First 90 days, higher-ed sales

The market is barely touched — under twenty schools use Shmoody today.

This is the plan to change that: master the product and the proof inside and out, turn it into stories that land with campus buyers, then build and run the pipeline that gets Shmoody into its next wave of campuses.

Days 1–30 · Learn & Map

Get sharp fast — and start talking to schools while I do it.

Depth and outreach run at the same time, not in sequence. By day 30 I'm fluent in the product and the economics behind it, I have three sell stories that have survived real pushback, and the first genuine conversations are already underway — not queued up for month two.

Fluent in every core feature — able to demo without notes

3 sell stories drafted and tested on real listeners

40–60 target institutions ranked into tiers

AI-assisted research workflow running for every account

First 5–8 real outbound touches sent by day 14, well before the deck is finished

Real pricing, deal size, and contract structure confirmed — pipeline gets sized in dollars from day one

RFP/bid monitoring live across BidNet, GovSpend, and Periscope, plus direct portal checks for every Tier 1 target

Proof already in hand — the live reference accounts

Duke

Donor-funded, campus-wide rollout tied to belonging (QuadEx)

Texas Tech

Deployed through RISE, with its own community board

500,000+

positive actions taken through Shmoody action plans

38%

reported mood improvement after completing an action plan

Run the app daily for two weeks as a student would: log moods, build a Joy Calendar, complete an action plan, and have a real conversation with the Shmoody Cat chatbot.
Get hands-on with the institution/admin side — the analytics dashboard, engagement reporting, and crisis-escalation flow are what the actual buyer will manage day to day.
Sit in on a Duke or Texas Tech success/support call if possible, and note the exact language administrators use — it's rarely the same as the site's marketing copy.
Interview a founder, product lead, or CS lead on why Shmoody's joyful, stigma-free approach outperforms the clinical wellness apps schools have tried before.
Get plain answers on the business side, not just the product: pricing model (per-student vs. flat institutional license), typical contract length, average deal size, and exactly how the Duke and Texas Tech deals were structured and funded. Ask what's negotiable and what isn't.

Why it matters: a buyer can tell in the first five minutes whether I actually know the product — and a CEO can tell in the first five minutes whether I understand the deal, not just the demo.

Counseling center relief

Problem: wait lists are weeks long and rising. Shmoody: an always-on first layer that helps students day-to-day and routes real crises to the humans who should see them. Proof: 500K+ actions taken without a counselor in the loop.

Belonging & retention

Problem: students who feel unsupported leave. Shmoody: joyful, stigma-free engagement builds the same sense of belonging Duke pairs with its QuadEx housing model. Proof: Duke rollout backed by donor funding tied directly to student experience.

Duty of care, at scale

Problem: administrators are accountable for wellbeing they can't staff for. Shmoody: a documented, scalable way to show proactive care and connect students to campus resources. Proof: Texas Tech's RISE program built it into their safety framework.

Write each story as a one-page arc: problem → the old way → the Shmoody way → proof point → the ask. Keep it to what fits on one page.
Say each one out loud to three people who aren't in sales (a friend, a mentor, a campus contact if I have one) and note where they lean in versus where they get lost.
Tag which story maps to which buyer — Student Affairs leans on story 2, a Counseling Center director leans on story 1, a risk or Title IX-adjacent stakeholder leans on story 3.

Why it matters: the interview itself is a test of story 2 — I'm pitching belonging and impact on myself, on the spot.

Define the ICP: enrollment size, counseling-center capacity or wait-time signals, existing wellness-fee budget line, and any public mental-health-crisis coverage (student press, ACHA-NCHA survey results).
Split the market into three tiers:

1

Large publics

Visible counseling strain, wellness fee already in place

2

Regional publics

Predictable budget cycle

3

Private / liberal arts

Donor-funding path (like Duke)
Build a working list of 40–60 named schools with the right buyer titles: VP of Student Affairs, Dean of Students, Counseling/CAPS Director, and eventually procurement.
Get a two-sentence handle on the competitive set — Uwill, TimelyCare, YOU at College, WellTrack — so I can say plainly why Shmoody is different (fun and human, not clinical-feeling; joyful engagement built in, not bolted on).
Note which cooperative purchasing vehicles each target uses — roughly 6,000 institutions buy through E&I Cooperative Services, and others run through Sourcewell, OMNIA Partners, or MHEC. This determines whether a sale runs through a standalone RFP or a much faster opt-in, and it's worth knowing before the first call, not after.
Mine the founders' own networks as a sourcing channel, not just cold tiering — Nate Thomas's Duke ties are very plausibly why Duke said yes first, and that same alumni/recovery-community pattern likely opens doors at similarly-profiled schools.

Why it matters: a wide-open field is an advantage only if I go after the right ten schools first, not the first ten who reply — and warm paths through people who already trust the founders convert faster than any cold list.

