Markets with Madison
00:02:03 · Jamie Beaton, Madison
[00:02:03] S1: Yep. Love it. Love it. [00:02:04] S0: Security was high due to recent protests, something we'll talk about later on. First, a look at this campus in Central New York. It's incredible and for many unattainable. But Jamie and his company seem to have cracked the admissions acceptance code. Is there a dual intent by you going to these universities? Are you, like, hunting product information at the same time? [00:02:28] S1: So I think when I was first born in Crimson, going to business school is a no brainer. I was a young founder. I wanted to learn, you know, how you build these high growth companies. That made sense. I think going to law school also super helpful too, because they're operating all these different countries, different jurisdictions. [00:02:41] S0: Lawyers, because you understand it. Totally. [00:02:44] S1: Yeah. So that that makes sense. And then my, PhD was on what drives online student outcomes that help for Crimson Global Academy, our school. So I'd say the first five programs, they all made serious sense. The latest ones have been more for my entertainment. So just topics that I really wanted to study and enjoy. But of course, like the benefit of them is I understand all these different universities, the schools, the cultures, so we can advise students. We can also hire staff from them, the alumni communities. [00:03:08] S0: So, you
00:03:08 · Madison, Jamie Beaton
[00:03:08] S0: So, you [00:03:08] S1: know, we have hundreds of counsellors, many of them come from these schools. And then, you know, know, I'm on the pulse of, like, new programs, what's going on. So it definitely helps with the Crimson for sure. But at this point, it's become more of a learning hobby, I would say. [00:03:20] S0: What's your time split between learning and higher education versus actually running Crimson? [00:03:26] S1: Oh, probably about 90% is running Crimson. I would say, So the studying is now much more part time than it once was. [00:03:33] S0: But to do those scale of degrees, and I add you're not doing these just online, like, you're physically turning up and doing these insane courses while also running a huge global business. [00:03:45] S1: It's been really helpful being in New York because I can zip down to Yale for two days of class or zip down to Princeton for a couple of days of class or an exam or something. So it's definitely been helpful being here. And then of course during COVID, I could do, a degree in China and also Oxford Online. So that's helped. So it's been a bit, lucky with the circumstances, but, mainly I do in person programmes because online is not as fun. [00:04:05] S0: At its core, Crimson helps prepare students to excel at interviews and essays, moulding them, in some cases over years, to be a fit for universities in The US and Europe. Crimson began as like an Ivy League admissions coaching scheme effectively, but I understand that's not all that Crimson is now. Can you explain to me what Crimson is and what it does in 2025?
00:04:28 · Jamie Beaton, Madison
[00:04:28] S1: Absolutely. So the origin of course was helping ambitious Kiwis getting into the world's best universities and navigating that journey. From there we realised actually we could do this for students all around the world. So today we're helping kids from 20 plus countries, from China to India to Japan, even to The Middle East, helping navigate them through this process from high school to The States. Now after a while we realized actually we're getting pretty good at this and we should help Americans too. So about seven years ago we set up shop in California and now today Crimson's the largest provider of college admissions guidance for American kids getting into US colleges, which I think is pretty funny because they trust, of course, Kiwis to get into their own schools. Now, after college admissions, we've expanded into postgraduate admissions too, helping folks with MBA, law school, PhD. And then we have an online high school with thousands of kids who trust us as their full high school experience, which is pretty cool. And then we've got other things from tuition academies to AI learning platforms to Revision Village, which is the most popular study resource platform for the IB. So we've really tried to expand from the 16 to 18 New Zealand to The US corridor to a much more global kind of five through to early professionals learning ecosystem. Interesting. So in terms of countries that Crimson effectively touches through students that you admit into universities where around the [00:05:42] S0: world, how many countries and continents are you in?
00:05:42 · Madison, Jamie Beaton
[00:05:42] S0: world, how many countries and continents are you in? [00:05:44] S1: We're in about 35 countries today and The US is our biggest single market, but we've got a great presence everywhere from Southeast Asia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand. We even actually had operations in Russia for the longest time. With the recent spiciness, we've moved out a little bit to more the broader CIS region. Kazakhstan will be probably our most exotic office today. [00:06:04] S0: Where does the bulk of your revenue come from across those business divisions, from like the physical to the online So [00:06:11] S1: still today about 70% of our business is college mission. So that's definitely the thriving heart of Crimson. And within that, we've really built this global brand for helping students get into the most ambitious schools. So not necessarily just the Ivy League, but think about schools like Duke, UC Berkeley, the great UK schools like University College London or Oxford. So that would be the core, and then of that The US is about a third of that market, and then 40% is Asia Pacific at large from China through to Japan. [00:06:37] S0: When you're speaking to prospective students or existing students and their parents, what do they want from Crimson? What are they trying
00:06:37 · Madison, Jamie Beaton
[00:06:37] S0: When you're speaking to prospective students or existing students and their parents, what do they want from Crimson? What are they trying [00:06:44] S1: to seek through your offerings? So at the core, university is the fastest way to go from any corner of the world to these epicentres of innovation, whether it be AI, entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, breaking into Wall Street like it did at Tiger, and there's nothing faster for a kid from, for example, Australia than going through these schools. So fundamentally what they're looking for is this ambitious career on the world stage. They want to make sure that the university degree kind of ports them into these centres of global capitalism. And so they're looking at, of course, an amazing university experience, but also all the jobs that come next. And today our Crimson students are working at the likes of Tesla, OpenAI, great firms like Goldman Sachs, many have gone on to raise venture capital rounds. One of our young Australians actually sold this company recently to Amazon, which is pretty cool. For how much? Good question, I should ask them, but at least in probably the tens of millions I would say, so a pretty good outcome. And then we've even got a Kiwi, Nancy Liu, who's in the New Zealand government who came through Crimson as well.
00:06:44 · Jamie Beaton, Madison
[00:06:44] S1: to seek through your offerings? So at the core, university is the fastest way to go from any corner of the world to these epicentres of innovation, whether it be AI, entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, breaking into Wall Street like it did at Tiger, and there's nothing faster for a kid from, for example, Australia than going through these schools. So fundamentally what they're looking for is this ambitious career on the world stage. They want to make sure that the university degree kind of ports them into these centres of global capitalism. And so they're looking at, of course, an amazing university experience, but also all the jobs that come next. And today our Crimson students are working at the likes of Tesla, OpenAI, great firms like Goldman Sachs, many have gone on to raise venture capital rounds. One of our young Australians actually sold this company recently to Amazon, which is pretty cool. For how much? Good question, I should ask them, but at least in probably the tens of millions I would say, so a pretty good outcome. And then we've even got a Kiwi, Nancy Liu, who's in the New Zealand government who came through Crimson as well. [00:07:37] S0: In a way, Crimson has kept these institutions alive by keeping top talent flowing through its doors. But the prestige of places like this may be at risk. Artificial intelligence is democratising knowledge and possibly with it, the value of centuries old education institutions. How do you see that ultimately changing education and for better or for worse?