: Everyday is misspelled. It’s an EdTech company. C’mon!
Jokes aside, when it comes to education startups, I cannot shake my annoyance with the most common pitfalls. They tend to leverage inexperienced tutors, students and teachers are tired of new old tools that share nothing in common with the obvious tech tools already being used in every other industry, and a complete disregard to economics. Everydae has to deal with a lot of muddy water and they must prove themselves amongst a mountain of doubt created by past bombs.
Sure, the TAM is huge, but the opportunity is very insulated by unions, lobbyists and old buffalos. To say nothing of the disinterest from students.
Still, Everydae has a lot going for it and the tech platform can become a household name, but saturation requires administrators to view them as added value with an immediate ROI.
Who should invest and why: All in, the opportunity and momentum is on their side. Everydae’s doing it the right way: high tech, low cost, scalable and pro-student (and teacher). Additionally, similar concepts have worked exceptionally well in language learning, weight loss and coaching!
The question remains competition — but then again you could say that for any industry (EdTech just happens to be a little slower moving).
In the end, if you invested in Coursera this is a no-brainer. It’s a relatively in-expensive bet that will likely be acquired by any number of major players in EdTech if they maintain their DAUs and retention numbers at scale.
As always, startup investing is super high-risk, anything can happen. So, don't invest money you’d spend on Lori Loughlin reruns 📚 💸
Invest in Everydae here 👉 http://invest.everydae.com/wefunder
Questions? DM me on Twitter @kitun