Why Snoop Dogg Loves This Startup Using Rap To Teach Kids

Now that Besty DeVos is Secretary of Education, Americans are rushing to help schools—something 37-year-old Alex Rappaport knows how to do. His startup, Flocabulary, creates informative rap songs that teach everything from algebra to Shakespeare to personal finance. Oh yeah, and Snoop Dogg digs it.

“There are two problems facing education,” Rappaport explains. “One, that learning can be boring—even for the most successful students. And two, that only a fraction of our country can afford the necessary tools to keep kids engaged.”

Case and point: SAT prep. Hired tutors and Princeton Review books work wonders keeping kids on track, but are only available to students who can afford them.

“We wanted an accessible way of keeping kids engaged—one that understood why we remember every word to random rap songs from high school when we instantly forget the definition of obsequious.”

Using music to educate is hardly a new idea—Schoolhouse Rock has seared “I’m Just A Bill” onto the collective American hippocampus since 1973. Flocabulary simply took it one step further, updating the imagery and beats to engage with modern students of all ages. Check out one of their more than 800 songs below, created in honor of Black History Month:

Using rap to teach kids

You graduated from Tufts University in 2002. What did you study?
“I studied music but, like so many people, wasn’t sure what to do with it. I’d made this pledge, however, that I would always find a way of staying professionally involved in the music industry—something I must have interpreted liberally, because one of my first jobs was writing crappy 8-bit ringtones before you could download actual songs.”

And how did that, er… stimulating experience lead to Flocabulary?
“I lived in San Francisco after college, working random jobs and writing music. And there was this guy, Blake [Harrison], who was waiting tables at the same restaurant as me while writing a novel. We liked to play pick up basketball before our shifts and, one day on the court, Blake mentioned this idea he’d had back in high school about learning SAT words through rap songs. We ran home that very day and recorded the first Flocabulary demo, which used and defined vocab.”

It started on a basketball court.

“We ran home that very day and recorded the first Flocabulary demo.”

alex-rappaport-flocabulary-disruption-mag

“Blake [at left] mentioned this idea he’d had back in high school about learning SAT words through rap songs.”

You were only 24. Did you have any sort of entrepreneurial background?
“Honestly, we knew nothing about business. But Blake and I were both creatives, and creatives know how to get ‘impossible’ pursuits off the ground… [we had] the blind motivation of artists. We also had good instincts. As an example: Before diving in and making hundreds of songs, we wrote one song and spent ages getting feedback—from former teachers, high school students, anyone. I remember playing it for my sister on her Discman… burning it onto a cd for my car.”

And what did that teach you?
“That feedback is paramount. I think there’s a fear amongst entrepreneurs that everyone wants to steal your idea. And, yeah, maybe that’s true if you’re sitting in a Silicon Valley incubator. But I say: Tell everyone your idea. It’s the only way to know how people react before wasting your time and money—or, worse, other people’s time and money—on a project that may or may not be worth anything.”

But... why you?

“There’s a fear amongst entrepreneurs that everyone wants to steal your idea.”

“Before diving in and making hundreds of songs, we wrote one song and spent ages getting feedback.”

Flocabulary posted $8.75M in revenue last year. How did you get there?
“I mean, we’re not a new company; we’re 13-years-old… And we owe much of that success to our decision to bootstrap—not to run to some VC firm and say, ‘Hey, we make educational rap songs. Invest in us.’ Not taking money early on gave us the flexibility we needed to grow from a company that made songs about SAT vocab into a company that makes songs about anything—even financial literacy and bullying. It enabled us to pivot.”

Pivot how?
“When we founded the company, Blake and I would go on these hilarious tours to perform our SAT songs to gyms full of 11th graders. And we realized that in limiting ourselves to older students, we were limiting ourselves to those who had likely already made a decision about college. Which isn’t to say they don’t deserve our help, but we felt Flocabulary could be most disruptive if it created curriculum for more ages and topics.”

Becoming profitable.

“Flocabulary could be most disruptive if it created curriculum for more ages and topics.”

“In limiting ourselves to older students, we were limiting ourselves to those who had likely already made a decision about college.”

So, who should be buying your product?
“We consider the schools our customers; that way it doesn’t fall on a student’s family to pay for the additional curriculum. And, yes, these are often low-income schools looking to keep students engaged. But too often low-income gets confused with urban, and I want to be clear that we have customers all over rural America, too.”

Anyone who works in education knows public schools are difficult customers.
“A lot of investors stay away from the K-12 market. Why? For one, education is one of the few spaces where the decision-maker, the school, is different from the end user, the student. There’s also a ton of bureaucracy, not to mention an incredibly long lead time on sales—we’re talking 18 months for larger districts. It’s just a different world from the rest of technology, and that deters people.”

Sounds tough.
“To be a successful startup, you’ve got to meet your market where it is. So, even if we think our sales process should be as seamless and elegant as any Silicon Valley startup, we have to use fax machines—because that’s how American schools send purchase orders. We felt the need to connect with these kids was more important than any of the other stuff; we’d jump through any hoops to reach them.”

For more info on Flocabulary, you can can email them at info@flocabulary.com. You can also fax them at 646.614.5853.

13 Years Later.

“To be a successful startup, you’ve got to meet your market where it is.”

Industry

Education

Written By

Emily Siegel

Written On

02.14.2017

Leah Gilliam

VP, Girls Who Code

Education

Logan Cohen

Cofounder, Küdzoo

Food

Michael Chernow

Host of FYI’s “Food Porn," Founder of Seamore's

Alex Rappaport