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Paragon One

Simplifying the path from college to career

Social Impact Education Tech B2C Employment
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$93,345
373% raised

From

396 investors

Successfully funded!

Raised $93,345 from 396 investors on January 1, 2019

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As seen on tv
As seen on Meet the Drapers TV Show on Sony Entertainment Television
Meet the Drapers Sony

Paragon One isn't accepting new investments

Paragon One’s deadline was January 1, 2019

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  • Platform helping college students land jobs through coaching and connections
  • 97% of users have successfully landed jobs or internship offers
  • 240% annual growth from 2016 to 2017
  • Led by MIT-trained serial entrepreneurs with 3 exits
  • Backed by Learn Capital, University Ventures, and Foundation Capital
  • Y Combinator W17 batch alumni

Students are struggling to land jobs. But they're taking home $1.5 trillion in debt.

Our higher education system leaves students with $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, but only a trace of their tuition is funneled into career placement services. According to The Atlantic Monthly, only 17% of students found their school’s career office to be very helpful.  

Roughly 85% of freshmen said getting a good job was a major reason they went to college, and roughly 60% weighted a college’s ability to help them do so when deciding where to attend. This contrasts sharply with the priorities of universities. For instance, U.S. News and World Report considers seven factors when ranking a school. But none of them relate to job placement or employability.  

In addition, curriculums are designed in an academic vacuum. As a result, companies encounter computer science graduates who can’t program, liberal arts graduates who can’t write, and a general population of students who are clueless about how to behave in an interview or write an effective email.  And some of them spend as much as $200,000 for their degree.

Paragon One's new CareerMapper – 
taking students from career guidance to job offers.


Paragon One’s CareerMapper 1.0 is a multi-step software-driven process. It systematically takes students through a process that progresses from receiving career guidance, to learning how to source interviews, to learning how to ace interviews. Along the way, CareerMapper 1.0 gives students access to career coaches, crowdsourced advice from over 500 industry insiders at top companies, and tools to track progress toward landing an offer.

How it Works
What you get

The Results:

With the help of CareerMapper’s  advisor network, coaches, improved application materials, and professional network, our students and graduates have landed internships and jobs at:


Growing 240% year-over-year.

  • 240% year-over-year growth
  • 97% of students receive jobs or internship offers
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) > Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) as a  % of CLTV on the decline (meaning our cost to acquire a customer is yielding a better Return on Investment)
  • Partnerships in the pipeline with higher education institutions, online university program managers, and international student pathway companies

Paragon One is Trusted by Students from Around the Globe

Customers

Two Main Product Offerings from CareerMapper 1.0

Business Model

We will soon offer financing and scholarship options for students who meet certain criteria with the option of paying back tuition from their first year salary. This is part of our long-term vision of bringing Paragon One to a wider network of students in the US and around the globe.

Students can also purchase a trial version of CareerMapper for $295.

Our gross margin on delivery of the product is 80% after factoring in hourly time for coaching and advising. The margin after factoring in time the coach and operational team spend servicing a student internally is ~65%.  

Our contribution margin after taking out customer acquisition cost is ~20%.  Our net profit margin is currently negative due to investment in technology and operational processes.

Later in 2018, we will launch CareerMapper 2.0 to bring crowdsourced advisor and coach feedback to students’ application materials at a price that will be more accessible to higher education institutions.

The US Job Training and Career Counseling Market is a $15 Billion Opportunity

Our Total Addressable Market of nearly $3 billion within this opportunity includes 6M students graduating each year from higher ed institutions and 3.5M white collar workers in their 20’s who want to switch jobs each year.  

market

The Landscape is Ready for Career Mapping

Until now, there have been four categories of career services solutions for students: job boards (WayUp), career services software (Handshake, Grad Leaders), career development content (The Muse), and mentor marketplaces (Evisors, LinkedIn). Career Mapping is a new category, created by Paragon One.

Career Mapping solutions deliver a student or recent graduate all the way to a job offer. Unlike other categories, Career Mapping is based on a multi-step process, which systematically moves students from receiving career guidance through to learning how to source interviews, and finally to learning how to ace interviews.

It’s ambitious, and it’s working.

What’s different about Career Mapping?

competition

We are backed by:


The next chapter of Paragon One’s growth includes servicing higher education institutions, university program managers, and international student pathway companies.

Paragon One is in discussion with a number of B2B2C and B2B partners as CareerMapper becomes ready to service institutions.

On track to launch CareerMapper v.2.0 by Q4 of 2018

Version 1.0 was a success: We’ve collected a lot of valuable customer feedback with our early adopters, 98% of whom are international students studying in American universities.  CareerMapper v2.0 will launch later in 2018.


Our Story

Dear potential supporter,

I’ve been passionate about mentorship and career coaching for over a decade.  Starting at MIT (where I met Co-Founder & CTO, Byron Hsu), I helped launch a student-alumni mentorship organization that is still growing today.  In my first job out of college, investment banking, I developed tendonitis in my hands.  I thought my career was over since an investment banking analyst who can’t type is pretty useless.  So I began to sit next to the interns and coach them on doing their jobs better.  Over the summer, I brought the full-time offer rate of interns from below 50% to 100%, so I did the same thing for the first-year analysts.  The experience stuck with me.  After working in VC and co-founding a luxury e-commerce marketplace, AHAlife.com, I turned my attention to bringing career coaching to college students and recent graduates.  
 
Our mission became not just helping students land jobs, but to teach college students how to fish for themselves.  Universities imply that students should just show up to career fairs and apply to online job boards.  This is how students end up with just a “job” and not a career, wondering years later how they ended up where they are.  We all know that launching a great career takes a great amount of research, mentorship, tenacity, and the right connections.  Most students don’t have access to the right resources, or the right guidance that teaches them how to carve their own path.  

I’m excited for our team to continue the journey as we begin to formally work with higher education institutions.

Our 10 Year Vision

We're creating an entirely new way for students to get jobs. We call it Career Mapping.  If we keep doing our job right, we'll look back and wonder why we ever taught students the old way of finding jobs at all — by going to career fairs and applying to online job boards in the dark.

In the future, students will truly be able to build their professional networks in a real and helpful way. And Paragon One will evolve way beyond transactional solutions such as LinkedIn. In contrast, we’ll provide a micro-community of experts that surrounds a student and truly wants to help, driven by advisors and coaches who are incentivized by a student’s success. Many other solutions will be trying to build their own communities by that point, but we'll have the strongest one in which colleges and alumni networks are brought in to turbocharge their own students’ success. College career offices can become 10x more amazing with this type of approach and technology. We will have learned best how to create the right kind of micro-community to help a student, and that's how students will get jobs most effectively.

Sincerely,


Co-Founder & CEO


Join us in transforming how students land jobs!

The educational system today has failed students badly. Together, we can give young people access to expert guidance and, ultimately, the chance to realize their potential, building lives and careers they can be proud of. I invite you to join us. - Matt

This campaign page has had content removed post-campaign. Investors should refer to the Form C on file with the SEC for information about the offering.

