Matt Strauss, CEO of RiseKit, left the venture capital world to pursue his passion for solving social problems. Matt discovered this passion from volunteering when he was asked to mentor a handful of young people. While trying to connect his mentees to jobs and resources, Matt ultimately met with over 1,000 public and private sector leaders across his favorite city, Chicago. He hit a moment of volunteer and activism fatigue when he realized he couldn't mentor more Chicagoans. That's when he went on to create RiseKit.

RiseKit’s platform connects overlooked job seekers with the community support, training programs, and employers they need to rise to better employment opportunities.

Podcast Summary: 

In this episode, Matt Strauss shares his journey on how RiseKit provides solutions to employers, nonprofits and community-based organizations to connect overlooked jobseekers to individualized job training, employment opportunities, and resources.

Key Takeaways in this Episode:

• Challenges faced in the government and non-profit sector
• How to sell to non-profit organizations and identifying their pain points
• Why passion for social changes is necessary in the funding part

Discovering His True Passion

Working as a venture capitalist 5 years ago was when Matt had the opportunity to mentor job seekers and entrepreneurs in Chicago. This constant interaction not only allowed him to understand their needs as challenges, but also discovered his true passion, which was helping people by combining VC and technology. 

How RiseKit Provides an Even Ground for Job Seekers

Matt found out that  under-resourced job seekers rely a lot on non-profit organizations. Oftentimes, staff members of these organizations use outdated technology to equip their job seekers. Employers, on the other hand, need to integrate a tracking system to automate the feedback loop of what happens in the application. Those steps take the employer front line recruiter 2-4 hours per non-profit partner to report that back. Having all that in one place as well as having access to real time data allows recruiters to simplify the process. 

How to Sell to Non-profit Organizations

Matt admits it is a tough market. However, there is a high level of loyalty once an organization becomes your customer. What worked for Matt was to create a free-to-pay model where they can have the first tier for free, an upgraded version, and the highest tier that is a version where they can customize everything based on their daily needs. This selling format has been way more effective than trying to sell to every single non-profit organization.

Challenges in Government and Non-Profit Organizations

Governments have legacy systems in place and therefore, there is a lot of education and mindset perspective shifting. For non-profit organizations, the CEOs tend to lose perspective of what happens in the front line: Trying to find more employer partners, trying to track job applications, and communicating with job seekers. Most of the time they become customers if a solution is provided for the first two pain points but still requires a particular approach. 

Passion and Relationships

Because of the type of solution RiseKit offers, any venture capitalist included in the first raise must have the same level of passion and desire to make this social impact. Matt admits that networking and relations were the main difference makers for the first funding obtained. If you are going to target this market, making a change in society must go first before profit-making. 

Connect with Matt:

Matt Strauss on LinkedIn

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