IndigoPathway

Most Americans suffering from unemployment don’t have time or money to attend a traditional college, but they still want the upward mobility education provides. IndigoPathway solves this problem by combining a world-class self-awareness survey with a curated set of non-traditional education programs, which prepare job-seekers for specific careers. 

Job seekers utilize the IndigoPathway website to take our free 10-minute self-awareness survey. Upon completion, the survey provides personalized career matches, strengths, motivators, behavioral styles, and more to help users make critical job decisions. 

Career matches are linked to programs in a curated education database designed to help place people directly into jobs without needing a 4-year degree. Users will also be able to connect with local employers and organizations that match their survey results. 

When scaled, IndigoPathway could change the job search process to focus on the ability and identity of the employee, rather than meeting the expectations of the employer. 

IndigoPathway is specifically addressing the problems of 1) helping people make informed decisions and 2) matching employees to industries as outlined in the Reimagining Pathways to Employment Challenge. Our target audience is unemployed Americans. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment rates rose significantly in the US; current unemployment rates are almost double what they were in February 2020. As of November 2020, the current nationwide unemployment rate is 6.9%, or about 11.1 million Americans. BIPOC have the highest rates of unemployment; 10.8% for Blacks, 7.6% for Asians, and 8.8% for Hispanics (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).

In addition, the current employment climate has left workers feeling discouraged, with thousands leaving the workforce altogether. Women have been disproportionately affected; over 865,000 women have left the workforce, including 58,000 Black women and 324,000 Latinas (The National Women’s Law Center). 

Traditional 4 year college degrees are too expensive, out-of-reach, and not on a feasible timeline for those most impacted by COVID-19. Moreover, many of these Americans do not have the self-confidence to believe that their unique strengths can be matched to job opportunities that provide fulfillment and upward mobility.

The solution is IndigoPathway, a web application that aligns users’ unique strengths, motivators & behaviors to a fulfilling career path that doesn’t require a university degree. 

The process starts with a 10-minute assessment that generates personalized results using our AI expert engine. This multidimensional assessment is focused on an inside-out, self-awareness based approach to careers.

Pathway also provides career matches and non-traditional education options, such as certificates and coding bootcamps, designed specifically for landing high-demand jobs. Indigo’s people-first pathway program is all about aligning each person’s intrinsic genius with opportunities to obtain valuable skills highly sought after by industries across the US.

The Pathway survey is connected to a large, curated database offering numerous resources. Each user’s results will connect with industry insider pages that offer expert advice on how to get started without a degree and provide links to external resources. Through this database, users can find apprenticeships, new graduate programs like those at CISCO and PG&E, internships, trade schools, employers offering tuition reimbursement like Chipotle and Starbucks, and other nontraditional education programs, such as work colleges and unique certificate programs.

IndigoPathway’s primary demographics are people suffering from unemployment, new job seekers, and current students. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, currently over 11.1 million Americans are unemployed. In addition, there are nearly 20 million college students in the US (National Center for Education Statistics) entering the workforce who will need additional resources to get started.

IndigoPathway aims to meet the needs of these discouraged job seekers by providing free holistic career guidance. Because so many Americans lack financial resources and networks necessary for extensive career counseling, IndigoPathway will provide the support job searchers need. Furthermore, because IndigoPathway’s assessment is strengths-based, users will discover their own skills, behaviors, and communication styles in a language that they can utilize to market themselves in job interviews and other opportunities.

In addition, we aim to specifically meet the needs of BIPOC and gender-diverse individuals by promoting organizations, like AllStarCode and Ada Developers Academy, who reach out to these underserved groups with free tuition or education, networking opportunities, and more.

IndigoPathway’s primary function is to help job seekers make informed decisions about fulfilling career pathways. Pathway helps users discover their best-fit job and the means to acquire it. 

The 10-minute survey provides highly personalized career matches based on each individual’s unique preferences in job environment, communication style, and intrinsic motivation. 

Our curated database is primarily filled with over 600 non-college education and training opportunities, such as apprenticeships, certificates, and experiential learning programs. 19 industry insider pages clearly describe the benefits of non-degree pathways to employment, especially in the areas of trades, sales, and technology.

