Jordan Goldman
Jordan Goldman (born July 11, 1982) is an American entrepreneur working in the internet and education industries, best known as the founder and CEO of Unigo. Goldman has been named "One of the Top 30 Young Entrepreneurs in America" by Inc. Magazine, "One of the Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs in America" by the White House, and "One of the 100 Most Influential People in New York Business and Technology" by Silicon Alley Insider.
Early life
Goldman was born in Staten Island, New York and attended Tottenville High School.
Career
The New York Times
At 16, Goldman's frustrations with his college search were profiled by The New York Times.
When Goldman was 17, New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg turned Steinberg's several articles AbOUT the admissions process at Wesleyan University into a book, The Gatekeepers, which profiled Goldman's college search in great detail (along with five other students). The Gatekeepers went on to become a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Times bestseller.
Students' Guide to Colleges
At 18, Goldman began emailing current college students to understand more about what their colleges were really like, to aid in his own college selection process. Upon receiving more than 30,000 responses, he approached Penguin Books and created the “Students’ Guide to Colleges” series of college guidebooks.
While attending Wesleyan University and Oxford University, Goldman continued getting 30,000 new students to review their colleges every year. “Students' Guide to Colleges” went on to be released in five annual editions, and became a nationally best-selling series of college guidebooks.
Unigo.com
Upon graduating, Goldman stopped publishing “Students' Guide”, raised angel financing and launched the college review site Unigo, which hit 1.35 million page views in its first week and quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of student-written college reviews. The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg called Unigo “a college resource built for the age of YouTube and Facebook”, The New York Times said its reviews were “vivid in a way no guidebook can match,” and AlwaysOn named it “One of the 100 Private Companies with the Biggest Impact on the Public Sector."
As Unigo’s content grew, it began providing college information to many mainstream media properties. Unigo provides all college reviews for US News & World Report's annual college rankings. Every year, Unigo partners with USA Today to create the USA Today / Unigo College Guide, a print title distributed to bookstores nationwide. Unigo also publishes a weekly college advice column in USA Today, US News & World Report , The Huffington Post, and 13 additional national outlets. As a result of this exposure, Unigo receives more than 1 million unique visitors every month.
In 2011, Unigo built and incorporated a college admissions expert network (following the Gerson Lehrman model.) As a result, families can choose from, schedule, and have live video sessions with more than 1,000 college admissions experts, more than 1,000 financial aid experts ($100/hr), and more than 15,000 current college students ($30/hr) entirely through the Unigo platform. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Have a face-to-face talk with a college counselor while sitting in [your] living room... Unigo meets an important need." Unigo is the only website offering one-on-one video sessions with college counselors and current college students.
In 2012, Unigo announced a business line selling blocks of college counseling sessions directly to high schools and school districts. Unigo has also announced its intentions to scale its content and expert network to cover graduate schools by 2013.
Education Expert
Through a strategic partnership with The Wall Street Journal, Goldman helped them create a new brand - WSJ On Campus - which produced original high-quality journalism about college admissions and college life. Through a strategic partnership with McGraw Hill, Goldman helped create an original curriculum on college and career readiness that is now taught in high schools throughout America.
Goldman has been an education expert on more than 50 episodes of ABC News, has headlined live education events for both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and blogs for The Huffington Post.
Other sources
External links
Unigo CEO
2008–present