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Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

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Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#11

Post by robocat »

> because we have aligned incentives [with our students] - we only make money if they do.

If you sign up all students and do nothing further, you still get your 7%. That is not aligned.

To align incentives you would have to align the students payments with how much you improved their outcomes - much harder to do of course.

I think your model has the same risks as real estate commissions where the selling agent is highly motivated to sell quickly and they have little motivation to get a higher price.

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#12

Post by kevintxwu »

geofftrojans wrote: post #9
kevintxwu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Some of the metrics we are currently already tracking: Response and follow up rates from cold emails Response and follow up rates from referrals to hiring partners Technical interview score over time (measured by internal rubrics we design to be very close to what is actually used at companies) Success rate per interview over time (hard to see trends for an individual, but kind of starting to see trends for a batc…

Awesome, thanks! You said you are measuring gain from negotiation as one of your metrics. Will you be teaching the customers about negotiation techniques or actually negotiating on their behalf?

Both! We oftentimes tell students what to say and how to say it behind the scenes, but they will always do the actual communication themselves.

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#13

Post by sharemywin »

kevintxwu wrote: post #6
geofftrojans wrote: post #2

Love the idea and I definitely see the problem and need. If you are able to answer, I have a few questions: 1) You say that you will track every data point to hold yourselves accountable. What metrics do you intend on tracking to prove the value of your service to potential customers? 2) Do you screen the customers prior to accepting them into your program? If so, what kind of characteristics are you looking for in a…

1) Some of the metrics we are currently already tracking: Response and follow up rates from cold emails Response and follow up rates from referrals to hiring partners Technical interview score over time (measured by internal rubrics we design to be very close to what is actually used at companies) Success rate per interview over time (hard to see trends for an individual, but kind of starting to see trends for a batc…

I know working as a consultant(salaried full-time for 5 years) helped me get experience to get another job. Seems like a temp agency for only college students would be interesting for companies to bite on. So, they can minimize legal risk from hiring(and firing quickly)

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#14

Post by kevintxwu »

marclave wrote: post #4

Cool idea, my university has a stellar co-op program for Engineering and Computer Science students, and other universities in Canada do as well (Waterloo, UBC, etc.) and I am curious as to what differs you from universities that have these co-op programs because co-op is mandatory at UVic and Waterloo and has helped fund my way alongside many other engineering students ways through their degree. Also 7% of first year…

To make sure I answer your question well...I'm not quite sure I understand this sentence, could you clarify for me?

considering co-op costs are around 8k at my university (don't know about others off the top of my head). Which are covered pretty easily with mandatory 16 months of work experience.

Do you mean a co-op costs you 8k or that you are paid 8k, and is the 16 months of work experience referring to the co-ops or to the full-time job search afterward?

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#15

Post by _m8fo »

kevintxwu wrote: post #10
_m8fo wrote: post #5

Very cool! Some questions: 1. How do you know the student's income? 2. How do you know if they're hired or not? 3. What if a student is hired and then is laid off? 4. What if a student is hired and promoted within the first year? Do they give you 7% of the income per their original job or 7% of total income received?

1. In the contract, students agree to something called a Tax Information Authorization ( https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8821-tax-informati... ) to allow us to view their tax information to verify payments if necessary. This is fairly standard practice for income share agreements. 2. Same answer as question 1. Also, just to add to this, most students are pretty honest since we're likely to be friends at the…

1. In the contract, students agree to something called a Tax Information Authorization (https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8821-tax-informati...) to allow us to view their tax information to verify payments if necessary. This is fairly standard practice for income share agreements.

2. Same answer as question 1. Also, just to add to this, most students are pretty honest since we're likely to be friends at the end of the program anyways.

3. They normally pay through a share of their monthly income. If they are laid off, and therefore don't make any income that month, they don't pay us anything. However, the payment is then deferred until they can pay again, for a maximum of 2 years, after which everything left is absolved. The goal is to never have anyone have to pay money they don't have.

4. 7% of the total income received. They still pay through a share of their monthly income.

---

Thanks for the prompt reply! I didn't know such an agreement per (1) existed. In the unlikely event a student refused to pay you, how would you collect? Sue them?

