“We were so naıve”
Schools clamored for Seesaw’s app — which was good news and bad news
The first requests that upended Seesaw, a popular classroom app, came in January from teachers and education officials abroad. Their schools were shutting down because of the coronavirus, and they urgently wanted the app adjusted for remote learning. The company figured it could do that with a single short hackathon project.
“We were so naive,” said Emily Voigtlander Seliger, a Seesaw product manager.
Weeks later, reality hit: The virus spread to the United States, where more of the app’s users are. Seesaw had been designed for students in a classroom to submit an audio comment or a digital drawing after a lesson. But thousands of teachers suddenly wanted it to work as a full- featured home learning tool. Rather than using Seesaw for a couple of assignments a week, they were using it for hours each day.
It seemed like every startup’s dream: racing to keep up with demand from people desperate for your app.
And in many ways, that has worked
a former tech executive who describes herself as “America’s Favorite Career Mom.”
Tómas Del Razo, 28, who lives in Los Angeles and follows Patterson, said that Patterson’s TikTok account is “providing tools and information that are beneficial to people who are unemployed or looking for an escape in these times.”
Julian Parra, 22, a former peer career ambassador at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., posts as @ youknowitjulian on TikTok, where he has more than 136,000 followers. “I realized that there was almost a need for this type of career development content because maybe people just want a quick video to get the information that they need in the most easy- toconsume way,” he said.
Parra now works as an offering manager at IBM and makes around $ 1,000 a month on the side, mostly through his résumé, cover letter and LinkedIn services. He also receives a small supplement to his income from the TikTok Creator Fund, which supports eligible users who apply.
This trend is hardly confined to the United States. In Britain, the Prince’s Trust — a charity founded by Prince Charles to support young job seekers — has teamed with TikTok to help young people navigate their careers.
Shadé Zahrai, a 32- yearold Australian career strategist, has amassed more than 456,000 followers on TikTok since joining in April. “If you can just help one person, then it’s been a great day, and with these platforms, you’re able to help masses of people,” she said.
Fui June Loo, 22, came across Zahrai on her For You page. After following her advice in an interview for a digital marketing executive position in Malaysia, she secured her first full- time job. “TikTok really helps a lot, especially for new grads as we live through this pandemic,” Loo said. “It’s pretty hard, and we don’t know what to expect from the working world.”
Zahrai’s firm has begun fielding requests from CEOs and Fortune 500 companies who found her through TikTok, and she said the coaching side of her business has grown substantially as a result of inquiries coming from the app. She noted that she has received many questions from people feeling overwhelmed by uncertainty about their future.
“What I’m finding is there’s this real desire to seek guidance from someone who they can trust,” Zahrai said. “It’s almost like having a mentor or counselor in your pocket.”