LOS ANGELES, Find Your Grind, a career-readiness platform designed to help students explore unconventional and emerging professions, has raised $5 million in Series A funding, the company announced Tuesday. This new investment brings its total funding to $8 million, marking a significant step for the startup as it aims to change how young people think about their futures.
The round was led by Echo Investment Capital, with additional support from Gross Labs, the investment firm founded by Find Your Grind’s CEO and co-founder Nick Gross, who some may remember from the early-2000s punk scene as the drummer for the band Goldfinger.
From Pop-Punk Stages to EdTech Innovation
Nick Gross’s unlikely path from touring musician to EdTech entrepreneur is at the core of Find Your Grind’s origin story. Gross began his music career at 17 after his high-school band, Open Air Stereo, gained national attention through MTV’s hit reality series Laguna Beach. The sudden exposure showed him a truth many young people eventually discover: career paths are rarely linear, and passions don’t always fit neatly into traditional expectations.
Years later, while running his music studio, Gross began inviting teenagers to visit, learn, and ask questions about creative careers. Over time, he heard the same themes repeated — uncertainty, limited guidance, and pressure to pursue “safe” or conventional professions.
Those conversations ultimately inspired the idea behind Find Your Grind.
“I saw firsthand how little exposure young people were getting to different career possibilities,” Gross said. “Many students move toward adulthood without a strong sense of who they are, what they want, or how to navigate the next steps after school. Find Your Grind is designed to help them explore not just what careers are out there, but which paths align with their strengths, interests, and the kind of future they envision for themselves.”
Why Traditional Career Guidance Is Failing Gen Z
Educators and labor experts agree that the world young people are entering looks very different from the one that influenced older generations. The World Economic Forum predicts that 92 million jobs will vanish by 2030, transformed by automation, artificial intelligence, and changing economic demands.
Students today don’t just choose between becoming doctors, engineers, or lawyers – many want to become content creators, esports athletes, social media strategists, XR designers, sustainability consultants, and many other roles that barely existed a decade ago.
Yet most schools still focus on:
- Static career inventories
- Salary-based comparisons
- Traditional “safe” jobs
- Outdated labor forecasts
This disconnect leaves millions of young people feeling lost.
Find Your Grind aims to fill that gap.
A Platform Built Around Identity, Not Job Titles
What makes Find Your Grind different is its philosophy: career exploration starts with understanding oneself.
Instead of pushing students toward jobs that just pay well or seem stable, the platform emphasizes lifestyles, personal values, and changing professional landscapes. It groups modern careers into broader lifestyle categories that help students understand where they might fit.
The program centers on four main competencies:
1. Self-Awareness
Students reflect on their motivations, natural strengths, and personal values.
2. Career Awareness
They discover new and unconventional professions, often discussed little in school career centers.
3. Social Awareness
They explore workplace dynamics, teamwork styles, and how cultural changes affect the job market.
4. Action Awareness
Students receive practical steps, from building skills to planning for life after graduation.
One of the platform’s standout features is its Lifestyle Assessment, which helps students identify which lifestyle archetypes resonate with them — such as creator, entertainer, innovator, humanitarian, adventurer, and others.
A student might find they connect with the lifestyle of a creator and explore paths ranging from animation and design to digital entrepreneurship and music production. Each profile includes curated learning modules, mentors, and guides for next steps.
Celebrity Mentors Bring Real-World Perspective
Find Your Grind uses mentorship as a key part of the learning experience. Students gain access to a growing group of professionals who share stories about their beginnings, the challenges they faced, and what their day-to-day lives look like.
Mentors include:
- Tony Hawk – professional skateboarder and entrepreneur
- Tony Hoffman – Olympic coach and speaker
- will.i.am – musician, tech expert, and philanthropist
- Additional creators, founders, athletes, and innovators
These voices offer a sense of realism and relatability that many traditional career talks lack. Instead of textbook job descriptions, students hear directly from people who carved their paths in unique ways.
AI-Powered “Reflective Coach” Helps Students Dig Deeper
To personalize the experience further, the platform features an AI-based Reflective Coach, which analyzes student responses to help them uncover patterns in their interests, motivations, and lifestyle preferences.
The Reflective Coach:
- Provides personalized feedback
- Encourages students to reflect critically on their choices
- Highlights overlooked strengths
- Suggests career paths that align with their personality and values
Rather than replacing human mentors, the AI tool enhances the guidance process by helping students ask better questions and approach their futures more clearly.
Bridging Schools and Local Economies Through Workforce Programs
Beyond its digital platform, Find Your Grind is expanding into real-world workforce development programs designed to connect students with opportunities in their local areas.
One of its primary efforts is the Lifestyle Fair, which introduces students to career paths linked to their lifestyle results. These events give teenagers hands-on exposure to industries, professionals, and organizations within their communities.
The company recently launched its first citywide workforce initiative in Oklahoma City, collaborating with schools, training centers, and local employers to expose students to growing fields in their neighborhoods. The goal is to help young people see that meaningful, future-ready careers can be close to home.
Find Your Grind plans to roll out similar workforce partnerships in other U.S. cities.
$5 Million Infusion Fuels National Expansion
The new $5 million funding round will be used to:
- Improve curriculum and platform development
- Expand partnerships with school districts
- Introduce workforce programs in new cities
- Enhance AI-driven features
- Grow its mentor network
- Fund research on youth career development trends
Echo Investment Capital’s support signals confidence in the company’s mission and the future of the career-readiness market, which is becoming crucial as students navigate rapidly changing economic realities.
100,000 Students Reached — and a Million More to Go
According to the company, Find Your Grind has already helped over 100,000 students explore lifestyle-aligned career paths. Nick Gross believes that number is just the beginning.
“Our hope is to reach over a million students soon,” he said, stressing the urgency of preparing young people for a world where traditional pathways no longer guarantee success.
A New Blueprint for the Next Generation
Find Your Grind’s rapid growth reflects a broader change in how young people view work. Gen Z is motivated not only by financial stability but also by lifestyle flexibility, creativity, purpose, and mental well-being.
With its new funding, mentor network, AI-driven coaching tools, and plans for national expansion, Find Your Grind aims to become a key part of the new framework for career exploration — one based on curiosity, identity, and the endless possibilities of the modern workforce.
