Janessa Ferrell Email & Phone Number

I care deeply about justice, especially when it comes to children. I'm a curious, creative, fun-seeker who thrives in chaotic situations. As an eternal optimist, I believe that every person's life has a purpose, and we're meant to live in community.I've spent the past 20 years helping children learn to read - as a mom, teacher, and reading specialist. Most of the students that I worked with strongly disliked reading, either due to a learning issue or a lack of motivation. So, I was determined to do everything in my power to help them overcome these issues to become a successful reader. After studying and experimenting for several years, I found that the best way to help my students was to provide interesting books, turn reading into a game, and use technology. I looked around for an app that would work for my students, and I couldn't find anything that was both effective and fun.So I decided to build this app myself. After writing my initial ideas, I realized that I had no clue how to build an app! I applied to grad school to learn these necessary technical skills, but then the pandemic happened and those plans fell through. I reached out to EdTech companies, and eventually found a start-up reading app that wanted to work with me. At this company I learned on the job, taking night school classes in product management and working closely with our CTO. I grew into the VP Product role and gained valuable skills and insights into how to build and sell a sticky product. In March 2023, myself and my 2 co-founders started QuestRead...which is the answer to the problem that I've been looking to solve for some time now. Our goal is for this game to be a game-changer for children everywhere. The timing of our launch was perfect, coinciding with massive advancements in Generative AI, which allows us to build a more inclusive and accessible product.