There are crevices of society that technology has yet to streamline, and pre-schools are one of them. Carline decided to tackle this unique customer's most unique problem: Sign-in and sign-out of toddlers at school.
⚾ The Elevator Pitch:
If you ever drove past a school at 3PM, you know the parent pains of navigating a car line to pick up little Jimmy. For decades, schools have been using clipboards to log when toddlers are picked up and by who. Now with increasingly complex sign-in/sign-out processes, along with social distancing mandates, schools are more desperate than ever for a solution to easily manage their operations.
Enter Carline, a solution designed to make car line processing 6 times faster. Carline is building a toolkit to serve the entire back-office needs of preschools. Along with the standard check-in/out logging, their app has 'playdate management' (picking up multiple children), digital signature storage, contactless sign-outs, and even photo identification for administrators. Carline is starting with a guardian management app, but is moving towards helping entire back-office operations.
👇 The Drop Down
Site: https://www.getcarline.com/
Founded: 2019
Stage: Seed
Tech trend: Edu-Tech
Traction: 16 paying customers, $40k+ in ARR, Raised seed (Kleiner Perkins)
Team -Venture Fellows, Engineers, & Designers connected in the Education Space.
Daniel Andrews - CEO, UC Berkeley
Josh Andrews - CTO, UCSB
Sasha Reiss - CPO, USC
Max Miranda - CFO, UC Berkeley
🔍 Why we like it
- 👫 Preschools Are In Their Blood
Josh & Daniel grew up obsessed with this space. Yes, they once too attended pre-school, but their mother is also the director for the largest preschool in the LA area. Not only that, but she also influenced the design and operations of thousands of preschools across the nation. Their aunt owns a chain of preschools. Their cousins run them as a family business. As you can guess, the team is extremely entrenched with their customers. They easily walk a mile in customer shoes because they've been doing it their whole life. This team has unfettered access to preschools throughout the nation, enabling them to understand and start relationships with many of them while others can't even get their foot in the door. - 📈 They've landed with CarLine but can expand into entire back-office management
Carline has a great step-one solution to tackle the entire ecosystem of preschool problems. They handle sign-in/sign-offs very well. With their foot in the door, Carline is poised to expand into all back-office management, including contact tracing, emergency alerts, attendance, and more. With over 4MN pre-schoolers in the US, this ecosystem is a lot bigger than you think. - 🏎️ They're agile and ready to build
We live in tumultuous times. Over 5 states now require daily health checks and signatures for all preschool students - by law. Teachers were forced to run paper back and forth from the car to the office. When COVID came out, the Carline team was already honing their app to fit current needs - pumping out features within a day to support their customers. They have the best customer support in this space and it shows with their viral, word-of-mouth expansion and adoption.
🎤 Founders Corner
Q: What does the future of Carline look like?
We currently are extremely good at supporting diverse use cases for our customers. We've got everything from support for multiple carlines, to specific e-signature requirements. Eventually, we want to become the full back-office for preschools, spanning everything from tuition to operations.
Q: Are you concerned about Carline in COVID times?
Some schools are starting to shut down, on the other hand, it's accelerated just how much schools need us to support their operations. We've been able to lean into these increasingly complex needs. COVID has been a double-edged sword that way.
🤝 Get involved with Carline
- Check out their website
- They're hiring! Currently looking for a react developer and salespeople! Get in touch: support@getcarline.com