Stand up a simple pipeline tracker (spreadsheet is fine to start) with tier, buyer contact, and stage — I can upgrade to a real CRM once volume demands it.
Build an AI-assisted account-brief workflow: for each target school, generate a one-page brief covering recent mental-health coverage, counseling-center data, current vendors, and likely champions — then hand-check it before it's used.
Draft reusable prompt templates for first-touch outreach and call-prep, then use them immediately: by day 14, send 5–8 short, honest first-touch notes to top-tier schools — "still learning the product, but wanted to introduce myself" is a legitimate opener. Waiting for a finished deck to say hello costs weeks for nothing.
Note the 2026 dates for NASPA, ACHA, and JED Campus — not to attend yet, but to know when the room fills with my buyers.
Set up RFP/bid alerts on day one, not day sixty — BidNet Direct, Periscope S2G (BidSync), and GovSpend all let you set keyword alerts ("wellness," "mental health," "student support platform") so a new solicitation lands in an inbox instead of requiring daily manual checks. For Tier 1 targets, also bookmark their own procurement portal directly, since some schools only post there.

Why it matters: a research phase with zero outbound reads as caution, not diligence. The first conversations should already be running by the time the deck is finished, so month two starts from momentum instead of a cold start.

Days 31–60 · Build & Engage

Turn the research into real conversations — and real pipeline.

The deck, the ROI math, and the outreach sequence all exist to do one thing: get the right story in front of the right person on a real call, and turn that call into a number leadership can see.

Master deck plus 3 persona-flexed variants, finished

A simple ROI/impact calculator, built on real deal economics, live on every call

15–20 discovery calls held, stretch target 25+ if outreach converts well

At least 2 warm doors opened through founder/alumni networks, not just referral asks

Pipeline reported as a dollar figure by stage, not just a school count

A cooperative-contract path (E&I or equivalent) identified, with a real answer on pursuing it

1 co-branded or thought-leadership webinar scheduled or delivered

Structure the master deck as: the mental-health capacity gap on campuses → how Shmoody closes it differently (joyful, human, stigma-free) → Duke and Texas Tech proof → what a rollout looks like on their campus → the pilot ask.
Build three persona-flexed variants from that same spine: a belonging & retention version for Student Affairs, a capacity & clinical-fit version for Counseling/CAPS directors, and a cost & contract version for procurement/finance.
Build a simple ROI calculator: student population and estimated counseling visits per year, in — potential capacity relief and cost avoidance, out. Keep the assumptions visible so a skeptical CFO can poke at them.
Turn Duke and Texas Tech into one-page case studies using their own language — Duke's QuadEx belonging tie-in, Texas Tech's RISE-run community board — rather than generic testimonials.

Why it matters: a Dean of Students and a CFO are sold by different evidence — the same deck for both under-serves at least one of them.

Narrow the 40–60 school list to a first wave of 15–20 using tier plus live signals: recent negative press on counseling capacity, a newly hired VP of Student Affairs, a renewed wellness fee, or simply no existing vendor contract.
Run a short multi-touch sequence per account: a personalized email tied to a specific fact about their campus, a LinkedIn touch, then a call — not a mass blast.
Use AI to draft the first pass of each personalized message from the account brief built in month one, then edit every one by hand before it goes out — personalization only works if it reads like a person wrote it.
Ask each existing customer for one warm introduction to a peer institution, and permission to name them in the pitch — a reference from a real school is worth ten cold emails.
Bring the specific ask to the founders directly: which two or three peer schools would Nate's or Mike's own network open a door to this month — not a general "let me know if you hear of anything," but named schools with a named contact.

Why it matters: with only two live references, every warm path from Duke, Texas Tech, or the founders' own network is disproportionately valuable — treat those asks as this month's priority, not an afterthought.

Use a consistent discovery framework: current tools and wait times, who else needs to be in the room, budget cycle timing, and what success would actually look like to them.
Log every objection as it comes up — FERPA and data privacy, integration with an existing EAP, "we already tried an app," budget already committed elsewhere — into one living objection-and-response document.
Debrief immediately after each call: which story landed, which slide fell flat, what needs to change before the next one.

Why it matters: with so few reference accounts, objection patterns discovered now become the muscle memory that carries every future call.

Generate a one-page call-prep brief before every meeting, combining the account's public facts with notes from any prior touch.
Draft post-call recap and next-step emails immediately, so follow-up never slips because it's easier to skip than write.
Track which sell story lands with which persona across calls, and feed that pattern straight back into the decks and objection responses.

Why it matters: this is the difference between "using AI tools" as a talking point and actually running a bigger pipeline than headcount alone would allow.

Find out whether Shmoody already holds a spot on a higher-ed cooperative contract. E&I Cooperative Services is the obvious first stop — it's the member-owned co-op built specifically for education, with roughly 6,000 member institutions that can opt into a listed contract without running their own RFP. Sourcewell, OMNIA Partners, and MHEC are worth checking too, depending on target geography.
If Shmoody isn't listed yet, ask leadership directly whether pursuing it this year is realistic. Getting onto even one cooperative contract turns hundreds of schools' purchasing decision from "run a solicitation" into "opt in" — that's leverage no single sales call can match.
For every Tier 1 and Tier 2 target, check co-op membership before the first call. "We're already available through E&I, no RFP required" is a fundamentally different opening than a cold procurement ask.
Even if full listing isn't done by day 90, flag it in the handoff as the single highest-leverage non-sales-call action on the table — this is infrastructure, not a nice-to-have.
Treat live RFP monitoring as the safety net under the cooperative-contract push — a co-op listing doesn't stop a school from running its own solicitation anyway. If a target account posts an open RFP, that's now a hard deadline, not a nice-to-have: drop other outreach to that account and build the response immediately, using the persona deck and ROI calculator already built.

