Majorwise

The career service solution for high schools

Majorwise enables high schools to build amazing work-based learning programs to connect their students with local opportunities and prepare them for their future. Majorwise helps students find local internships, volunteering, and job shadows, then helps the school track and manage the entire process so students can receive credit. We are a full solution to meeting work-based learning requirements.

The problem we are solving is how high schools engage their students in work experiences to help them build relevant skills for the jobs of the future. It is a requirement of over 50% of high schools to include work experience in their graduation requirements. Legislation is being passed across the nation that requires high schools to engage their students to be involved with internships and volunteering called experience based learning. Yet, it is not easy for the school to find these opportunities for their students. We are the first-to-market platform focused on helping schools create and manage incredible work-based learning programs to help their students build future-ready career skills.

Our solution is a web platform used by the high school career coordinator to manage every step of their work-based learning program. Majorwise provides high school students with a database of local internships, volunteering, and part-time jobs; provides the career coordinator with connections to local businesses and nonprofits willing to engage in career education; and manages the vetting and tracking of student opportunities. In our first six months, we have already signed on 18 schools who have resonated with our mission and our solution.

Majorwise will change the world by helping more students from low-income backgrounds access better career education and learning opportunities to prepare them for the jobs and livelihoods of the future. Having this early experience can be incredibly impactful to a student's future trajectory. Students who are building experience in their local community through work are found to be more likely to graduate high school, earn a bachelor's degree, and have 22% greater annual earnings. This early experience makes a dramatic difference in the rate of students applying to college, being accepted to college, and finding a career. Gaining early work experience can level the playing field for lower income students and provide them a path out of poverty.

We are innovative because we are the first ones taking career readiness software from colleges to high schools. Our solution is acting on a growing trend in high schools across the nation. Tons of schools are trying to build effective work-based learning programs, but they don't have the bandwidth to manage all aspects of a successful program. Schools have one person who needs to help students explore their interests, find them opportunities, vet the opportunities and assure they meet requirements, track student work, and help the student receive credit. Majorwise streamlines this process and helps more students gain career experience.

Our entire solution is helping schools find more opportunities for students and helping them manage their entire program using our web platform. Technology is essential to every feature we provide. We find volunteering and part-time job opportunities using machine learning-based web scrapers that find opportunities that are appropriate for high school students. We display our database of opportunities on a modern web platform. We build tools to amplify the work of career coordinators so they can help more students than they ever could before. 

In the next twelve months, our goal is to grow our clients from 18 schools to 90 schools. This would grow our user base from 1400 students to 25,000 students. This means our platform will supercharge 90 work-based learning programs and help students access opportunities they would not have before.  

In the next three to five years, our goal is to be the essential platform for schools to run impactful work-based learning programs. The Majorwise platform will amplify the efforts of the school's career coordinator so they can run highly effective and efficient programs that will help students acquire new skills and learning opportunities that are relevant to the jobs and livelihoods of the future. As we grow into a complete platform for managing work-based learning programs, we will be the obvious choice for schools to meet their state and federal work-based learning requirements.

First, we focus on certain areas we want to target and grow around. Our two areas for growth this year are New York City and Boston. Then, we start building our database of opportunities and collaborator businesses in the area. We do this through a mix of our machine learning-based web scrapers to find posted opportunities and targeted marketing campaigns to find businesses interested in working with students. We gain initial customers through email campaigns to principals and career coordinators, and we can scale up our customers through referrals and up-selling to the district. 

We currently serve 18 schools which translates to 1400 student users. Each one of these students has access to our platform that lets them search through hundreds of internships, volunteering, and part-time jobs at local businesses. Each school is able to monitor their students, help connect them with local businesses interested in working with students, and manage the entire process of placing students into work-based learning opportunities. We are helping the school amplify the effectiveness of their career coordinator so they can help more students access career education and work-based learning experiences.

In twelve months, we plan to be serving 90 schools and 25,000 students. This will be mostly low and mid income students in urban areas. These students will gain access to local work-based learning opportunities and to career coordinators who are made more effective through our platform. This will lead to many positive results for students, including increased graduation rates, higher college enrollment, and greater annual earnings. Gaining early work experience can be incredibly influential on a student's future and it can level the playing field for lower income students and provide them a path out of poverty.

Our team is incredibly hard working. Our founding team has been working together for the past two years while completely bootstrapping the product. We are also tenacious. When we were making our first sales, the product was not usable so we made our first sales using mock ups on PowerPoint. Lastly, we are flexible and have pivoted before in response to consumer and market feedback. We will adapt our business to give us the best chance for success. We have demonstrated the tenacity needed to build our product, make our first sales, and raise capital to grow.

Our revenue model is made up of two different parts. The main driver of our revenue is yearly subscription fees paid by schools and districts. We have different tiers of pricing to access different features. Another revenue stream is advertising from college admissions offices. They have a huge budget to recruit students, and we can help them reach qualified students with work experience. Our product scales very well, and once we build out our database in an area, we can easily sign on additional schools with minimal work.

Solve will help us advance our work through helping us build partnerships with organizations to help us distribute our product and help us grow our sales through media visibility and exposure. The mentorship from the Solve community will also be incredibly helpful with scaling our product and our business. Solve will play a big part in our future growth.

One key barrier we need to address is gaining mass adoption of our solution in our target areas. Our effectiveness increases the more schools and businesses are engaging with our product. Solve will be able to help us hit this critical mass in an area through media visibility, connections to partner organizations, and mentorship from people who have dealt with similar problems. These resources will be critical to our success.