Peter Thiel Backs Thinkful For Personalized Online Education

02/26/2013

Online education startup Thinkful has raised $1 million in seed financing from Peter Thiel‘s FF Angel, RRE Ventures and Quotidian Ventures.

Founded in 2012, Thinkful is designed to provide personalized online learning for people. It’s starting with a course on front-end web development but plans to expand to other areas of computer skills and software development.

Education is a hot startup sector, with outfits such as Edmodo, Khan Academy, Udacity and others trying to come up with new educational models for the 21st century. Because Thinkful is all online it’s designed to fit into busy people’s schedules. (Most of its students are college graduates.) The service is used by people who want to switch to a new career or just want to add more skills in their current job, says Daniel Friedman, 21, cofounder of Thinkful, who was in the Thiel program in 2011.   He cofounded the company with CEO Darrell Silver.

Peter Thiel’s investment is his first investment in a startup from one of his 20 Under 20 fellows. That is Thiel’s program for young entrepreneurs who are interested in dispensing with college and working on a startup.

Thinkful charges $250 per month for the course which takes three months on average (some finish faster and some slower). People who sign up start with a skills assessment, including their goals and experience. Thinkful then customizes the curriculum to their needs and places them with a cohort in a similar track. The curriculum includes video or text content with projects that students complete.

The key part of Thinkful is pairing students with a mentor. Thinkful has hired four people so far on staff to serve as mentors and plans to hire more because the company sees mentors as playing a core educational role. They meet online with the student once per week to go over issues and help solve problems. “These people are not only experts in this area and can communicate clearly about it, but they’re keeping students excited about it,” Friedman says. Thinkful also has open virtual office hours once a day for students who have questions.

The courses launched about three months ago and have 30 active students so far. Thinkful, with eight employees, also has 70 partner companies who have agreed to review or interview graduates of its program for jobs.

Friedman says Thinkful is building products to help students get the most out of the curriculum, hold themselves accountable and communicate with mentors and others students.

By Tomio Geron

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