About the Episode
The what's what...
In just a moment, you’ll meet Brian Hartnack, founder and CEO of Archer Education, an education technology company dedicated to personalizing student recruitment.
Before finding his home in ed tech, Brian was quite active in the pre-dotcom-bubble startup scene in the late 90s. He worked at eToys, Gifts.com, and Rent.com where he helped grow the company from an early stage startup to an eventual $415 million acquisition by eBay in 2005.
But perhaps the most interesting of Brian’s professional undertakings was the very first job he had which involved working with cowboys, fly fishing, and shoeing horses — you’ll have to listen for all the details.
In this episode, you’ll also meet Clayton Dean, Co-Founder of Circa Interactive, one of the leading digital advertising agencies in higher ed.
After high school, Clayton went to Duquesne University on a swimming scholarship where he studied sports marketing and business administration.
After graduating, he worked for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Orlando Magic for a brief stint before taking a job at DelTech, which is now Wiley Education Services — and this is where his passion for higher education was solidified.
This passion ultimately led him to co-found Circa Interactive, which was acquired by Archer Education at the end of 2020.
Tune in to hear Clayton and Brian talk about pivotal moments in their respective journeys as entrepreneurs and get a behind-the-scenes look into how and why they structured the merger the way they did.
One final note — this is part two of the Archer/Circa story with a stronger emphasis on the building of Archer. To hear the origin story of Circa and better understand what the news of the merger felt like on their side of the house, stream Part 1 of this series!