Launching a new initiative with new and old friends: ClassGenius

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from my friend and successful serial entrepreneur, Katelijn Vleugels. I always enjoy seeing her name appear on my phone screen. I first met Katelijn when I worked at Atmel, years ago. Atmel had acquired Katelijn’s business and on top of acquiring Katelijn’s high performing team, I got to speak Dutch again (always a pleasure!) at the Silicon Valley Atmel headquarters as I kept running into her.

Beyond that, a little later, Katelijn and myself, together with a few other people, worked on Klue. I wrote about Klue in one of my blogposts a number of years ago after it was acquired by Medtronic in a deal that created a lot of value for all parties. Katelijn and I worked well together. She is awesome and I have a lot of respect for her. She has grit, perseverance, and is one of the smartest people I know.

[I went back and grabbed the picture that I shared alongside that post and decided to re-use it for this blog].

That was the year 2019; almost exactly 4 years ago. Katelijn and I stayed in touch and had occasional phone calls about things we saw, people we believed we had to meet, and companies we thought we should check out.

In the phone call from a few weeks ago, she told me she had been watching the global trends around generative AI and the phenomenon called ChatGTP. Katelijn told me she had decided to not sit at the sideline of this mega trend, and that she had decided to build a company around it. I was all ears. Katelijn explained it well in her post from this morning where she explained how she got to this point. I encourage you to read it.

Now, I get lots of phone calls from people on the AI/ML hardware side that need help with their ventures around this topic of super computing and generative AI, but this call was different, and got me really excited! Katelijn started a company called ClassGenius.

Why was I excited? Well, first and foremost, Katelijn is ‘good people’; I was thrilled to be able to get to work with her again. Secondly, I love the fact that ClassGenius is a social venture which aims to help teachers in their difficult tasks developing and grading tests and papers. As a father, I have seen Benjamin Arts’ teachers be passionate, exquisite, amazing and…...struggling. Teachers struggle as it is hard for them to keep up with all the work. They all would like to have more hours in a day, sometimes feel overwhelmed and under pressure, and could all use a really solid, “always-on”, awesome teacher assistant. And that is exactly what ClassGenius is.?

In this blog post, I'll skip telling you about all the details of the product. Instead, I am focusing on sharing my enthusiasm for this new venture. I strongly recommend exploring the website, which offers a very user-friendly experience. As a teacher, signing up and creating assignments is easy and fact. If you're an educator, give it a try – the process is seamless, with straightforward instructions and helpful instructional videos for a speedy start.

Now, I am aware that there is a limited number of teachers in my personal network, but I am sure there is going to be a “community effect” after this message and I am sure I will reach many relevant people. So, please talk about it over your Christmas dinners and holiday parties. Today marks the beginning of this journey, and I am super excited about it. We welcome your feedback and ideas.

For now, I wish you all a happy holiday season with your loved ones and I am excited to be sharing more about ClassGenius in 2024! Let me know if you have any comment or feedback Leave your thoughts below in the comments and feel free to reach out to me or Katelijn!

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