Onwards & Upwards

A few years back, I had a simple idea. 

I was riding a train into Boston for another daily session of intensive speech therapy as I continued to struggle to find my voice. I traveled with an iPod touch in one hand and a tape cassette recorder in the other.

My first generation iPod touch played music and had a couple of apps on it from this new thing called the “iTunes App Store,” while my tape cassette player (and paper notebook) held all of my speech therapy practice notes and exercises. As I looked down at these two items in my hands that day in late August, it clicked for me. I realized there was a better way forward.

Six years later, the same vision drives Balbus Speech. The right therapy and education combined with the right technology makes a real difference. Since then, our apps have been purchased by thousands of students, speech therapists, parents and special educators from all around the world. We have begun to realize the impact that technology can make in communication and special education. 

And that brings us to today. We’re incredibly excited to announce our first seed round of funding, $20,000 from Rough Draft Ventures. This commitment from Rough Draft represents a unique opportunity to accelerate our growth and continue to build amazing products that will help shape the next-generation of communication and special education. We are grateful for Rough Draft’s belief in our vision and for General Catalyst’s belief in student-entrepreneurs in Boston. Together, our partnership will go far.

But for now, it’s back to work. Stay tuned, because we’re just getting started.

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PS - If you’re passionate about developing at the intersection of education and communication as well as using some awesome web/mobile technologies in the process, get in touch: jack@balbusspeech.com

PPS - If you’re a student-entrepreneur at one of Boston’s many fine universities, consider working with Rough Draft Ventures to take the next step, too. 

2 months ago  /  3 notes