EdTech Week: Alpaca's first pitch as "Employee experience for educators."

October 14, 2024 | Team Letter

October 14, 2024

Good morning, Alpaca! 

We are back fresh from EdTech Week in New York City, and I am still thinking about all that we learned there — about the EdTech space, about the movers and shakers that are shaping this space, and about Alpaca’s role in this ecosystem. 

As you know, Alpaca was chosen to pitch at the “Shark Tank” for K-12 innovation. We were chosen from hundreds of applicants to present alongside 4 other really remarkable companies. My goal was to show up really strong for Alpaca, and to potentially have at least one investor conversation with an education-focused investor following our pitch. 

Alpaca showed up really strong, y’all! 

Of all the companies there, we were one of a very very few that are focused specifically on the experience of the educator. We heard “Employee experience for educators — that’s a new idea!” and “Wow, interesting. Is anyone else doing this? Why not?” and “You have something really unique here. You’re on to something big.”

After the pitch, three different investors asked me for time — not in a couple of weeks over a Zoom call, but that day, in person, right away. (Always a good sign)

I got the chance to sit down with three impressive fund teams, all of whom are focused specifically on education. That matters! Because they know the customer we’re selling to, they know the specific challenges of our landscape, and they know what an impact great companies in education can make. We have strong interest from two of them to join our fundraising round, and I cannot wait to continue the conversations. Any of these investors would be incredible advisors to our company, and I know you’d be excited to meet them and learn from them.

Now, the real work starts — to continue the follow-ups, to knock our growth goals out of the park, and to keep building an extraordinary company and keep our promises to our customers.

I left New York energized and inspired by the amazing companies out there, and incredibly optimistic for what’s ahead for Alpaca. Let’s keep going, keep building, and keep delivering. If it feels like we’re doing something totally weird and not like most of your friends’ jobs, it’s because we are — and that’s a great thing. 

Onward, team, and Happy Monday! 

KB

PS: If you’d like to hear/read the full pitch from EdTech Week, here it is! (well, almost. I think I ad-libbed here and there, JUST a bit)

ALPACA EDTECH WEEK PITCH - OCTOBER 2024

Hi, I’m Karen Borchert, founder and CEO of Alpaca, a modern employee engagement platform, built just for K12 leaders. It all starts with one question: 

"How are you doing?"

This simple question has helped us create a platform that gives teachers a voice, and gives principals actionable ways to support and recognize employees.

In our first two years, we’ve reached $500K in ARR, with 155 school and district customers across 20 states and 4 countries. Our platform has collected 35,000 teacher insights—the largest database of its kind—helping schools solve the biggest problem they’re facing: keeping their employees.

Teacher retention is a critical issue today. Today, there are 500,000 fewer teachers than before the pandemic.

With 30% of teachers missing more than 10 days annually and 40% of positions unfilled, schools are facing a crisis that costs $8.5 billion each year, leading to closures and legal challenges. 

Alpaca knows that leaders need two important employee engagement tools to solve this problem - so we provide pulse surveys to listen better, and then a recognition platform  to act on that listening. 

Alpaca’s solution is built around our proprietary “semantic pulse survey” software, which lets teachers answer, “How are you doing?” in a fun, fast survey that takes one minute, each month.

Then, we analyze those words against five key drivers of educator wellbeing, and give school leaders real-time insights into teacher morale and actionable data to improve school culture.

We then give school leaders simple ways to reward and recognize staff, from digital resources to turn-key celebration kits that we build with brand partners. 

We sell our platform to schools as an annual subscription, ranging from $2,000 for a single school to $25,000 for midsize districts. 

Our customers say it all: “We’ve never seen data quite like this. We’re putting these words into practice, and we’re seeing the results in our teams.”

Alpaca is on track to hit $1M ARR in early 2025. We’re doing it with inbound marketing focused on high value resources for principals; flowing to targeted sales demos; with upsell and cross-sell through our unique packs and celebrations. 

Right now, we’re raising a $2M seed round to scale our platform and team. Nelnet, a leader in EdTech, is leading our round, and we’d love to have you join us as we grow!