In December 2024, Business senior Jonah Liss, Engineering senior Blake Mischley and Engineering senior Kaleb Schmottlach were recognized for their platform MeetYourClass in the Education section of Forbes 30 under 30.
Each year, Forbes magazine creates lists recognizing 30 individuals under the age of 30 from North America, Europe and Asia for their work in various fields including social media and venture capital. After accepting nominations online and connecting with leaders from various industries, Forbes writers and editors analyze all nominations to choose a preliminary list of candidates. The Forbes staff then work with experts to determine the final list.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, CEO of MeetYourClass Mischley said Forbes’ recognition and the resulting expanded outreach was gratifying for himself and the team.
“It was a great nomination to get because it was really fulfilling,” Mischley said. “Being in college and receiving that is particularly exciting. When publicity happens, we get people who want to reach out and support what we’re doing.”
Launched in fall 2022, MeetYourClass is a platform that verifies students’ profiles to allow them to join groups of incoming college students on social media apps like Instagram and Facebook. After verifying, the platform automatically posts information and photos the students submit onto their website and a social media account, such as @umich2029meet. In an interview with The Daily, Liss, chief operating officer of MeetYourClass, explained that students use MeetYourClass to connect with potential future classmates.
“MeetYourClass is the go-to place, in our opinion, from the stage of having applied to a school to moving in, so everything before coming to campus,” Liss said. “Once you’ve applied to a school, you’re able to join MeetYourClass and you make a profile. With that profile, you’re able to see the profile of all the other students: You’re able to message them, you’re able to filter for people who have the same interests, you’re able to have conversations.”
MeetYourClass began when the founders decided to create an accessible platform for prospective college students to see who would be in their college class. The platform now has more than 450,000 users. Liss explained that the platform could grow very quickly and organically due to students’ desire to connect with verified future classmates and find potential roommates.
“We have always had a lot of conviction that students want to meet on social media,” Liss said. “If you want to join Instagram or a Facebook community, there should only be real students in it, there should be an automated way to join it. That’s kind of how we got the organic traffic and why students like it.”
Liss also said the support from alumni and University resources like the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies contributed to the platform’s growth.
“The U-M network has been part of the reason this has found a lot of success,” Liss said. “The Zell Lurie Institute has been unbelievable in getting this off the ground, but also just the alumni base in general has been crazy. We’ve had people reach out to us … just because we had that U-M connection, they talked to us, and that’s why we are where we are.”
The Zell Lurie Institute focuses on providing guidance and opportunities to students interested in entrepreneurship including alumni mentoring, student organizations and venture capital for student entrepreneurs from all U-M schools and colleges. Gregg Latterman, executive director of the institute, told The Daily the institute hopes to open doors for student entrepreneurs.
“Our purpose is to unlock opportunity,” Latterman said. “We want to serve all our students and alumni for the University of Michigan to help them understand what an entrepreneurial mindset is.”
MeetYourClass won various awards at the Institute’s 2024 Michigan Business Challenge, with the Institute granting $30,000 in funding. Anne Perigo, Associate Director of Student Programs at the Institute, encouraged interested students to get involved with the institute.
”We’ll meet you where you are no matter what it is you want to do,” Perigo said. “Whether you want to dip a toe in the water and just feel out entrepreneurship or investing, or entrepreneurship through acquisition, or you want to fully launch and want that full support like the MeetYourClass folks.”
In an email to The Daily, Schmottlach left words of encouragement for other students aspiring to be entrepreneurs.
“You just need to start,” Schmottlach said. “I didn’t know how to web develop at all my freshman year. We just got together and learned from scratch. We tried things, broke things and made progress. Reflecting, it’s crazy where I started to now where I am, but it wouldn’t have happened had I not just taken that leap of faith and not be afraid to fail.”
Daily Staff Reporter Grace Park can be contacted at gracepm@umich.edu.