Deal terms

Minimum investment

$40

The smallest investment amount that Paragon One is accepting.
Learn more

Deadline

Jan 1

Paragon One needs to reach their minimum funding goal before the deadline. If they don’t, all investments will be refunded.
Learn more

Type of security

Crowd SAFE · Learn more

The Crowd SAFE is an agreement for future equity in the startup, meaning that it can convert to equity in the future.

Discount

20%

If a trigger event for Paragon One occurs, the discount provision gives investors equity shares (or equal value in cash) at a reduced price.
Learn more.

Valuation cap

$8,000,000

The maximum valuation at which your investment converts into equity shares or cash.
Learn more.

Funding goal

$25,000 – $1,070,000

Paragon One needs to raise $1M before the deadline. The maximum amount Paragon One is willing to raise is $1.07M.
Learn more

What these terms mean

Documents

Official filing on SEC.gov
Official SEC Logo Form C
Company documents
Paragon One Crowd SAFE

About Paragon One

Legal Name
Polymath Labs, Inc.
Founded
Aug 2015
Form
Delaware Corporation
Employees
7
Website
http://www.paragonone.com
Social Media
Headquarters
Google Map location of of Paragon One
1412 Broadway , New York, NY
Headquarters
1412 Broadway, New York, NY, US

Paragon One Team

Profile picture of Matt Wilkerson
Matt Wilkerson
Co-Founder & CEO
Co-founder / CFO @Ahalife (listing on ASX) • VC @Technology Crossover Ventures • Investment Banking @ Morgan Stanley • B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering and BS in Management Science from MIT
Profile picture of Byron Hsu
Byron Hsu
Co-founder & CTO
Founder / CEO / CTO @XenonProject (Acquired) • Founder / CEO / CTO @ModernEveryday (Acquired) • B.S. in EECS and B.S. in Materials Science from MIT • Masters in EECS from MIT
Profile picture of Amanda Bickerstaff
Amanda Bickerstaff
VP of Education
COO @ CE Credits Online • COO @ Generation Code • Director of Content & Product Design @ Strayer at Work • Director of Curriculum @ Advancement Courses • BA in Anthropology from Emory
Profile picture of Huixian Ye
Huixian Ye
VP of Business Development
Director of Finance @ James Capital Partners • Controller @ Eton Park • Controller @ Och-Ziff • Senior Auditor @ Deloitte • B.S. in Finance & Accounting from Boston University
Profile picture of Cian O'Leary
Cian O'Leary
Senior Software Engineer
Software Engineer @ Fabric Corp • Lead Web Developer @ iRecruit Australia • B.S. in Computer Science from Queensland University of Technology
Profile picture of Tom Willerer
Tom Willerer
Product Advisor (former CPO, Coursera)
Partner @ Venrock • Chief Product Officer @ Coursera • VP of Product Management @ Netflix • Director of Product Management @ Facebook •
Profile picture of Teddy Zee
Teddy Zee
Advisor
Producer @ Teddy Zee Productions • President @ Overbrook Films • President @ Davis Entertainment • EVP @ Columbia Pictures • SVP @ Paramount Pictures
Profile picture of Chuck Cohn
Chuck Cohn
Advisor
Founder & CEO @ VarsityTutors • VC @ Ascension Ventures
Profile picture of Jimmy Lai
Jimmy Lai
Advisor
CFO @ 51Talk • CFO @ Chukong Technologies Corp • CFO @ Gamewave Corporation • CFO @ Daqo New Energy Corp. • CFO @ Linktone Ltd.
6 more team members
Matt Wilkerson
Co-Founder & CEO
Byron Hsu
Co-founder & CTO
Amanda Bickerstaff
VP of Education
Huixian Ye
VP of Business Development
Cian O'Leary
Senior Software Engineer
Tom Willerer
Product Advisor (former CPO, Coursera)
Teddy Zee
Advisor
Chuck Cohn
Advisor
Jimmy Lai
Advisor

Upcoming events

Press

A Chinese woman who studied in the US shares 4 tips for international success

CNBC CNBC
·
May 31, 2018

Business leaders frequently champion international experience. Whether that's studying or working overseas, they argue it can give you th...

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Paragon One CareerMapper Launches to Transform Career Services

Yahoo Yahoo
·
Apr 12, 2018

NEW YORK, April 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Paragon One, a leading career coaching company, today announced CareerMapper, a technology platf...

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0

Career coaching service Paragon One gets $1.9 million seed funding from inves...

TechCrunch TechCrunch
·
May 25, 2017

College is supposed to be a life-defining experience-but that doesn't mean students always graduate with all the skills they need to buil...

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0

Why Interning At A Startup Can Be Just As Valuable As A Fortune 100 Company

Forbes Forbes

Should I intern at a startup or at a big company? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people ...

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0

Foreign students may have a tougher time finding jobs in the U.S.

Marketplace Marketplace

More and more foreign students are seeking an education in U.S. colleges and universities. A recent report by the Institute of Internatio...

0
0

Growth Stories: Why A CEO Went From Investment Banker To Career Therapist

Forbes Forbes

Good career counseling can hugely increase students' success at getting job offers and internships.Could it all be done by technology? Th...

0
0

FAQ

Are you selling to universities at all?

Are you selling to universities at all?

All of our growth so far has been from direct-to-consumer channels such as Facebook or B2B2C partnerships with college prep agencies where we do content marketing.  The next phase of growth will target bringing CareerMapper into higher ed institutions, either directly, or via channel partners such as Online Program Managers and International Student Pathway Programs.  We are already in discussions with several of these channel partners and expect a couple of pilots in the fall.

Are you selling to students or parents?

Are you selling to students or parents?

Roughly 50% of our customers come through parent channels and 50% through student channels.

What is the demographic makeup of your students?

What is the demographic makeup of your students?

We found a lot of our early adopters in the international student community, including those studying in the US from China and India who found that career resources and support were severely lacking for them.  We also skew about 2/3 female and 1/3 male.  About 75% of our students are undergraduates, 20% are graduate students, and about 5% have already been working.  Among the undergraduates, we are fairly evenly represented between freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior years.  So most of our students are looking to land internships first.

Isn't your tuition expensive for most students?

Isn't your tuition expensive for most students?

Our tuition tends to be on par with Princeton Review premium pricing for college prep, but we know that it's not feasible for most families.  We have a few initiatives to tackle this and enable growth to a broader set of students:  (1) we soon plan to offer Income Sharing Arrangements for students which allows for a pool of investment capital to finance students and then be repaid after the student has earned enough income from their first job.  It doesn't act as a loan, but rather an investment in the student's future potential; (2) we will offer scholarship arrangements for students who meet certain criteria; (3) CareerMapper 2.0 should be able to achieve similar outcomes of CareerMapper 1.0 but at a sub-$1,000 price due to crowdsourced feedback which will also fit the pricing model of most institutions.

What did you talk about while at the LAUNCH festival?

What did you talk about while at the LAUNCH festival?

Please see the below transcript from Paragon One's pitch at the LAUNCH festival.

Matt: I'm Matt and I'm from New York City.

Jason: Okay. Matt, you have three minutes on the clock. Three two go.

