Hear how Justin Rotman's penchant for critical thinking & creative problem-solving led him to cofound an exciting ed tech company.
In a moment, you’ll meet Justin Rotman — Co-Founder and CEO of Goodkind.
If you were to be a fly on the wall during dinner time at the Rotman home when Justin was in grade school, chances are you’d witness a lively brainstorm of new product, service, and business ideas that just might be “the next big thing.”
Getting good grades wasn’t the way in which Justin’s parents measured success. Instead, they emphasized creative problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Growing up in this environment may or may not have inspired Justin’s love of the liberal arts, which ultimately led him to pursue a degree at Queen's University in Ontario.
And it was there where Justin would meet fellow idea-generator, Michael Warshafsky, who would eventually become Co-Founder and CTO of Goodkind.
But before the idea of building a video messaging platform that makes communications personal again began to percolate, the two tinkered with a few other business ideas. One of those was a textbook e-commerce store that was poised to disrupt university bookstores across the country.
Now, it didn’t do so...but it did lay the foundation for what would become one of the most exciting ed tech companies to emerge in the last decade. In fact, Goodkind has just been accepted into Y Combinator — the most prestigious of startup accelerators. Many of tech’s hottest companies got their start at YC including Airbnb, Coinbase, DoorDash, Dropbox, and Instacart.
With an acceptance rate of only 1.5%, and an average of 10,000 applicants per cycle, competition is stiff (to say the least). So if you’re inspired by Justin’s story and want to be able to say “I knew Goodkind when…”, the best way to help is to share this episode on your social networks and request a demo of their product with a team member at www.wearegoodkind.com.
Learn more about this episode and about our sponsors in our show notes.