Join the Flock: Why I invested in Flockjay
There are 3 fundamental and seemingly disconnected ideas I firmly believe ring true about the world today: (1) technology is the future, (2) education is broken and (3) sales is the growth engine that changes the world.
I. Technology is the future: The makeup of the Fortune 500 has been historically notorious for its longevity and consistency. In 1966, the average tenure for a company in this famed group was about ~35 years. That expectation promises to drop by two-fold over the next decade down to ~15 years, leading to mass fallout from the existing cohort and new entry from emerging companies.
So which types of companies are going to be in this club? Historically the fold was composed of energy conglomerates, financial services firms and big box retailers, but all of these players have seen their market caps dwarfed by large tech in recent years. In 2016, for the first time ever, the 5 largest companies by market cap were all from the tech industry: Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. It’s becoming clearer now more than ever that the future is going to belong to technology companies.
II. Education is broken: Since the late 90s, the cost of a college education has risen by 4x the pace of inflation. A sobering 44.7 million Americans have student loan debt and the estimated total of all student loan debt is a staggering $1.47 trillion — more than credit cards and auto loans.
College education has its roots in providing a pathway to a better life. The G.I. bill was designed to help veterans further their education; the National Defense Education Act of 1958 provided financial assistance to students pursuing studies that could benefit national interest and the Higher Education Act of 1965 provided federal support to poor and working class students.
Over the last 20 years college has turned into an expensive, inefficient and often outdated credentialing system. College has quickly turned from a boon to a burden.
III. Sales is the growth engine that changes the world: As many startups discover — often to their surprise — a great product is a necessary, but not sufficient criterion for success. Strong sales and marketing is critical to capturing market share. Without a concerted sales and marketing effort, the best products turn irrelevant and impact is left to be desired.
Today over 14 million Americans work in sales according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of this base, only 330,000 sell in technical fields — 2% of the total sales labor force represents close to $25 billion in wages.
This base is growing at breakneck speed. If you look at the S-1 of any storied enterprise startup, Sales and Marketing is the largest line item on the income statement. This is not by accident. Sales is the growth engine that changes the world — a strong sales team allows you to bring a vision to reality.
What happens when you put these 3 seemingly disparate ideas together? Many successful professionals in the workforce of tomorrow will find themselves in sales, working at technology companies and will be trained through an education model that makes sense.
This is why I’m so excited to announce my investment in Flockjay along with co-investors Y-Combinator, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, Index, Serena Ventures (Serena Williams), Dreamers VC (Will Smith & family), John Thompson (Chairman of Microsoft), F7, SV Angel, Paul Buccheit, Tom Willerer (Netflix, Coursera) and Liat Bycel (Airtable).
Flockjay is an online academy that trains jobseekers from non-traditional and underrepresented backgrounds for future-proof jobs in tech sales and significantly increases their income in 12 weeks. The program is remote, so it’s inclusive by definition — it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what you do or how old you are. Flockjay students come from rural Arkansas to the East Side of Detroit. Flockjay provides a solution for the incredibly challenging problem even the best companies face today — hiring and retaining top sales talent with necessary digital fluency.
When Shaan and I met, one of the first things he mentioned to me was that he called 250+ colleges in the U.S. and not a single one had a course on Salesforce. There’s no single credential or certification today that tells companies what makes a good tech salesperson. He continued:
Simply put: no one teaches sales, no one knows how to hire for it, and there’s no correlation between where you went to school (or if you went at all) and how well you’ll do. Over 50% of roles in top tech companies are “non-technical,” and sales reps are often among the highest-paid employees in tech. You don’t have to learn code to build a future-proof career in tech. You don’t even need a college degree.
This statement was powerful. And it’s not in the least bit academic. Today, Flockjay has already graduated three batches of students since going live in March earlier this year. 80% of Flockjay SDRs/BDRs are performing in the top quartile at their new employer, ramping 6 weeks faster than their peers on average. Most importantly, graduates have seen a 2.5x average salary increase since starting Flockjay! Because a Flockjay education can be financed via an income share agreement, the incentives of the school and the student are highly aligned — Flockjay is a blueprint for College 2.0.
Today talent is widespread, but opportunity is not. Upward mobility should be for everyone. Flockjay is playing its part in changing that. I’m incredibly excited to be a (very small) part of the Flockjay journey. Here’s to a better future. Onwards!
Read more on Flockjay’s funding at Fast Company and listen to my interview with Shaan on Square One: Conversations with the Best in Business
Join Flockjay’s next class and hire from Flockjay at https://flockjay.com
Read more Flockjay student stories at https://medium.com/flockjay.
Follow @FlockjaySchool.
