In case you missed it, Outschool Raised $75 Million in Series C Funding! This is such an exciting time for the business, and we wanted to bring educators in to explain what this means and where we’re all going together. Amir joined us live to walk us through.

Top Takeaways

We’re sharing some highlights here in case you’re short on time! If you want to dive in more, watch our recording.

• What does this mean for educators? Stay the course, share feedback with us, and help us grow. We’re here for the long haul, and we’re all on this journey together. Let’s be open with each other and continue to build a great business.
• What’s Outschool doing with the money? At a high level, we’re going to grow the business by expanding internationally, hiring more team members, investing in website improvements (with a strong focus on tools to support educators), and exploring more partnerships and marketing opportunities.
• What’s this about 2% stock for educators? One of our employee values is to “Bring Others In.” We’re extending that to educators by setting aside 2% of our stock for the benefit of educators if Outschool has a liquidity event or IPO. This is unusual for many companies, but we want to reflect the unique value that teachers hold in our community. We’ll provide more details at a later date.

Terminology Breakdown

Series C = Funding stage of a startup, usually tied to business maturity. At this stage, this means we’ll scale the business, team, services, and international growth.

Unicorn 🦄 = Startup with a valuation of $1B+ (that’s us!)

Valuation = An estimation of a startup’s market value

Catch up with the recording

Other Q&A

We gathered top questions and themes that came out of the live session and the form we sent around. Thanks for being open about what you want to know! We hope we can return the favor with the answers below:

Where do you see distance learning going in the future and what role will Outschool play? What might change when schools and other activities reopen?

We’re all going to want to get out when things reopen! With COVID, we’ve experienced an unprecedented period of growth, and we all had to react quickly. As we come out of this, we can expect more change. Perhaps our growth won’t be as fast. But families won’t forget the advantages that online learning can bring: flexibility, access to special topics, and more. We see a future where learning is hybrid. That’s the bet that investors are making with us too.

This is just the start. We’ve served 900,000 learners, which is a lot! But there are 50 million school-aged learners in the US and 1.3 billion worldwide. We see a very promising future.

Some advice as we continue: we have to all be responsive. Keep talking to learners and families to ask them what we need. Change your class offerings as the seasons change and as families’ requirements change. We’ll keep you updated with what we’re hearing as well.

Does Outschool’s funding affect the 70/30 revenue share that is currently in place?

This has been in place for a long time, and we’re not expecting to change this. Currently, we spend more than the 30% for website development, marketing, services, and more. This is intentional: we’re balancing investor money, used to invest in the future, alongside the revenue share, used to build a sustainable business.

Besides emailing parents and advertising our classes on Facebook, how else will Outschool be marketing our classes to increase the learners in our classes?

We’re focusing on a huge variety of initiatives to bring more families to Outschool. This includes partnerships with schools, employers, and other groups large and small; advertisements on podcasts, webcasts, and other spaces; continuing to seek press opportunities; and improving our search and browse tools (the way most families find their favorite classes). We’re also aiming to grow internationally.

What can I do to be more successful on Outschool?

Be creative, embrace your passions, and try new things. If you’d like to connect with Outschool staff and other teachers, join our live learning opportunities for free professional development opportunities.

How do I search for and apply for career positions with Outschool?

View all open roles. Please do check it out and apply!