The IndigoPathway solution team includes almost all employees of Indigo Education Company while continuing to support our secondary and post-secondary education customers. We also utilize the expertise of contractors to advise on and develop specific areas of our solution.

• Full-time: 5

• Part-time: 4

• Contractors: 4

At Indigo, we want to practice what we preach. As a woman-owned business, we’ve always sought to build a diverse team who can use their backgrounds to propel us forward. Our anti-discrimination policies help us create an environment of inclusivity, visibility, and transparency so that employees of different ethnicities, race, sexual preference or identity, and religion feel welcomed, safe, and take pride in who they are.

As part of our ongoing desire to be a force for good in the US, our non-profit arm Indigo Impact Initiative seeks to empower low-income communities to streamline their education-to-workforce pipeline by identifying and leveraging existing strengths. Our work has allowed us to foster relationships with different communities around the US, including Navajo and rural Mississippi youth. With the launch of IndigoPathway, we can extend our reach to all Americans.

Many companies offer guidance on career pathways, but they ignore the most important factor: the intrinsic genius of their users. Indigo’s AI solution answers this question better than most seasoned counselors or life coaches. Our assessment is multi-dimensional and focuses on strengths, behaviors, and motivators. Because our algorithms are based on so many different types of data, there are over 1000 customized recommendations any person can receive, making for highly individualized results. The other major personality and strengths-based assessments, MBTI and CliftonStrengths, have only 16 and 34 types respectively. 

We also take a different approach to the career matching process; IndigoPathway finds jobs that meet the individual by taking a comprehensive look at their strengths and identity. People shouldn’t have to fit the job; the job should fit them. Today, employers are moving away from the notion that college degrees should be the primary deciding factor for employment. Instead, employers are looking for qualified, passionate individuals who fit the position and the company culture.

Indigo’s entire approach to the future of employment is inside-out. Aligned with Simon Sinek theory of leadership, we believe that people must first know their “why” (motivators), ground the why in their personal “how” (behaviors), and then explore the “what” (careers and skills they need to obtain that job). 

Indigo’s core technology is a proprietary psychometric Likert-scale survey tool called the IndigoPathway Survey. The data scores from the survey are connected to an AI expert system providing highly detailed and individualized results for users that are constantly being refined through a supervised model. These results then connect to our database of careers and recommendations based on your personalized results to find a best-fit career and education path using our advanced algorithms. 

Users interact with our career results, ranking them good, neutral or poor fits, allowing us to improve our matching technology over time. Career matches are aligned with hand-curated education programs on our education database.  The Indigo team added the first 600 programs to the list and programs themselves can submit listings for review and posting in the future.

Indigo Education Company was founded in 2013 and their existing solutions reach over 100,000 students.  We’ve done extensive testing with our previous products in high schools, universities, and adult workforce development programs across 26 states. We know the effectiveness of our assessment and the encouragement it gives people, especially those who are underemployed and at-risk of intergenerational poverty. A remarkable 86% of individuals using our full Indigo report a stronger sense of confidence and direction. 

IndigoPathway is currently in testing until the end of 2020. 600+ people have already taken the survey and our embedded feedback form rank the survey results at 8.7 accuracy on a scale of 1-10. 80% of trial phase users rate this as “highly valuable” for job seekers. We are currently taking into account feedback to make the platform even more effective. 

Anyone can visit https://www.indigopathway.com today and try the survey out for themselves at no cost. (We highly recommend the evaluation committee test it themselves). 

In addition, a demo of the pathway app can be found here for users who wish to see a walkthrough of the process.

Inputs/Activities:

1. Take IndigoPathway self-awareness survey.

2. Explore career matches and education database.

Short-Term Outcomes:

1. Choose your best-fit career.

2. Complete the education necessary. 

Medium-Term Outcomes

1. 90% of participants are employed, running their own venture, or are continuing their education.

2. 50% retaken the survey at least once to measure progress.

3. Greater productivity and happiness in the workplace. If employees are able to thrive and work towards their strengths, then both the worker and the employer will benefit.

