Krish Bhatia Building DAM Fellows and Teaching AI to Teachers | Dorm Room to Boardroom Episode 14

In Episode 14 of Dorm Room to Boardroom, we sit down with Krish Bhatia to break down how he built DAM Fellows and is now working on AI in education. We talk about his early ventures like AppPioneer Camps, what it actually takes to start and scale an accelerator, and how those experiences led him to build in the AI space. Krish shares how he’s using technology to rethink how students learn, what Bobby Browser is all about, and how he balances multiple ventures while still being a full-time student. Great episode for anyone interested in startups, AI, and building at a high level.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the dorm room to boardroom podcast. We have some extra uh artwork today that we were not expected to have, but very, very, very, very special guest, long overdue. Charlie, I'll let you introduce him.

SPEAKER_05 0:14

Yes, this guy, he's big in the AI space. He's teaching teachers about AI. He also has his own accelerator, and we're gonna get into all of that. Without further ado, Chris, how are we doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I'm good. Um I spent an hour today trying to clear my storage on my iPhone. It's a very unproductive day, to be honest.

SPEAKER_05 0:37

That's pretty productive though. I mean I don't know. I wouldn't say it's moving the needle, but it's needs to be done though.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I think for all that you're doing, you're allowed to have some slow days. Um fair, fair. So thank you for coming on the podcast. We start every podcast the same way. We obviously know each other, we've played basketball together, um, we've been here all four years, but tell the viewers where you're from, where you grew up, and then ultimately how did you end up at Babson?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Hmm. Yeah, I I uh I was born in New Jersey in uh New Brunswick. I live in Canada from like grades kindergarten through third or fourth grade. Um I didn't know that. Yeah, I know. I mean, dude, that was like that was like a great time I like it was just like I mean I would just go there like cook everyone basketball. Yeah, because like nobody there rarely like started hooping at a young age. Yeah, yeah. Um and nah it was great. Honestly, everyone was nice there. And then and then you ultimately came to Babson. Yeah, I did come to Babson. Um I guess Babson when I first like found out about it, I visited and I was like, oh, it's number one entrepreneurship, I gotta come here. Um honestly, like the resources here weren't as like as vast as I thought they would be, but yeah, still like still I'm starting to get a lot out of it, but yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 2:02

I feel like me and Spira both realize this too, is that it's not necessarily like what they teach you, it's more about like the environment and the community you're surrounded by like everyone's doing something. Everyone's doing something. And so if you're not doing something, like you almost feel behind.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah. I will say, like, and this isn't this is going past my background, but on that topic, I think that yeah, everyone's doing something here, but there's very few people like thinking far ahead enough. Like I feel like everyone thinks like about the first they go with the first thing they think of.

SPEAKER_05 2:34

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Like, I'm gonna make Uber for dogs. Yeah, make a platform, make an app, all right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:41

Yeah, especially now with the tools, AI. Yeah, exactly. You can make an app like that in like minutes. Yeah, it's crazy. But um, so coming to Babson, did you know that you wanted to like do entrepreneurship or did Babson kind of spark that in you?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Um I honestly was super inspired by design actually when I first got here. I read uh Johnny Ives bio by autobiography, who's like the designer of the iPhone, designer of like the yeah, pretty much pretty much like honestly in my opinion, one of the people that like actually made the iPhone what it is today. Yeah. Um and I was I I wanted to like I was starting to move towards that more. So I was like taking a bunch of Olin classes in design. I did a little design like internship, um, both like UIUX and then also industrial design. Um and I was starting to go into entrepreneurship, but it was never like very technical. Um that kind of like sparked in London, I'd say, honestly, when I was abroad. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah, because so you were in LLC. Okay, and you're saying that's where you really started shifting from the design to pure entreprene entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, I mean I honestly like I I was in entrepreneurship beforehand, but I was like never like all in, serious about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

So what was the moment in London where you were like, alright, strictly entrepreneurship, all in?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

