Founders: consider market, team, and product

Blair Pircon, founder & CEO of The Graide Network. As a first year business school student, Blair had an idea to help teachers give more thorough feedback on student writing assignments by creating a service that utilized 3rd party graders. To test the feasibility and viability of this proposition, she started with an MVP consisting of Google Drive and Venmo, and found that The Graide Network created value for all stakeholders. Over the next five years, Blair grew the company and team to service more than 70,000 students nationwide, eventually leading to an acquisition of the company in 2021. Blair’s advice to entrepreneurs just starting out is to make sure that you’re picking the right market, team, and product to have the tailwinds at your back. This conversation is brought to you by The Garage at Northwestern.