GEOFF HEDLEY FOR FORBES
time U.S. treasury secretary, agreed to advise Beaton on his the-
sis. “I kind of assumed he was overextending himself,” Summers
says. “I was waiting for him to drop a ball. But he does 48 hours
of things in every 24-hour day.”
Crimson’s international lavor includes its funding (Chinese
venture capitalist Chen Xiaohong is an investor) and partner-
ships (such as ones with Dulwich College’s branch operations in
Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore and Myanmar, in which Crimson tu-
tors students starting at age 12), and it has opened satellites in
Cape Town, Munich, Zurich and Singapore in recent months.
Fees vary by country, but $50 an hour is typical for video
consultations, which can start early in high school. By the
time a customer is done with college applications, the bill has
mounted to anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. Crimson’s clien-
tele tends to self-select for inancially comfortable high achiev-
ers; still, Bea ton says, the average Crimson student who applies
for inancial aid receives $41,000 a year.
Seyoon Ragavan, a 19-year-old Crimson client, had already
represented Australia in math Olympiads when his parents,
both Sri Lankan immigrants with technical jobs, encouraged
him to think about Princeton. He found Crimson through an
info session at his Sydney high school and signed up with a con-
sultant to help him with the application process and his school’s
inal exams. He’s now a freshman at Princeton. In New Zealand,Jessica Cox read about Crimson in an online news article and
began doing 10 to 25 hours of work a week assigned by Crimson
tutors. Cox will study biological sciences at Oxford this fall.
Crimson has big plans in North America, where it has re-
cently opened four oces. But here Crimson faces a mature
market full of counselors like Top Tier Admissions and test
prep companies like Kaplan and Princeton Review. Michele
Hernandez, who runs Top Tier, is skeptical that students can
learn much from video consultations about admissions. “You
can go to Khan Academy and watch videos for free,” she says.
While Kushor has worked on Crimson full-time since
2016, the company will turn seven before it has the undivid-
ed attention of its other boss. Robertson chuckles when asked
whether he’s ever backed a leader who built a successful busi-
ness while remaining a full-time student: “Jamie is a young
guy with a brilliant mind, and he works hard. I think he can
do it all. But I think he’s overdoing the education part.”
An exuberant fast talker, Beaton declares his case studies
at Stanford have all been Crimson-focused—meaning, he says
with a straight face, he’s really receiving unpaid consulting help
from classmates, whom he also targets as potential hires. “At
Crimson,” Kushor says, “we’re pretty excited about the fact that
we are a learning organization.” Maybe it’s okay to learn on the
job—at least if you are in the education business.MAY 2018 FORBES ASIA | 61EDUCATIONJamie Beaton and Sharndre Kushor, who are cofounders and a romantic couple, make their (extremely) long-distance relationship work with Slack messages
and a commitment to spending birthdays and Valentine’s Day together.F