7 Tips for Success with LearnUp Founder Alexis Ringwald
Entrepreneur Alexis Ringwald set out on a mission to change the hiring process for entry-level jobs after an inspiring trip to India as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. India’s booming economy made an impact on Ringwald, enough that when she returned to the United States, she started to notice the holes in the stagnant economy’s hiring processes.
“The contrast was so jarring,” Ringwald says. “I felt I needed to do something.” Thus, the idea for LearnUp was born.
To gain a better understanding of where the flaws were in the hiring process, she took a trip to the unemployment line. “I thought I’d spend a couple of days talking to people but it ended up lasting six months,” she says.
Ringwald learned that candidates often apply for hundreds of jobs but get no feedback, leaving them with no idea of how they could improve their chances of being hired.
LearnUp aims to close that gap. The company provides entry-level job seekers with job- and company-specific training and coaching to help them get hired. For example, a person who’d like to be an Old Navy store manager receives help to secure that exact position. In recent years, LearnUp has grown substantially and now works with a number of large companies, including AT&T, Gap, Sprint and Staples, which was her very first client. This year the company will train more than 200,000 jobseekers at Old Navy alone, and the World Economic Forum named LearnUp a Technology Pioneer of 2015.
Ringwald shared her seven tips for financial success with us, including advice on how to keep customers, and in turn investors, happy.
1. Look for a problem you can solve.
“Lots of people have great ideas, but they’re not really solving a real pain point. I knew from my time in the unemployment lines that there was a need in the industry for this type of business. Nothing works better than solving a real problem — it’s what motivates our teams to work nights and weekends, and motivates our customers to pay us.”
2. Make sure you have a customer base.
“During my travels, I met a Staples regional vice president. He loved our idea and said we should build this for him. He gave me hope. So before we even started, we knew we had a customer.”
3. Keep overhead low when you can.
“My cofounder and I bootstrapped at first. I had money saved so we didn’t need to take salaries for a year and a half, but we also worked out of coffee shops and kept overhead really low, hoping one day we’d have some financing to help pay us back.”
4. Approach investors who already have an interest in your space.
“We just raised $1.9 million in our first round of institutional funding. The best way to get funding is to really research potential investors. Find people who have already funded companies that are similar to yours.”
5. Don’t give up too soon.
“It’s really hard to fundraise and you have to meet a lot of people. You’ve got to get out there; you’ve got to hustle. And you’ve got to know that a lot of people won’t be interested. Keep looking for someone who will say yes.”
6. Listen to your customers’ needs.
“We stay in really close touch with our customers. For example, when we first started LearnUp, we pulled training information off the Internet and that wasn’t really working. Now we have our own training program.”
7. Embrace your success.
“I knew we were on to something when we started to sign up really big names like AT&T, Staples, Gap, Old Navy. That’s when I knew this wasn’t just a fluke. We also started seeing results — when job applicants go through the LearnUp program, it triples their chances of getting a job. That data combined with multiple employers made me think this could be it.”