Apptegy: From Spare-Bedroom Startup to the Fastest Growing Ed-Tech Company in the US

Situation

As an uncle, Jeston George (Apptegy’s founder) wanted to know when his nephew’s school programs were and discovered that local schools lacked a centralized tool for sharing information with students’ families. 

The Challenge

Apptegy was bootstrapped in its early days and funds to run the business often came out of Jeston’s pocket. As Apptegy pursued its first round of funding in 2015, George knew he had to move from freelancing out of his house and into building a business. Enterprise sales can be tough, and in an environment where six  month sales cycles are the norm, the team that Jeston built was able to trim that process and grow their clientele. Once their initial funding was secure, George pushed even harder and scaled the company rapidly. That swift expansion has continued from a handful of school districts to nearly 3,000 today. 

Solution

In response, Apptegy built Thrillshare, a communication platform built for school leaders. Thrillshare allows K-12 administrators to enter news, stories, and media to a single platform, which then distributes the content to linked tools like social media accounts, SMS, voice calls, and websites.

Results

Apptegy has grown from an education-technology startup with no investors, to a company that works with school districts in all 50 states and international locations. The foundation of Apptegy’s continued success is its unique workplace culture of high performance and thoughtfulness. That approach has gained recognition as Apptegy was named one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes in 2020 and 2021. Apptegy was also awarded a spot on Inc. 5000’s list of the fastest growing private companies in 2021.