Long-Term Outcomes - Predicted - 10 Years Out

1. Become a key player in transforming the one-sized-fits-all approach of the American education system that has restricted many individuals from discovering their purpose.

2. Promote and celebrate non-traditional pathways to success.  

3. Redefine the perception of the intrinsic worth of each individual so employers shift their focus to maximize the person rather than enforcing strict job roles. 

4. Connect broader audiences to emerging pathways such as entrepreneurship, technology, and holistic development. 

Mission: Employed Americans find fulfilling, financially sustainable work. Improve the quality of work and life for all Americans.

Evidence of why we can expect these outcomes:

1. Strengths-based personality tests and education have been shown to yield positive outcomes in education and workplace settings. Studies show that students who participated in strengths-based development had higher GPA, fewer absences, and higher semester completion rates (Harter, Gage Park High School study; Williamson, Assessing student strengths).

2. In the workplace, strengths-based development is linked to higher levels of employee engagement, which in turn is associated with numerous positive outcomes including customer satisfaction, productivity, profit, and more (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, Business-unit-level relationship...; Hodges & Clifton, Strengths-Based Development in Practice). 

3. One concept of particular interest is the employee’s “opportunity to do what they do best.” This measurement has been shown to have a direct correlation with improved employee engagement and success. In one large-scale meta-analysis (Harter & Schmidt, 2002,  Employee engagement…), workers who participated in strengths-based development intervention programs had a 38% higher probability of success on productivity measures and 44% higher probability of success on customer loyalty and employee retention.

In the next year, IndigoPathway will:

• Develop a grant strategy with Zim Consulting (currently in process). 

• Solidify initial partnerships with the Colorado Department of Education and Labor, SkillsUp, and the CAPS Professional Education Network to increase access and promote the use of IndigoPathway with their communities.

• Finish beta testing in January 2021 and officially launch with a press release.  

• IndigoPathway will also launch an online marketing campaign through social media and Google Ads. Thanks to Google Ad grants, Indigo’s nonprofit arm will commit $10,000 per month in online ads.  

• Utilize our new full-time SEO analyst to drive organic search traffic and grow our online presence.

• Track user behavior and website traffic to discover potential areas of improvement.

• Continue to improve and refine the IndigoPathway survey and education database.

IndigoPathway 5 year goals:

• Reach over 1M users by year 3

• Reach over 30M users by year 5 

• Create an employer-pay business model 

• Become the most useful non-degree program database by 2022 by acquiring 1st page search rankings for our category.

• Influence national mindset about the career and education process by building professional relationships with key people: legislators, tech executives, making national news, education professionals. 

• Meet with the US Secretary of Education.

Financial: Indigo has a small team with a limited budget.  Currently, we need at least $200,000 per year to maintain the technology platform at a base level. Since IndigoPathway was designed to remain free for all users, other monetization strategies need to be quickly implemented.

Technical: As Indigo scales, managing user tech support requests, single-sign-on, and data security will become more difficult to navigate with a limited team. 

Cultural: Indigo Education company works in many cultural contexts and wants to better support veterans, people of color, and indigenous job seekers by building unique versions of our platforms made specifically for them. Barriers to this including curating the content and hiring culturally appropriate project managers to lead the programs. 

Legal: Scaling requires more complex, costly legal support and advanced knowledge of data privacy and contractual obligations. 

Market: Large competitors could block our ability to reach larger audiences. Competitors include businesses such as Gallup (StrengthsFinder) and Myers-Briggs, as well as other online competitors like 16Personalities and Truity. 

Financial: IndigoPathway will adapt by utilizing resources available to nonprofits, such as financial grants and Google Ad grants. In order to keep the Pathway survey ad-free & subscription-free, Indigo will test different monetization strategies throughout 2021. Possible strategies will include premium features, employer pay opportunities, referral fees from education programs, donation opportunities, and more.

Technical: We are exploring an offshore team to handle increasing tech needs while also keeping costs down. In addition, IndigoPathway was built using AWS, so scaling and accommodating increased capacities will not be difficult. Indigo is part of the AWS EdStart program, which allows us to maximize their consulting and professional support.

