Meet
Vielka Cecilia Hoy
Investment Opportunity: Not Currently Raising Funds
At a Glance
Company Bridge to College
Year Created 2017
Mission Bridge to College ensures that all students are in a position to pursue their passions. Our primary goal is to support students in graduating from college, with as little debt as possible, in as close to four years. We do this by matching them to colleges that are financial, social, and academic fit. Using that data, we also provide services to institutions whose goals support Bridge to College’s mission of putting students in a position to pursue their passions.
Target Markets/Audience Under-resourced students, low-brand high-support colleges and lifestyle brands
Website bridgeto.college
Background:
What makes Vielka unique?
Vielka is a career educator, entrepreneur, and EdTech expert. She has worked in education for nearly twenty-five years, including as a teacher trainer, and equity and ed tech expert at Stanford. As the founder, interim CEO and Chief Product Officer for Bridge to College, Vielka uses machine learning and critical race theory to build models that predict ways for underserved groups to gain equitable access to higher education institutions. Her versatility and ambition has also led her to receive multiple degrees including a BS in Social Studies Education from NYU, MA in Afro-American Studies from UCLA, and MA in Social Studies with a certificate in Education and Society from the University of Chicago.
“Working in EdTech, I have rarely run into a founder that is also a teacher or even works in a school. Most teachers and people working in schools are women of color. This should be a signal to investors of who they need to be funding in the EdTech space.”
The Problem:
What Vielka is trying to solve
Vielka is combining data analytics with college admissions to level the playing field and reduce the inequality seen in higher education. In her career as an educator, Vielka has found that many EdTech companies are not hitting the mark. For example, when she was teaching in the Bay Area, Vielka used Chromebook carts. However, the carts only had 20 spots for Chromebooks, and Vielka has never taught a class with only 20 students. Therefore, she wanted to find solutions that actually worked to solve the problems she was seeing in the classroom, which is what led to the creation of Bridge to College.
Bridge to College serves students, high schools, and colleges by using machine learning and deep social insights to match underserved students to colleges that are an academic, financial, and social fit. Bridge to College focuses on the inequalities behind college admissions and breaking down admissions barriers to higher education. Unlike current solutions, Bridge to College identifies colleges that meet the needs of all students and are the right fit for them rather than just focusing on the first colleges that come to a students’ mind due to popularity, prestige or proximity. Bridge to College also focuses on mitigating the large amount of debt that many students take on from attending college by helping students find programs with strong financial and merit aid programs. By providing all the available data and resources to students about a variety of colleges, they can ensure that they’re picking a school that is right for them.
Q&A
We sat down with Vielka to talk with her about how she got her start as a founder and how GET Cities has helped.
What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
Before starting Bridge to College, I had been teaching for over 20 years. While teaching, I saw that there were problems in education that education as an institution could not solve. Also, being from the Bay Area, I saw that EdTech companies were constantly pitching educators; however, I noticed that most of the EdTech founders did not actually work in education. Therefore, many EdTech founders were missing the mark because they did not fully understand the nuanced problems facing education. Given my background and experience, I wanted to dedicate my time and energy to solving the problems I was seeing as a teacher through entrepreneurship.
How did you come up with Bridge to College?
I created Bridge to College to focus on the issues of college admissions. Before starting Bridge to College, I was a researcher for the College Access Project for African Americans at UCLA so I was immersed in studying college access and admissions. During my work in this space, I kept finding that the solutions out there were not working, and the only way to find successful solutions to college admissions was to pay a lot of money. To me, it seemed like the solution was simple, but no one had gotten there. So, I started building machine learning algorithms to help predict college admissions and assist students who could not afford to pay for the current solutions that are out there. Also, part of what sparked Bridge to College was my own academic experience. When I was in sixth grade, someone pulled me aside and said, “if you keep this up, you can go to any college you want to.” This is something that wealthy students are told from the beginning, but all students need to hear this from the get-go. All students should go to school believing that their future is wide open, and any college is possible if they work hard.
What milestones are you most proud of?
Firstly, I pride myself for getting the first version of Bridge to College built without any traditional coding or design training. I’m also proud of the money I’ve raised and how I have built relationships with investors without an MBA or the connections that many other founders have. Finally, I’m proud that even during difficult times in my entrepreneurial career, I have always gotten back up and kept going.
What do you think is unique or significant about being at the seed stage in particular?
I see a great deal of disconnect in the seed stage between what VCs are looking for and what founders are able to do. For example, VCs are looking for a certain amount of work and expertise but are not yet investing enough money for a founder to pay themselves and their team for that level of work. Some people have the finances to work without the pay check, but that is not a luxury all founders have. Therefore, it is difficult to keep going in the seed stage without additional funds from somewhere else.
What is unique about being a Black woman in the entrepreneurial space?
Working in EdTech, I have rarely run into a founder that is also a teacher or even works in a school. Most teachers and people working in schools are women of color. This should be a signal to investors of who they need to be funding in the EdTech space. However, even given that, I have noticed that many investors are used to seeing Black and Brown, as well as women, founders in very specific fields such as healthcare, cooking, or fashion. For example, as a founder who is a Black woman, if I had a hair care or makeup company, it would be a lot easier for me to find funding. In addition, I think that investors are looking for sales wrapped in speech that they are familiar with, and they are familiar with people who look and sound like them. I have been explicitly told that the one thing I am missing is sounding white and/or male.
What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring entrepreneurs from historically excluded communities?
Distinguish between a business problem, social problem, and just a problem. At the end of the day, VCs are looking for scalable businesses. Therefore, you need to have a customer base and ability to scale your business beyond just trying to solve a problem. It is important to understand and articulate the problem you’re trying to solve, but it’s also important to understand that investors may want different things because in the end it comes down to dollars and cents.
What has it been like being a founder in Chicago?
Being from the Bay Area, I have seen firsthand what the founder community is like in both San Francisco and Chicago. In my opinion, in San Francisco, they might not want to invest in you, but they’ll tell you right away whereas in Chicago, it takes a while for investors to tell you if they do or do not want to write you a check. If they finally do write a check, a lot of the time the check is smaller than one you’d find in the Bay Area.
What is unique about being part of the GET’s Seed Founder Cohort?
For me, being part of the Seed Founder cohort has been a great experience because it is like nothing else I have done before. It is not a mentorship program nor a workshop on how to create a pitch deck, it is a program that asks women founders what they need and listens to what would be most helpful to them.
Spent on college admissions, access, and tutoring platforms and services
high school seniors are considered “underserved” each year (12M total high school students are considered “underserved” each year)
Market for unbiased machine learning data
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