"In a randomized controlled trial at Georgia State University, an AI assistant handled 200,000 messages from 3,100 students. Only 0.9% needed human help. The result? A 21.4% drop in summer melt and a 3.9% increase in enrollment."

Let’s be honest: in university admissions today, the bottleneck isn’t reach. It's a response.

You’re not struggling to get in front of students; you’re struggling to keep up with them.
Every week, admissions teams answer the same questions, juggle late-night inboxes, and try to identify which students are genuinely ready to take the next step.

This is where the traditional model breaks down.

Students aren’t waiting. They’re searching, browsing, and evaluating on their terms, not yours. And the moment something feels too hard, too slow, or too unclear?

They bounce.

Unless someone answers. Instantly.

Reverse Recruiting: When You Invite the Right Students to Apply

Some of the most forward-thinking universities we’ve worked with aren’t waiting for applications. They’re proactively inviting them.

This is reverse recruiting: flipping the funnel from passive to active.

Instead of reacting to whoever shows up, teams use behavioral signals and engagement data to identify high-fit students and personally invite them to continue. If someone spends 14 minutes exploring your Engineering faculty, downloads a scholarship checklist, and replays a Q&A session, that’s not a cold lead. That’s a student asking, “Is it safe to want this?”

With the right systems in place, your team moves from sorting applications to curating the next class - one qualified nudge at a time.

Why Students Trust AI More Than Humans (At First)

During one of our recent Open Days, an AI avatar trained on the university’s real admissions data handled 7× more student questions than the live Q&A team.

Not because it was smarter. But because it felt safer.

As Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman might say: we act not when we’ve processed all the facts but when the action feels easy, low-risk, and avialible.

That’s what AI offers:

• No pressure

• No judgment

• No fear of asking the "wrong" question

• No waiting

This effect is particularly strong for first-gen students and students from non-traditional backgrounds, international applicants, or anyone less confident to speak up publicly. Research from the Institute for Creative Technologies confirms that people disclose more to virtual agents than human moderators when fear of judgment is removed.When trust is fragile, the ability to explore anonymously is powerful.

What Humans Still Do Best

This isn’t about replacing advisors. It’s about freeing them.

At institutions doing this well, the division of labor looks like this:

• AI handles the first 40–50%: logistics, deadlines, program info, checklists, FAQs

• Humans handle the final 50–60%: complex questions, decision-stage calls, emotional conversations

When implemented correctly, this results in:

• Fewer repetitive emails

• More qualified student bookings

• Higher engagement from nontraditional applicants

• A team that’s focused, not overwhelmed

As Chris Voss might say: Empathy starts with listening at scale. That’s what AI enables.

What AI Needs to Actually Work

You can’t just slap a chatbot on your site and expect trust.
You need to train it like a team member and maintain it like a strategic asset.

Here’s what we’ve seen work:

1. A real knowledge base including internal answers your team already uses (yes, even the email templates)

2. Contextual awareness so a law student in Lagos gets different answers than a parent in Lyon

3. Brand-aligned tone i.e. calm, helpful, human

4. Escalation paths to booking, email, or live follow-up

5. Feedback loops so every question improves the next cycle

6. Ongoing investment you'll need a few hours monthly to review, refine, and feed new scenarios

Most institutions skip steps 2, 4, and 6. Then wonder why their "AI chatbot" feels robotic and gets abandoned.

The Results When You Get It Right

Case Snapshot: StudyExpo x Via Academica

Before their university expo, leading regional agency Via Academica launched an AI-powered admissions avatar. Results:

• Hundreds of student sessions per week

• 2.6× longer average session time

• Most common confusion points were fed into their CRM and campaign flows

• Over 50% of advisor calls were pre-qualified via the avatar

• Sensitive questions around finances, housing, and visas were asked anonymously through AI

That’s not automation. That’s access at scale.

Their human advisors now spend less time answering "What are your entry requirements?" and more time on conversations like "Help me convince my parents this is the right choice."

What This Means for Your Admissions Team

Let’s bring it back to outcomes.

If a student can’t ask their question, they won’t apply. If your team has to answer everything manually, they’ll burn out.

AI doesn’t replace your team. It protects them.

• Fewer cold leads

• More warm conversations

• Continuous Open Day and funnel optimization

This is how leading universities scale without sacrificing quality.

The Bottom Line

Admissions has changed. Student behavior has changed.
And the institutions that respond with systems that guide, listen, and adapt will win the next decade.

Because this isn’t about AI. It’s about reducing friction between intent and action.

And doing it in a way that supports your team, not stretches it.

👀 Want to see it in action?

We’re running 15-minute LIVE walkthroughs showing anonymized real student questions and how our AI assistant handles them in context.