I think what happened was well honestly I give a lot of credit to like the people that mentored me. Um So I was working with like two alumni to start the accelerator, and in doing that I met like the most insane founders. I also we we got on the phone with like over a hundred Babson alumni. Uh-huh. And I was like, holy shit, like these guys are actually doing amazing stuff. That like I didn't think Babs and kids were possible, like were it was possible for Babs and kids to like do that much. Yeah. Um and then I realized like I'm not doing shit. And like my pace is not fast enough. And I think it was also like uh I found them I found much more purpose in like doing doing more like um just like purpose and not doing entrepreneurship to to do it for other people, but like to do it for like an internal drive. Yeah. Um I think that that also caused that shift. So like seeing two things, like finding the purpose and like seeing what other people were capable of.

SPEAKER_05 5:16

Yeah, 100%. So talk to us about some of your earlier ventures. I knew you had um app pioneer camps. That was that was before LSE. So you definitely did have some of that entrepreneurship aspect. Can you talk to us a bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah, I um so that was freshman year, and again, it was just like me trying to figure out a way to to make money. Yeah, kind of like one of those first ideas he complex. I mean honestly, like it's all sparked from my dad, like who's like a who took us from like I mean we were like in Canada living like a living with our cousins because we couldn't afford a home. Yeah. And then he just like worked hard as fuck on his business. Uh-huh. And that's what caused us to like be able to have what we have now.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

So um that's like what it what sparked it honestly. But he um but yeah, sorry, it when I was a freshman, uh I saw like other people starting summer programs. I was like, oh, should I start a SAT camp? Nah, because I was a SAT tutor before. Uh-huh. And I just started this uh program because I saw how like Babson and Olin Education like combined gave me such a great strong skill set, and like nobody really had that both technical and entrepreneurship skill set. Um so I decided to bring that to high schoolers. We had like 25 students over the two years. Um and I taught a bunch in person, but I also taught them online. Like there's kids in Dubai, there's kids in like that's sick. Um yeah, there's a kid in Indonesia, I think. So that's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 6:51

And so how did you market that? Like, how are you getting in contact with a kid in Indonesia? And he's like, oh yeah, let me have Krish teach me how to build apps. Like, how's that going on?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

I mean, dude, the first year was pretty sad. It was just like me and my co-founder, um, who's one of my friends from from like third grade too. Um, we were just in my in like we rented out the Jewish like facility. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um we were teaching like six kids in person, and like one of them was like ridiculous, like, and he just like left halfway because he would just like not do shit the entire time. So we're teaching like five kids. Looks like we're paying. I think um but honestly, like we got like great testimonials from the five kids that were in it. Like we had like videos of them like pitching their apps to their parents, and this was all before like you could build it all with AI. Yeah, so they were hyped about that. Yeah, that's fine. Um and we we just like that was really good, like showing those testimonials for marketing, and then showing those testimonials to like our family friends who had kids, they were just like excited about it already. So we didn't have to do much external marketing, it was more like warm intros.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

That's the best way to do it. That's super cool. So let's fast forward a little bit, let's talk about what you're doing now with the accelerator. Um, what's it called? What's the impact that you have, what's the thesis behind what you're doing, and just give us a high-level breakdown of what you're currently building.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah. So the accelerator is called Dam, uh Damn Fellows. And I started it basically when I realized that there wasn't really a place at Babson for like the founders that wanted to build something venture scalable and really wanted to go all in and uh leverage the Babson alumni network. Um because the the truth is like Babson alumni reached out to help people all the time. Like hundreds of people reach out to them. Um the Blank Center reach out to them, but they're connected with like subpar founders and like founders who honestly aren't going all in. Yeah. Um and so they don't give a shit. Yeah, like there's like wow. It's kind of like a half-ass. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Um so we pull together like the f four or five best founders on campus every semester and just like give them intense goals to work through, um, and match them up with mentor mentorship that like is actually gonna push the needle for them, give them actually warm intros. Um so we've had like it not counting this cohort, we've had nine founders. Of those, like they probably raised a total of 2.1 or 2.2 million dollars. Yeah, that's crazy. Um, yeah, and uh maybe added 230k in revenue during the six week, eight week cohorts.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Um, two have sold our company, like it was towards the end of the cohort. They sold their companies. I think like four, no, maybe like five have dropped out of school, like dropped out of Babson.