Matt: Hi. I'm Matt, co founder of Paragon One. We're simplifying the process from college to career. Now, as we all know, this is not my slide. But this one is. It's really hard as a student to get a job out of college. Job boards suck and career boards, career fairs suck. So what's a student to do? Well, 97% of our students are getting job and internship offers. How is that happening? Let's take Shelley. She's an industrial engineering student who's interested in product management. But she's worried about how do I get interviews and how do I do well at them? Colleges don't teach you this stuff.

Matt: First, she takes an assessment on our platform. Next, we offer up advisor recommendations. These are experts in different fields. She picks June, who's a senior product manager at a tech company. Then June gets on a video call with her, reviews her resume, gives her feedback and recruiting advice. June submits this feedback, which then goes into Shelley's progress report. The fun doesn't stop there. She gets assigned to a career coach, who then goes into more depth on how the career mapper process works. Essentially, Shelley can check off goals toward her eventual landing of a job. Along the way, advisors are giving feedback on each of these steps. She can watch training content and ask for more help from advisors on things like: How do I source interviews? How do I ace them?

Matt: Shelley was a student of ours and she landed jobs with Tesla and Hitachi. Other students are getting jobs at other top companies like you see here. Career Mapper starts at $300, but the average tuition we're seeing right now is about $3,000. We're already starting to bring the cost down with our next version. And we're starting to offer income sharing arrangements to defer the costs. Now the secret sauce here is that we have this dedicated advisor network that's kind of like a personal career advisory board for students. We marry that with workflow software, custom workflow software we've built so that coaches and counselors have access to data and intelligence that allow them to drive outcomes at scale.

Matt: We're defining a new category called career mapping. It's basically career services turbo charged. If you look at 6 million graduates in the US every year, three and a half millennials looking to switch jobs every year, could be a three billion dollar opportunity. However, we're already seeing early adoption from the international student pathway market, which is a big market here in Australia. We're already seeing 240 percent year over year growth last year, and similar this year in revenue.

Matt: My co founder and I met at MIT, we're very passionate about solving this problem for helping students redefine how they're getting jobs. And our mission going forward is to make sure that we're doing this in a way that universities can also adopt. Our investors who are backing us are very dedicated to this mission as well. And they're looking at the next stage when we start working at institutions.

Matt: So in summary, Paragon One is growing about 240 percent annually, a 97 percent success rate, and a 3 billion dollar market opportunity. Please join us in helping students fish for their own jobs, not just rely on their university. Thank you.

Jason: Okay. Well done. I just wanted to know, to be clear, how much you're charging students? Is it 300 or 3000, it was going a little bit-

Matt: So-

Jason: No no no! Wait. You gotta get all the questions at once. So I just wanted to know exactly what the price was. And then, if it is 300 or 3000, how you came to that pricing and if you've done any pricing experimenting. So more thoughts on pricing would be great. Matthew.

Matthew: Are you marketing direct to the students to pay for it or are you partnering with universities?

Jason: Okay. Andrea or Stonely.

Andrea: You just asked my burning question, thanks.

Jason: Okay. Good. Sometimes that happens.

Stonly: How do you recruit and retain your advisors and coaches?

Jason: All right.

Matt: All right. So starting with pricing, this is ... We actually started off experimenting in a lot of different models. The idea with the $300 product is basically it's a trial. So you get essentially three coaching sessions, one with an industry expert, two with a coach. But the tuition programs have multiple sessions. And they actually take you along this career learning plan. So you're assigned a coach. They follow you from beginning to end. And you might have five, ten, twenty advisors on different topics along the way.

Matt: For the next stage of pricing, what we're doing is we're trying to bring the cost down below $1000 per student, to land you with interviews, and hopefully a job offer, because we're starting to talk to institutions. And obviously, they're much more price sensitive, because we see the opportunity where career service offices can use our product. So the next question is how do we market? We've been marketing B2C or B2B2C so far, two channels. We have a Facebook channel, a funnel that we've been basically getting a cost of customer acquisition about 40 percent of our lifetime value. And the other channel has been small boutique, study abroad, and test prep companies, a number of which are actually in China for international students who come here.

Matt: So we work with the international students when they come to the US, but we market to the parents there. Recruiting and retaining advisors. It started off with my personal network from a lot of different careers I've worked in. We started getting referrals. We get a lot of inbounds. And we target on LinkedIn. We haven't done any broad marketing yet though. We do have a bit of training to go through.

Jason: Have people asked for their money back ever, and how do you handle that? 'Cause it seems pretty pricey and if I don't get a job, I would think some of the people you get is negative signaling where you're getting the people who have a hard time getting a job, therefore, some of them might not succeed. And then, do you give them their money back or do they sue you or write something nasty on the internet.

Matt: Correct. Everyone who has asked and there has been five people out of about two hundred that have gone through our tuition based programs, if they ask for their money back, we will give it to them. And so, we understand that having unhappy customers is not a good thing.

Do you have your Meet The Drapers episode transcript?

Do you have your Meet The Drapers episode transcript?

Matt Wilkerson:         Hi, I'm Matt Wilkerson. I'm the cofounder and CEO of Paragon One. My inspiration came from my experience in college. I felt lost. Didn't know which career path to pick. A year in, from typign so much, I got tendonitis in my hands. I though what am I going to do here. A vice president came to me and said, "Look, the interns, they don't know how to do their jobs. Nobody has time to teach them anything." So I taught them how to do their jobs. By the end of that summer, all of them had full time job offers, which is rare. That had a huge impact on me.

Matt Wilkerson:            I've never done anything like this on television. Being here, pitching to the Drapers, I'm feeling thrilled right now.

Jesse Draper:                Welcome to Meet the Drapers. So give us your pitch.

Matt Wilkerson:            I'm Matt. I'm the cofounder and Ceo of Paragon One. We're simplifying the path from college to career. This is done through a network of professionals. Advisors who help students and guide them along the right path. The idea here is that colleges and universities as we know can be quite expensive, but students are coming away not knwoign how to land a job. We have Leo, and international student. He wants to break into consulting, but he has two problems. First, he doesn't know how to actually get interviews. And second, if he gets and interview, he doesn't know how to do well at the interview.

Matt Wilkerson:            So with Paragon one, he takes a short assessment, we then guide him through what we call a career learning plan. He goes down each checkpoint, and he checks off goals towards eventually getting a job offer. We've already seen 240% year over year growth. 97% of our students are getting job and internship offers in the fields that they care about. We're actually seeing an opportunity for a 3 billion dollar total adjustable market in the United States. China and India, we're already looking at as target markets down the road.

Matt Wilkerson:            Now the business model is tutioin based and subscription. I started this company because I've been passionate about career education all my life. So there's ...

Tim Draper:                  See, it's not hard to create a platform for mentors to reach students. So what's special about you guys?

Matt Wilkerson:            So just getting a resume fixed, having an hour coaching session, that's easy. But how do I take someone from resume to cover letter to LinkedIn profile? How do I do a mock interview. That's a very complex path and so we've actually built custom workflow software that is tailored around the experience of advisor and student. And it's put in the seat with a coach. So the coach monitors the entire process from beginningn to end.

Jesse Draper:                Could you use that software for other verticles?

Matt Wilkerson:            We actually see the opportunity now to go eventually to institutions. We're already talking to companies that work with universities.

