haiku deckHaiku Deck’s first four years were all about building a customer base for its free presentation software. It became popular with teachers operating on limited budgets. A year ago, the Seattle startup started selling tiered premium levels. Many teachers signed on, thanks to a discounted subscription for educators at $60 per year. But there was something missing.

Teachers wanted their students to use the software too — and $60 per student was cost-prohibitive. So Haiku Deck went back to the drawing board, so to speak.

Today the software company is rolling out Haiku Deck Classroom, a $99 per year subscription that teachers and their students can share. It includes the same features as Haiku Deck Pro, plus a classroom management dashboard, a shared gallery, and integration with Google Classroom and other CMS systems. Educators can easily add and remove accounts for up to 150 students.

“What we saw in that first year is that teachers were really interested in supporting us and buying subscriptions but what they really wanted was the ability to extend that to their students,” said Haiku Deck CEO Adam Tratt. “Part of what you’re seeing here is an effort, on our part, to deliver what a big customer segment of ours is asking for.”

After graduating from Techstars Seattle and pivoting several times, Tratt and co-founder, Kevin Leneway, launched Haiku Deck’s iPad presentation software in 2012. The startup’s ambitions grew when it rolled out a desktop version of the product, challenging Microsoft’s PowerPoint. Haiku Deck has since topped one million downloads.

“We believe visual storytelling has never been more important,” said Tratt. “It’s super encouraging that teachers around the world have embraced this medium of presentations.”

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