Lightning Pitch: Betagig – Beta test a career

COMPANY: Betagig

YEAR FOUNDED: 2016

Betagig is a groundbreaking online career development platform that allows users to ‘beta test’ a career choice before deciding on a major and pursuing an educational path. The platform can be used by various ages and work backgrounds, but it is especially geared toward high school and college students. Users can download the software at www.betagig.tech and set up job shadowing opportunities in diverse occupations by simply clicking on job positions available at companies that have partnered with Betagig. The software is free to download and will only cost a fee if job shadowing is arranged.

Betagig was developed by software engineers Nicki Klein and Melissa Hargis who are both career changers. Before being software engineers, Klein worked in the stock market, and Hargis was a Spanish professor.

The two female entrepreneurs won the prestigious 2016 LAUNCH Festival Hackathon in San Francisco for the Betagig platform, and the win enabled them to walk away from the competition with $250,000 and numerous investor opportunities, which has given them the backing to make Betagig revolutionary. The win also allowed the founders to participate in the LAUNCH Incubator that assisted in advancing Betagig’s product development during a 12-week period and enabled them to pitch to additional renowned investors. The LAUNCH Festival is held in San Francisco and is known as “The world’s largest start-up event” with about 15,000 entrepreneurs in attendance looking to build new companies.