Frenalytics | 2022 Q4 Progress Report
Happy 2023! As we gear up for an exciting new year ahead, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on 2022 at Frenalytics and around the world.
In yet another turbulent year at home and afar, Team Frenalytics has been steadfast in our efforts to grow our personalized learning software for people of all abilities, particularly our patients & students with cognitive deficits.
Curious what we’ve been up to these past few months? You’re in just the right place! 🎉
First, the highlights:
- 📈 In Q4, we more than 2x signups of our all-new Frenalytics Free plan — over 300 early education and special education teachers have enrolled in our free version of FrenalyticsEDU!
- 😍 I was awarded the 2022 Momentum Award by Boston College’s The Heights for my work with Frenalytics!
- 👥 We announced partnerships & collaborations with Molloy University, Global Childhood Academy and Vonic!
- 🖥 We released the first phase of our platform redesign alongside Frenalytics Free, with many more upgrades on the way.
AI-Based Whiteboard Integration, New Common Core Math Module, and More — Oh My!
In December, we announced an exciting partnership with AI-powered EdTech company Vonic!
But perhaps even more exciting is the simultaneous announcement of an all-new comprehensive math module with Common Core-aligned lessons across grades K-8 — coming soon to FrenalyticsEDU, thanks to Vonic’s whiteboard that can grade written work in real-time.
In the coming months, teachers will be able to assign 100+ Common Core-aligned math sections powered by Vonic right within FrenalyticsEDU, and after students answer questions, their progress data — including accuracy, score, and frequency statistics — will automatically appear on the Session Dashboard, just like every other section in our platform. A win-win-win!
FrenalyticsEDU Begins Expanding Internationally with GCA Partnership
Knock knock! Kuna nani hapo?
It’s FrenalyticsEDU — now available to over 15,000 educators on the Global Childhood Academy (GCA) platform across the Middle East, Africa, India, and other emerging regions worldwide, thanks to a new partnership with GCA announced in December.
Through this partnership, our international expansion will soon be accompanied by our Learning Session content being made available in Arabic, Hindi, and a multitude of other languages. In 2023 Q1, a planned integration with Microsoft Azure’s AI-powered Translator service will help us make FrenalyticsEDU content accessible to students in more than 100 languages worldwide!
More Fresh Paint — and a New Navigation Bar
In Q2 + Q3, we began the first wave of our UI overhaul for the Frenalytics system, which included our Login, Activate Account, Forgot Password, and Reset Password pages. In Q4, we’ve completed all-new versions of our Patient/Student Search Screen, Staff Search, Create New Patient/Student, Create New Staff, and Edit Staff Account screens, which are currently being tested and will be introduced in early 2023!
Above is a then-and-now comparison of our Edit Staff Account screen. Simplicity wins in our new designs; not only have we also introduced a brand new side navigation bar with easy-to-understand menu options, but we also greatly reduced the number of fields to those truly necessary, made our action buttons more clear, and simplified the flow of editing staff member and family member accounts down to a lightweight drawer that “pops out” from the side.
💡 Coming soon: An upgraded look and feel on our Patient/Student Profile screen, UI improvements to the Learning Session Dashboard, and more!
New and Promoted Team Members
Similar to Q2 + Q3 team promotions, Q4 was another celebratory quarter for our team — please help us welcome and congratulate:
- Robin Silas, BSA, MSA: Robin is a 25+ year healthcare executive based in Michigan, joining us as a Healthcare Sales Consultant to help grow our FrenalyticsMED offering to clinicians at nursing homes and homecare agencies, as well as family members of the patients with cognitive diagnoses that these facilities provide services to.
- Ahmer Shafeeq, MS (CTFL): Ahmer’s been on our team leading software testing efforts since August 2020, and in Q4, he was promoted to Lead QA Engineer!
Fall Intern Program
In Q4, we kicked off our third annual Fall Intern Program — meet the 3 new students and two returning interns who joined us for virtual meetings and in-person events!
