Startup Chronicles

This month we continued the journey of building out on the three core areas I spelled out as our priority for 2025 in my last blog. 

I’ll start with a recap of our vision and goals, followed by a January update, plans for February, and how you can help. 

Impactis is being built to make scholarship-giving “feel good” for millions of mass affluent professionals to uniquely expresses themselves, their perspective and dreams, and their own search for meaning and impact, through scholarships that drive their vision of a better world.

Our mission is to unlock billions of dollars in personalized scholarship-giving, matched to truly driven and deserving students, especially from underserved backgrounds.

This empowers youth, regardless of their circumstances, to pursue better and bolder careers.

In 2024, we made significant progress, and as shared in my previous blog, our priorities for 2025 are:

• Optimizing customer acquisition approaches
• Defining a repeatable, scalable customer experience
• Advancing productization

We’ve also begun raising funds and are looking for introductions to angels, pre-seed, and early-stage VCs. Additionally, I’m seeking connections to potential Silicon Valley tech co-founders.

Customer Acquisition Approach

This month, we focused on tracking conversion rates across different acquisition channels while evaluating costs and time taken to close deals. What we found was a classic pattern:

• Some sources provide fewer leads but compensate with higher conversion rates and larger ticket values.
• Others generate high-quality leads but require a longer gestation period to close deals.
• A third category yields quick conversions but involves high costs.

Figuring the mix to scale up is underway. LinkedIn continues to be a strong channel for us, though we’re exploring more cost-effective alternatives. January was spent testing these options and figuring out how to ramp up operations.

Our biggest learning has been the importance of experimenting with different methods early on and carefully evaluating the economics before committing to any single approach.

In a startup, everyone must internalize the value of ensuring every dollar spent delivers measurable value.

One question that keeps surfacing is: When is the right time to scale up? For me, the answer lies in cash flow. If a method can keep the business cash flow positive within the year, it’s time to start scaling. This baseline can then support additional experiments.

We’re getting closer to this stage, with a couple of methods showing promise. Now, we need to determine whether conversion rates will hold at scale. We’re continuing to tweak and test to build conviction.

One of our ongoing challenges is imagining a scalable and repeatable customer experience. This is because the current baseline for scholarship-giving is shockingly poor — upgrading it even to a mediocre level feels like a victory.

Traditionally, the industry has focused solely on student outcomes, with little regard for the experience of the scholarship-giver, which is appalling.

Our customers vary widely in their expectations.

• Some simply want occasional updates from their scholars and are willing to pay without much involvement.
• Others take a deep personal interest in their scholars’ success, engaging actively.
• A third category wants to leverage their networks and resources to further enrich the value of their scholarship.

Given these diverse expectations, we’ve decided to remain mostly manual for now, collecting insights and stories before designing for scalability. I look forward to sharing unique customer experiences in future blogs.

Productization

We are facing challenges with tech upgrades, which has become one of my biggest worries.

We started with a tech stack reluctantly, due to some early team challenges (a story for another day). While proud of what’s been built, we urgently need to think about future growth in a more thoughtful manner. Having a tech co-founder who shares my passion for not just what we’re building but how we’re building it has become critical.

Our MVP components are largely in place, but the search for a CTO remains underway. This dilemma—whether to defer development or keep building—keeps me up at night. For now, I lean toward continuing anyway, though it’s not a decision I want to make indefinitely.

If you know someone who might be a good fit as a tech co-founder, please reach out or share my details. More about the opportunity here

Looking Ahead to February

Fundraising is a new and intense experience for me, and it remains my primary focus for the coming months. Speaking to potential investors has been both humbling and insightful, providing opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Just as with choosing friends or life partners, finding the right investors is about aligning on vision, speed, and direction. The best investors challenge you constructively, helping you become better.

Rejections fall into two categories:

1. The helpful ones, where investors clearly explain their thesis and why we don’t fit, or where they prioritize more evolved opportunities. These conversations have often led to valuable insights and improvements.
2. Those driven by a lack of conviction or courage. Such investors often follow signals rather than having a strong belief in their own thesis. These are best avoided, as they can pressure founders to follow trends rather than staying true to their vision.

Many investors are currently focused on AI, which I understand and respect. Their feedback has prompted me to reflect on how we might incorporate legitimate aspects of this trend while staying true to our mission.

We are seeking thoughtful investors who can challenge us constructively and make the journey worthwhile for Impactis.