A screenshot of Literacy Tech Inc.’s ReMo app, which won the 2020 Top Gun Showcase event.

ReMo, an EdTech app that helps teachers and students manage their independent learning process, won the top prize and $25,000 at the Top Gun Showcase event held Wednesday evening.

The pitch competition was the culmination of the Maine Center for Entrepreneurs’ Top Gun business accelerator program. Nine companies pitched at the event, which was held in person in Portland and streamed live on the internet (replay available here). The three-member panel of judges were directed to evaluate the companies based on scalability, feasibility, innovation, and the quality of their pitch.

The business founder who impressed the judges the most was Michelle DeBlois, a seventh and eighth grade teacher at Lewiston Middle School who co-founded a company called Literacy Tech Inc. along with her sister Kathryn Lariviere, who is a teacher at Auburn Middle School, and developer Peter Jannet.

In her pitch, DeBlois shared her frustration as a middle school teacher in managing her students’ independent reading efforts, including keeping track of who’s borrowing books from the classroom, what books resonated with which child and which didn’t, etc.

She’s not alone. According to her research, one in five teachers are considering leaving the classroom in the next two years. Another troubling stat she shared: 68% of eighth graders in the United States are not at their grade level for reading. Part of the problem, she said, is teachers are using outdated tools—sticky notes and index cards—to manage the independent reading efforts of her students.

“But I think we’ve been looking at this problem all wrong,” DeBlois said in her pitch. “I don’t think it’s the kids or the reading programs that we’re choosing. I think it’s actually ineffective workflow that’s causing teacher burnout and student disengagement.”

DeBlois’ and her partners’ solution is an application called ReMo, which is an online tool that manages and automates the independent reading process for educators and students in an intuitive way. DeBlois called it a “literacy CRM for books and readers.”

“ReMo makes reading attainable and teaching sustainable,” she said.

In May 2020, the company received a $25,000 grant from the Maine Technology Institute, which the company used to create a functional prototype, which it released on Sept. 1. Currently, five different schools in Maine are beta testing the prototype. DeBlois said in her pitch that if she won the Top Gun event that her company would use the $25,000 to upgrade its database, bring more parents and schools onto the platform, and create more enhanced data analytics.

The company plans to launch its first commercial product in January 2021. DeBlois’ first goal is to capture 200 early adopters who would each pay $150/year for access to the platform. Given her tool could be used by teachers everywhere, she quoted her total addressable market as the 2 million teachers and 132,000 schools in this country.

DeBlois’ sister and co-founder spoke to the Lewiston Sun Journal after the company won the Top Gun event.

Lariviere said the team was “in shock, and excited, and just very grateful. … We’ve been working incredibly hard and this is something we’re really passionate about with our students and encouraging their reading and wanting them to love to read. This feels like we’re finally getting closer to getting there.”

The Maine Technology Institute provided the $25,000 cash prize. Other sponsors of the event were Preti Flaherty and the University of Maine’s Graduate and Professional Center.

The other companies that pitched on Wednesday evening were: