Dunce Deals #16 - UnderPinned, School16, CyberU, Electives, Wiseful, Launch House
Hi, I'm John Danner, Managing Director of Dunce Capital. Dunce Deals is my look at the most interesting deals and news from edtech and the future of work. In the last four years, I have made over two dozen pre-seed investments in the space including Lambda School, where I am on the board, Outschool, Prenda, and Supernow. Before Dunce, I founded three companies, NetGravity (IPO), Rocketship Public Schools (12k students) and Zeal (sold 2018).
Thoughts
I think one of the most important changes in the last year is that the founders I’m talking to about education now are a couple levels better than before. Dunce founders are amazing, but it was really hard to find them. Now I’m meeting people much more regularly that are coming into the space who would not have come before covid started the acceleration in the consumerization of online learning. This is undoubtedly a really good thing for humanity, since better access to better education is probably tied with healthcare as the area of progress that drives the biggest improvement in people’s lives.
This week’s piece is about my companies slowly but surely escaping Zoom/Slack jail.
Deals
Six deals this week, because you deserve it!
UnderPinned
Description: All your freelance admin needs, from finding work, managing work, to getting paid, in one convenient web app
Website: underpinned.co
Founder: Albert Azis-Clauson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-aziz-656728126
Email: albert@underpinned.com
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BTjJa3f8HigkgPf_dmo_U5eZsqfFbjKi/view?usp=sharing
Notes: Freelancing is a great space in my opinion, because with remote work comes side hustles. And from side hustles, people can build up an expertise and client base that let’s them become a full time freelancer. I’m an investor in Contra which is taking a social network approach. UnderPinned is more of a school and SaaS platform covering all of the practical aspects of getting started.
School16
Description: Live classes for non-technical roles in tech.
Website: school16.co
Founder: Sergei Revzin
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergeirevzin
Email: sergeirevzin@gmail.com
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Deck: https://docsend.com/view/x5qsm6wvq6rqj5mn
Notes: Getting non-tech jobs at tech companies is a great focus. The founders have each done a ton of non-tech jobs from sales to ops to product and are focusing on the things they know to help people get jobs in those roles. It’s hard to say how this more general approach works vs. companies like SV Academy which focus on sales and customer success, but who knows, there are a lot of jobs out there.
CyberU
Description: college on your phone
Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cyberU/id1550410437
Founder: Jack Crowley
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crowley-1129751a7
Email: jcrow17@bu.edu
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: Jack is a college student himself and dis-satisfied with the ROI most students get from college. His approach is to make it radically easier and lower cost to do college through your phone. Of course, signal from the college brand is a big part of the reason people go to college, and CyberU does not have any brand yet. And he likely needs to get accredited to get to thousands of students, which is very difficult to do. And he does not have much live interaction yet. But let’s face it, college on your phone seems like something a lot of people would do if the price was right and the signal was good.
Electives
Description: Live MasterClass for corporate learning and development
Website: electives.io
Founder: Jason Lavender
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasontlavender
Email: jason@electives.io
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Deck: https://docsend.com/view/62gybfzatcxsz772
Notes: Even though enterprise is not my favorite thing, I like this idea a lot. Bringing in an improv comedian to talk to your team about storytelling feels like the kind of thing that could be great for culture building. As always, I worry about learning and development, because it hasn’t been pushed out from HR to the operating managers yet, and HR is generally painful and risk-averse to deal with. But Jason has a dozen years selling to HR, so maybe it could work.
Wiseful
Description: A career advancement platform for millennial & gen Z talent
Website: bewiseful.com
Founder: Reno Perry
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renoperry/
Email: reno@bewiseful.com
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: While I’m a bit of a skeptic on consumer pay for job finding, there is definitely significant demand for folks to find their first job or switch jobs. Wiseful is taking a coaching approach which seems far better than the usual digital resources and Reno worked at LinkedIn and BetterUp, so knows what he is doing.
Launch House
Description: a full-stack community that helps founders and creators go further in their ventures.
Website: launchhouse.co
Founder: Jacob Peters
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobdpeters
Email: jacob@launchhouse.co
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: I’m a big fan of founder schools. I think folks like OnDeck and Transcend Network have done a ton to help and encourage founders early on their journey. Launch House is diving into this area with the covid-contrary idea of establishing physical locations for founders to live and work. Of course, they do a lot online as well.