Fresh off Sketchy's recent $30 million Series A fundraise, the study aid company for medical students has brought on former Disney executive Andrew Sugerman to lead the L.A.-based startup into a major expansion that will redefine the company.
The company, backed by former Hollywood executive Peter Chernin's investment firm TCG, has plans to establish an in-house animation studio.
Sugerman is now in charge of Sketchy's operations, content development and growth. He'll be working to increase Sketchy's reach and expand its subject matter beyond medicine.
He will build upon his experience as executive vice president of Disney's global digital media and publishing arm. Part of his role there was to spread Disney's franchises across multiple formats, including comics, books, mobile apps and social media.
He'll also draw on his education experience. At Disney, for example, Sugerman led a program to teach English as a second language to 30,000 students in mainland China. And prior to joining the House of Mouse, he spent seven years building distance-learning products as president of Swedish company EF Education First.
"There are a lot of learning companies that exist," Sugerman said, "but what separates Sketchy from all of those is the ability to create and tap into its visual learning platform."
Founded in 2013 by medical students for medical students, Sketchy uses image-based pedagogy to help with memorization. As CEO and co-founder Saud Siddiqui has said, "Our brain has evolved to be really good at visual spatial recall."
Sketchy's teaching technique boosts information retention by 30%, according to Siddiqui. Since launching, the company has acquired 30,000 users.
As part of his growth plan, Sugerman wants to transition Sketchy from a product to a service.
Former Disney executive Andrew Sugerman is the new head of Sketchy.
"When Sketchy started, it was helping students to prepare for a specific exam – a product for a defined period, for a defined outcome. Where we're looking to make a broader change," he said, "is to make Sketchy a program for a student who can start as early as undergrad, when they're preparing for pre-med or in the sciences, then making their way to the MCAT, into med school, into an adjacent program – and Sketchy will be there from the minute you start, all the way through."
A new price tag may accompany such a change, Sugerman said. In the past, new prices emerged when Sketchy bundled formerly separate courses on microbiology, pharmacology and pathology. Something similar may happen as the company explores new ways to package its offerings.
"Pricing is an active conversation right now," Sugerman said
To this point, Sketchy has had a tiered pricing structure, ranging from roughly $230 to $550 for up to two years of programming.
Sketchy's team will be growing as well. Sugerman wants to hire people for product, sales and marketing and engineering roles. The recent fundraise puts the company in a good position to hire such roles, he said, and "build out everything we'll be building over the next 12 to 24 months."
One other buildout in Sugerman's plans is creating new characters, to try to arouse "an emotional connection" in learners.
That effort aligns, he added, with another Disney experience of his, when his group relaunched the "Muppet Babies" to "make our dreams come true" again, and created a new character, Summer Penguin.
"I view the future of Sketchy as combining story content and character development into one unified opportunity for learning that can have a major impact," he said.
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Visitors to L.A. – or locals looking for a fun reason to leave their apartments – can scroll the interactive map on a browser or download the app.
Image courtesy of the L.A. Tourism Dept.
The “Discover Los Angeles” map can be broken down by neighborhood or by a series of “guides,” which all feature as part of the larger promotional campaign roll-out known as the Explorer’s Guide to L.A
Atlas Obscura and the Tourism Department also published a hardcover edition of the Explorer’s Guide, along with several other speciality breakout guides, including the Meeting Planners Guide, artistic Visitor’s Map and, for those with more expensive tastes, the L.A. Luxury Guide to the city’s pricier pursuits. The paper versions of the guides have QR codes for travelers to scan and take information with them on the go.
This year’s collaboration with Atlas Obscura gives the Tourism Department’s previous guide a much-needed update – it was previously a whopping 136-page PDF document created in 2020.
The Explorer’s Guide includes a mix of places you’d expect to see on the map, like Griffith Park and the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. It also has some unlikely spots sourced from Atlas Obscura’s network of local explorers who recommended their favorite places to visit: the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Venice Canals or the Watts Towers, a stunning, monumental public art exhibit of mosaic steel towers that was built by one Italian immigrant over a 34-year period.
30 neighborhoods are discussed in the guide, from classic tourist destinations like Hollywood and beach cities like Santa Monica and Venice to lesser-known but still exciting enclaves like Leimert Park, Frogtown and Little Ethiopia. There’s also several maps for specific interests – taqueria lovers will find new spots to nosh with the taco map, and there’s also a map of the Downtown Arts District, spots to stargaze and sports venues.
“For myself and the writers and editors on this project, many of them L.A. natives, getting to write and curate the official visitors guide to the city of L.A. was an absolute dream,” Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras said in a statement. “We hope that these guides will inspire all the curious travelers arriving in L.A., to try new things, as well as providing new adventures for longtime L.A. residents. There is really no limit to what L.A. has to offer.”