SPEAKER_05 9:59

Yeah, I I saw uh the bio on LinkedIn it was like two million in like valuations, like four dropouts. Yeah, that was jokes.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Okay, so I have so many questions, but when you first thought of this idea, how many Babson alumni like what was the first thing you did? Reach out to Babson alumni, get get a network of them, or was it reach out to founders on campus? What was the timeline of how you created the the ecosystem that you have now?

SPEAKER_05 10:27

Starting an accelerator isn't just something you can just oh let me just Yeah I mean that was taking time.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah. Um yeah, so before like we have we started with no founders, and we approached these mentors, but we had to approach them with like a strong thesis in order to convince them to join. The thesis was like we're gonna be hard as fuck on the founders. Like, I mean, we we've kicked someone out every semester that we've had the program just because they weren't all in, yeah. So um that I mean we honestly like just kicked someone out yesterday.

SPEAKER_05 11:02

So what does that look like RIP that like what do you say to them like yo, you're not it?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Like, no, I mean I'm sure it's a tough conversation to so yeah, I'll I'll be honest, like um I run this with Sean Robbins and Kellen Kruglowicz, and um and like you know I'm saying this to y'all, but like Sean is like very harsh. Like he's just like so freshman year we had someone we told them like you gotta add an X amount of people to your wait list in this first week. They didn't do it, but we also didn't see like a lot of effort from them, and he was like, What'd you get? And they were like, Oh, we only got like half of that, like it's not gonna cut it, and he's like I I did the like lead of kicking someone out yesterday and I was like much nicer about it. Um I was basically like you haven't been coming, like uh damn is a hard program to get into, it's a hard program to stay in, and like um we expect certain things out of our founders, we want it to benefit you, but we also want to feel like where we add value to your company, and we don't feel like that right now. Um, here's a list of like five reasons why, and we actually gave them those reasons so you can improve.

SPEAKER_05 12:18

Yeah, so that's like legit, and it's not just like saying like oh you didn't meet this, you're done. It's not like here's like what you can do better.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 12:25

Yeah, so how does the application process work? Do do people apply, or do you guys go and actively seek founders?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, honestly, like we're we're trying to model after prod, which is this MIT Harvard accelerator, and they're very underground. Uh-huh. You might have not heard of them, but um cursor came out of them, Mercor came out of them. Really? They they have a unicorn every single year. Yeah. Um and which is insane. Um they just seek out those founders and kind of help them help them underground, but we do have applications just to like find those those lone founders that we haven't heard of. Um because it is hard at on Babson's campus. A lot of our founders have lived off campus and just we don't know of them.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

So um we have both, but we're trying to move towards more warm intros and and seeking them out ourselves. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 13:21

Yeah, I feel like that would make more sense. Yeah. Because then if if you just want people applying. I mean, I guess you will get dedicated people.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:28

But also if like if you're actively seeking them out, it's like kind of like a you've been chosen accelerator kind of.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

It adds value to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:35

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

So can you tell us a little bit about some I maybe you could give us names, or maybe you can't give us names, but some founders that are in the accelerator, and then some people, some mentors that are on the other side of the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yeah. Um, so previously we've had um Justin Jin, who's the founder of Giggles, um, which is uh it's a AI-powered basically social media feed, but you can also gamble on everything. Um super interesting concept that he just recently started working on. He's raised I think a little over a million dollars. Um and he was mentored by Alex Meek, who was uh a Y Combinator investor. He was in Y Combinator as a founder. Um he raised 175 million for his energy startup.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

So what was the conversation like getting him as a mentor? Because right off the bat, that guy's very impressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how did you even get him to buy into you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Um, so yeah, we we just told him that I mean he kind of felt the problem. Like he felt that his frustration with Babson's resources was the same as ours. And so he was like, We need this. He was excited about it. Yeah, he was bought into like the mission on this. We need this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