Abishek Punia:              So I think the reason why these type of models haven't been able to get massive traction is because they're and to as individualized as clubs and career centers on campus. But the information they provide isn't as scalable or as generalizable as like Google search or a Wall Street Oasis for finance.

Matt Wilkerson:            When you actually have this crowdsource network of information and you have data behind that, and you provide a rally good match, that's where magic happens.

Abishek Punia:              Yeah, but then you encounter like a two sided market problem, whereas how do you get quality advisors how have [inaudible 00:30:52] existing careers to join your platform of mentors.

Matt Wilkerson:            We actually manage that problem in two ways. There's actually a concept of what we call a coach. Their job is to make sure the student si staying on track. The industry advisors are people who work in different fields. They have an expertise, but they don't have to worry about am I pushing the student forward, am I tracking them in the right way.

Abishek Punia:              The coach sounds almost like a virtual mom making sure you do your [inaudible 00:31:13].

Matt Wilkerson:            Sometimes it is. It's that support network.

Tim Draper:                  I want to hear about the conversation you had with your cofounders when you decidded to do this.

Matt Wilkerson:            Byron, my cofounder and CTO, we've known each other 15 years. And together between us, we've started, run, and exited three internet companies. We both went to MIT, great school, but we were both wanderign aimlessly. Years later, I kept talking to him about how the students I was coaching on the side, they were just like we were.

Tim Draper:                  Further in debt probably than you were.

Matt Wilkerson:            Much further in debt right.

Tim Draper:                  Yeah.

Matt Wilkerson:            1.5 trillion, and they're doing the same things. Going to job boards, going to career fairs. You wuoldn't tell a friend of yours who is working today, hey go to this job board or got to a career fair. We know that's outdated. I realize that my success today has been completely through the network of people that I've met along the way. 100%. It wasn't what I learned at MIT. I don't remember any of that stuff, quite frankly.

Matt Wilkerson:            Students have this opportunity to pick the first few steps of their life, and the profesional world out there is potentially closed off to them. There's all this knowledge that people have, and people actually want to help. So if we can unlcokt hat knowledge, suddenly students are now picking a life that's meaning for them, and they're not joining the workforce saying, "Okay, now what do I do?"

Jesse Draper:                So you really don't remember anything from MIT?

Matt Wilkerson:            Look, I mean my 6002, 6003 EE classes, those are probably ones I want to forget, but I remember the relatiosnhsips. I remember my mentors. The very few that I had when I realized I should start doing this very late.

Abishek Punia:              One would imagine that like valuable mentors come out of broader interpersonal interactions. It almost seems like paying for it would cheapen the experience and make it a little bit more comemrical.

Matt Wilkerson:            We're going to be soon launchign what's known as income sharing arrangemetns. Until a student gets a jbo with a salary, they don't have to pay us anything. And they only have to pay a small percentage back over a fixed about of time and after that, it goes away.

Sanjay Nath:                 Quick question. You talked about India and China. It's an interesting problem out there because you've got a huge drop between the top teir end students and then you have a lot of people graduating, but don't have jobs, so there is a pain point, but what's the stickiness and why do they come and why will they stay on your platform because essentially it's the same market. It's the job seeking. So what's the ...

Matt Wilkerson:            Sure. We look at the advisors as just imiportant as users on our platform, as students. Because if they're not engagted, they're not gonna stick around. The payment that we give them is there to help them understand that this is important. They take it seriously. But when you do things like provide them with agendas and content so they don't have to do a lot of preparation up front. And most importantly, we make sure that the students, their feedback, especially the positive feedback, comes to them often, and they feel gratitude for that.

Tim Draper:                  This is interesting because I've been focused on this a lot at [inaudible 00:33:39] Univeirsty. The same group of people. I know you've got an interesting problem. Thank you so much for coming to Meet the Drapers.

Jesse Draper:                So nice to meet you.

Matt Wilkerson:            Thank you.

Matt Wilkerson:            Which Draper is most likely to support my company? I think Jesse could because, as I undestand, she's a new mom. I'm a new dad and I'm already thinking about what world will my children go in the next 10 to 20 years? What will education look like? How will they enter workforce? What careers will they be developng? This idea around career education is on my mind with regards to my children.

Matt Wilkerson:            On the other hand, I understand that it's very possible that Bill Draper could see a lot of the potential for what we're building. We attracted a lot of international students as our early adopters, from China and from India. And so I'm already seeing a lot of potential to bring Paragon One into markets like China and India.

Jesse Draper:                It's funny, Punia, that you said it cheapens the experience if you have to pay for it. I don't believe you should have to pay for mentorsihip. There's a difference between tutoring and proviidng mentorship, and I feel like we should just encourage a society that wants to help each other.

Abishek Punia:              Yeah, and I think the confusion that people have when picking their career path, it's not just al lack of knowldege. It's also how our education is structured in the first place I don't think such a solution really hits the core, which is why they're never able to scale or grow or become prevelatn.

Jesse Draper:                Right.

Sanjay Nath:                 I think it is an interesting pain point. In India, for example, if you looked at it, you've got the [inaudible 00:35:10] that all of us went to, and then you've got a huge drop between the next university. These days kids are coming out and many ofthem don't have jobs. I see the problem. I see the market size. What I didn't see is how compelling, how different this was.

Tim Draper:                  I actually think it's okay to pay for mentorshsip. It's just in definitioni thing. If you called it a trainer or a tutor, you would expect to pay. I actually think that this is gonna be a big breakthorugh for a short time, but then the education system is gonna catch up. I mean at Draper University, we are trying to lead the way toward a new way of looking at education. Create your own jobs. A bunch of other schools are tryhgin to get education to job to be a closer match. And so I think that this might just be a temporary phenomenon. Putting my 15 year hat on, I'm not so sure this is gonna be a big winner.

Jesse Draper:                So should we vote?

Tim Draper:                  Let's listen to the crystal ball first. Paragon One. What do we thin?

Jesse Draper:                It sounds like an airline.

Tim Draper:                  It is. For a financial organization. I've got mine.

Jesse Draper:                Okay. Thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs all around. But he was really great.

Tim Draper:                  Whenever people say, I am really passionate about this, it makes me feel like they've heard from me saying we like to back people who are passionate about what they do. But then the second time I asked the question, the real passion did come out.

Jesse Draper:                I do think he was passionate about it.

Tim Draper:                  I think he got in to it. I think he was into it.

Jesse Draper:                He was passionate about it. That's his life path and good. Was this the company for you? Do you want to back mentorship? Go to MEETTHEDRAPERS.com and you can invest. You should stay tuned to listen to my dad's crypto chat up next.

