How we ended up partnering with Harvard Student Agencies

From a LinkedIn connection request, to having multiple meetings on solving current and future challenges, here is the story behind how we ended up securing a partnership with one of the most prestigious and well known education institutions in the world.

Started with a LinkedIn connection (Dec 2019)

One day I was browsing around LinkedIn and noticed someone listed as a suggested connection. This person is David Paffenholz, and was one of the key reasons as to why this partnership happened. After accepting the invite to connect on LinkedIn, David was eager to learn more about what we do and to see what type of fit there may be between our tech and any programs or services offered by Harvard. After jumping on a discovery call, David was kind enough to point us into the right direction saying: "I think your service could be very beneficial for Harvard's HSA, Harvard Student Agencies..."

Exploratory call #1

After sharing some names with us, we reached out to the team at the Harvard Student Agencies and set up an exploratory call. By the end of the call, both sides concluded that there was a good fit, but the fit was a little different from our core offering (at the time it was helping higher ed manage their tutoring centers by easily connecting their students with their tutors, while streamlining several of the backend operations).

Exploratory call #2 + enter Will Li

Will Li (Co-Founder) joined me for this call to present the 3 different options based on the first exploratory call. Although the HSA was open to the 3 different options, they honed in and wanted to focus on one of those 3 options, and that was to help send them more traffic (aka students) from our global market place to their already existing tutoring platform. Once both parties agreed that this was the direction (at least for now) to pursue, we then introduced them to our Head of Customer Success.

Enter Curtis Locke

Curtis was introduced to the HSA team as he would be leading this project and partnership. He helped the HSA team get set up and met with them frequently over the course of several months as part of our support, service, and dedication to evolve and grow with our partners.

After several months building and maintaining this relationship with the HSA team, they realized that another option (from exploratory call #2) would really help them with some other challenges they'd been having. In the end, the HSA team also needed help with managing their operations (scheduling, attendance tracking, performance evals, reporting, and much more...).

Seeds planted in 2019 are now sprouting

From when we began speaking with the HSA team, it was Dec 2019... we are now Jan 2021! With over a year of working together and building trust, we were able to show other areas that we could help. It was a team effort and goes to show that business is about a long term approach. We thank those at the HSA for believing and willing to work us. We look forward to further evolving and growing with the Harvard Student Agencies!