What Symphony Workforce does

Symphony Workforce Development Corporation is a Nebraska-based nonprofit organization that operates Find the Why!, a gamified mobile platform connecting young people ages 13-30 with real-world business challenges for career discovery. On the platform, students compete in structured challenges posed by companies and organizations to solve real-world problems, earning cash prizes, virtual internships, and scholarship dollars while building auto-generated digital resumes that capture their skills, certifications, completed challenges, and career aspirations. The platform has national reach across 41 U.S. states and provides businesses with aggregated engagement data to inform early talent acquisition decisions. Founded around 2019 and rebranded from Find Your Genius to Find the Why! in 2022, the company is led by CEO and co-founder Todd Smith and co-founder John Batcher.

The business operates a two-sided model. On the demand side, students access the platform free of charge via a mobile app, with student acquisition supported by school district partnerships (including Omaha Public Schools) and nonprofit partnerships (The Simple Foundation). On the supply side, the company pursues enterprise licensing deals with industry associations and individual corporations. Its flagship 2024 engagement is a strategic partnership with the Nebraska Hospital Association to provide a statewide healthcare workforce solution serving 92 member hospitals, targeting 9,500 students from grade 3 through undergraduate nursing programs, with funding support from Governor Pillen and the Nebraska Department of Economic Development.

Revenue is generated through two primary streams: B2B platform licensing to enterprises and associations (a recurring subscription model) and corporate challenge sponsorship fees (a transaction model where companies pay to post challenges and access student talent data). The company maintains a lean team of 1-10 employees, operates as an independent founder-led nonprofit with no disclosed institutional funding or parent entity, and pursues a multi-channel go-to-market combining direct-to-consumer mobile access, school district channel partnerships, and enterprise field sales targeting large organizations and HR audiences via conference keynotes such as the HIRE Conference.

Name

Symphony Workforce

Legal name

Symphony Workforce Development Corporation

Website

https://symphonyworkforce.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Symphony Workforce operates Find the Why!, a gamified mobile platform connecting young people ages 13-30 with real-world business challenges for career discovery while giving enterprises a data-driven talent pipeline. The Nebraska-based nonprofit partners with school districts and associations like the Nebraska Hospital Association.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Workforce Development Software

NAICS

Educational Services (611), Other Technical and Trade Schools (611519)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Internship/Apprenticeship Matching & Work-Based Learning Platforms (EDAFAMAL)

akta.pro secondary industries

Business, Entrepreneurship & Case Competitions (DECA-style, Pitch, Case) (EDAMAGAJ), Mentoring, Coaching, Alumni Networking & Peer Support Platforms (EDAFAMAN)

Keywords

• Career discovery platform
• Workforce development software
• Talent acquisition platform
• Gamified mobile learning
• Youth career exploration

Headquarters

HQ city

Waterloo

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. B2B Platform Licensing: Revenue generated from licensing the Find the Why! platform to businesses, organizations, and associations for workforce solutions and talent acquisition. Nebraska Hospital Association selected Symphony Workforce as platform provider for statewide healthcare workforce solution.
2. Challenge Sponsorship: Companies post real-world problems as challenges on the platform. Businesses pay for access to student talent pool and aggregated engagement data.

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Symphony Workforce operates the Find the Why! platform, a gamified mobile application where students and young people ages 13-30 compete in structured challenges to solve real-world problems posted by businesses and organizations. Students earn cash prizes, virtual internships, and scholarship dollars while discovering career paths aligned with their skills and aspirations, and the platform generates auto-validated digital resumes. For businesses, the platform provides access to a national pool of student talent across 41 states and aggregated engagement data for early workforce pipeline development.

Product overview

Symphony Workforce Development Corporation operates as a workforce development organization offering a single unified product called Find the Why! — a gamified mobile platform for career discovery and talent acquisition. The platform connects young people (ages 13-30) with real-world business challenges, enabling them to discover career opportunities while providing companies with data-driven insights for recruiting. The platform was formerly known as Find Your Genius and has national reach across 41 states.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Find the Why!: A gamified mobile platform where students and young people (ages 13-30) compete in structured challenges to solve real-world problems put forward by businesses and organizations. Students compete for cash prizes, virtual internships, and scholarship dollars.

Products and services

• Find the Why! Find the Why! is a gamified mobile platform where students and young people ages 13-30 compete in structured challenges to solve real-world problems posed by businesses and organizations. Participants earn cash prizes, virtual internships, and scholarship dollars, and the platform generates auto-validated digital resumes capturing skills, certifications, and career aspirations. It is offered free to students and monetized through B2B licensing and sponsored challenges.

Quantifiable outcome

• Majority of young people make forward progress in career discovery at end of each challenge
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

14 partnerships are on record, tiered core, supporting and minor.