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Risks

The development and commercialization of our education technology products is highly competitive.
We face competition with respect to any products that we may seek to develop or commercialize in the future. Our competitors include major education, HR, and technology companies worldwide. Many of our competitors have significantly greater financial, technical and human resources than we have and superior expertise in research and development and marketing approved products and thus may be better equipped than us to develop and commercialize products. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified personnel and acquiring technologies. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. Accordingly, our competitors may commercialize products more rapidly or effectively than we are able to, which would adversely affect our competitive position, the likelihood that our products will achieve initial market acceptance and our ability to generate meaningful additional revenues from our products.
We plan to implement new lines of business, such as a B2B software offering, or offer new products and services within existing lines of business.
There are substantial risks and uncertainties associated with these efforts, particularly in instances where the markets are not fully developed. In developing and marketing new lines of business and new products and services, we may invest significant time and resources. Initial timetables for the introduction and development of new lines of business or new products or services may not be achieved and price and profitability targets may not prove feasible. We may not be successful in introducing new products and services in response to industry trends with universities and university partners or developments in technology, or those new products may not achieve market acceptance. As a result, we could lose business, be forced to price products and services on less advantageous terms to retain or attract clients or be subject to cost increases. As a result, our business, financial condition or results of operations may be adversely affected.
In general, demand for our products and services is highly correlated with general economic conditions.
A substantial portion of our revenue is derived from discretionary education spending by individuals and families, which typically falls during times of economic instability. Declines in economic conditions in the U.S. or in other countries in which we operate may adversely impact our consolidated financial results. Because such declines in demand are difficult to predict, we or the industry may have increased excess capacity as a result. An increase in excess capacity may result in declines in prices for our products and services.
The use of individually identifiable data by our business, our business associates and third parties is regulated at the state, federal and international levels.
Costs associated with information security ' such as investment in technology, the costs of compliance with consumer protection laws and costs resulting from consumer fraud ' could cause our business and results of operations to suffer materially. Additionally, the success of our online operations depends upon the secure transmission of confidential information over public networks, including the use of cashless payments. The intentional or negligent actions of employees, business associates or third parties may undermine our security measures. As a result, unauthorized parties may obtain access to our data systems and misappropriate confidential data. There can be no assurance that advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography or other developments will prevent the compromise of our customer transaction processing capabilities and personal data. If any such compromise of our security or the security of information residing with our business associates or third parties were to occur, it could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, operating results and financial condition. Any compromise of our data security may materially increase the costs we incur to protect against such breaches and could subject us to additional legal risk.
Through our operations, we collect and store certain personal information that our customers provide to purchase products or services, enroll in promotional programs, register on our website, or otherwise communicate and interact with us.
We may share information about such persons with vendors that assist with certain aspects of our business. Security could be compromised and confidential customer or business information misappropriated. Loss of customer or business information could disrupt our operations, damage our reputation, and expose us to claims from customers, financial institutions, payment card associations and other persons, any of which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, compliance with tougher privacy and information security laws and standards may result in significant expense due to increased investment in technology and the development of new operational processes.
Security breaches and other disruptions could compromise our information and expose us to liability, which would cause our business and reputation to suffer.
We collect and store potentially sensitive data, including intellectual property, our proprietary business information and that of our customers, advisors, and personally identifiable information of our customers and employees, on our networks. Despite our security measures, our information technology and infrastructure may be vulnerable to attacks by hackers or breached due to employee error, malfeasance or other disruptions. Any such breach could compromise our networks and the information stored there could be accessed, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen. Any such access, disclosure or other loss of information could result in legal claims or proceedings, disrupt our operations and the services we provide to customers and damage our reputation, which could adversely affect our revenues and competitive position.
The Company's success depends on the experience and skills of its executive officers and key employees.
In particular, the Company is dependent on Byron Hsu who is President (June 5, 2015 - Present); Chief Technology Officer (June 5, 2015 - Present) of the Company. The Company has employment agreements with Byron Hsu although there can be no assurance that it will do so or that they will continue to be employed by the Company for a particular period of time. The loss of Byron Hsu could harm the Company's business, financial condition, cash flow and results of operations.
We are subject to income taxes as well as non-income based taxes, such as payroll, sales, use, value-added, net worth, property and goods and services taxes, in the U.S. We could be subject to various foreign tax laws in the future.
Significant judgment is required in determining our provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities. In the ordinary course of our business, there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. Although we believe that our tax estimates are reasonable: (i) there is no assurance that the final determination of tax audits or tax disputes will not be different from what is reflected in our income tax provisions, expense amounts for non-income based taxes and accruals and (ii) any material differences could have an adverse effect on our financial position and results of operations in the period or periods for which determination is made.
We are not subject to Sarbanes-Oxley regulations and lack the financial controls and safeguards required of public companies.
We do not have the internal infrastructure necessary, and are not required, to complete an attestation about our financial controls that would be required under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. There can be no assurance that there are no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in the quality of our financial controls. We expect to incur additional expenses and diversion of management's time if and when it becomes necessary to perform the system and process evaluation, testing and remediation required in order to comply with the management certification and auditor attestation requirements.
Changes in employment laws or regulation could harm our performance.
Various federal and state labor laws govern our relationship with our employees and affect operating costs. These laws include minimum wage requirements, overtime pay, healthcare reform and the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, unemployment tax rates, workers' compensation rates, citizenship requirements, union membership and sales taxes. A number of factors could adversely affect our operating results, including additional government-imposed increases in minimum wages, overtime pay, paid leaves of absence and mandated health benefits, mandated training for employees, increased tax reporting and tax payment changing regulations from the National Labor Relations Board and increased employee litigation including claims relating to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Maintaining, extending and expanding our reputation and brand image are essential to our business success.
We seek to maintain, extend, and expand our brand image through marketing investments, including advertising and consumer promotions, and product innovation. Increasing attention on marketing could adversely affect our brand image. It could also lead to stricter regulations and greater scrutiny of marketing practices. Existing or increased legal or regulatory restrictions on our advertising, consumer promotions and marketing, or our response to those restrictions, could limit our efforts to maintain, extend and expand our brands. Moreover, adverse publicity about regulatory or legal action against us could damage our reputation and brand image, undermine our customers' confidence and reduce long-term demand for our products, even if the regulatory or legal action is unfounded or not material to our operations.In addition, our success in maintaining, extending, and expanding our brand image depends on our ability to adapt to a rapidly changing media environment. We increasingly rely on social media and online dissemination of advertising campaigns. The growing use of social and digital media increases the speed and extent that information or misinformation and opinions can be shared. Negative posts or comments about us, our brands or our products on social or digital media, whether or not valid, could seriously damage our brands and reputation. If we do not establish, maintain, extend and expand our brand image, then our product sales, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We must correctly predict, identify, and interpret changes in consumer preferences and demand, offer new products to meet those changes, and respond to competitive innovation.
Consumer preferences our products change continually. Our success depends on our ability to predict, identify, and interpret the tastes and habits of consumers (such as students, recent graduates, and families), and to offer products that appeal to consumer preferences. If we do not offer products that appeal to consumers, our sales and market share will decrease. We must distinguish between short-term fads, mid-term trends, and long-term changes in consumer preferences. If we do not accurately predict which shifts in consumer preferences will be long-term, or if we fail to introduce new and improved products to satisfy those preferences, our sales could decline. In addition, because of our varied and global customer base, we must offer an array of products that satisfy the broad spectrum of consumer preferences. If we fail to expand our product offerings successfully across product categories, or if we do not rapidly develop products in faster growing and more profitable categories, demand for our products could decrease, which could materially and adversely affect our product sales, financial condition, and results of operations.In addition, achieving growth depends on our successful development, introduction, and marketing of innovative new products and line extensions. Successful innovation depends on our ability to correctly anticipate customer and consumer acceptance, to obtain, protect and maintain necessary intellectual property rights, and to avoid infringing the intellectual property rights of others and failure to do so could compromise our competitive position and adversely impact our business.
Failure to scale our supply of coaches and advisors could adversely impact our results of operations.
Inability to source and recruit coaches and advisors to match with customers could prevent us from servicing customers in a timely fashion and could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. We also could be adversely affected if consumers in our principal markets lose confidence in the ability of our coaches and advisors to provide quality guidance and coaching.
Changes in government regulation around immigration could adversely impact our business.
The majority of our early customers have been international students from overseas who study in the United States. Regulation related to how these students can study and work in the United States could adversely impact our business. The current presidential administration has proposed possible changes to the visa status of students who wish to obtain Optional Practical Training. An legislation that is passed could impact the number of students who wish to study in the United States and create downward pressure on revenue or require us to find new market segments more quickly.
