About Long Term Impact

Who are we?

In 2011, Daniel Jhin Yoo and Justin Su founded Goalbook: an EdTech company with a mission to empower educators to transform instruction so that ALL students succeed. Over the past decade, with less than $1M in outside investment, Goalbook has steadily grown into a team of 80 employees that serves over 700 public school districts across the US. 

Daniel and Justin are excited work with Jason Young in launching Long Term Impact. Jason is a serial entrepreneur who has spent the majority of his career in the EdTech space. Like most entrepreneurs, he is passionate about creating products and solutions that aid people in achieving their full potential. He also enjoys helping other founders to scale their businesses in order to attain greater success.

 

Why now?

The PreK-12 EdTech funding landscape has changed considerably since Goalbook’s inception in 2011. With the investor community shifting toward later-stage, high-growth companies that tackle large markets and opportunities, many other potentially impactful products and services lack the support necessary to yield long-term growth. 

We are especially concerned that the current funding paradigm may not be viable for EdTech companies and founders that fall into the following categories, as Goalbook did:

  • Early-stage

  • Slow to moderate growth 

  • Large impact; small market 

  • Revenue through school and district sales

  • Under-represented founders, including people of color, women, and LGBTQIA+ identities.

  • Founders committed to contributing to a more equitable public k-12 education system

 

How are we different?

Our true north is impact. We are willing to earn a smaller financial return on investment if it helps you achieve sustainable, long-term impact – see our investment terms here. The outcome most important to us is the difference you’re able to accomplish within the US public school system. 

  1. We can be fully supportive of founders, their aspirations, and priorities. This is because we are under no outside pressure to gain a financial return on investment, as we have no Limited Partners (i.e. external investors).

  2. We believe that high growth does not necessarily equate to high impact. We would be excited and honored to support a company that never grows to be a unicorn, but is an exemplary organization that the public school system can depend on as a long-term partner.

  3. We believe founders should prioritize financial stability, rather than focus on all-out growth. In service of these efforts, we use a revenue-based financing model. This means that we invest in a modest amount of equity, while over time our portfolio companies pay back the investment using a small percentage of their revenue.   

  4. We are entrepreneurs to and are here to help. We will leverage the expertise of Goalbook’s staff and the wider EdTech community to provide targeted coaching as needed.

  5. We will always communicate transparently. We know how hard fundraising can be. We value you and your vision and will not waste your time.

 

What drives us?

We recognize that there is an abundance of both challenges and opportunities within the education system and that Goalbook cannot tackle them all. Therefore, Long Term Impact is an avenue for Goalbook to help support a wider breadth of instructional impact beyond what it can accomplish alone. Long Term Impact will enable us to reinvest in our education system by supporting entrepreneurs who value equity, instructional impact, and strive to balance impact with financial outcomes.

We also hope that Long Term Impact contributes to a new paradigm for EdTech funding. We do not want to be the only ones taking this approach and would love to see more EdTech funders implement similar concepts.