SXSW Pitch Finalist: Arist
The Forrest Four-Cast: February 10, 2020
Here’s the problem Arist set out to solve: too often video-based learning and training is ineffective, inaccessible, and expensive.
Arist helps leading organizations create, launch, and assess text message courses. Inspired by research from Stanford and UPenn, its text message courses are accessible and effective, with completion and satisfaction rates that are up to 20 times higher than other types of digital learning.
The brainchild of 20-year-old CEO and Co-Founder Michael Ioffe, Arist builds text message courses consisting of a series of 1,200 character texts sent to the user daily over five to 30 days. The user picks the time and platform (SMS, WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger), and the daily texts include a concept explanation or case study, an optional image, and an assessment. The medium works for everything from teaching architectural history to conducting compliance training.
One of the 50 finalists for SXSW Pitch 2020, Arist was also named one of 20 education-focused finalists in Fast Company’s 2019 World-Changing Ideas competition, which recognizes companies, non-profits, and individuals that commit to social good through breakthrough innovation.
“Arist started out as a somewhat ridiculous idea — why not teach using text messages? — and being recognized by Fast Company is validation that we’re onto something,” Ioffe told the alumni magazine for Babson College, where he and his other co-founders met as students. “Our team is thrilled that something that was considered absolutely crazy a year ago is now being seen more and more as a meaningful learning tool.”
As a high school student in Portland, Ore., Ioffe founded TILE, the world’s largest conversation series, which now has more than 400 chapters and is in 49 countries. He still serves as a board member and President.
See his pitch for Arist at SXSW in the category Social and Culture Technology (11 am to noon Saturday, March 14), before a live audience and a panel of expert judges.
Winners in each of the 10 categories will be announced at the Pitch Awards Ceremony, at 6:30 pm Sunday, March 15. SXSW attendees are also invited to Meet the Finalists from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Monday, March 16. All SXSW Pitch events take place at the Hilton Austin Downtown.
Ioffe took some time to talk about his plans for Arist, his favorite podcast, and singing with Nile Rogers.
What is your top goal for Arist for 2020?
It would be awesome to have one million people take a text message course by the end of the year.
Tell us your favorite thing about being based in Boston.
Tatte, an Israeli-French café with locations around Boston, has maybe the best cheesecake I’ve ever had. Our team built the first version of Arist entirely powered by Tatte cheesecakes.
With the exception of Arist, what tech trend is your team most excited about?
We’re so excited about the future for messaging. It’s the most native medium for my generation (Gen Z), and I think we’re going to see it transform everything from learning and tutoring to payments and financial management.
Which living person do you most admire and why?
Lately, I’ve been a big fan of Patrick Collison (co-founder of Stripe). Along with being a brilliant entrepreneur, his work on Progress Studies is fascinating and deeply relevant.
Tell us about something you love.
“Carlos Doesn’t Remember,” an episode on Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast, was unbelievably impactful when I heard it for the first time as a 16-year-old. I love it an immense amount — it illustrates the social capital gap in our educational system in a concise and moving way, and was one of the driving forces behind my work with Arist and TILE.
Tell us about a memorable celebrity encounter.
Singing “We Are Family” onstage with Nile Rodgers (the guy who wrote it and a legendary producer) was one of the highlights of my life so far. He’s an incredibly thoughtful and caring human, and his energy is unreal.
Look for more interviews with other finalists in this space between now and the start of SXSW Pitch on Saturday, March 14. Visit this page to see all previous interviews in this series as well as a list of all finalists.
If you are an entrepreneur, check out the SXSW 2020 Startups Track, which runs March 13–17. This track brings together founders and funders and showcases exciting new companies, products, services, and business models across different verticals and industries.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
