Company: PAPER
Paper was founded in 2014 with the goal to democratize education by offering online tutoring services at the district level. The founder, Philip Cutler, saw the tutoring market as a growing industry that was only available for the wealthier families in any given district.
The Paper platform subscription is purchased by school districts and then offered to all students in the district with 24/7 access to the Paper.co platform. The student simply logs onto the platform, asks a question in the chat prompt and is linked with a qualified tutor within a minute. The student has the opportunity to type in chat questions and uses a shared screen on the platform to get help with questions, review work or prepare for tests. The service works on multiple devices and is live 24/7. This comes at no cost to individual families.
Paper has recently received more funding in the form of series C in 2021 with $100M and series D financing for $270M in February 2022. With the increase in funding, the company is able so support over 3 million students online and has broadened offerings from tutoring to online learning tools, video lessons, graduation planning tools and game-based learning programs.
Founder: Philip Cutler CEO and Founder
Before his venture in education, Philip had entrepreneurial experience starting an in-home tutoring service called Laurus Education Services in 2009, but eventually decided he wanted to teach himself. Philip graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s of education degree in 2013. During Philips brief time in public education, he noticed the number of students that were looking for additional support. More importantly, he noticed that the only students receiving the additional support outside of the school system were from wealthier families who could afford it.
The following year Philip, with his co-founder Roberto Cipriani, started a company called GradeSlam in 2014. The founder’s goal was to introduce educational equity into the public education system. GradeSlam received a series A $7.5M funding and transitioned into what is now Paper.co.
I believe what makes Philip a successful entrepreneur is his first-hand experience in both starting a venture (Laurus Education) as well as experience in the school system. I think an even larger factor in his success and motivation is his alignment and belief in his goal of creating a more equitable playing field in education that is supportive and inclusive of all families.
The Paper leadership team includes:
Philip Cutler – CEO/ Co-Founder
Roberto Cipriani – COO/CTO/Co-Founder
Dave Zaragoza – CFO
Brian Blount – Sr. VP Technology
Francis Lavazelli – VP Engineering
Alyssa Tuman – VP Customer Experience
Jacob Geller – VP Sales
Paper also has 8 board members.
Philip’s combination of entrepreneurial spirit and educational beliefs is inspiring. His mission seems to drive him and it will be interesting to see how his company adapts to the increase in AI tutoring services. They recently acquired a literacy AI company called Readlee to support online literacy tutoring and laid off 81 employees in April 2023. A restructuring of the company is happening and I am thinking they will look to introduce more AI tutoring services.
Reference:
Paper. (2023). Retrieved from https://paper.co/company
Paper (Company). (May 5, 2023). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_(company)
Crunch Base. (2023). Retrieved from https://www.crunchbase.com/person/philip-a-cutler
I think Philip Cutler can be a very strong role model for CEOs because he is tackling inequities in education. Working at an independent school, I see the affordances available to those who can pay for private tutoring. Creating a space for students that is free for all can help to put pressure on the district to put their money where it needs to be which is in the hands of all students.
I can easily see the appeal of a product like this, and clearly has massive potential to expand if it is able to leverage chatbots to further reduce the expense of employing live tutors. They would have a distinct advantage over chatbots tutors since they will always be able to escalate to a real person instead of relying on the AI.
As always, experience in the field, either directly or by listening to the right people, appears to be a massive factor in the success of the entrepreneur.