How I Launched This: A SaaS Story - Reversing the Dropout Rate of Underserved Students with Upswing.io Founder Melvin Hines

Reversing the Dropout Rate of Underserved Students with Upswing.io Founder Melvin Hines

10/18/20 • 47 min

Stephanie (@stephr_wong) and Carter (@carterthecomic) are back with a new episode of How I Launched This: A SaaS Story. This week, they welcome a Google For Startup Accelerator participant and a Google Black Founders Fund recipient, Melvin Hines, Founder and CEO of Upswing.io. Upswing.io began as an online tutoring platform to assist underserved students and has since scaled to create a full service, 24/7 online student support system that empowers underserved and nontraditional students to complete their education.

With a strong focus on online and non-traditional students, Upswing is harnessing the power of the internet to create a level playing field in the education space. Melvin's strong parental role models encouraged him to attend law school, where he began to raise awareness of education inequality. Later, while earning his MBA, Melvin began planning Upswing.

Melvin explains how Upswing works, giving us an overview of Upswing's three Rs: Reach, Relate, and Retain. Reach means Upswing meets the student where they are. Upswing provides a virtual assistant, Ana, to help organize schedules and check in with student progress and mental health. Relating to the problems nontraditional students face, Upswing helps Retain students by providing tutoring services and facilitating other student support offered by the education institution at no cost to the students.

Later, Melvin tells us about Upswing's evolution to a full-service system, describing the early struggles and how they were overcome. He talks about the importance of finding good partners that share the vision and can help advance the mission. We touch on how race can affect entrepreneurship and how minority mentors and celebrities are working to level the playing field.

As a member of the Google Accelerator Program, Melvin tells us how the mentorships and connections have helped grow his business. We talk about how Covid has created a world of nontraditional students and the ways this has changed Upswing. Upswing continues to evolve, and in the future, will offer enhanced mental health aid through a partnership with Metta and better online support for financial assistance.

Episode Links:
Upswing.ioGoogle For Startup Accelerator ProgramGoogle for Startups Accelerator: Black FoundersGFS Black Founders Fund BlogGFS Black Founders Fund RecipientsMeta

Previous Episode

Elevating the Customer Experience with True Fit Co-founder and Chief Customer Officer Jessica Murphy

Stephanie (@stephr_wong) and Carter (@carterthecomic) are back this week with TrueFit Co-Founder and CCO, Jessica Murphy. TrueFit is revolutionizing online clothes shopping experience utilizing a data collective of size, fit preference, body shape, gender, brand preferences to precisely pinpoint the customer's true size. When retailers personalize every part of the journey, customers gain confidence in the seamless online shopping experience.

Co-Founder Jessica Murphy starts the show explaining a little more about how TrueFit came to be and how the program collects customer information and product information, analyzes the data, and brings the customer to the perfect fit in each particular brand. With this data, TrueFit goes a step further, offering style recommendations for your size and shape as well. Standardization between brands is a benefit of the program, helping customers find similar products across brands.

We talk a bit about data security and why building trust with companies and shoppers was so important to the growth of TrueFit. Jessica describes how her lack of technological experience at the beginning was no hindrance, explaining that a lot of the logic behind the algorithms now used was developed by her early on. Jessica and her Co-Founder, Romney Evans, learned software as they went, hiring friends and developers along the way.

As the company migrated to Google Cloud, important decisions had to be made, and Jessica tells us about this journey. She describes challenges they faced, including the rapid growth they've seen since the start of the global pandemic.

A first-generation Colombian in America, Jessica reflects on how family and cultural traditions shaped her as an entrepreneur. We touch on diversity in SaaS companies and why it can be a crucial component of a successful business and is vital to a successful AI model.

To wrap up the show, Jessica gives us her thoughts on the future of data, AI, and internet companies and offers some great advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Episode Links:TrueFit

Next Episode

Supporting an Inclusive Workplace With Kanarys Co-Founder and CEO Mandy Price

On this episode of How I Launched this, Stephanie (@stephr_wong) and Carter (@carterthecomic) are excited to welcome the CEO of Kanarys, Mandy Price. The Kanarys platform is the first technology platform that fosters collaboration between companies and employees on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. Through gathering anonymous employee data, the Kanarys platform brings about lasting change in DEI by helping companies get the specific data and insights they need to diagnose, prioritize, and optimize DEI efforts.

Mandy starts the show by distinguishing between diversity, equity, and inclusivity, stressing that these should be the goals of every workplace. Diversity, the mix of different social and ethnic backgrounds,is important. But equally important is an environment where each person has equal access to resources and feels welcome and nurtured within the company. Her unfortunate experiences with inequity in office settings sparked the idea for Kanarys. By giving employees a mechanism to voice their concerns, report instances that make them uncomfortable, and more, Kanarys empowers employees to effect change in work environments. Managers' jobs are also made easier, as the platform gives them the data they need to find and fix DEI issues and bring about change.

Later, Mandy describes the process that brought Kanarys to their current platform and details the user experience. The company dashboard offers insights and support to give businesses the best chance at change, while the employee dashboard provides a safe space for discussions on equity and inclusion. She outlines the types of data Kanarys collects and how, and explains how this process has evolved over time. Kanarys also helps companies with implementation plans once data is analyzed.

Mandy talks about her personal journey and how it influenced her entrepreneurial path. She smiles talking about the Kanarys team and how important it is to find employees who believe in your mission. To wrap up the show, Mandy offers valuable advice on how to build and run a powerful team and tells us about the new Resource Center they've just released.

Episode Links:
KanarysKanarys Resource CenterGoogle For Startups AcceleratorGFS Black Founders Fund BlogGFS Black Founders Fund RecipientsKanarys on TwitterKanarys on LinkedIn