The new year started with an avalanche of attention.
Applications to Second Course quintupled after the legislation passed. We received inquiries from organizations in forty-three states wanting to replicate our model. The Moretti Family Foundation was inundated with funding requests.
"We can't handle this volume," Connor said, looking at the numbers. "We're getting three hundred applications per week. We have space for sixty students total across all cohorts."
"Then we expand again. Find more space. Partner with other organizations. Use the federal funding to scale up."
"That's not a six-month project. That's a multi-year undertaking."
"So we start now. Tony's foundation can provide initial funding. The federal grants will sustain it. We build the infrastructure to actually help people instead of just maintaining a waitlist."
But scaling was harder than I'd anticipated.
