David Blake. Used under Canada’s Fair Dealing Guidelines.
David Blake is the founder of Degreed, a platform that allows students to earn and digitally display accreditation. He was the founding product manager at Zinch, a social networking site geared specifically to college student, which was acquired by Chegg. He is also a Stanford dSchool EdTech Entrepreneur.He has a Bachelors degree in Economics from BYU. Degreed provides a platform for learners to publicly track their academic, professional and lifelong learning.
Degreed is unique from other badge platforms because it allows users to display badges, but also degrees from institutions (including their transcript), events attended, what media they are consuming and their future goals. In a Huffington Post blog David likens educational institutions to real estate agents. He proposes that online realty platforms were not successful in moving customers away from real estate agents the way Expedia was successful in moving customers away from travel agents due to the high personal impact of failure to sell a home. His suggestion is that students and employers are moving away from their traditional agents to gain and express learning.
The founding team includes Eric Sharpe, Director of Software Dev at MediConnect Global, recently acquired by Verisk, an analytics company for businesses. Sharpe has in MBA from BYU. This is not a first venture for either David or Eric and they have already been successful in being granted the Kaplan EdTech Accelerator funds in 2013 allowing them to grow their team from 6 members to 10. This also allowed them to hire a COO, Chris McCarthy from Chegg, a textbook rental company.
It is obvious that BYU and Chegg have had a large influence in the leadership team at Degreed. The exposure to the college demographic through Chegg and Zinch likely give David interesting insight into the venture opportunities in the college demographic. Degreed has also had a surprisingly warm welcome from issuing institutions of traditional degrees, who are partnering with Degreed.
Wearing the hat of an ‘aspiring entrepreneur’, I found your review inspiring and have learnt the importance of selecting individuals to be involved in my venture who have access and deep insight into my targeted market. Both founders of Degreed have access to their market, the college demographic, through previous ventures and educational pursuits. The COO they hired also has experience in their targeted market from working for a textbook rental company.
I believe David Blake is a good role model. This is not his first start-up and he was part of a previously successful sale of another venture. He is definitely part “disruption” to education but he is also business savvy enough to recognize the need to partner with the traditional institutions he wants to disrupt. This is important as to be successful as an entrepreneur you often have to work within the system that exists. You may want to change it but to get to the point where you have the money, recognition or power to do so you may need to “play along”. David shows he can do this. The fact that he was part of a previously successful enterprise in the social networking area suggests he also knows how to capitalize on the market and trends. This (badges) is a somewhat crowded space with Open Badges http://www.openbadges.org/ and Class Badges http://classbadges.com/ and I wonder if a company like Linked In, where this would fit, might create their own badging system. Perhaps Linked In will by the company. On Degreed’s site, I didn’t see how he was monetizing his product but he certainly knows how to access funding, build awareness and create a dynamic team, all critical entrepreneurial skills. Most importantly, I think I’ll sign up for Degreed. I recently created my own website as an online portfolio/resume but his idea resonates with me – we’re more than our degrees – present degree excepted. His idea, passion, fearlessness and commitment to changing education is compelling and inspiring.