Wonder Woman Wednesday #1: Courtney Monk
A series where I sit down with powerful female founders, innovators and VCs to discuss their journeys in the space 🦸♀️
This week I sat down with Courtney Monk,
Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Co-Founder of Schoolytics, the “Google Classroom data wizard built for educators to enable data-driven actions in the classroom!”
A little background….
What is Schoolytics?
Schoolytics is a 2-year-old Washington DC-based classroom analytics and AI platform to measure, monitor, and manage student engagement.
Their modern technology platform looks very similar to Google Analytics and combines data from multiple systems into one place.
Schoolytics is on a mission to make it easier than ever for teachers to visualize their data from students.
How much have they raised?
Schoolytics has raised a total of $3.5M in funding over 2 rounds.
Haystack and Audacious Ventures are their most recent investors!
Now, we hear from CPO and Co-Founder herself, Courtney Monk ⬇️
What inspired you to create Schoolytics? 📚
I’ve worked at the intersection of school & data for a long time so I thought a lot about the importance of solving issues of educational inequity in our country.
I see many data challenges from a governance and leadership perspective all the time; everything from trying to understand the return on investment (ROI) of our public schools to how certain populations of students are doing.
Biggest learnings as a female entrepreneur? 🧑🏫
You can do a lot more than you thought you could.
Learning how to hire great people is super important!
Trying new things & working new muscles is very invigorating.
Most important tips to become a successful entrepreneur? 💪
Hard work is the answer to everything.
I don’t think that this means you have to work 100 days in a row without ever stopping. Incorporate vacations and time for yourself where you can.
Lean on your network.
The Princeton Alumni Angels invested in our pre-seed round. I got to talk to them because I went to Princeton but other people have different kinds of networks they can leverage.
Be a giver.
Adam Grant wrote a great book, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success.
In essence he says to give freely and this will come back to you. This has proved to be very important in my experience.
Any book or podcast recommendations? 🎙
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant
Biased by Jennifer Eberhardt
As always, if you enjoyed this Wonder Woman Wednesday — or know somebody who would — slap that share button and see you on Friday 😊