Meet Sohit Wadhwa and Anu Vaid. Sohit and Anu are co-founders of ParentSquare, an all-in-one school-to-home communications platform that enables parents to be more involved in their childrens’ education. We sat down with Sohit and Anu to learn more about their experience with Serent Capital. 

“Basically, my wife and I started ParentSquare,” Sohit recalls. “She’s a very involved parent. She used to go volunteer at school, be a room parent. And she could see the difference and the kind of information you get if you’re an involved parent going to school. All of us know that if parents are involved in the kids’ education, students do better. That’s the basic goal of ParentSquare. 

Sohit’s background in communications made improving parent-school interactions a natural fit. “I used to lead the engineering team at GoToMeeting. I worked there for 12 years. So we had this idea, we talked about it, we went to the principal, she gave us three teachers to build this platform. 

“We launched it in three classrooms. We built it for the schools, but very soon the neighboring schools started using it. From there, we’ve grown quite a bit. We started getting calls from Serent and a few other growth equity firms. And that’s how it started. 

Working With a Genuine Partner 

Once ParentSquare started to get traction, Sohit and Anu knew it was time to find a growth partner. “We had grown to a certain point. We really wanted to get a partner. Somebody has seen this movie before, equities have seen it hundreds of times. And if you want to grow, money also comes with it. But it was also very important to have somebody who can support us, who has done this before, who can advise us.” 

Right away, Serent’s focus on partnership stood out to Sohit and Anu. “Even from the first call, you could see that Serent is interested in you. They’re not just looking to take a company and grow it. It came across pretty quickly. We had a couple of calls and then Lance showed up in Santa Barbara to meet us. That was big. They explained the philosophy. They explained how they work. And they introduced us to some of the founders they worked with. And again, they were talking about investing in the business, how to be your partner rather than somebody who just takes your company and does something with it. That felt really good. 

“They’re always there to support. They’re your partner. And even the competitors had only good things to say about Serent, which is very unique.” 

Drawing On Deep Industry Experience 

Serent’s deep understanding of the ed tech market also set them apart from other firms. “I was talking with a lot of firms and it was really difficult to even explain how the sales work. Whereas talking to Serent, it was like, hey, we worked with these other companies, we understand the consortium buyers, we understand every state is different. We call it selling to 15 different countries in ed tech, rather than every state is so different. 

“They did understand that aspect. They understand that the sales cycle is very different. You don’t sell months to month. If somebody doesn’t understand it and you’re trying to say, hey, I didn’t sell anything in December, they’re like, ‘what’s going on here?’ That was great, too.” 

Building a Strong Company Culture 

“We really needed a CFO,” Sohit recalls. “We had a part time CFO. We were looking. And so our first project with the Human Capital team was to write the job brief, put it out there, reach out to the network, and organize interviews. We started in August and around November 15, the person joined. So that was a big win right off the bat. 

The Human Capital team also worked with ParentSquare to implement best practices for HR and recruiting. “They’ve primarily worked with us on recruiting. And there are a few standard practices that are really simple, but they go a really long way. How do you do performance management? How do you level up your talent? What are the best practices to grow the culture? So those best practices are there, but primarily what we’ve worked with them on is hiring. And again, helping us recruit in the CFO hire was a huge, huge win.” 

Collaborating On Growth Initiatives 

For Sohit and Anu, the Growth Team’s collaborative approach was exactly what they needed. “The Growth Team at Serent is amazing. Most of the time they’re asking you where you need help, what are you struggling with, where can we provide the most value. And then we collaborate and figure things out. It’s never, here’s our playbook, this is how we do stuff, let’s get going and execute it. 

Serent’s Growth Team worked with ParentSquare on a variety of initiatives. “So far they’ve helped us with smaller things. Templates, how to organize our CRM, what order to measure the KPIs. All that has been extremely helpful. We’ve been working on account-based marketing. How to target our accounts, what parameters to use. And they’re also helping us think through payments. We want to introduce payments as part of our platform. So they’re helping us think through what is the value proposition? What is the market size? How do we think about it? 

Looking to the future, Sohit and Anu are excited about the possibilities for ParentSquare. “I think it’s an awesome partnership between Serent and ParentSquare. We have a platform which we know works. There is a product market. We have more than 50% of California districts using it now. And a lot of other states are coming in. I think where we want to be is being the leading provider of home-school communication engagement. And understanding the market, building the right traction model, I think we can achieve that pretty quickly. So that’s what I’m really excited about.”