Before HierLearning, we had a great product and zero idea how to get it in front of the right people. We kept pitching CIOs and IT directors — Karim was the first person who told us, point blank, ‘You’re talking to the wrong person. You need the superintendent.’ He didn’t just tell us that — he got us in the room. Within four months of joining the program, we were co-designing a pilot with a district that actually cared about reading outcomes, not just platform specs. That pilot became our first case study, and it changed everything.

Sarah Mikhail Co-Founder & CEO

Most accelerators we talked to wanted to help us ‘scale.’ HierLearning wanted to know if our product actually worked. That was jarring at first — we’d raised a seed round and had plenty of people telling us we were onto something. But HierLearning asked us to draw a straight line from our product to a measurable student outcome, and we couldn’t do it cleanly. They helped us redesign our entire assessment loop so we could show a real pre/post delta. That one shift made us fundable, sellable, and — honestly — a better company.

David Francis Founder

We almost didn’t apply because we thought HierLearning was only for AI companies. We’re a speech-language platform — not exactly the flavor of the month. But HierLearning’s filter isn’t ‘Is it AI?’ — it’s ‘Does it move the needle?’ We could prove gains in oral language fluency within 12 weeks, and that was enough. They connected us with three districts in the Northeast who were desperate for exactly what we’d built. No other accelerator even returned our email.

Matthew Legendre Co-Founder

I’ve been in EdTech for eight years and I’ve never met anyone who understands both sides of the table the way Karim does. He’s been in the trenches, he. He’s not guessing what teachers need — he knows. And when he introduces you to a superintendent, you’re not cold-calling. You’re walking into a conversation where the trust already exists. HierLearning solved the trust problem for us.

Aisha Chan Founder & CTO