Role

I was the founder of Carter and took the idea through several iterations and went to market.

Problem Space

I struggled in applying lessons and methods from books like Traction: How any startup can achieve explosive growth, Start with Why and many others directly to my work.

I wondered how I might create a solution that would deliver me the right book at the right time, get me access to expert guidance when I hit a stumbling block and get my co-workers engaged and on-board.

Vision

Carter brings together subject matter experts, leaders and employees to adopt leadership skills, operational techniques and overall mindsets to align on core strategies that work for the team. By combining the content from SMEs into a platform where employees and leaders develop and test strategies, teams can take the best of the content, internalize to their own operations and keep what works. 

Investor Pitch

A marketplace for business leaders to connect with leading authors and researchers is non-existent.

Today, leaders hear authors like Simon Sinek speak at a conference, listen to them on Spotify and read their books hoping their companies and leaders someday transform.

Meanwhile, Authors like Simon Sinek can only work with a select number of companies due to bandwidth and costs.

Competition

Corporate Management Learning Systems: 360 Learning, talentlms

Individualized Learning Solutions: Coursera, LinkedIn Learning

HR Tools: Paycom, Paylocity

On-site Leadership Training: This expensive and only for the select few.

Go to Market & Monetization

Marketing: Utilize Author base to promote and gain traction

Early Adopters: Utilize the the founders network. Startups training newly promoted managers. Engineering teams that might lack soft skills.

Revenue: Annual Subscriptions/ Employee + One time book/program purchases and Author time.

Research

Interviews with founders, managers and authors

  • “It’s hard for managers to continuously beat the drum” said one Sr. Director at a +1,000 person digital consulting firm.

  • “I want to get people rowing in the same direction and this might help” said a CTO at a +300 person technology company.

  • “I have new hires I want to go through the same experience and standardize my manager training. This seems like it would help” said the founder of a +50 web development company in Chicago.

  • “I absolutely would want my team to build their leadership capacities like this” said a COO of a +50 person design firm.

  • “Authors could use this platform to get feedback directly from companies to validate existing assumptions and get new ideas” said one author who writes on organizational design and management.

Total Addressable Market

According to GM Insights, Global Corporate eLearning Spend - $141.2B in 2022 includes Online learning, LMS, Mobile Learning, Rapid Learning, and Virtual Classrooms. CAGR is expected 15.5%. Globally, $82B went to standardized content and $59.2B was spent on services. US spend accounted for $42.9B in 2022. Using the same pattern, $24.9B going to content and $18B going to services. 

While the US professional Book market only stands at $1.68B meaning there’s a gap from the amount we spend on business books to the amount we are spending on other forms of education for employees.  

Carter aims to take a small percentage of both the services and content market by making access to experts easier and content more worthwhile for business consumers. Because professional authors will be a primary driver for growth, we believe the delta between the professional book market and corporate e-spending indicates there’s a gap to be capitalized on.

Compelling Trends

  • No one author or publishing company is willing to build software like Carter and make it valuable to the end consumer. Because the end consumer will read many authors from many publishers over their careers and one publisher or author has no incentive to combine the expertise of others. 

  • Remote work needs a better education system for the softer skills and better ways for team engagement. 

  • Use of celebrity culture to elevate and sell more content.

Functionality

Problem Solving and Recommendation Engine

The platform would have Buzzfeed like quizzes to help managers identify what book to read based on issues they were facing with the team. It could be communication, collaboration, or innovation, the quizzes would identify the problems and recommend a book. The platform also recommended books like Netflix on an ongoing basis based on the users’ preferences.

Deconstructing the Book into Content

I developed a system of categorizing books into four types and put three books through this categorization and tagging system into a Notion database. I sorted the contents of a book into four sections: Definitions, Concepts, How To’s and Quotes.

The first task for a user in the platform would be to indicate if they had familiarity with the definitions. They would do the same for concepts from the book explained by videos.

Assembling the Team and Building the Rubric

Users would force rank concepts they thought could impact the business if implemented. The manager would then choose concepts for further analysis. Employees would then use the Author’s How To’s and their understanding of the organization to develop an OKR rubric

Gaining Expert Access

Users would also have access to Authors and experts with an easy to use scheduling system. The user would type up their issue in a note to the expert and submit for an hour or two slot to discuss the issue via Zoom and Calendly integrations.

Outcome

Ultimately, I discontinued my pursuit of Carter for several reasons in January 2024.