Mar 12, 2025 · 36m · the-pitch
The $1.2 Billion EdTech Opportunity Nobody Saw
Kathy Wong · 17m spoken Josh Muccio · 5m spoken Paige Finn Doherty · 2m spoken Jesse Middleton · 1m spoken Mark Phillips · 1m spoken Will Wiseman · 1m spoken Lisa Muccio · 3s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
On The Pitch, FolioWorks founder Kathy Wong pitches her marketplace that leverages federal Work-Study subsidies to cut corporate intern wages in half, securing major investment commitments before expanding into universal higher education infrastructure.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Josh holds 17.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Josh as informed peer 0.1 Guest teaching 4.1 Guest disagreement 0.5 Josh pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is Josh, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 32:10 Pushing back on taking early venture capital
Kathy resists Josh's eagerness to wire money immediately, insisting on verifying pilot retention and de-risking before finalizing funding.
Hardest push from Josh ▶ 8:37 Questioning long-term defensibilityJesse challenges whether Folio can maintain high margins and defensibility if large enterprises attempt to bypass them to access federal funds directly.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:54 Explaining the employer of record mechanismKathy educates the room on the regulatory opening in Work Study subsidies and how Folio acts as the intermediary between provosts and private companies.
Josh holds their own ▶ 24:08 Josh claims allocation for Pitch FundJosh steps in to assert fund terms, offering a syndicate lead and a fund check to anchor the remaining round.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Josh as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Josh pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investor Introductions and Pitch Room Welcome | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Kathy delivers her opening pitch explaining Folio's value proposition of unlocking federal wage subsidies for corporate internships. The investors listen and ask introductory questions without challenging the premise. | |
| Founder Experience and Core Technical Team | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Kathy explains the regulatory shift opening Work Study funds to for-profit companies and how Folio acts as the employer of record. Paige and Will ask clarifying questions on market mechanics. | |
| Payroll Mechanics, Risk Management, and Defensibility | 0 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Jesse questions defensibility and whether large enterprises might bypass Folio. Kathy details her operational moat and regulatory approvals required across university provosts. | |
| Capital Raised, Enterprise Pilots, and Valuation | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Investors inquire about past capital, current revenue distribution, and enterprise pilot traction. Kathy transparently outlines her revenue mix and pricing model. | |
| Enterprise Expansion Hurdles and Runway Management | 0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Kathy discusses enterprise friction around handing over employer-of-record status and brand control. Investors explore runway and sales cycle barriers. | |
| Technical Integration and Market Focus Strategy | 0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Kathy elaborates on technical integrations with enterprise ATS systems and defends her strategic decision to focus on enterprise over inbound startup demand. Jesse agrees with the focus. | |
| Hard Leadership Choices and Higher Education Vision | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Kathy shares lessons from laying off staff during a B2C to B2B pivot and articulates her macro thesis on restructuring higher education into academic, practical, and professional pillars. | |
| Investor Deliberation and Investment Offers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Investors present their decisions: Paige commits to diligence, Will and Mark pass due to stage/mandate fit, Jesse asks for updates, and Josh commits from The Pitch Fund. | |
| Post-Pitch Investor Debrief | 0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | In the post-pitch update, Josh asks why Kathy paused fundraising after the election. Kathy educates him on policy risk regarding the Department of Education and how Work Study remained protected. | |
| Universal Work-Study Software and Market Consolidation | 0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Kathy details her expanded software plan to manage all work-study funding for universities and explains why she wants to de-risk enterprise accounts before accepting investor capital. |
Statements from this episode (27)
Wong: Only about 20% of college students secure internships today
“Today, about 20% of students get internships, and that's because internships are incredibly expensive.”
Wong: Converting an intern to full-time costs employers $50,000
“Each intern costs about 25,000 dollars to source, to train, and to compensate. And only about 50% of them convert to full time. So that means the real cost of converting an intern to a full time employee is 50,000 dollars.”
