*Majorwise is the High School Career Service solution that provides students grades 10-12 with local internship, volunteer, and job shadow opportunities. By tracking and managing the entire process in their platform, they significantly reduce admin time and ensure students receive credit.

What traction do you have so far?
Since we launched a year ago, we have partnered with 20 high schools in 6 states, we were accepted into the New School Venture Fund’s Future of Work cohort, and we have signed our first paying employer.

Why did you found Majorwise?
Majorwise was founded because of the different experiences Max and Peter had when looking for work experience in high school. Max’s school did not have a work-based learning program, so he took the responsibility into his own hands and walked business to business down the main street of his town seeing if anyone would hire a high school student. He couldn’t find anything. Peter’s school had a great program, and he was able to get an internship at Tufts University programming psychology studies. Peter’s early experience helped him get a large scholarship to the University of Vermont, despite his average grades and test scores. Through our experiences, we realized the huge benefits work experience in high school can have on a student’s future. We launched Majorwise to help democratize access to work-based learning to all students.

Story or moment of inspiration to start Majorwise?
We were initially trying to sell our job platform to colleges, but we were struggling to make sales in a crowded market where every school stuck in multi year contracts. Peter was the commencement speaker at his high school a year ago, and he spoke to his old headmaster about his business. His headmaster really liked the idea, and asked if there was a high school version. We were able to convert this into our first sale, and this started our journey into the high school market.

What’s a memorable moment in your entrepreneurial journey?
One of our most memorable moments was winning the LaunchVT Business Pitch Competition in Burlington, VT. We had won the collegiate level competition, and we now had to compete with adult businesses. We went from being the underdogs to winning the entire competition. We won $30k and $45k in in-kind services. This was significant validation to our business and helped us rapidly expand.

What is the biggest challenge you anticipate facing over the next 6-12 months?
The biggest challenge we will face is growing the Majorwise Business Network. This is a network of businesses who have opted-in so that career counselors at local high schools can reach out to them and discuss working together. This tool will be essential for career counselors to find and create opportunities for their students. Growing this network will be essential for our success.

Why did you choose LearnLaunch?
We chose LearnLaunch for the amazing mentorship from experts in the education and workforce fields. In our first 6 weeks, we have received targeted support and learned specific knowledge that is already leading to incredible progress from us.