- Erin: Now a junior at Boston College (BC), Erin continued on from our summer program and has been writing additional research- and interview-based based blogs on our blog, including a Teacher Feature series with AT Specialist Jen Gemski at the Boston College Campus School. Erin also did a deep dive into the EdTech industry to improve the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of our FrenalyticsEDU product.
- Nick: A sophomore at BC studying computer science, Nick went head-first into tutorials & documentation for frontend software development. Along with our engineering and product teams’ help, Nick learned the fundamentals of Vue.js, agile methodology, and UX usability testing.
- Hailey: A freshman at New York University (NYU), Hailey researched, wrote, and published several blogs in our special needs niche, such as how important of a role technology plays in special education classrooms. Alongside our research team, Hailey also researched and created valuable new life skills sections for our FrenalyticsEDU product.
- Halli: A recent graduate from Albany State University, Halli prepared and conducted user interview sessions with the goal of identifying pain-points and finding solutions that improve the Frenalytics user experience. Through this, she grew her storytelling, organization, and data skills to turn these insights into a compelling and beautifully-designed board for our product team to analyze and act upon.
- Ava: Now a high school junior from New York, Ava returns from our Spring + Summer 2022 programs to leverage her unique skillset and background as a student with an IEP to interview our team members for an upcoming blog series, research EdTech tools for special ed, and provide feedback to improve our FrenalyticsEDU offering for fellow students.
FrenalyticsEDU Goes Back to School — This Time, for Professional Development
In Q4, we announced a series of Professional Development sessions in partnership with Molloy University on Long Island, NY!
This first session, held in November 2022, was sanctioned by Molloy’s Graduate Education Department in the School of Education and Human Services and moderated by Dr. Audra Cerruto, Director of Graduate Education Programs at Molloy University.
After this first session’s success, in 2023 Q1 and beyond, we’ll be announcing additional PD courses for Frenalytics at Molloy and beyond, including in their graduate program’s popular class titled Instructional Applications of the Internet — Integrating Digital Age Tools into Instruction, Classroom Management, Communication, and Collaboration.
(If you’re affiliated with a university and are interested in introducing FrenalyticsEDU to your graduate education students, get in touch!)
Frenalytics in the News 📰
In November, I was awarded the 2022 Momentum Award by Boston College’s The Heights for my work with Frenalytics!
Each year, the student-run newspaper recognizes Boston College students, alumni, and other community members who showed dedication to BC through “their unwavering drive to innovate and inspire”. I’m beyond humbled to have been chosen for this award — thank you, BC!
Looking Ahead ⏩
- 🦅 In February, I am heading to Boston for Boston College’s annual Tech & Entrepreneurship Fair to recruit for our renowned Summer Intern Program and for MassChallenge’s RESOLVE 2023 Awards event. If you or someone you know is interested in joining our intern team, learn more and apply here!
- On February 10, Assistive Technology Professional Jen Gemski at the Boston College Campus School is hosting an Assistive Technology 101 Lunch & Learn for our team! We’re excited to learn all about physical and digital assistive technologies available to people with disabilities, including switches, wheelchairs, touchscreen monitors, eye gaze software, and more.
- 💸 We’re about to begin our seed fundraising round — reach out if you’re interested in participating as an angel or VC investor (or know someone who may be)!
- 📝 Frenalytics was selected to submit a Phase II proposal for the prestigious 2022 Learning Engineering Tools Competition, with over $3M awarded in non-dilutive grant funding to winners. Proposals are due by end of February and finalists are selected in mid-April. Wish us luck!
2022 Goals Check
In my 2021 Q4 Progress Report, I wrote about some goals for the year ahead, and at the end of each quarter, I’ve been sharing some updates on each of these goals. Here’s the final outcome of our major goals:
IEP&Me Partnership:
- 😄 We learned a TON from building IEP&Me’s initial Parent Portal, which helped us with our design overhaul throughout 2022 and will help even more with behind-the-scenes upgrades in 2023.
- 🤫 Though the IEP&Me team went a different direction with launching the Parent Portal, we have exciting news to share in early 2023 relating to integrating our platforms — lips are sealed until then!