FolioWorks built a $1.2M ARR and tapped $600M in government subsidies
“We built this platform about a year ago, and since then, we've served over a thousand students, 500 companies, we've built a 1.2 million dollar annual run rate, and we have over six hundred million dollars in subsidies from the government.”
FolioWorks seeks to oversubscribe its $4 million fundraising round
“I'm here today to oversubscribe our four million dollar round, and to get your feedback, and most importantly, to ensure that every student is trained and ready to build a meaningful career.”
FolioWorks charges startups $250 per intern to save $10,000 in wages
“So we charge startups, 250 dollars per intern per month. We save them on average about 10,000 dollars on wages.”
FolioWorks charges enterprise clients $1,000/intern/month to save $10k in wages
“For enterprises, we charge them about a thousand dollars per intern per month, and we still save them about 10,000 dollars on wages.”
The government opened $1.2B in Work-Study subsidies to for-profits in 2020
“Around three billion dollars in wage subsidies comes from the federal government and the state government. So each year there's a program called Work Study. It's about 1.2 billion dollars. In 2020, they opened it up to for-profit companies because college camp…”
FolioWorks is the first Work-Study employer of record for for-profits
“And so they opened up to for-profits and we became the first company to be the employer of record on behalf of any other company.”
Wong: Enterprise clients will not cut FolioWorks out due to reporting burdens
“I don't think that means they're going to cut us out. I think that it would take a lot of effort for them to do all the reporting that's required to Create a work study-approved job, and then do all of the reporting that's completed by us, but we're building t…”
FolioWorks has access to 3 million students approved for Federal Work-Study
“So we partner with every college career center, and so we have access to all of their three million students that are approved for work study.”
Wong: Federal law covers up to 90% of intern wages for nonprofits
“The law right now for the federal government is that if you're a nonprofit, you can get up to 90% of your wages covered.”
Folio reached $1M ARR with initial B2C model before pivoting
“We built that out for about a year, got to about a million dollar annual run rate, and then we got access to these federal funds as the only companies to do that.”
Wong: Large enterprises account for about 85% of internship volume
“About 85% of the volume of internships are through these large enterprises.”
Folio raised $4M on a $16M post-money SAFE valuation
“We raised four million dollars on a sixteen million dollar post-money valuation.”
Wong: Folio burns $120K per month with 20 months of runway
“Our burn rate is about a 120 K per month and we have about 20 months of runway.”
Wong: Folio gets 10 startup signups per week without marketing
“Yeah, so we don't do any marketing for startups, and we get an average of 10 new startup signups a week.”
Folio laid off a third of its team to pivot to B2B
“At the turn of the year, we let go of a third of our team because they didn't have the same Advantage that they had when we were a B to C business as we needed for being a B to B business.”
Wong: Around 50% of college graduates work in fields related to their degree
“The stat is basically like around 50% of students actually use their college degree. Like they do a job that's related to their college degree.”
Phillips: 11 Tribes passes on Folio over valuation and enterprise traction
“I think two things that really make this problem not a fit for 11 Tribes, the round dynamics are challenging. I think being able to put a check in at that valuation that allows us to hit our ownership targets is going to be challenging, but excited to see and …”
Muccio: The Pitch Fund wants to invest in Folio
“Kathy, the Pitch Fund would like to invest in this round.”
Muccio: A $16M valuation sits at The Pitch Fund's typical price ceiling
“This is like right at the ceiling of the price we usually do. Unless we're investing in a baller company like Will's. Gecko materials. We make exceptions.”
The Trump administration carved out Work-Study from Department of Education cuts
“But they actually carved out work study and financial aid and FAFSA.”
Wong: A Folio investor was offered a job at DOGE
“And also one of our investors was offered a job at Doge.”
Wong: Universities manage work-study via fragmented software or spreadsheets
“Every university has different software to facilitate work study or they have no software and they do it in a spreadsheet.”