Teachy

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Industry: Education

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Pedro Siciliano

Brief Description of Solution: Teachy helps teachers build better lessons 10x faster through an AI-enabled workspace.

Funding Dollars: 1.6M USD

What led you to launch this venture? I was a teacher for many years and felt how half of the time of teaching was spent outside of the classroom with bureaucratic activities. After many years working in the sector, I also noticed how underserved teachers were!

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? We currently help more than half a million teachers in developing economies

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? Balancing building and attending classes! But bringing Teachy to class and using every opportunity to learn more for the business ended up being a great balance.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? I found amazing advisors and investors in the program – colleagues or professors. It was also instrumental for me to meet my first lead investors

What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Marco Fisbhen – Reporting to him during my time at Descomplica was transformational. He showed me there was space for entrepreneurs in LATAM and that I was ready to build!

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Startup Garage. I learned that talking to your users and selling and serving them is the most important part of the business. Building the product itself should come after that.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Robert Siegel was always a trusted advisor. He helped me to better understand the mindset of investors while looking for funding.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? In many ways! We met most of our current investors through Stanford – the same for advisors. We were accelerated by Cardinal Ventures from Stanford, and StartX – also born in Stanford. Many classes also support entrepreneurs!

What is your long-term goal with your startup? To help dozens of millions of teachers build better lessons faster for hundreds of millions of students – starting by the developing world.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture? Launch as fast as possible and get feedback right away!

DON’T MISS: MOST DISRUPTIVE MBA STARTUPS OF 2024