Sales & Marketing:
- 💯 We met our main sales & marketing goals for 2022, including launching Frenalytics Free and teacher-friendly pricing; deepening our partnerships with Molloy University and the Boston College Campus School; and automating our signup and onboarding processes.
- 😁 We achieved additional sales & marketing goals for 2022, including partnerships with neurodiversity non-profit Backyard Players, AI-powered whiteboard software Vonic, and digital education resource hub Global Childhood Academy.
- 😁 We resumed our Teacher Feature series, published nearly a dozen blogs, and shared 17 press releases this year — twice as many as in 2021!
- 😐 We made a growth marketing hire earlier in the year to support the growth of Frenalytics Free that did not work out. Though this set us back quite a bit, we’ve since realigned our priorities towards school-level contracts and will return to growing Frenalytics Free in Q2 & Q3 ahead of the 2023–24 school year!
Growth:
- 😁 We hired two software engineers, Robert and Michael, who have been instrumental additions to the team!
- 😅 We’ve started standardizing hiring & onboarding document and defining our core values, but we’re not 100% there yet. We’re close!
- 🤓 We increased our reach on Facebook by over 40%, grew visits to our LinkedIn page by over 1200%, and launched our Instagram and TikTok channels!
- 😄 With our GCA partnership, we’re set to expand FrenalyticsEDU internationally this year with localization support for 100+ languages!
Team Collaboration:
- 😁 We went full speed ahead with adopting Notion, Figma, and Miro into our stack. We’ll soon be switching from Jira to Linear as well!
- 😁 We held 3 “Frenalytics Presents” crash-course sessions (2 were Lunch & Learns) in 2022, and we already have a Lunch & Learn hosted by our friends at the Boston College Campus School slated for early February!
- 😕 We didn’t make as much progress as we had hoped with mentoring and intern collaboration opportunities, but these remain a priority for 2023.
Funding:
- 🤩 We closed our pre-seed round in March, raising even more than our target and securing a spot in Forum Ventures’ accelerator!
- 😁 We also shared our acceptance into MassChallenge’s prestigious Early Stage accelerator in July, a zero-cost & zero-equity program with global access to mentors, partners, investors, and resources.
- 😁 We recorded revenues in 2022 from both recurring subscriptions to Frenalytics and from partnerships. We also laid the groundwork for huge revenue-generating opportunities in 2023!
New Features:
- 😁 We launched a lot this year — both big and small — including Frenalytics Free, a UI overhaul, a new Settings module to customize Frenalytics even further, and new onboarding, to name a few.
- 😐 Some initiatives, like our cross-platform Frenalytics Mobile app, third-party media integrations, and integrations with IoT devices, have been deprioritized— but, we expect to make headway on them in 2023.
User Engagement and Feedback:
- 😁 We learned a ton this past year from clinicians and educators to improve our FrenalyticsMED and FrenalyticsEDU offerings. From 100+ meetings with school superintendents and special ed teachers to speech-language pathologists and homecare agency executives, we now have a much clearer vision for growing our MED and EDU product lines.
- 😁 Our investors with industry expertise and deep knowledge of our niche have been incredibly helpful in shaping and growing Frenalytics as both a product and a company — we’re so grateful for them.
2023 Goals
During our final Team Lunch of the year, we celebrated our 2022 accomplishments and began discussing our goals for the year ahead.
Our “north star”? To help people across a spectrum of disabilities, diagnoses, and challenges lead more independent & meaningful lives through revolutionary software. And in 2023, we’ll inch closer to this by broadening the appeal of FrenalyticsEDU to more teachers — with investments in content, analytics, speed, integrations, and more.
Stay tuned for our Q1 Progress Report for specifics on our 2023 goals and progress along the way! 📈
Thanks for reading! Cheers to a prosperous year ahead— may this year of the rabbit bring you longevity and good fortune.
Questions? Comments? Just want to chat? 📨 matt@thinkgroupholdings.com
