About InstaEDU
What we do
InstaEDU is leveling the academic playing field by making it possible for anyone to get one-on-one lessons from some of the world's brightest minds. We provide an online tutoring platform where students in need can instantly connect with available tutors from top universities. Our goal is to make sure that every student has access to personal academic support whenever they need it.
Who we are
InstaEDU was founded in 2011 by three entrepreneurs: Alison Johnston, Dan Johnston, and Joey Shurtleff. Alison and Dan are siblings and met Joey while all three were students at Stanford University. In spring 2012, we raised a $1.1 million seed round of funding, led by The Social+Capital Partnership. Other investors include Bobby Yazdani, Dylan Smith, Todd Bradley, John Johnston, and Nirav Tolia. We're also lucky to have two great advisors, Karen Appleton and Brian Rue.
Interested in joining us? Check out our jobs page.
Alison Johnston
Alison is the CEO and cofounder of InstaEDU. As a former marketer and community manager, she loves connecting with InstaEDU members. Previously, Alison worked for several awesome technology companies, including Box, Aardvark, Nextdoor and Google. She loves to travel and has a disturbingly large collection of hot sauces. You can follow Alison on Twitter at @ajalison.
Dan Johnston
Dan is the COO and cofounder of InstaEDU. In addition to 7 years of tutoring experience, Dan has worked in outdoor advertising, enterprise storage, and even spent a summer managing a trampoline warehouse. He's a big sports fan and especially likes the Trailblazers, Red Sox and Stanford Football. He also enjoys a day on the links, but has the highest handicap of any golf enthusiast you've met.
Sophie Ramatici
Sophie is InstaEDU's Community Manager (and was our very first employee). She works closely with our members to learn how we can make InstaEDU as helpful as possible. (Reach her at sophie@instaedu.com.) She's also a serial philanthropist, having worked with Catholic Charities, the Redwood Club, and Women's Initiative for Self Employment.
Laura Oppenheimer
Laura is in charge of getting the word out about InstaEDU. A Bay Area native, she's previously held positions at Formspring, OpenDNS and Ning. When not sitting in front of a computer, Laura likes eating at fancy restaurants and training for half marathons.
Joey Shurtleff
Joey is the CTO and cofounder of InstaEDU. He leads the charge in building awesome new features for InstaEDU. Previously, he was the CTO and cofounder of Veechi, spent time as a professional poker player, and worked as a software engineer at Citrusleaf. Joey drinks more Coke Zero than anyone you've ever met, and likes helping computer science students on InstaEDU.
Riley Watkins
Riley was InstaEDU's first engineering hire after we lured him away from rainy Portland, Oregon. He built our very first prototype and now works on features across the product. When he's not busy improving the product, Riley enjoys playing the drums.
Jay Farrimond
Jay is InstaEDU's Tech Ops guru. He makes sure the site is solid and scaling to handle each and every student who wants help. Previously Jay worked on the engineering teams at Lolapps, Rackspace and KCI. When he's not dreaming about servers, Jay enjoys riding his bicycle.
Chris Barmonde
Chris is the newest addition to our engineering team. He moved to Oakland from Las Vegas to work at Formspring before finding his way to InstaEDU. In his free time, he strums awkwardly at his acoustic guitar, starts mosh pits at punk rock shows, and yells at hockey players on TV.