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#16

Post by wohlergehen »

robocat wrote: post #11

> because we have aligned incentives [with our students] - we only make money if they do. If you sign up all students and do nothing further, you still get your 7%. That is not aligned. To align incentives you would have to align the students payments with how much you improved their outcomes - much harder to do of course. I think your model has the same risks as real estate commissions where the selling agent is hig…

Agreed, a "progressive" pricing based on salary would be a good way to address this, e.g. >50k -> 1%, >80k -> 3%, >100k -> 5%, >120k -> 7%.

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#17

Post by marclave »

kevintxwu wrote: post #14
marclave wrote: post #4

Cool idea, my university has a stellar co-op program for Engineering and Computer Science students, and other universities in Canada do as well (Waterloo, UBC, etc.) and I am curious as to what differs you from universities that have these co-op programs because co-op is mandatory at UVic and Waterloo and has helped fund my way alongside many other engineering students ways through their degree. Also 7% of first year…

To make sure I answer your question well...I'm not quite sure I understand this sentence, could you clarify for me? considering co-op costs are around 8k at my university (don't know about others off the top of my head). Which are covered pretty easily with mandatory 16 months of work experience. Do you mean a co-op costs you 8k or that you are paid 8k, and is the 16 months of work experience referring to the co-ops…

Apologies; just checked my account summary and I was way off. It is not 8k it is $2,592.

Apologies for the unclear sentence, the engineering degree is 5 years, during which there is 16 months of mandatory work experience. The $2,592 is paid in increments across the 5 year degree. Which is in $324 payments each semester of work until the total of $2,592 is paid.

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#18

Post by kevintxwu »

robocat wrote: post #11

> because we have aligned incentives [with our students] - we only make money if they do. If you sign up all students and do nothing further, you still get your 7%. That is not aligned. To align incentives you would have to align the students payments with how much you improved their outcomes - much harder to do of course. I think your model has the same risks as real estate commissions where the selling agent is hig…

I think that you have some good points here that we've actually debated internally quite a bit. First, I would say the program is designed so that we commit a specific amount of time and resources per student, so we're motivated to work on their behalf to recover that investment that we make for free.

As for the risk of trying to sell quickly rather than looking for quality, I think the most effective way we can tackle it is by also measuring the student's satisfaction with their final offer.

One of the most important things to protect a student here as well is they don't have to accept any offer they're not happy with. They can reject an offer to look for more and we don't have any say to stop them.

Whenever we do run into a situation like this where our advice may be affected by a conflict of interest, we also do our best to inform the student first. Something like, "Pathrise will make money if you accept this offer, so please take what I say with a grain of salt, but..." and then we'll just have an honest conversation about what they're looking for and if the offer is a fit.

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#19

Post by CameronBanga »

kevintxwu wrote: post #10
_m8fo wrote: post #5

Very cool! Some questions: 1. How do you know the student's income? 2. How do you know if they're hired or not? 3. What if a student is hired and then is laid off? 4. What if a student is hired and promoted within the first year? Do they give you 7% of the income per their original job or 7% of total income received?

1. In the contract, students agree to something called a Tax Information Authorization ( https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8821-tax-informati... ) to allow us to view their tax information to verify payments if necessary. This is fairly standard practice for income share agreements. 2. Same answer as question 1. Also, just to add to this, most students are pretty honest since we're likely to be friends at the…

For #4, are you taking 7% of the students total income, or total income received from the job you got them hired to?

Re: Launch HN: Pathrise (YC W18) – Career accelerator for students, free until hired

#20

Post by kevintxwu »

_m8fo wrote: post #15
kevintxwu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. In the contract, students agree to something called a Tax Information Authorization ( https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8821-tax-informati... ) to allow us to view their tax information to verify payments if necessary. This is fairly standard practice for income share agreements. 2. Same answer as question 1. Also, just to add to this, most students are pretty honest since we're likely to be friends at the…

1. In the contract, students agree to something called a Tax Information Authorization ( https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8821-tax-informati... ) to allow us to view their tax information to verify payments if necessary. This is fairly standard practice for income share agreements. 2. Same answer as question 1. Also, just to add to this, most students are pretty honest since we're likely to be friends at the…

Though an income share agreement is not a loan. It will still affect a student's credit adversely if they default on it.

We're actually transferring the management of the income share agreements to a third party company that's built a software platform for this that directly uses ACH.

So with that combination, hopefully we never have to sue anybody ever about anything! Seems like a terrible experience.

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