Cultural: In partnership with Zim Consulting, we are seeking grant funding to build out culturally specific content in IndigoPathway. We are in active discussions with Native Hawaian and Navajo researchers to build and feature culturally relevant career pathways within their communities.  Several veteran service organizations including Vets2Industry, PurePost, and GallantFew are exploring integration opportunities. We plan to hire local talent to run each of these programs when funding comes through. 

Legal: We are currently looking for pro bono legal support and a new board member to support us in navigating complex legal challenges. 

Market: IndigoPathway’s survey is already far ahead of the competition in accuracy, complexity and value. However, with time and more capital, there will be many opportunities to improve the Pathway database and career matching. Securing the right partnerships and distribution channels will be critical to scaling. 

Currently we are collecting the following data:

• Number of users and their age.

• Their IndigoPathway Survey data including their top motivators and behavioral styles. 

• Career matches each user's likes and dislikes.

• Education programs users view and contact. 

• Longitudinal data when users retake the survey. 

• Optional feedback and testimonials users choose to share with us. 

We would like to collect the following outcomes data: 

• How many users found IndigoPathway instrumental in their career journey. 

• How many users actually enrolled in an education program either from our database or someplace else as a results of their participation. 

• How many users used the information from our survey in job interviews and resumes.

• Number of shares on social media. 

• How many users actually landed a new job as a result of the Pathway process. 

• Retention statistics from employers from Pathway users.  

• Fulfillment and engagement levels of Pathway users in their new careers. 

Not Applicable

Sheri Smith is the founder and CEO of Indigo Education Company and the Indigo Impact Initiative 501(c)3. Growing up in rural Michigan, the Smith family didn’t have much money and even spent about a year on food stamps until her dad found a job at a local prison. Though the work was difficult the benefits and pay were necessary; he felt trapped with no access to postsecondary education. Sheri’s childhood experiences led her to found Indigo. Sheri hopes that IndigoPathway will guide families like her own to better futures or open their eyes to nontraditional education opportunities they didn’t know they had.

Sueann Casey is the Co-Founder and Chief Customer Experience Officer of Indigo. Sueann pursued biochemistry and molecular biology in college but was dissatisfied with the career options. Her passion for mentoring and coaching took root and cemented her belief in nontraditional education. Sueann’s passion for personal development is at the core of Indigo’s mission: to recognize every individual’s intrinsic genius and allow them to develop their own strengths. 

Richard Michalka, Indigo’s Chief Technology Officer, was the first in his family to graduate college, received a Pell grant, and attended community college for a year. He first took the Indigo Assessment at CU Denver during a transitional time in his life. Impressed by Indigo’s accuracy and depth, the results helped guide him through several career moves. Richard eventually joined Indigo hoping to create the best experience for students searching for direction much like he had years previously.

1. CO Department of Education (CDE) Adult Workforce Initiatives - Director Danielle Ongart and all of CDE’s grantee program officers have taken the larger Indigo Assessment. State grantee program participants are providing feedback and supporting drive product development. 

2. WorldEd - World Education is a national leader in designing and providing professional development for the adult education sector in the United States. They are already in the process of testing and validating IndigoPathway. 

1. CAPS Professional Network - Director of the network, Corey Mohn, will distribute IndigoPathway to the entire network so we can test the platform with high school students who are pursuing vocational pathways.

2. Colaberry Data Science Program - Colaberry already embeds Indigo’s larger assessment into their core curriculum. Their students tested and helped validate the minisurvey. We will partner with them to recruit students into their programs.

3. AISES - Indigo 501c3 board member William Tiger is also on the AISES board. He is keen to work with us on building out specific resources and STEM careers for Native Americans.

4. BlueStar Families - They have tested the product and will list Pathway as a resource on their site for veterans. 

Value Proposition:

For Users- Our target users are 25-40 year-old career-seekers, without a 4-year college degree, who are unemployed or seeking a new job. IndigoPathway provides self-awareness, self-confidence, career matches and guidance, education options, and insider information that align with their strengths, behavioral style and motivators. 

