Real-Life Superheroes
Open Road — Week 4 by Team MACK
Real-life Superhero.
This is the image that comes to mind when I think of the entrepreneurs with whom we have worked during the past four weeks. These entrepreneurs have the superhuman superpowers of seeing into the future, inviting others into their vision, persisting in spite of adversity, and making the world a brighter place simply by being in it.
Tina McCord— founder and CEO of ZUNI Learning Tree — is one of these real-life superheroes.
As a teacher, school administrator, and parent, Tina saw the need for an easy-to-use online platform that provides educational resources for students. After realizing no such platform existed, she created one. This was the genesis of ZUNI Learning Tree.
Six-years later, ZUNI is strategically positioned for exponential growth in the ed-tech sector. Having applied for an Open Road team each of the previous four years, Tina said that the arrival of our team this year could not have been timelier: On the Wednesday during the week of our visit, she would be pitching to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC) for nearly $500K in venture capital and tax credits. This influx of cash could prove to be the catalyst for building ZUNI’s core leadership team and securing broader market-share.
The AEDC emphasizes job creation and local economic impact, so our team focused on outlining ZUNI’s job growth strategy, tidying the financials underlying the pro forma, and generating a sales funnel model substantiating our revenue projections, all of which would be included in Wednesday’s pitch. On Tuesday we guided Tina through the updates while incorporating her feedback — then it was showtime.
Tina had pitched to the AEDC two years earlier, so she already knew several members on the panel.
It was inspiring to see her in action, fluidly moving among the intersecting industries of education, technology, and business, while articulately responding to questions. She was a superhero in flight, wearing one of her many capes.
After the presentation, we visited the office of Apptegy, another local Arkansas ed-tech start-up and a vision of ZUNI in just a few years. We then wrapped up the week on Thursday and Friday by updating ZUNI’s business plan for pursuing social venture capital, creating an onboarding process for ZUNI’s summer content curators, and providing Tina with comprehensive executive feedback (which she had requested upon our arrival, showing that even superheroes can develop).
Fridays have become a bitter-sweet parting-of-ways. After only five days, we become much more than work colleagues with our entrepreneurs — we become friends. Throughout the week, Tina and our team had had a summer grill-out, attended a barre fitness class, played basketball, ate fried catfish, and spent time with her son and two dogs. After sharing our deliverables with her on Friday morning, we swapped hugs and state swag — Michigan mugs for Arkansas t-shirts — before hitting the road for home.
Now at the end of our Open Road adventure, it’s hard to believe that our team set sail in the MACK Mobile just four weeks ago from Ann Arbor. It’s harder still to have imagined the many incredible people — the many real-life superheroes, such as Tina — who we would meet along the way.
