Bryon Pierson, EDURain CEO
‘The great thing about being a startup is… it creates challenges… because you know, things are always underfunded, but you got to keep moving… One thing that we had in our bag was we knew a bunch of bar owners,” EDURain CEO Bryon Pierson told the 4thEst8. “The bar owner of Handlebar was like ‘Brian, you know, why don’t you do a bar crawl?’”
And the EDURain ‘Rock Your Alma Mater’ bar crawl came into being, and is scheduled for Saturday, August 14th in the Grove area of St. Louis. A $15 ticket gets patrons access to drink discounts at a score of participating pubs, but teetotalers are asked to come out for free. Everyone is encouraged to wear their high school or college gear (and a mask, in accordance with the County Health Dept.)
“We are doing the pub crawl the same week that is moving weekend for students coming back to St. Louis,” Pierson said, adding that tickets are available under ‘events’ on the EDURain Facebook page. “We do ask that everyone tell one prospective college student or family member about EDURain.org, to make sure that kids can pay for school without a huge amount of debt.”
In July, 4thEst8 readers learned that EDURain cleared the proof-of-concept for its most difficult financial service it’s putting together to offer the college bound – a bridge loan so they can get off-campus housing before their student loans begin paying out in the first weeks of classes. EDURain will also help prospective students apply for student loans, scholarships, and grants and a bunch of other things – but the real estate loan component is key.
EDURain was founded in Nov. 2017, has four full time employees, and Pierson says has raised $72,000 in grants and competition winnings from Skandalaris Center, St. Louis Regional Chamber, Impact Ventures, Balsa Foundation, ITEN, Olin School of Business, I-Corps., SLU Research, Spark! And Maryville University. The company is also a finalist in this year’s Arch Grant competition.
Links:
On the 4thEst8:
EDURain Completes POC for Tricky Bit
Caught Schmoozing at Venture Cafe – July 2021
