Founders Everywhere: Carolina Recchi of EdSights
Carolina Recchi is the co-founder and co-CEO of EdSights, an Edtech platform dedicated to student engagement, support, and real-time feedback.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
The undergraduate dropout rate at American universities is about 36 percent. Dropping out can cost a student not only their education, but a lifetime of missed opportunities and potential earnings. It also results in billions of dollars in lost tuition and related revenues for higher education institutions. EdSights is tackling this critical issue by leveraging AI technology. They identify students at risk of leaving school due to academic struggles, financial difficulties, health issues, or social isolation. The platform actively engages with students through personalized text messages, offering support and connecting them to necessary resources in real time. This proactive approach not only helps students stay enrolled but also enhances their overall college experience.
Co-founders, co-CEOs, and sisters Carolina Recchi and Claudia Recchi created EdSights in 2018, drawing from their own experiences as students traversing the American higher education system. They were born in the U.S., but raised in Italy. When deciding on what colleges to attend they chose to return to “The Land of Opportunities.” Unfortunately, they were stunned at how out-of-touch schools were with their students. And without a college education opportunities are much harder to come by. They built EdSights to bridge this gap and provide a platform where the student voice drives success. They were listed in Inc. Magazine’s Inc5000 list, featuring the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. - raking #296 overall (top 6%) and #6 among education companies. Carolina shares more about how they’re addressing the broader challenge of student retention in universities.
Why are you building EdSights?
As international students who had just moved to the U.S for college, we faced the challenges of navigating higher education in this country. We later discovered that what we thought was an "us problem" was actually a nationwide crisis - with 36% of college students dropping out and universities losing north of $30B every year due to students dropping out. Once we realized this was a huge issue and colleges were losing money because of it, we felt that having experienced the issue from the student perspective we understood it enough to build something that effectively solved it.
What’s EdSights’ North Star?
Amplifying the student voice.
Why is Edsights going to win?
We have the most hard working team, we are lean and pivot fast, and because our customers love us.
How does EdSights inspire “customer love”?
We help our customers (university staff) to love their job more. We do this by enabling them to focus more on the aspects of their jobs they enjoy while reducing the tasks they find tedious. Leveraging AI, we automate redundant and transactional tasks, freeing up time for more meaningful and empathetic interactions with students—interactions that only staff can provide. We not only help staff find time for these crucial conversations but also assist them in identifying when such interactions are needed, prioritizing and targeting them effectively.
Tell us about a recent milestone EdSights crushed.
We absolutely crushed our revenue goals for Q1 and Q2 of 2024 :) Our VP of Sales blew past our projections. We also increased student retention (or reduced college drop out rates) at the largest school in North America, Southern New Hampshire, where in less than a year we helped retain almost 15,000 additional college students. Here’s the WSJ article.
Favorite startup focused podcast?
Saastr because it has great SaaS speakers. It is practical and gives very concrete tips. Also, I find the host, Jason Lemkin, to be engaging and to the point, which makes for a very easy podcast to listen to.
Fun Fact: I can name most world capitals!
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