📅 [Book your Spot Here]

Vlad

Our CEO led the charge, but I was helping drafting answers, review the deck, and sitting through the (sometimes terrifying) pitch sessions.

This isn't the way to get in as every team's journey is different. But since we know how valuable it is to hear from people who've actually been through it and how hard it is to find real examples, I decided to share our experience. Take what resonates, adapt what makes sense for your situation, and definitely make it your own.

Katapult changed the trajectory of our year, so if this helps you put your best foot forward, it’s worth it.

📂 Below is how you can request access to our full application deck and pitch recordings so you can see exactly what we submitted.

A Quick Intro

A few months before Katapult opened applications last season, we had a conversation no team really wanted to have.

We had 25–30 paying clients and solid early traction, €500K revenue (half of it recurring), CLTV to CAC ratio 5.64, CAC payback period ≈7.5 months, and NRR off the charts (mainly because we had undersold at first 🫢), but we knew it wasn’t enough to get us where we wanted to be.

And the trajectory was obvious: Not bad enough to pivot or shut down.

Not good enough to change our lives.

We could see ourselves drifting here forever and making baby steps while the market moved on without us.

So we made a choice: either we raise and build the machine we need, or we keep chasing our tail until we run out of steam.

When Katapult announced applications, we didn’t think “oh, cool, an accelerator.” We thought: “this is one of the steps in our fundraising and scaling strategy.”

(Plot twist: we eventually closed our round in Sarajevo thanks to Azra Sarić but that’s a whole other story.)

Take Our Receipts

We’ve put our actual application form, pitch decks, and pitch recordings in one folder.
If you’re applying this year, send me an email vlado(at)beyond42.com or request to share access.

Here’s what’s inside:

• Original application answers

• Evaluation committee pitch deck

• Residency Week pitch (same as the one that got us in)

• Demo Day pitch deck & video recording

Use it as a benchmark, inspiration, or a starting point to shape your own application.

Here’s what worked for us:

In our interpretation, Katapult is looking for companies that can scale, raise, and return multiples to investors. That means they want you to already be fundable and they’re here to accelerate momentum, not create it from scratch.

We’ve seen pre-revenue, early-stage teams get in, so don’t self-disqualify too early. Just know what they are looking for, show proof of demand and speak their language.

1. Know if you’re the right fit

If you already have customers and revenue, you’re ahead. If you’re earlier, apply to the ideation stream and make sure your application clearly states that’s the track you’re going for.

2. Write to their 5 criteria from the Review Guidelines

We mapped every single answer to one of these: Team, Product, Business Model, Market, Capital Raising readiness. If it didn’t connect, we cut it.

3. Do your homework

Mentors and evaluators are public. Look them up. Understand what they’ve built, backed, or care about. We had insider help from Vukasin Bozovic @ Getafeel and Vlad Bozovic of @ Zenhire.

4. Clear admin before creativity

Legal docs, compliance, requirements, get them done early so you’re not burning brainpower on them the night before.

5. Lead with proof, not potential

Use Customer names, revenue, pilots, user surveys, usage stats, case studies. Market size is fine but traction is better.

6. Show up (literally)

We went to every info session. The people running them have seen every type of founder and mistake. They’ll give you insights you didn’t know to ask for.

7. Get feedback from people who already won

Not your co-founder. Not your friends. People who’ve been through the process. We sent our drafts to founders and advisors who knew Katapult.

8. Write it like an investor pitch

This is not a school essay. It’s a VC pitch wearing an application costume. We included investor names, points discussed, and timelines.

If You’re Applying This Season

Dino and I are happy to help.

📅 [Book 30 min with Vlado → link]

We charge in chocolates, payable only if you get in and land that match €300K.

How we are doing post Katapult, that's another Waymo ride :)

Read More: Beyond42: The Startup at the End of the Universe

Fingers crossed. 🤞

• Term Sheet Template

• Shareholding Agreement Template

⚽ Lukić to Vojvodić.

⚽ Vojvodic to Karan.

⚽ Karan to Novković.

One more time Karan aaaaaaand DONE. 🎯

Submitted on March 14. Five people, 2 phone calls, 2 meetings and rapid edits.

Lesson: Speed follows clarity.

NEXT ➜ Secure matching funds.

The 90-day sprint officially began. ⏰

NEXT ➜ Organize critical paperwork for acceleration.

Every startup has a moment it looks back on and says: That’s when it all changed.

This one is ours.

We had a product-market fit. Real revenue (500K EUR). Expanding accounts (372% NRR). We had clients who stayed, paid, and referred others. What we didn’t have - not really - was structure. Not the kind that scales.

Everything worked because we worked harder.

Smarter, too but always from inside the chaos.

