It’s a new year, and with that comes awesome new opportunities ahead in 2018. But before we dive into all this year has to offer, we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge, celebrate, and share our top 5 company highlights of 2017. We are thrilled to have made big decisions and big progress in Year One of disruptED.

disruptED team upon arriving to Capital Factory in Austin, TX

1. Set up shop in ATX

To start our first year off, we made a big cross-country move from New York City to Austin, Texas, where we’re now proud to call home. This was a tough move, but there was so much happening in the ATX tech scene, and more specifically in the AR / VR space, that we simply couldn’t resist joining the community. After one year in Austin, we can confidently say we feel it was a good move, and we couldn’t be happier with the brilliant minds we’ve come across in this city.

2. Went through DivInc accelerator program

Once we got to Austin, we were honored to be selected as one of nine startups to go through the 10-week DivInc. accelerator program, which ran from April to June. This is a program that champions diversity in the tech startup ecosystem, and our Founder Kate Peiler proudly led disruptED through the experience. Through DivInc., we were challenged on our ideas and assumptions, learned tons about the Austin and global tech scene, and most importantly, ironed out our product and business model.

Founder Kate Peiler presenting at DivInc Demo Day in June 2017

3. Developed product MVP and started running pilots

Our biggest achievement to come out of our time in DivInc. was the completion of our product MVP. Our ideas were shaped and we walked out of the program with something solid to show for our hard work. With our MVP in-hand, we began a few soft pilot tests of the product, and were thrilled to connect with the Thinkery in Austin, a children’s museum focused on connecting children to ideas of the future. Our pilot runs were a huge success, and more than anything, we were able to collect valuable feedback from kids and parents as they interacted with our first disruptED product in-person.

Our first round of pilot programs were held at the Thinkery children's museum in Austin, Texas.

4. Struck up several awesome partnerships

As they say, it takes a village, and we couldn’t be happier with the village of support that has surrounded us in year one. Several key partnerships have emerged that have helped us build traction on both the product and the business side of things. We were thrilled to smooth out our communication strategy with the help of the talented team at PrimePR. Our work with a team of General Assembly graduates vastly improved our product user interface and sharpened our customer acquisition strategy. The Capital Factory VR Lab helped us immensely with user testing and working out kinks in the product. A partnership with Ithaca College in upstate New York began a journey of product testing for unique use cases, including learners with special needs. And of course, we had excellent support on the business side of things from CTX Capital and legal counsel from Jennifer Carroll. The cherry on top of all of these partnerships were a few key press mentions that helped us begin to share our story with the world.

Founder Kate Peiler with an awesome General Assembly team.

5. Met tons of talented minds along the way

Whether through interactions at the Digital Kids Media Conference, the 2017 ATX Startup Crawl, the EdTech Austin Pitch, the NYVR Conference, or any of the other various events we participated in, we are so thankful to have connected with a number of brilliant and passionate people. The people we’ve met along the way have challenged us, encouraged us, and inspired us to keep pushing forward with our own ideas, even when the going gets tough.

Speaking of which, push forward is exactly what we plan to do in 2018. Year One was a smashing success, and we can’t wait to see the fruit of our Year One labor in the coming year. We have many big plans and we look forward to sharing more with you all soon.

Our team having a great time sharing disruptED at the New York Virtual Reality Conference.

Happy New Year!
-disruptED Team

Year 1: Success!