For Education Programs- Indigo specializes in job-centered education programs that are short, low-cost, and high value for in-demand careers. We add value to these programs by providing visibility and attracting students who fit organizational culture and are inherently motivated to complete the program. 

For Employers- Indigo works for employers by highlighting intrinsic value at every stage of the process. Studies show engaged and motivated employees bring about greater success for the business with improved productivity, customer loyalty, and turnover rates. Using Indigo’s accessibility and free access, employers can open the doors to a more diverse and engaged workforce.

Revenue Model:

From Users- The core IndigoPathway program is free for users, but there are premium add-ons available for purchase including coaching, books, online courses and webinars, and more. 

From Education Programs- Adding a listing to our curated database is free, but we will charge for premium placement, enhanced content, and referral fees for students who enroll in their programs from the IndigoPathway site. 

From Employers- We are seeking corporate sponsorships from large employers like IBM, Google, and Starbucks. We also anticipate setting-up a premium recruiting platform where employers can hire best-fit candidates directly from our site. 

To achieve financial sustainability, Indigo will be testing various monetization strategies through 2021: 

Premium Products and Services- We already offer books for purchase on our website. Premium paid content including coaching services, online courses, and webinars will be available early 2021. 

Philanthropy- Indigo’s 501c3 is pursuing philanthropic support for the Pathways program and tapping into government funding due to the COVID crisis.  We also have an optional donation model (similar to Wikipedia) embedded in our survey results. 

Partnerships- We already have many partnerships in process, some of which will provide revenue.

Corporate Sponsorships and Referral Fees- As is mentioned in the business model, we will be receiving referral fees from education programs and funding from companies.  This funding will grow as our platform has a higher number of users.

Indigo Education Company bootstrapped the development of our Pathway application with existing resources and extra effort from our team members.

We are seeking $1M throughout 2021 to hire team members, market our product, and improve our technology and product offerings. Our primary source of revenue will be grant funded as we build sustainable revenue streams and sponsorships.

In 2020, Indigo’s estimated total investment will be $185,233.  This start-up cost was spent building the entire application - mostly employee salaries for technology development, design, and content creation. 

Our base operating expenses for 2021 are estimated slightly higher at $218,891, which includes a full-time program manager to facilitate at least 25 partners and sponsors.

Winning the Reimagining Pathways to Employment Challenge will help us overcome financial and partnership barriers for scaling IndigoPathway.  

• The $125,000 prize would greatly accelerate our technology development. 

• Publicity from winning the contest would provide viral marketing and press.  

• Partnership with a workforce board will allow us to support people who deeply need our services and test partnership and monetizing models. 

• The virtual coaching will ensure our team stays on track and is able to take advantage of all the opportunities of being part of the MIT Solve network.

Since our initial goal is to get as many users as possible and learn from the users how to best meet their needs, we’re primarily seeking distribution and marketing/media exposure. We believe users will drive the rest of our project since they are the most important part of our work. 

We are formalizing several existing partnerships and would like to pursue the following additional partners:

1. SkillsUp - We would like to join the new SkillsUp collaborative. Their mission aligns with Indigo and their current assessment partner, Pymetrics, measures very different things. Guild is also part of the SkillsUp group and Indigo would support their students and employers excellently.

2. Strada - We’ve had many discussions with Strada in the past and feel their mission is very aligned with Indigo and we would fit well into their ecosystem.

3. JobSpeaker:  JobSpeaker has contracts with Community Colleges in California with focus on helping community college students align their coursework with job-based skills. We are fellow LearnLaunch Alumni and would like to explore a partnership to expand mutual impact.

4. CueCareer: CueCareer has one of the best trades-based video libraries on the market.  They partner with professional associations would be a great partner for helping Indigo users get into trade careers.

5. Corporations:  We want to partner with corporations who already invest in employee training programs and are looking to hire amidst the COVID crisis. Ideal corporations include IBM, Starbucks, Amazon, and Google.

6. CO Department of Labor & Employment - Indigo would like to partner with the CDLE to build an integrated solution with CO’s unemployment offices and employers.