We were founder-led to the bone: closing deals, crafting slides, chasing payments, onboarding clients, gathering feedback, writing specs, managing vendors, following up, cleaning up.

Again. And again. Until we couldn’t anymore.

That’s when Sabina entered the story - our super-angel, but more on her later.

And that’s why we applied to Katapult.

About the Katapult Accelerator

For those unfamiliar, Katapult is a three-month accelerator, created by the Serbian Innovation Fund (Fond za inovacionu delatnost). Its goal is to push startups into their next chapter through capital (300K EUR match if you raise private capital) , mentorship, and relentless, productive pressure.

How we got there?

I remember being in Mozaik's Startup Studio in Sarajevo on December 25 when the email landed: We got in.

Dino was calm and confident, even after the pitch. I wasn’t, I’d just been grilled by V. and walked out thinking we blew it.

Katapult labeled us a “scale-up” but we knew we weren’t there yet. We’re post-product-market fit, but we’ve hit the ceiling of founder-led everything.

Founder-led doesn’t mean solo. It means there’s no system. The team mirrors what works, but the playbook doesn’t exist yet.

It’s everything we’ve built, now under relentless scrutiny.

What we’re building at Katapult

Foundation for our Growth machine. In 90 days.

The Machine that:

• Generates Repeatable Sales

• Delivers Scalable Storytelling

• Ensures Operational Clarity

To scale from €500K to €5M ARR, we must automate, standardize, and get founders out of execution.

Without that, even our best metrics won’t scale.

But with a fully automated Go-To-Market engine: sales, onboarding, customer success, we unlock growth and healthier margins.

That’s the shift: from crawling to velocity.

Once the machine works, scaling is simple: €1 in, €3 out.

Optimize further: €7. Master it and the unicorn math becomes real.

We’ve done with figuring it out, I guess :)

Who is this for?

• Audience: Our team, our fellow cohort founders, and (occasionally) Simone de Beauvoir, Borislav Pekić, and Virginia Woolf

• Format: Bulit in public (sort of), Real-time execution breakthroughs, strategic decisions, momentum snapshots

• Katapult Sprint Dates: March 10–June 10, 2025

The founder-led era ends here.
The machine is loading.

If you’re wondering whether the grasshoppers really ate those years - maybe.
But we stayed human.

As for the company?

That’s not up to us anymore. It’s up to the machine we’re building.

Sprint Timer: 90-day countdown started on March 10.

“I believe Pekić would say: People call it a strategy. But I know what this really is — obsession. “

- A note from the edge of reason, somewhere between Belgrade and the future

Who We Are

Some people find startups. I think this one found me.

When I was a kid, my parents bought me a SEGA Mega Drive 2 - not just any console, but the console. By the next day, I was renting it out to kids in the neighbourhood. Same challenges then as now: concurrent users, setup friction, payment collection. The business ran surprisingly well - until the following summer, when my grandmother, Branka, discovered the pile of cash under my bed.

Boom. Hostile takeover. She took the earnings and bought wood and coal for the winter.

Two decades later Dino and I built Beyond42.
And honestly? The only thing I knew for sure back then was that I wanted the name to come from a book.

We looked to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A book about meaning, absurdity, and technology. A book with a number - 42 - that claims to be the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Beyond42 is half code, half story. A startup about space — not outer space, but the space we live, work, and learn in. Reimagined. Brought online. Made immersive.

We didn’t build a tool. We built a category.

IXP stands for Immersive Experience Platform - a new class of software that turns physical buildings/institutions into scalable digital products, powered by a machine underneath.

Beyond42 is the digital infrastructure layer that helps iconic buildings - from universities to cultural sites to corporate HQs - scale human connection, unlock new revenue, and preserve their stories through immersive experiences and digital twins.

We believe universities, cultural heritage sites and corporates are entering their ‘digital land rush’ - and we’re building the infrastructure to power it.

N and N, from Generali and Viatris (formerly Mylan), were among the first to believe - they bought the platform license from us before we even had language for what we were building. But it was MB, the CMO of Cattolica University — the second-largest private university in Europe — who placed the kind of bet that turns early signals into a system.

They started with a single campus in Milan. Within months, they scaled Beyond42 across all six of their locations: Rome, Cremona, Piacenza, and both Brescia campuses.

At the moment we are discussing onboarding their Career Service division next - expanding the platform to support a new layer of value, engagement, and outcomes.

What began as a pilot became infrastructure.

Not a marketplace. Not an app.
A system that compounds with every activation.

In Twitter-pitch terms?

Beyond42 is building the digital infrastructure layer for the built world to go online.
We turn buildings into digital twins — intelligent, immersive, and programmable.

Just like software: dynamic, scalable, and built to compound.
This is the stack powering The Great Migration.