• Nebraska Hospital AssociationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 August 2024Symphony Workforce selected as platform provider and strategic partner for Nebraska Hospital Association's statewide workforce solution addressing healthcare workforce shortage. The platform serves 92 member hospitals with engagement from 3rd grade through undergrad nursing programs. Governor Pillen and Nebraska Department of Economic Development secured funding to support this initiative.
• Nebraska Health Care AssociationsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerNebraska Health Care Association was instrumental in supporting the NHA workforce solution initiative alongside Medica.
• MedicasupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerMedica was instrumental in supporting the Nebraska Hospital Association workforce solution initiative.
• Omaha Public SchoolscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNew initiative with Omaha Public Schools, the largest public school district, to introduce thousands of students to Find the Why! opportunities in the classroom setting.
• The Simple FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with The Simple Foundation, whose target population includes underserved youth, to expand reach of Find the Why! platform to underrepresented communities.
• CEOs for CODEsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with Omaha Chamber members involved with CEOs for CODE, an opportunity, diversity and equity initiative.
• CNH IndustrialminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPosted challenge on Find the Why! platform to redesign a combine harvester - example of corporate challenge sponsor.
• Goodwill Industries of Greater NebraskaminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPosted challenge on Find the Why! platform to develop a mental-health solution for teens.
• Hawkins ConstructionminorGTM or Marketing PartnerParticipated in Find the Why! challenges as a corporate sponsor.
• OPPD (Omaha Public Power District)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerParticipated in Find the Why! challenges as a corporate sponsor.
• Quantum WorkplaceminorGTM or Marketing PartnerParticipated in Find the Why! challenges as a corporate sponsor.
• Chick-fil-AminorGTM or Marketing PartnerParticipated in Find the Why! challenges as a corporate sponsor.
• Kinstler Brown CompaniesminorGTM or Marketing PartnerEmployer partner that hired student Tyler Robert for marketing and branding coordinator role after his participation in Find the Why! challenges.
• Nebraska State LeadershipsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerGovernor Pillen and K.C. Belitz, Director of Nebraska's Department of Economic Development, shared the need to solve healthcare workforce crisis and secured funding to support NHA's workforce solution with Symphony Workforce.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• RippleMatch: RippleMatch is an early-talent platform that uses data-driven matching to connect students and recent graduates with employer opportunities and internships. Its automated candidate-employer matching and employer-sponsored programs overlap with Symphony's challenge sponsorship and talent data play.
• WayUp: WayUp matches college students and recent graduates with paid internships and entry-level jobs through an employer-sponsored marketplace. It directly overlaps with Symphony's career-discovery and virtual-internship marketplace model for the same 18-30 student demographic.
• Parker Dewey: Parker Dewey runs a micro-internship platform connecting college and graduate students with paid short-term projects at companies. Its project-based work-experience model and employer pay-for-access structure directly mirror Symphony's virtual internships and challenge sponsorship model.
• Apprenti / Apprenti-Inspire: Apprenti operates registered apprenticeship programs in technology and skilled trades, with employer partnerships addressing workforce shortage. Its apprenticeship-matching model and industry-association partnership distribution closely parallel Symphony Workforce's healthcare-association workforce solution.
• Handshake: Handshake is the largest dedicated career-discovery and early-talent platform connecting students with employers and internships. It competes head-to-head with Symphony Workforce's Find the Why! on connecting students (especially 18-30) to career opportunities and employer-sponsored challenges, though Handshake focuses on college students while Symphony expands to ages 13-30.

Emerging players

• Roadtrip Nation: Roadmap Nation produces career-discovery content and tools that help young people chart career paths aligned to their interests. Its career-discovery mission and youth-focused content overlap with Symphony's Find the Why! gamified career exploration approach.
• Forage: Forage delivers free job simulation programs that expose students to real company work and helps employers build early talent pipelines. It overlaps with Symphony's challenge-based, real-world-problem approach to career discovery and employer branding, though Forage focuses on simulation content rather than competitions.
• Candidly (formerly known as Candid Career): Candidly provides career-readiness content and employer connections to students and graduates through video interviews and workforce data. It competes in adjacent career-discovery and student-data territory used by Symphony's Find the Why! platform.

Broad incumbents

• LinkedIn (Early Career / LinkedIn Learning): LinkedIn offers career discovery, learning, internships, and entry-level job matching via LinkedIn Learning and LinkedIn Early Career. As a broad incumbent with vastly larger scale, it competes with Symphony Workforce at the career-readiness and employer-student matching layer but lacks the gamified challenge model.
• Indeed (Indeed Career Guide / Indeed Internships): Indeed is a major incumbent job search platform with resources for career discovery, internships, and employer talent acquisition. It provides comparable student-employer matching functionality at much larger scale, with similar monetized employer pipelines.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/symphonyworkforce

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Symphony Workforce