In just a moment, you’ll meet Ben Congleton — Founder of Olark, a live chat software and data tool that serves colleges and universities of all shapes and sizes.

Growing up, Ben wanted to be a professor like his father before him. And while he completed both a bachelors and masters degree from Virginia Tech and started his PhD at the University of Michigan, Ben ultimately realized that he was a bit more interested in business than in higher education.

So he decided to pursue one of the many business ideals he had noodled on for a few years. After starting a webhosting company, Ben realized that there was a dearth of great website chat tools – and he had this vision of making chat software that was as easily to install on a website as Google Analytics.

And it was this idea that granted access to Olark (which was called Habla at the time) to Y Combinator, the most famous and prestigious of startup accelerators.

So, he and his founding team moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and that’s where things really started to take off. Tune in to hear the story of how Ben ended up living in Elon Musk’s house next door to an apartment that Mark Zuckerburg had rented and ultimately bootstrapped the company to success.

Discover more about how Olark can help your school get started with (or get better at) utilizing live chat at https://olark.com/enrollify

Connect with Ben on LinkedIn here.

This podcast is brought to you by Element451 — the next-generation AI student engagement platform. Learn more about how Element451 can enhance student engagement, boost enrollment, reduce expenses, and increase staff productivity.

This episode is brought to you by Goodkind - an easy-to-use video engagement platform designed to make each of your prospects feel special, cared for and seen. Increase applications, increase yield, and decrease melt with the power of Goodkind.

Starter Stories is a part of the Enrollify Podcast Network. If you like this podcast, chances are you’ll like other Enrollify shows too!

Our podcast network is growing by the month and we’ve got a plethora of marketing, admissions, and higher ed technology shows that are jam packed with stories, ideas, and frameworks all designed to empower you to be a better higher ed professional. Our shows feature a selection of the industry’s best as your hosts. Learn from Mickey Baines, Jeremy Tiers, Jaime Hunt, Corynn Myers, Jaime Gleason and many more.

Learn more about The Enrollify Podcast Network at podcasts.enrollify.org. Our shows help higher ed marketers and admissions professionals find their next big idea — come and find yours!

In just a moment, you’ll meet Cooper Jones — Co-Founder of RahRah, a Community Engagement System that provides a simple solution to give students the inclusive and supportive experience they need to thrive while on campus.

When Cooper was 5 years old, he came back from Sunday school one afternoon and proclaimed to his parents that he wanted to be a preacher and a motocross driver.

And while these dreams shifted a bit as he grew up, he does have a passion for community building and Iron Man racing — so, hey, there’s some consistency here!

After studying finance at Oklahoma State, Cooper went to work in consulting at Accenture. And it was there that he was placed on a project serving a higher education client.

Working with this university opened Cooper’s eyes to the incredible challenges that today’s institutions face…and before too long, ideas for how he might build technology to help address these challenges began to percolate.

Tune in to hear the story behind how and why Cooper started RahRah.

Learn more about this episode in our show notes.

Bev is an artist. In high school, Bev spent her free time in the art studio painting, sculpting, and drawing — she was always great at focusing deeply on one project at a time and ensuring that it was truly “done” before moving onto the next one.

After college, she began taking on some freelance design work for some friends and local nonprofits in the greater Columbus area. And while she didn’t know it at the time, a project here and a project there would eventually transform Bethge Graphic Design into Method which would then become Ologie.

Recognized as one of Columbus' 30 most influential women by Business First, Bev continues to be engaged in the community, particularly helping aspiring women leaders become successful, and providing opportunities for young people to learn about the creative industry.

Tune into the exciting story of how Bev built and scaled one of the country’s most respected higher education branding and marketing agencies – working with brands like Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and Purdue, just to name a few!

You can connect with Bev on LinkedIn and learn more about Ologie by visiting their website.

This podcast is brought to you by Element451 — the next-generation AI student engagement platform. Learn more about how Element451 can enhance student engagement, boost enrollment, reduce expenses, and increase staff productivity.

Learn more about this episode in our show notes.

In just a moment, you’ll meet Chris Tsetsekos Co-Founder of FuzeMee — a new social media app for the college experience.

Chris had accepted a Lacrosse scholarship and was ready to enroll in his freshman year at Tufts University…and then COVID hit.

Once he learned that his first year at college was going to be spent mostly on Zoom, he decided to take a gap. And while some students use their gap years to travel across Europe or volunteer with a service organization, Chris decided to use his to try and make this idea he had had in his senior year of high school come to life.

And that idea? It was to build a better social media app for the entire college experience. He didn’t know it at the time, but just a year later, in collaboration with his Co-Founders Jon and David, he would raise close to a million dollars from investors across the country.