Why it matters: Higher-ed buyers can love the product and still stall for a year on procurement — a cooperative contract is one of the few moves that shortens the sales cycle for every future prospect at once, not just the one in front of you.

Pitch a co-branded webinar with Duke or Texas Tech — not a product demo, but a "what we learned rolling this out campus-wide" panel with their actual VP of Student Affairs or Counseling Director talking peer-to-peer. Prospects hear it from another school, not from a vendor.
Anchor the content in something bigger than the product: frame it as "the state of student mental-health capacity, 2026," using public data — ACHA-NCHA survey trends, published counseling wait-time figures — with Shmoody as host. Administrators who'd ignore a sales invite will register for a data-driven session.
Look for a slot inside a channel that already has the audience, rather than building one from zero — state higher-ed systems, regional NASPA or ACHA chapters, and cooperative programs like E&I often run member webinar series that vendors can request time in.
Record it and clip it. A three-minute excerpt of a real administrator describing their rollout becomes outreach and LinkedIn content for the next two months — one hour of effort, reused for weeks.

Why it matters: Peer validation in front of fifty administrators lowers a Tier 1 target's guard faster than any individual email — and every existing customer relationship is worth turning into content, not just a reference call.

Days 61–90 · Convert & Scale

Close what's real, and leave a system behind.

At least one of these conversations becomes a signed pilot. Every one of them leaves behind a playbook, an economics model, and a forecast that make quarter two faster than quarter one.

3–5 pilot proposals or letters of intent sent, stretch target 7+

At least 1 signed pilot contract, with 2–3 more in final review or redlines

A documented, repeatable playbook handed to leadership

A dollar-value pipeline forecast with named accounts and expected close dates

At least 1 in-person campus visit or activation completed with a qualified account

Build a tailored pilot proposal per qualified account: scope, timeline aligned to their academic calendar, pricing, and the success metrics they defined on the discovery call.
Prepare the data-privacy and security packet — FERPA alignment, data handling, and the crisis-escalation protocol — before procurement asks for it, not after.
Time the ask to the higher-ed budget calendar: most institutions commit new tools by spring for a fall rollout, so push qualified accounts toward a decision ahead of that window rather than after it.

Why it matters: higher-ed procurement moves on its own calendar — missing the budget window by a month can mean losing a full year.

Prepare a simple negotiation playbook: standard terms, the most common ask (multi-year discount, pilot-to-full conversion trigger), and what's actually flexible.
Bring in a Duke or Texas Tech champion as a peer reference at the final stage — most useful right before a decision, not just in the opening pitch.
For every "not now," secure a specific reason and a specific re-engagement date, so nothing goes quietly cold.

Why it matters: with only two references today, the next signed school becomes tomorrow's proof point — worth protecting the relationship even in a "no."

Document the full playbook: the ICP and tiering rules, the three sell stories mapped to persona, the deck variants, the objection-and-response log, and the AI prompt library used for research, outreach, and call prep.
Set up a lightweight weekly pipeline report for leadership — stage, next step, expected close — so the system is visible, not just personal.
Shortlist NASPA, ACHA, and JED Campus for quarter-two outbound, shaped by what actually won or lost deals this quarter.

Why it matters: going from under twenty schools to a real footprint only compounds if the second and third reps don't have to relearn everything from scratch.

Visit Duke and/or Texas Tech in person if it hasn't happened yet — real footage, real quotes, and watching how it's actually used day to day becomes the most credible sales material Shmoody has, and none of it can be faked from a desk.
For a Tier 1 prospect deep in evaluation, propose a low-cost, high-visibility campus activation — a pop-up Joy Time table or a Shmoody Cat appearance during a high-traffic week (welcome week, finals, mental health awareness week), co-sponsored with Student Affairs. Students engaging with it live does more for a Dean of Students than another slide about engagement rates.
Sequence visits around travel that's already happening — if presenting or attending a NASPA or ACHA regional event near a target school, add a half-day visit to the same trip rather than a separate flight later.
Treat a campus visit as evaluation-stage leverage, not an opening move — save it for accounts far enough along that a visit could plausibly be the thing that gets a yes, and time it deliberately ahead of the budget decision, not after it.

Why it matters: Higher ed still runs on relationship and physical presence in a way a lot of software categories don't — a well-timed campus visit can outperform a well-timed email.

Forecast pipeline value by stage, expected closes, and the next tier of accounts to open up.
Flag what needs building next — a new persona deck, sharper ROI data once a first pilot reports real numbers, or a third reference customer.
Name the personal skill gaps the quarter surfaced — procurement navigation, negotiation, whatever came up — and a concrete plan to close them.

Why it matters: this is the difference between finishing a quarter and starting the next one already ahead.