LearnLaunch Accelerator alum Listenwise is an award-winning listening skills platform used by thousands of teachers and more than 250,000 students. Their collection of podcasts and public radio stories provides teachers with real-world lessons while encouraging students to advance their literacy and learning skills via exposure to complex language and topics, learning strategies, and comprehension assessments.
Listenwise recently developed a new multiple-choice listening comprehension quiz. It’s the first of its kind to track student progress with respect to different components of listening, such as understanding main ideas, inferencing, and vocabulary. The scores (which are computed automatically) indicate the specific listening strands that students, classes, or entire schools need help with and allow educators to monitor progress. Given that many states now evaluate listening skills, these assessments will be an incredible resource for districts as well.
While much of 2017 will be focused on promoting their revolutionary tool, Listenwise is also keeping busy serving their clients in hundreds of U.S. and international schools, the largest being the New Haven District librarians, who are using Listenwise Premium in their 10 high schools to advance literacy. To keep up with growing demands, the team has expanded to include two new Sales Distribution Partners, and is currently seeking a Channel Support Specialist to assist the recent hires. They continue to be backed by an amazing group of investors led by Launch Pad angel group, as well as others from Investors Circle, a social impact group.
Founder and CEO Monica Brady-Myerov believes their new listening quizzes will be a game-changer—nobody else is using a research-based approach to quickly assess the key elements of listening. But in addition to having a great product, she realizes more every day that perseverance is essential to entrepreneurship. One can never foresee all the potential obstacles to success, and her advice is to stick to your vision and never give up on a sale. Just last month she heard from one of the first people interested in buying Listenwise Premium who at that time was establishing a charter school and wasn’t able to prioritize learning tools. Now, three years later, this same customer has inquired about finding a place for the platform in her school. It just goes to show how vital listening is and that Listenwise believes in the power of a great story, their own included.