It wasn't even a really convinced, it was like, Yeah, I believe in you, like let's do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I feel like we showed a lot of conviction and and the fact that we can add a lot to Babson, um and the mentors believe in that. Um, so it worked out. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:21

And then and who are like some of the founders who have come out of the accelerator.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, so we've had so in our first cohort, um we had David May, who who exit his company right before um, or right at the end of the cohort. Um we had Hirsch who exited his company, we had uh Justin Jin, the other one, who's building Klonos, um Stanley Wong, who's building a five cents augmented reality uh training for defense. That's crazy. So niche So basically you're in the suit and you it's like you're playing Call of Duty, but it's for military training. It saves them a ton of money because they don't have to create the environments that they usually would forget.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Exactly. He goes to Babson?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

He dropped out freshman year. One of the four? Yeah. Damn. Um Damn. Get it? Get it. Um who else do we have? Trying to think. Um, but last semester we had Vishwamodi, who's building basically a ride hailing app in India. Um that uses all electric vehicles, and this the drivers are salaried, so they pay way less, they can charge way less on Uber. Yeah. Um they just raised like 170k. Um we had David Che, who's on this podcast.

SPEAKER_05 16:53

Yeah. Um He's been co-getting.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

I think we had oh, we've had two of your two people who are in the current cohort were in this podcast. Mateo and Krishna Lani.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Both absolute beasts. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Can you tell us the structure? Like, what's the structure of the cohort? You keep talking about the cohort. What's the like is it's rigorous. Yes. Meet every week, once a week, twice a week. What's the structure like?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Um, so the first week, Kellen and I will meet with every founder. We do this every week, but the first week in particular, we set extremely high goals for them. Um we'll usually ask them, hey, what was your best week in revenue? And we'll say, okay, you gotta double that this week or in the next 10 days. Um and yeah, we I mean if they don't make it through, they don't make it through. Um if they're very close to their goal and we're like, you you definitely did your best and you got close, um, then you know, we'll like cut some slack. The whole point is if you give someone like an impossible challenge, the high agency person will figure out a way to get that done and be creative with their solutions, and most people will look at the challenge as a challenge that's like too hard to reach and not um you know, not not come up the creative ways. So yeah. Um and then every week we'll have that same sort of structured meeting where we set KPIs. Um, the mentors that we match them with, we'll hold them accountable. Yeah, and we also have a bunch of workshops every week. So um we have Alex Meek who talks about fundraising. We have Sam Barber who sold his company for 158 million at the age of like 26. Wait, what was his company? I feel like it'll be like Cultivate Holdings.

SPEAKER_05 18:43

Yes, yes, I do know that guy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Okay. Really? How do you know him?

SPEAKER_05 18:46

No, just like through like Babs and stuff. Like I've just seen him. I don't know, but he's awesome. I know of him.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Um so he's one of our best mentors too, and he he helps them determine their like initial KPIs um and how to like streamline things in the company that aren't as important to the high-level things. Um yeah, we have Jerry Lee who has I don't even know how many followers on a bunch of social medias. He runs Wandsulting. You've probably seen some of his videos too. Um, but he talks about marketing. So we have these like structured sessions, which are like office hours, because there's only four founders to uh a mentor. But then we also have the KPIs that they're supposed to hit.

SPEAKER_05 19:27

Uh yeah, that's sick. Has so has Babson not gotten mad, but been like, yo, like what are you doing like with this? Like, because they do have their own resources and you're kind of competing against that. I guess it's like it's just a more pristine version of what they offer. So have they been like, like, what is this, or uh talk to you about it, or no?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

They I know they've had beef with Sean, to be honest. Yeah. Um I've tried to develop a good relationship with them, and I think I have. Cause the way we differentiate is uh I mean, I've had a chat with Cindy about this, and I told her basically we're a community of the venture scale founders, and that's the same way e Tower is, right? Um so I'd say it's like a mix between ETower and an accelerator.