New technologies may make our products and services obsolete or unneeded.
New and emerging technological advances, such as virtual reality or mobile computing devices that allow consumers to obtain information and view content may adversely impact or eliminate the demand for our products and services. The increasing availability of content on such devices, the improved video quality of the content on such devices and faster wireless delivery speeds may make individuals less likely to purchase our services. Our success can depend on new product development. The entertainment and communications industry is ever-changing as new technologies are introduced. Advances in technology, such as new video formats, downloading or alternative methods of product delivery and distribution channels, such as the Internet, or certain changes in consumer behavior driven by these or other technologies and methods of delivery, could have a negative effect on our business. These changes could lower cost barriers for our competitors desiring to enter into or expand their presence in, the interactive services business. Increased competition may adversely affect our business and results of operations.
We face risks relating to competition for the leisure time and discretionary spending of audiences, which has intensified in part due to advances in technology and changes in consumer expectations and behavior.
Our business is subject to risks relating to increasing competition for the leisure time and discretionary spending of consumers. We compete with all other sources of entertainment and information delivery. Technological advancements, such as new video formats and Internet streaming and downloading of programming that can be viewed on televisions, computers and mobile devices have increased the number of entertainment and information delivery choices available to consumers and intensified the challenges posed by audience fragmentation. The increasing number of choices available to audiences, including low-cost or free choices, could negatively impact not only consumer demand for our products and services, but also advertisers' willingness to purchase advertising from us. Our failure to effectively anticipate or adapt to new technologies and changes in consumer expectations and behavior could significantly adversely affect our competitive position and its business and results of operations.
Our success depends on consumer acceptance of our content and we may be adversely affected if our content fails to achieve sufficient consumer acceptance or the costs to create or acquire content increase.
We create and acquire media and educational content, the success of which depends substantially on consumer tastes and preferences that change in often unpredictable ways. The success of these businesses depends on our ability to consistently create, acquire, market and distribute educational and other content that meet the changing preferences of the broad domestic and foreign consumer markets. We have invested and will continue to invest, in our content, including in the production of original content, before learning the extent to which it would earn consumer acceptance.
Fluctuations in the mix of customer demand for our various types of solution offerings could impact our financial performance and ability to forecast performance.
Due to fluctuations in customer needs, changes in customer industries, and general economic conditions, customer demand for the range of our offerings varies from time to time and is not predictable. Many of our products demand a high price point which may be out of reach for many consumers. In addition, our gross margins vary by customer and by segment and the mix of services provided to our customers could impact our results of operations as certain of our customers and segments have different gross margin profiles. Generally, the profitability of an account increases over time. As a result, the mix of solutions we provide to our customers varies at any given time, both within a quarter and from quarter-to-quarter. These variations in service mix impact gross margins and the predictability of gross margins for any period. You should not rely on the results of any one quarter as an indication of our future performance.
Our operating results may fluctuate due to factors that are difficult to forecast and not within our control.
Our past operating results may not be accurate indicators of future performance, and you should not rely on such results to predict our future performance. Our operating results have fluctuated significantly in the past, and could fluctuate in the future. Factors that may contribute to fluctuations include:* changes in aggregate capital spending, cyclicality and other economic conditions, or domestic and international demand in the industries we serve;* our ability to effectively manage our working capital;* our ability to satisfy consumer demands in a timely and cost-effective manner;* pricing and availability of labor and materials;* our inability to adjust certain fixed costs and expenses for changes in demand;* shifts in geographic concentration of customers, supplies and labor pools; and* seasonal fluctuations in demand and our revenue.
If we fail to attract and retain enough sufficiently trained coaches, operations managers, customer service associates and other personnel to support our operations, our business and results of operations will be seriously harmed.
We rely on coaches, operations managers, and customer service associates, and our success depends to a significant extent on our ability to attract, hire, train and retain qualified talent in these roles. A significant increase in the attrition rate among our personnel could decrease our operating efficiency and productivity. Our failure to attract, train and retain coaches, operations managers, and customer service associates with the qualifications necessary to fulfill the needs of our existing and future clients would seriously harm our business and results of operations.
Our future ability to sell our products and services to universities and university partners may depend on the quality of our technical support services, and our failure to offer high-quality technical support services would have a material adverse effect on our sales and results of operations.
Once our products are deployed within our university or channel partners' operations, end-customers depend on our technical support services to resolve any issues relating to these products. If we do not effectively assist our customers in deploying these products, succeed in helping our customers quickly resolve post-deployment issues, and provide effective ongoing support, our ability to sell additional products and services to existing customers would be adversely affected and our reputation with potential customers could be damaged. As a result, our failure to maintain high-quality support services would have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
We may be adversely affected by cyclicality, volatility or an extended downturn in the United States or worldwide economy, or in or related to the industries we serve.
Our revenues are generated primarily from servicing customers seeking to work in fields such as technology, finance, marketing, and consulting. Demand for these professionals tends to be tied to economic and business cycles. Increases in the unemployment rate, specifically in these verticals could cause our revenues to decline. Therefore, our operating results, business and financial condition could be significantly harmed by an extended economic downturn or future downturns, especially in regions or industries where our operations are heavily concentrated. Further, we may face increased pricing pressures during such periods as customers seek to use lower cost or fee services, which may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
We are subject to rapid technological change and dependence on new product development.
The education technology industry is characterized by technological developments, frequent new product introductions and enhancements, continually evolving business expectations and swift changes. To compete effectively in such markets, we must continually improve and enhance its products and services and develop new technologies and services that incorporate technological advances, satisfy increasing customer expectations and compete effectively on the basis of performance and price. Our success will also depend substantially upon our ability to anticipate, and to adapt our products and services to our collaborative partner's preferences. There can be no assurance that technological developments will not render some of our products and services obsolete, or that we will be able to respond with improved or new products, services, and technology that satisfy evolving customers' expectations. Failure to acquire, develop or introduce new products, services, and enhancements in a timely manner could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Also, to the extent one or more of our competitors introduces products and services that better address a customer's needs, our business would be adversely affected.
Failure to obtain new clients (such as students, parents, or universities), or renew client contracts on favorable terms could adversely affect results of operations.
We may face pricing pressure in obtaining and retaining our clients. Our clients may be able to seek price reductions from us when they renew a contract, when a contract is extended, or when the client's business has significant volume changes. They may also reduce services if they decide to move services in-house. On some occasions, this pricing pressure results in lower revenue from a client than we had anticipated based on our previous agreement with that client. This reduction in revenue could result in an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.Further, failure to renew client contracts on favorable terms could have an adverse effect on our business. Our contracts with clients generally run for several years and include liquidated damage provisions that provide for early termination fees. Terms are generally renegotiated prior to the end of a contract's term. If we are not successful in achieving a high rate of contract renewals on favorable terms, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.
The Company could be negatively impacted if found to have infringed on intellectual property rights.
Technology companies, including many of the Company's competitors, frequently enter into litigation based on allegations of patent infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. In addition, patent holding companies seek to monetize patents they have purchased or otherwise obtained. As the Company grows, the intellectual property rights claims against it will likely increase. The Company intends to vigorously defend infringement actions in court and before the U.S. International Trade Commission. The plaintiffs in these actions frequently seek injunctions and substantial damages. Regardless of the scope or validity of such patents or other intellectual property rights, or the merits of any claims by potential or actual litigants, the Company may have to engage in protracted litigation. If the Company is found to infringe one or more patents or other intellectual property rights, regardless of whether it can develop non-infringing technology, it may be required to pay substantial damages or royalties to a third-party, or it may be subject to a temporary or permanent injunction prohibiting the Company from marketing or selling certain products. In certain cases, the Company may consider the desirability of entering into licensing agreements, although no assurance can be given that such licenses can be obtained on acceptable terms or that litigation will not occur. These licenses may also significantly increase the Company's operating expenses.Regardless of the merit of particular claims, litigation may be expensive, time-consuming, disruptive to the Company's operations and distracting to management. In recognition of these considerations, the Company may enter into arrangements to settle litigation. If one or more legal matters were resolved against the Company's consolidated financial statements for that reporting period could be materially adversely affected. Further, such an outcome could result in significant compensatory, punitive or trebled monetary damages, disgorgement of revenue or profits, remedial corporate measures or injunctive relief against the Company that could adversely affect its financial condition and results of operations.
Indemnity provisions in various agreements potentially expose us to substantial liability for intellectual property infringement and other losses.
Our agreements with advertisers, advertising agencies, customers and other third parties may include indemnification provisions under which we agree to indemnify them for losses suffered or incurred as a result of claims of intellectual property infringement, damages caused by us to property or persons, or other liabilities relating to or arising from our products, services or other contractual obligations. The term of these indemnity provisions generally survives termination or expiration of the applicable agreement. Large indemnity payments would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, any type of intellectual property lawsuit, whether initiated by us or a third party, would likely be time consuming and expensive to resolve and would divert management's time and attention.
We rely heavily on our technology and intellectual property, but we may be unable to adequately or cost-effectively protect or enforce our intellectual property rights, thereby weakening our competitive position and increasing operating costs.
