This Boston-based startup wants to replace unengaging, pre-recorded company trainings with live classes led by the likes of FBI agents, improv comedians and Olympic coaches.
Electives is a B2B professional development service offering live, interactive classes, founded in 2020 by Krikor Dzeronian and Jason Lavender.
The startup is betting that its eclectic mix of teachers and topics will be a hit among companies looking for new opportunities for their employees. So far, the company said the response has been positive. Tens of thousands of employees from around the world have participated in an Electives course, according to a company representative.
Electives raised $2.25 million in mid-2021, Lavender said, which was co-led by Accomplice and Boston Seed Capital, with additional funding from Bertelsmann and Patriots inside linebackers coach Jerod Mayo.
Dzeronian and Lavender met and came up with the idea for Electives while getting their MBAs at the MIT Sloan School of Management. They bonded over their shared love of learning and frustration with typical company trainings.
“Anytime I’ve reflected on corporate training, there were these memories of watching really bad videos and trying to fast forward and getting certificates that didn’t really mean a lot,” Lavender said. “The more people we interviewed, that became a more and more kind of common theme.”
They named the company Electives after the type of classes you choose to take in school, rather than those you must. Participants can learn about goal setting and mental toughness from a Navy SEAL, ego suspension from an FBI agent, public speaking from an improv comedian or the science of happiness from a psychology professor.
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Lavender said Electives’ courses can be broken down into three main buckets. There is a group of diversity, equity and inclusion classes that range from lessons on microaggressions, to historical topics, to what Lavender calls “learning from different perspectives.”
“We had Native American teachers teaching Indigenous wellbeing in November, and it was around to celebrate Native American Heritage Month, but it was really just a great wellbeing and mental health class from a different lens,” he explained.
The second bucket is professional development and leadership. Topics include manager training, preventing burnout, design thinking and understanding new technologies. Electives also offers courses in personal development, which cover topics like parenting during the pandemic and financial well-being.
“We’re seeing our service not only as a professional development that companies can offer, but as a benefit,” Dzeronian said. “So going back to that theme of electives, it’s the stuff that you’re really curious about and it’s not always directly impacting the bottom line.”
Electives’ 11-person team culls potential teachers from TED Talks, documentaries, podcasts and more. There are more than 100 teachers working with Electives, and each hosts several trainings.
Companies can book as many or as few trainings as they want. Lavender said some companies offer courses to their employees quarterly, while others have multiple courses every month centered around organizational needs or seasonality.
The startup has big goals. Dzeronian said they hope to make Electives a standard offering at companies. In the year ahead, they plan to add more content to their platform, including more technical classes, and expand their instructor roster.