SPEAKER_04 20:16

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Um yeah, I don't know, maybe they do see us competing, but also where like Spinelli loves us. I'm sure, dude.

SPEAKER_05 20:24

You're just making Fabs look great. More unicorns the better in his eyes. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

So what do you anticipate is like the long-term vision behind this? Because you're gonna graduate soon. So where do you see damn fellows in the future? Are you gonna continue um building on it, or maybe you can scale it to something bigger? Like what's your vision there?

SPEAKER_05 20:45

Or pass it on to someone?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, so I'm uh I'm passing it on. We have uh um this kid, Joel Pedro Mendez, who's a freshman right now. Um, but yeah, I know he's he's pretty young, but he's also like 20. I don't know how. I think he took a gap year. Yeah. Um but yeah, I I took me a really long time to find someone who could run it. Because they don't necessarily need to be a founder, they just they need to have I think the ability to like get a group of people and get them make sure they're friends, honestly. Like all of our founders need to be friends with each other, um or should be at least, and just be able to be hard on hard on founders. Like, you didn't accomplish this, and a lot of people can come up with excuses and you can be like, oh, that makes sense, but it's it's important to hold people accountable because that's what they want at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Um, so yeah, we have him running it, and we're just gonna keep on passing it on. Uh we're not trying to scale it at all, it's gonna stick to like being a small cohort. We might even do it once a year, because we only want very, very high quality founders.

SPEAKER_05 21:55

Makes yeah. Yeah, I like that. So, do the people like one of the factors. Who comes into the accelerator? Do they have to pay for it, or is it kind of just like a a service-based no?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

It's just free. They can just join, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:07

Okay, but but they get they have to get approved though, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's kind of just like a a non-profit.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah. Um, we got a donation. Um, so we that's how we're getting funded, but uh yeah, we we're just a non-profit. Yeah. I don't get anything out of it except for I mean I got a ton out of it, but I was gonna say you probably get a lot of fulfillment out of it here.

SPEAKER_05 22:29

That's insane. Um, okay, moving on to one of your newer things that you're doing, Bobby Browser.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:36

Could you tell us about that and how that idea come live?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Um yeah, so when I was teaching that uh summer program to AI to Thai schoolers, yeah. Um I I was a teacher to like 25 students and I I realized that students actually like don't know how to use AI properly, and when they do use it, they just like let it do all the work for them. And I mean we all know this from using ourselves, but we just become dumber. It's very hard. Like we there's no way for us to mitigate that, but we at at least have the agency in our age to understand, hey, I can I I know that AI is able to do some tasks for me, and maybe I can get better at doing other tasks or use AI in a way that's gonna help me grow. But as a young kid, imagine you're diving into the world and and you have AI in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

I have I have little cousins and they literally like do not do their math homework. It's just a simple like put it into chat and submit it. Like they don't even they have no idea what they're doing. Yeah, and I look at that and like what kind of math is it? It's like algebra, like bad. Yeah, like simple stuff. Math you need to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, I tell them, I'm like, you should try and use it like as little as possible because even though you think you're not gonna need to know how to do this, it's developing your brain, and by putting into chat you're stopping that development. So I think I think it's a real problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

So sorry, I keep going. Yeah, so imagine imagine like people just don't know how to do simple math or write write a paragraph. Um I don't know what kind of world we're gonna live in, you know. Yeah, it's gonna be crazy, dude. Kind of fucked. Yeah. Um but I not only felt this problem, and I think the average person feels this problem, but teachers feel it the most. Because administration is pushing AI onto them so hard. They're like, our schools need to have AI. Every student should be learning how to use AI. And the teacher's like, no, but they're just using it to do all their work. There's no way to control it. Um, so that's exactly what we built as a controlled environment where teachers can administer AI while making sure the students are critically thinking. Um, and we put that in a browser form so that we can gather context from the source of student work um and continue to like build an intelligent model that personalizes everything for students as they're working.