To protect our rights in our services and technology, we rely on a combination of copyright and trademark laws, patents, trade secrets, confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties, and protective contractual provisions. We also rely on laws pertaining to trademarks and domain names to protect the value of our corporate brands and reputation. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, unauthorized parties may copy aspects of our services or technology, obtain and use information, marks, or technology that we regard as proprietary, or otherwise violate or infringe our intellectual property rights. In addition, it is possible that others could independently develop substantially equivalent intellectual property. If we do not effectively protect our intellectual property, or if others independently develop substantially equivalent intellectual property, our competitive position could be weakened.Effectively policing the unauthorized use of our services and technology is time-consuming and costly, and the steps taken by us may not prevent misappropriation of our technology or other proprietary assets. The efforts we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be sufficient or effective, and unauthorized parties may copy aspects of our services, use similar marks or domain names, or obtain and use information, marks, or technology that we regard as proprietary. We may have to litigate to enforce our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets, or to determine the validity and scope of others' proprietary rights, which are sometimes not clear or may change. Litigation can be time consuming and expensive, and the outcome can be difficult to predict.
We rely on agreements with third parties to provide certain services, goods, technology, and intellectual property rights necessary to enable us to implement some of our applications.
Our ability to implement and provide our applications and services to our clients depends, in part, on services, goods, technology, and intellectual property rights owned or controlled by third parties. These third parties may become unable to or refuse to continue to provide these services, goods, technology, or intellectual property rights on commercially reasonable terms consistent with our business practices, or otherwise discontinue a service important for us to continue to operate our applications. If we fail to replace these services, goods, technologies, or intellectual property rights in a timely manner or on commercially reasonable terms, our operating results and financial condition could be harmed. In addition, we exercise limited control over our third-party vendors, which increases our vulnerability to problems with technology and services those vendors provide. If the services, technology, or intellectual property of third parties were to fail to perform as expected, it could subject us to potential liability, adversely affect our renewal rates, and have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
Our business could be negatively impacted by cybersecurity threats, attacks, and other disruptions.
Like others in our industry, we may face advanced and persistent attacks on our information infrastructure where we manage and store various proprietary information and sensitive/confidential data relating to our operations. These attacks may include sophisticated malware (viruses, worms, and other malicious software programs) and phishing emails that attack our products or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities. These intrusions sometimes may be zero-day malware that are difficult to identify because they are not included in the signature set of commercially available antivirus scanning programs. Experienced computer programmers and hackers may be able to penetrate our network security and misappropriate or compromise our confidential information or that of our customers or other third-parties, create system disruptions, or cause shutdowns. Additionally, sophisticated software and applications that we produce or procure from third-parties may contain defects in design or manufacture, including "bugs" and other problems that could unexpectedly interfere with the operation of the information infrastructure. A disruption, infiltration or failure of our information infrastructure systems or any of our data centers as a result of software or hardware malfunctions, computer viruses, cyber attacks, employee theft or misuse, power disruptions, natural disasters or accidents could cause breaches of data security, loss of critical data and performance delays, which in turn could adversely affect our business.
The Units of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) will not be freely tradable until one year from the initial purchase date. Although the Units of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) may be tradable under federal securities law, state securities regulations may apply and each Purchaser should consult with his or her attorney.
You should be aware of the long-term nature of this investment. There is not now and likely will not be a public market for the Units of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity). Because the Units of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) have not been registered under the Securities Act or under the securities laws of any state or non-United States jurisdiction, the Units of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) have transfer restrictions and cannot be resold in the United States except pursuant to Rule 501 of Regulation CF. It is not currently contemplated that registration under the Securities Act or other securities laws will be effected. Limitations on the transfer of the Units of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) may also adversely affect the price that you might be able to obtain for the Units of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) in a private sale. Purchasers should be aware of the long-term nature of their investment in the Company. Each Purchaser in this Offering will be required to represent that it is purchasing the Securities for its own account, for investment purposes and not with a view to resale or distribution thereof.
Neither the Offering nor the Securities have been registered under federal or state securities laws, leading to an absence of certain regulation applicable to the Company.
No governmental agency has reviewed or passed upon this Offering, the Company or any Securities of the Company. The Company also has relied on exemptions from securities registration requirements under applicable state securities laws. Investors in the Company, therefore, will not receive any of the benefits that such registration would otherwise provide. Prospective investors must therefore assess the adequacy of disclosure and the fairness of the terms of this Offering on their own or in conjunction with their personal advisors.
No Guarantee of Return on Investment.
There is no assurance that a Purchaser will realize a return on its investment or that it will not lose its entire investment. For this reason, each Purchaser should read the Form C and all Exhibits carefully and should consult with its own attorney and business advisor prior to making any investment decision.
The Company has the right to extend the Offering deadline.
The Company may extend the Offering deadline beyond what is currently stated herein. This means that your investment may continue to be held in escrow while the Company attempts to raise the Minimum Amount even after the Offering deadline stated herein is reached. Your investment will not be accruing interest during this time and will simply be held until such time as the new Offering deadline is reached without the Company receiving the Minimum Amount, at which time it will be returned to you without interest or deduction, or the the Company receives the Minimum Amount, at which time it will be released to the Company to be used as set forth herein. Upon or shortly after release of such funds to the Company, the Securities will be issued and distributed to you.
Purchasers will not become equity holders until the Company decides to convert the Securities into CF Shadow Securities or until an IPO or sale of the Company.
Purchasers will not have an ownership claim to the Company or to any of its assets or revenues for an indefinite amount of time, and depending on when and how the Securities are converted, the Purchasers may never become equity holders of the Company. Purchasers will not become equity holders of the Company unless the Company receives a future round of financing great enough to trigger a conversion and the Company elects to convert the Securities. The Company is under no obligation to convert the Securities into CF Shadow Securities (the type of equity Securities Purchasers are entitled to receive upon such conversion). In certain instances, such as a sale of the Company, an IPO or a dissolution or bankruptcy, the Purchasers may only have a right to receive cash, to the extent available, rather than equity in the Company.
Purchasers will not have voting rights, even upon conversion of the Securities into CF Shadow Securities.
Purchasers will not have the right to vote upon matters of the Company even if and when their Securities are converted into CF Shadow Securities. Upon such conversion, CF Shadow Securities will have no voting rights and even in circumstances where a statutory right to vote is provided by state law, the CF Shadow Security holders are required to vote with the majority of the security holders in the new round of equity financing upon which the Securities were converted. For example, if the Securities are converted upon a round offering Series B Preferred Shares, the Series B-CF Shadow Security holders will be required to vote the same way as a majority of the Series B Preferred Share holders vote. Thus, Purchasers will never be able to freely vote upon any director or other matters of the Company.
Purchasers will not be entitled to any inspection or information rights other than those required by Regulation CF.
Purchasers will not have the right to inspect the books and records of the Company or to receive financial or other information from the Company, other than as required by Regulation CF. Other security holders may have such rights. Regulation CF requires only the provision of an annual report on Form C and no additional information. This lack of information could put Purchasers at a disadvantage in general and with respect to other security holders.
In a dissolution or bankruptcy of the Company, Purchasers will be treated the same as common equity holders.
In a dissolution or bankruptcy of the Company, Purchasers of Securities which have not been converted will be entitled to distributions as if they were common stock holders. This means that such Purchasers will be at the lowest level of priority and will only receive distributions once all creditors as well as holders of more senior securities, including any preferred stock holders, have been paid in full. If the Securities have been converted into CF Shadow Securities, the Purchasers will have the same rights and preferences (other than the ability to vote) as the holders of the Securities issued in the equity financing upon which the Securities were converted.
Purchasers will be unable to declare the Security in "default" and demand repayment.
Unlike convertible notes and some other securities, the Securities do not have any "default" provisions upon which the Purchasers will be able to demand repayment of their investment. The Company has ultimate discretion as to whether or not to convert the Securities upon a future equity financing and Purchasers have no right to demand such conversion. Only in limited circumstances, such as a liquidity event, may the Purchasers demand payment and even then, such payments will be limited to the amount of cash available to the Company.
The Company may never elect to convert the Securities or undergo a liquidity event.
The Company may never receive a future equity financing or elect to convert the Securities upon such future financing. In addition, the Company may never undergo a liquidity event such as a sale of the Company or an IPO. If neither the conversion of the Securities nor a liquidity event occurs, the Purchasers could be left holding the Securities in perpetuity. The Securities have numerous transfer restrictions and will likely be highly illiquid, with no secondary market on which to sell them. The Securities are not equity interests, have no ownership rights, have no rights to the Company's assets or profits and have no voting rights or ability to direct the Company or its actions.In addition to the risks listed above, businesses are often subject to risks not foreseen or fully appreciated by the management. It is not possible to foresee all risks that may affect us. Moreover, the Company cannot predict whether the Company will successfully effectuate the Company's current business plan. Each prospective Purchaser is encouraged to carefully analyze the risks and merits of an investment in the Securities and should take into consideration when making such analysis, among other, the Risk Factors discussed above.THE SECURITIES OFFERED INVOLVE A HIGH DEGREE OF RISK AND MAY RESULT IN THE LOSS OF YOUR ENTIRE INVESTMENT. ANY PERSON CONSIDERING THE PURCHASE OF THESE SECURITIES SHOULD BE AWARE OF THESE AND OTHER FACTORS SET FORTH IN THIS FORM C AND SHOULD CONSULT WITH HIS OR HER LEGAL, TAX AND FINANCIAL ADVISORS PRIOR TO MAKING AN INVESTMENT IN THE SECURITIES. THE SECURITIES SHOULD ONLY BE PURCHASED BY PERSONS WHO CAN AFFORD TO LOSE ALL OF THEIR INVESTMENT.
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Paragon One