The Problem

For the past decade, we watched legacy institutions pour billions into physical buildings, sites and campuses while their digital layers remained static, disconnected, or nonexistent.

We saw opportunity where others saw walls.

Universities, institutions, and iconic buildings represent some of the most valuable physical assets on earth - yet digitally, they are nearly invisible.

• Their websites are static.

• Their “virtual tours” are clunky and one-off.

• Their recruitment, onboarding, and event experiences are fragmented, outdated, and costly.

They make zeros revenue from digital.

In a world where students, partners, and employees expect Amazon-level digital experiences, these institutions are still stuck in the brochure and 360 images era.

They don’t just lack immersion - they lack interactivity, intelligence, and scalability.

There’s no central software layer that transforms physical presence into digital product.

That’s the gap.

The Opportunity

This is not a UX tweak. It’s a category opportunity.

We’re building the IXP – Immersive Experience Platform:
A SaaS layer that transforms physical spaces into scalable, interactive, intelligent digital products.

With IXP, institutions can:

• Recruit globally, without travel.

• Onboard new students or staff, instantly.

• Host events, tours, and experiences inside a persistent, branded 3D environment.

• Measure behavior, engagement, and ROI with platform-native analytics.

In short: they stop being websites. They become platforms.

The timing is right:

• The cost of 3D and spatial tech is dropping.

• User expectations for immersive, frictionless digital experiences are surging.

• Institutions are under pressure to scale globally and digitally — without losing identity.

We’re not “building a better tour.”
We’re defining a new category — and we’re already building it with leading universities, cultural institutions and corporations.

The Great Migration

The built world is going online.

We don’t build buildings just to stand.
We build them to last.
To mean something.
Not just to shelter us —
But to outlive us.

The built world is the most valuable thing humanity has ever created.
€230 trillion in stone, steel, and story.

Think of your university campus.
Your favorite theatre.
Your company HQ.

These aren’t just spaces.
They’re memories made solid —
Places that shaped lives, identities, and futures.

And yet...
As the world moved online, the places that shaped us were left behind.
Four billion buildings. Sit in silence.
Barely seen online. Reduced to:
A brochure.
A clunky 360° tour.
A hallway photo.
A forgotten dropdown on a website.

In a remote-first, Gen Z-driven, post-COVID world —
If your building isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.

They deserve more.
We all do.

IXP

That’s why we built the IXP — the Immersive Experience Platform:
A full-stack SaaS product that turns buildings into programmable digital infrastructure.

It looks like this:

• Cinematic 3D digital twins

• Clickable, story-driven journeys

• CMS for non-technical teams

• Analytics, personalization, multi-user logic

• Browser-native. No app. No scanning. No hardware.

It’s not a tour. Not a rendering. Not a gimmick.
It’s infrastructure.

Spaces that don’t just exist — they act.
They recruit. They onboard. They teach. They scale.

And for institutions across education, culture, and enterprise — this is how they stay present, global, and alive.

This is the biggest migration of the decade. And this is where the next 10B category begins.
And it’s already underway.

We are Beyond42.
And we’re not building a tool — we’re building a new layer of civilisation.

Why Are We Writing This?

We’ve always built quietly. But now the build is the story.

And momentum compounds when it’s seen. We’re the kind of team that starts a blog in the middle of an accelerator after 30 seconds conversation with T and to stay sane.

This blog is a timestamp. A record of the pressure cooker. A map of how we’re building the machine — the one that turns early traction into scalable growth. The one that gets us from €500K to €5M without losing our minds or our margins.

We’re in the Katapult Accelerator now — a three-month sprint backed by the Serbian Innovation Fund.

It’s capital, pressure, and public accountability.

We’re writing every step.
Not because we don’t have better things to do, but because someone else out there is on the same damn path.

What’s at Stake?

We come from product, architecture, GTM, and deep startup scars. And we came to Katapult to build the machine — and prove it works.

1. Repeatable sales.

2. Scalable storytelling.

3. Operational clarity.

And it is already happening.

• A 500K revenue. CLTV to CAC Ratio: 5.64, CAC Payback period ≈7.5 months, NRR 372%.

• Institutional partners expanding across campuses.

• New divisions coming online like Cattolica’s Career Services

We’ve been bootstrapped, underestimated, told to go slower, told to go faster. This is the moment where momentum either compounds - or collapses. We are here to make it compound.

Follow Along

The Katapult Sprint - a live, build-in-public journey from founder-led to founder-free execution.

We publish as it happens: days, decisions, detours, and sparks.

📅 Follow us to Demo Day.
🎯 Watch us build the machine.
🚀 And maybe define the future of how institutions exist online.

READ NEXT:

Prologue: Before the Clock Started

Curious where this goes? Stick around.

And if you're building something DM me. Let’s swap notes.