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Justin Shiffman, co-founder of the Chicago tech startup NextTier Education, has a lot to say about technology, business, and higher ed.
"The fundamental process of a college application is about 300 years old,” said Shiffman. “It hasn't changed much. The technology employed in recruiting is wildly different in private enterprise than it is in education."
[ibimage==41791==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-left]That's why he set out to create a new, simpler way to apply for college.
"We're trying to build an interactive college checklist,” Shiffman said. “We want to be the people who help you apply to college. We foster the transaction from being a senior in high school to being a freshman in college, and we do that by having better access to every piece of data you need to make that transaction possible. The second you tell us where you're applying, you already have a curated checklist where you can sync all the people in your life that you have to keep in touch with to do it."
NextTier just scored a $1.2 million investment round from undisclosed parties, which will help it roll out an app that consolidates data from 2,300 schools, representing 98.5% of American undergraduates. The app is available for iOS and the web, and is an ongoing project.
Shiffman said NextTier is based on the idea that, although institutions may regard pupils as commodities, the real commodity is education itself.
His father came from a hardscrabble background in Rogers Park to co-found Tiger Electronics, and instilled his son with a reverence for critical thinking and hard study. The younger Shiffman said the NextTier idea formed as he navigated the process of applying at Indiana University and later getting an MBA and a law degree, which gave him several different angles on how it could be done and what was generally lacking.
[ibimage==41792==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-right]“I learned how a lot of the resources don't come together,” he said. “If it's not easy for me, it's probably not easy for most of my peers. A lot of the data isn't really available. It's public, but it's not available."
He found an early mentor in local VC Mark Achler, who said to him, “You don't need a CTO. You need a co-founder. And I actually have someone for you." Achler introduced Shiffman to his co-founder and product and technology manager Jeff Allen. NextTier assembled a small team and recently relocated to a larger office in the Loop. They are learning as they go, and teaching the world about their product.
