Keith Schacht (born 9 December 1979) is an American entrepreneur and angel investor.[1] He is the CEO and co-founder of Mystery Science and is on the board of directors of eSpark Learning.[2] Schacht is a named inventor on 9 patents.[3] Early in his career he was named one of the top 20 entrepreneurs under 25 by BusinessWeek.[4] He has been a speaker at the TED Conference and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal,[5] Forbes,[6] Fortune,[7] and Wired.[8]
Keith Schacht | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 9 December 1979 United States |
| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign |
| Known for | Mystery Science TED Conference |
| Spouse | Pari Schacht |
Career edit
Schacht's first company, founded while in college, was Lever Works, a custom software development shop. It was co-founded with Brian Witlin and Zach Kaplan. In December 2001 Lever Works was sold to Leo Media for an undisclosed sum.[9]
In 2002, Schacht co-founded Inventables, a company that educates companies about new materials and technologies. The company was featured in numerous publications including Forbes in 2006[6] and Wired in 2007. He also gave a talk on "Toys from the Future"[10] at the TED Conference in 2005
In 2007, Schacht founded Crafted Fun, an early company building applications on the Facebook platform. Crafted Fun raised funding from Apex Ventures and Naval Ravikant.[11] The company developed a range of Facebook applications including Grow-a-Gift which was cited as a top application used by millions of people.[12]
In 2010, Schacht joined Facebook as a product manager and launched an updated version of News Feed in 2011.[13][14][15] He left the company in 2012. During his time at Facebook he was a named inventor on 9 patents.[3]
In 2013, Schacht co-founded Mystery Science with Doug Peltz. Mystery Science creates open-and-go lessons for elementary teachers and helps them teach science without requiring a background in science.[16] A couple notable interviews with Y Combinator, one their investors, detailed an unconventional business model in which the company sold to schools and districts across the United States without a sales team.[17][18] Mystery Science has grown to be the most widely used science resource in American elementary schools; tt is used by more than 50% of elementary schools reaching more than four million children each month.[19] In 2020 Mystery Science was acquired by Discovery Education for $140 million.[20] Schacht is listed as the majority shareholder at the time of acquisition[21] bringing his total net worth up to at least $70 million.
Investments edit
Schacht is an investor in at least 25 private companies and numerous public companies. Notable investments include investing in Boom, Credit Karma, Canva, Epic!, Angellist, OpenGov, Square (pre-IPO), Tesla (pre-IPO), and Facebook (pre-IPO).[22]
References edit
- ^ "Facebook - Keith Schacht". 25 December 2020.
- ^ "LinkedIn - Keith Schacht".
- ^ a b "Keith Schacht Inventions, Patents and Patent Applications". 25 December 2020.
- ^ "Entrepreneurs: Cream of the Young Crop". 28 December 2005. Archived from the original on 2 November 2005.
- ^ Gamerman, Ellen (2020). "What to Let the Kids Watch When You're All Stuck at Home".
- ^ a b Lambert, Emily (2006). "Gadgets to Go". Archived from the original on 15 June 2006.
- ^ Julie Schlosser (1 November 2004). "Inside-the-box Thinking".
- ^ Betsy Schiffman (22 May 2008). "Facebook To Go Under the Knife".
- ^ Lueken, Abbie (6 June 2005). "Student Entrepreneurs Make Dreams a Reality". Archived from the original on 18 July 2011.
- ^ "Toys from the Future". 2008.
- ^ "Keynote Speakers". 2010. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011.
- ^ Farmer, Jesse (2007). "Hottest Facebook Apps".
- ^ Parr, Ben (2011). "Facebook Changes News Feed So You Never Miss Vital Updates".
- ^ Swartz, Jon (2011). "Facebook, Google+ announce new features".
- ^ Taylor, Colleen (2011). "Facebook wants to be the newspaper of your dreams".
- ^ "Mystery Science Helps Teachers Dazzle Their Students With Interactive Science Classes". Forbes. 17 August 2017.
- ^ "Cost vs Quality in Edtech – Keith Schacht, Avichal Garg, and Geoff Ralston". 6 April 2018.
- ^ "Keith Schacht and Doug Peltz on What Traction Feels Like – at YC Edtech Night". 27 November 2017.
- ^ "Mystery.org".
- ^ Tony Wan (3 November 2020). "Discovery Education Acquires Mystery Science in $140 Million Deal".
- ^ "Team – Mystery".
- ^ "Keith Schacht – AngelList".