Interested in learning more about FuzeMee? You can do so here. You can also connect with Chris on LinkedIn here.

In just a moment, you’ll meet Kavitta Ghai Co-Founder of Nectir, an edtech startup that brings Slack-like workspaces into every college and university classroom.

Kavitta was pretty much born an entrepreneur…her very first hustle was in elementary school when she started selling stationery. She’d collect letterhead and envelopes from her father’s office and then sort into near bundles which she’d sell to her classmates.

In her freshman year at UC Santa Barbara, she was introduced to Slack by one of her professors who decided to use it as a way for the class to ask questions and share ideas. Kavitta was amazed at how superior her learning experience was in that class compared to her other classes…Slack transformed that 200 person lecture into a dynamic learning community.

And that’s when she started thinking…why wasn’t there a tool like Slack for every college class? What if every student at a university could join a channel for each course they enrolled in every semester? Could this better the learning experience for students? And perhaps even cut down on the time faculty and TAs spend answering questions about the course material?

And it was these questions and others like them that ultimately led Kavitta and her Co-Founder, Jordan Long, to build Nectir. Alright, get ready to meet Kavitta Ghai.

This podcast is brought to you by Element451 — the next-generation AI student engagement platform. Learn more about how Element451 can enhance student engagement, boost enrollment, reduce expenses, and increase staff productivity.

In just a moment you’ll meet Teresa Valerio Parrot, Founder and Principal of TVP Communications, a premier higher education communications firm.

Growing up, Teresa wanted to be on Sesame Street. She loved the authentic and positive character of the series and spent many an evening sitting on the couch next to her father watching Big Bird and Elmo teach important life lessons.

Teresa’s parents greatly valued education and she became the first female in her extended family to complete not just her bachelor’s degree, but a master’s as well — and yes, she’s currently working on her EdD.

After graduating from the University of Colorado with her BA in Communication, she went on to work in the President’s office of the university as a special assistant.

And it was here that Teresa really grew to understand and love the power of words. After many years at the University of Colorado, Teresa went to work at SimpsonScarborough and Widmeyer Communications after that.

One evening, a couple of her colleagues invited her out for drinks after work...and before Teresa could even take a sip of her beer, they asked a question that would change the rest of her life — “Why are you here? Why aren’t you doing something on your own?”

Tune in to hear the dynamic story of how this question inspired the birth of TVP Communications. You can learn more about Teresa and TVP Communications by visiting their website or following Teresa on Twitter.

This podcast is brought to you by Element451 — the next-generation AI student engagement platform. Learn more about how Element451 can enhance student engagement, boost enrollment, reduce expenses, and increase staff productivity.

Learn more about this episode and about our sponsors in our show notes.

In just a moment you’ll meet Eric Drymer, Co-Founder and CEO of Takeoff, a brand new social learning app that pays Gen Z to learn within the context of a virtual study hall.

Growing up in Montreal, Eric always knew he wanted to build something that mattered...several members of his family were entrepreneurs, including his uncle who helped create one of the first sustainable cleaning products to really go mainstream.

After graduating from the University of Southern California, Eric took a job in banking thinking it was “the right thing to do”...but before too long, that entrepreneurial bug that had bit his grandfather, uncle, and other family members before him finally made its way to Eric.

What if there was a better way to inspire students to learn? Was it possible to incentivize students to spend less time scrolling through TikTok and more time studying for the SAT?

Tune in to hear the story of how these questions ultimately inspired Eric to build and launch Takeoff.

Learn more about this episode and about our sponsors in our show notes.

Meet Robert Rosenbloom, Founder and CEO of PlatformQ.

Robert came from a family of entrepreneurs. His grandfather started his own real estate business after immigrating from Europe and his father also started and ran his own business.

So, it was only natural that Robert was also bit by the entrepreneurial bug — he started his first business while still pursuing his undergraduate degree. But, when he graduated from McGill University, he thought it best to start his career on more stable ground — so he started his career in banking.

A few years later, while pursuing his MBA at Columbia, Robert co-founded iCongo, which was an early ecommerce platform, and ultimately sold it to SAP.

Before too long, Robert had another idea…what if there was a better way to help students get a feel for what a college campus was like, without physically being there?

And this idea would be the springboard for what would ultimately becoming Platform Q Education — one of the leading developers of virtual experiences in higher ed.

To learn more about Platform Q Education, visit their website here or explore a behind the scenes look at their Conduit platform on Enrollify Exclusives.

This podcast is brought to you by Element451 — the next-generation AI student engagement platform. Learn more about how Element451 can enhance student engagement, boost enrollment, reduce expenses, and increase staff productivity.

Learn more about this episode and about our sponsors in our show notes.