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373% funded!

Paragon One successfully raised $93,345 from 396 investors on January 1, 2019

I invested because I agree that there is a big problem in this area and Paragon One works towards providing a solution. I also like that the company is backed by Y Combinator.
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John Walsh
Invested 8 months ago
One the part of the future!
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Hubert Bergeron
Invested 8 months ago
Too many graduating students with too much debt that know so little about what careers are available to them. This business fills a great need in our society.
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John Rusk
Invested 8 months ago
As a recent grad of College, there needs to be more supports in place for students to find jobs in their related fields. If Paragon One can continue this trajectory, it can be a hidden gem that changes a students life forever.
Profile picture of Avery Konda
Avery Konda
Invested 8 months ago
Just because an firm like this got me back on my feet here in Youngstown, Ohio. So I believe its gonna be on top in the future. Terrance Phillips II
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Terrance Phillips II
Invested 8 months ago
I believe in giving kids the best future they can get.
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Berenice Phillips
Invested 8 months ago
Not just students, even working adults who want to shift career path can use this platform
Profile picture of Henry Vante
Henry Vante
Invested 8 months ago
Most of the people that I know that have degrees have problems finding work in the industry they got the degree.
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Christopher Brown
Invested 7 months ago
Everyone knows someone who graduated with a degree that, let's be honest, isn't with the paper it's printed on and can't find work in their field.
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John Clair
Invested 7 months ago
In a job market that is ever changing the traditional approaches no longer apply. Its about time this sort of resource is available. I'd love to see it succeed!
Profile picture of Elazar Weiner
Elazar Weiner
Invested 7 months ago
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