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Empowering Youth. Fulfilling Potential.
We’re a mission-driven organization with an unwavering focus on helping young people flourish.
We're committed to helping students fulfill their education, career, and personal potential.
Today’s students feel ill-prepared to navigate the complex decisions, challenges, and opportunities that they face throughout this pivotal period of their lives. That’s why our mission is to empower students to become their best selves and achieve their goals in education, career, and life, while also giving parents the support they need to foster this for their children as well.
We offer 1-on-1, on-demand virtual coaching, tailored to each student’s individual background, needs, and circumstances. Our vision is for every young person to have the tools and support they need to make the most of their unique strengths and overcome any obstacles that may be standing in their way of creating a brighter future for themselves and the world.
20,000+
Coaching Hours Delivered
14+ Years
Experience Coaching Youth
4.9/5
Coach Satisfaction Score
$5 Million+
Scholarships Awarded to Students
70-90%+
Acceptance Rate to Competitive Universities
1,000+
Students Accepted to Their Top-choice Programs
Our Values
Integrity
We believe in diversity and inclusivity and we strive to create an environment where every student, coach and employee feels valued for who they are. We hold ourselves to a high standard of ethical behavior and we expect the same from others. We believe that integrity is the foundation of positive collaboration and mutual respect and this will help us to achieve our goals together.
Growth
Life is full of things that seem difficult or impossible, but the biggest successes happen when you push the envelope and go beyond what you ever thought was possible. That's what coaching is all about: embracing the belief that we can learn and grow to achieve any obstacle or goal. So, in the same way we help students reach their potential, we try to do the same.
Resilience
We believe that it's not about the resources we have, but how we use them to achieve our goals. We embrace change as a journey and choose to persevere through challenges and uncertainty with a positive outlook. Whether it's at work, school, or in your personal life, find joy in everyday moments and be confident that the best is yet to come.
Quality
We strive for excellence in everything we do. We believe that if you're going to do something, you might as well do it well—and we expect the same from our students. We believe that by setting a high bar for ourselves and our students, we can help each other achieve great things, become our best, and create a positive impact in the world.
Our Story
Youthfully was founded by Joel Nicholson and Nader Karass.
They have vastly different upbringings, but a common belief that families deserve more from their educational experience.
Joel, raised by a family of educators, began coaching students in 2010 after gaining first-hand exposure to the competitive university admissions process.
He then blended his experiences in management consulting, academia, entrepreneurship, and executive coaching to create a comprehensive, holistic educational approach for students and parents.
This approach not only resonated with students, it also resulted in extraordinary success at university admissions and beyond.
The word quickly spread and he recruited a select group of high-achieving professionals to become Youth Coaches as well…
…Nader grew up in Egypt and felt lost and unsupported during his own youth, navigating the complex maze of university admissions as an international student.
Now as a father of three, he’s committed to ensure his kids will have the guidance needed to reach their full potential.
He brings deep technical experience leading one of North America’s largest tutoring platforms, along with advanced AI expertise to shape Youthfully’s world-class educational platform.
Today, Youthfully is committed to transforming people’s lives through our network of carefully selected and trained coaches, robust tech platform, and unwavering focus on delivering the world’s highest quality educational experience for families.
Founders
Joel Nicholson
Co-founder & CEO
As someone who was raised in a family of educators, Joel realized that a crucial aspect of his learning journey was missing. After graduating from Queen's Commerce in 2010, he combined insights as a top admissions coach in Canada with the training he received as a management consultant to coach high school students virtually on their transition to university. He co-founded CampusRankings to try and solve this problem with big data, but sold the business in 2016 to focus on Youthfully as it was clear that students craved guidance from a mentor—not a computer. Today, Joel calls Calgary home and spends free time in the mountains or the water.
Nader Karass
Co-founder & CTO
After moving to Canada from Egypt to attend Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, Nader applied his passion for tech and coding and worked at the Student Life Network and various leading startups in the education and tech sector. Nader works hard to find innovative ways to improve learning and development methods and help make education more accessible to everyone. In his spare time, he enjoys woodworking and putting together puzzles with his kids.
Our Impact
Youthfully’s Social Impact Fund offers free or subsidized youth coaching for students from underrepresented or low-income backgrounds. The program aims to provide students with the same access to our world-class, dedicated coaches as if they were a paying customer. We partner with public district school boards to promote the opportunity and students can apply to participate.
The program is officially funded through a separate charitable organization, of which, Youthfully is the main partner. We contribute 5% of capital raised and 5% of annual profits into the fund, and we raise money from other organizations to support our mission. This helps level the playing field, bridge the gap, and create a more equitable society. We are excited to see the positive results of this program and to continue expanding our efforts in the future.
Careers
Interested in joining a fast-growing edtech company? We’re currently hiring for the below roles:
We’re always looking for top talent, so if there’s no role that fits your skill set, drop us a line and introduce yourself.
News & Appearances
Youthfully Workshop at Enactus UBC
Big thanks to Coach Jon for his insightful session on university application preparation, shared with 100 high school students at the Ennovate event by Enactus, held at UBC. Great work!
Globe and Mail Feature
We're thrilled to be featured in The Globe and Mail again—this time discussing how Youthfully is helping students build the skills they need to conquer challenging university admissions requirements.
Maclean’s Guidebook Feature
Youthfully was named the "best application help money can buy", noted for our 1:1 coaching approach, as part of a feature in the University Guidebook.
Coach Named 2022 Emerging Leader
Joel Nicholson, Co-founder & CEO of Youthfully, was named one of the 2022 Emerging Leaders by The Peak, Canada's most read business & tech newsletter.
Coach Wins Gold Medal
How cool is it that one of our coaches, Adrian, won the Gold Medal for achieving the highest average in his Master's of Business Analytics program at Western Ivey? Now he has an HBA undergrad and Master's — talk about well-educated!
Coach Wins Forty Under 40 Award
One of our youth coaches, Alex, became the youngest recipient of the Forty Under 40 Ottawa Award. Alex is the COO of a video marketing agency and philanthropist through his 12Because.ca initiative, for which Youthfully is a proud sponsor. Go Alex!
Junior Economic Club of Toronto
Youthfully spoke at three Junior Economic Club (JEC) of Toronto Summits on building self-awareness and conquering university applications. Former JEC President, Robert Di Marco, said our workshops “allowed students with different goals and interests to connect and relate it to their everyday lives.”
U of T Rotman Commerce
From 2016-2018, we designed and delivered over a dozen workshops on skills development and self-awareness for 100+ U of T Rotman Commerce students.
QLEAD (Queen’s)
The Queen's Leadership, Excellence, and Development Conference (QLEAD) is an incredible conference for high school students, hosted at Smith School of Business. In 2015, we were asked to run a workshop for 100+ delegates and we've been invited back to present for five years. QLEAD is always a blast.
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