SPEAKER_05 25:10

Wow, that's that's super interesting. Is that currently like it at Babson or are you doing it more like the high school level? Like where is it in place?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

So we're we're working with a couple high schools. Um we just agreed on a a quote and just sent that out. So just oh yeah. Pretty much signed our first school. There we go. The signature's not there, they have to wait for the meeting, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:36

It's gonna be there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

No, it will, it will for sure. Um they're actually part of an eight-school network of Catholic schools, and I met with another I met the another president in that school yesterday for like an hour. Um, so they're super interested as well. So hopefully I can get all these eight schools to onboard by September. Um But uh I also piloting with the school in in Maryland, um, which I have an interesting story about. I think I mentioned to you guys when I was driving down to Maryland for can we hear that let's hear that story? Yeah, yeah. So I drove down to Maryland um eight-hour drive.

SPEAKER_05 26:16

And the podcast! Let's Joshua Bella, ladies and gentlemen. We'll we'll get them all in one day. We've tried, we've tried. He's he's doing too much.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Alright, back to the story. So eight-hour drive. That's gonna be an awesome clip. We're driving to Maryland.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Yeah. I'm driving to Maryland, and um uh Chag's coming with me too. He's he was recording everything. So we set up this whole camera setup. We set up 15 computers. We had 30 teachers, so they were just gonna switch in and out. Um, 15 computers with our software, our browser on it, the teacher dashboard on another screen, and they're all like excited to use it. They took the day off of their like teacher parent-teacher conferences, um, and then our server crashes.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Oh, damn. Yeah, bro.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

And I was like really trying to get it fixed. My co-founder was like on a Google meet with us, like really trying to get it fixed. Um, it didn't get fixed.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Like for the whole for the whole visit?

SPEAKER_00 27:39

I mean, it was an we had them for like maybe an hour and a half. Okay. And so yeah, it got fixed like when there was like 10 minutes left, but they were already leaving. Maybe uh yeah, I don't even think it got fixed. So how how did that how did that feel?

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Um It was like in the moment super devastating, but the teachers were still really excited, and I met with the head of school after, and he knew about the server crash too. And I was scared someone would tell him about it. He knew about it already. Um, I think he was in the room actually, and he's the guy who like makes all the purchasing decision, and even he was like still really excited about it, and he was like, I want to use your software, we want to use your software in the fall, like we want to be ahead of this the curve. Yeah, um so it made me realize how deep the problem actually is. And I've honestly never worked on something that's actually had such a a pull from the market before. Um, so that's like honestly what's really exciting.

SPEAKER_05 28:42

Because even it's like that whole thing kind of like shit hit the fan, yeah, and they're still like, yo, we still want it. Like that that goes to show it's like you're doing something, right? Yeah, like there's a genuine need for.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah. And I texted um one of the alumni that I started the accelerator with that, yo, my server crash. He was like, Oh, it's a great story to tell though. It's a good point though.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

I didn't think Texas I can't wait to be on the pod and tell the story. Exactly. No, it is it is a good story, and and I guess like Charlie said, it it kind of even though whatever went bad, it validated a a need for these schools. But I guess my question is, so what what was the outcome now? Like where are we at with that school right now? And then do you see initial integration in private schools and Catholic schools, like you said, is that where this these AI platforms into education are gonna start and then it's gonna be widespread into public schools, or is everyone kind of like asking for something?

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah, I think um, and I just went to South by Southwest EDU, so I got a lot of kind of knowledge about the entire space. Um public schools are adopting a lot of teacher-based AI solutions, so uh Magic School, for example, which is uh to help them like streamline assignments and things like that. I really do think we're in a different category here where we're competing with like only legacy companies. Um The reason I am targeting private schools is just the sales cycles are way easier, the the purchasing decision is I have to go through way less people. So I do wanna and I I need more data to get into public schools and even charter school networks, um, which I'm connected to a few. I need like at least a month's data of students using it every single day, at least. Um so that's kind of the way I see it, but I do think I do think private schools are adopting AI faster, but not that much faster than public schools, because it's it's honestly driven a lot by the parents. Like parents just want students to be prepared because right now they're they're kind of fucked. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

It's true.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

So I guess I'm still trying to understand what the platform actually does. Can you give me like a 30-second elevator pitch on what it actually is?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, so teachers basically customize the web and AI usage of students. So you can say, hey, use these certain sites in your assignment and use AI for your outline um to brainstorm, but I don't want it writing things for you. Um and so students will enter the browser, they'll be kind of confined to that environment that the teacher created, um, and they'll they'll work with our AI, which is built to be very Socratic, um and also gamified, like our AI is is pretty fun to talk to. Um and it will basically work the student through the problem, make sure they're critically thinking, um, and not do the work for them, using also the context and their documents. So, hey, I see you're on your outline and you have like 10 minutes left in class, you better start working harder. Um Wow, okay, very interesting. So, do they also submit the assignment through your application? Well, because it's a browser, we can just simply allow canvas.com or something, Google.com or Google Classroom and just it's so easy to integrate literally any other software with it.

SPEAKER_05 32:14

Yeah, so what what's the what's the long-term vision with Bobby browser? Do you want it to be at all schools, like even colleges have it, like uh integration on with Canvas and like browsers and all is is that the long-term vision or is it something else?

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Yeah, I think that's honestly the short-term vision. The short-term vision is like getting this as many schools as possible. Um longer term, I think education is gonna change where it's gonna be more project-based, it's gonna be less on restriction, it's gonna be how do we get kids to use AI as much as possible, but um get them to just accomplish more things. Like, can this kid build an app in one day? Or even that's gonna be like way too easy now. Um but things like that, like using higher order thinking with in tandem with AI. And I think I can only change that if I'm in every school system or majority of school systems, like I can only really flip education on its head systematically if I'm in a lot of schools. That's why I kind of have to abide by the restriction mechanisms that teachers want right now. And then long long term, I think AI is gonna be able to do literally everything for us, um, or most things, and human output is not gonna be a factor of measurement anymore that we that we really consider, right? Like, how good was this essay that you produced? Is that really gonna matter? I think what's gonna matter is like the thought process that you have. And because we have the browser, we can map out cognitively like how someone is thinking by asking them questions throughout, or like seeing where what their activity is throughout. So that's like the the extra long-term vision is being able to track people's cognitive uh thought process throughout their work.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

That's a crazy vision.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

So it's almost like how in like English for because I'm not as like understanding what you're saying, but basically how a kid is prompting your AI is how you're long long term gonna see how their brain actually thinks. Is that kind of what you're trying to say?

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Kind of, yeah, but not just that. Um if you yeah, if if we say like, hey, why don't you look for a resource that um that tells you I don't know about the Civil War, and we can see how like how fast you're reading through it, um what you're kind of highlighting within that, what stands out to you, uh, how you map that back to your essay.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

If you can really look at the entire process, you can learn so much more about students, I feel like.

SPEAKER_04 34:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

And I think that can tell you even things about what their job outcomes can be and and like where they where they really struggle. Um, yeah, because I think outcome-based learning is not something that's gonna be important anymore.

SPEAKER_05 35:10

Yeah. So it's gonna be more about the process, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Wow. I feel like I yeah, I don't I like I'm trying to imagine how like kids are gonna be in middle school in like yeah, five years. And I I see you I see your vision. Like genuinely, it's pretty cool. Um Thank you. I don't think I don't think I have any other questions.

SPEAKER_05 35:33

Yeah, I think we could we could I could probably talk all day about this, but we try to keep these short. Yeah. Um so the last thing we like to ask our guests always is just shout yourself out, like any of your brands or companies and personal like socials, um yeah, shout them out.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

If anyone wants to uh interest in joining your accelerator or if uh school system is out there listening, look at Google the iPad.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

The camera the camera shuts off after 30. Um all right, so damnfellows.com for the accelerator and bobbybrowser.com is uh the tool for teachers. If you know any educators, you know where to send them. Thank you very much for having on the podcast.