Today we’d like to introduce you to Janani Vasudevan.
Hi Janani, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in India and fell in love with computers early. I studied computer science at Anna University in Chennai, one of India’s well-known engineering universities. I joined Microsoft in 2004, where I spent 17 years building technology and working my way up to leading large engineering teams and products.
In 2021, I joined Twilio, the company behind the tools many businesses use to communicate with their customers, like Uber and DoorDash, when they send you a message. I lead a team of more than 60 engineers here.
A few years ago, I earned an executive MBA at CU Boulder. During the MBA I had an aha moment: every inconvenience and frustration around us is an innovation or a product waiting to happen. Around the same time, as a hiring manager, I watched the entry-level job market tighten up, and it was becoming really hard for graduates to find internships and offers. As a mom of two, I kept wondering whether school was preparing kids for that future world with AI.
In 2017, when I was pregnant with my first kid, I had a totally unexpected fall that caused a Traumatic Brain Injury and during recovery I spent 2 weeks in a dark room without stimuli, which meant no talking, no phones, no listening to music. During that time, I reflected on how despite the horrible accident, my baby and I were fine with only minor issues. I came out of that realizing the time to act was NOW and knowing that I wanted to give back during the rest of my life here.
Observing what was happening to the workforce, seeing graduates unable to get jobs, hearing an upset mom talk about her son calling himself as a “failure to launch”, it was a calling to me. That is when I started Flintolabs with my friend from undergrad. Here, teens build and launch apps using AI, and pitch them to judges, just like young founders do. They become confident about paving their own path in a world where they cannot expect others to give them jobs anymore. I also write Judgment Capital, a newsletter about why judgment is the most important currency in the age of AI. The through-line is the same: tools change fast, but learning to think clearly is what lasts.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It hasn’t. The honest truth is that the hardest part of Flintolabs has been reaching families. Kids have packed schedules, and between sports, schoolwork, and other activities, there is only so much room left for one more program. So we are constantly finding new avenues to reach parents and explain what we do.
The other challenge is that the reality of the hiring world hasn’t fully sunk in yet for school-aged children and their parents. As a hiring manager, I see how hard it is for graduates to land internships and offers, and what employers actually need now: not just credentials, but the ability to think clearly, build things, and explain decisions. That shift is already here, and most families I talk to are just starting to feel it. The inertia of the system that has been here for so long – college applications, ivy leagues, internships, jobs – keeps us, parents spinning.
So no, it has not been a smooth road. But every conversation with a parent who gets it makes the hard parts worth it.
We’ve been impressed with Flintolabs LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Flintolabs is where teens learn to build and launch apps using AI. In the first 12 weeks, each student comes up with an idea that matters to them, builds a real working app, and launches it. And no, they don’t need to come in with prior coding knowledge. Our students have published over 20 apps so far. You can check them out on the Flintolabs marketplace – https://www.flintolabs.com/marketplace. At the end, they present their work to a panel of judges and defend the decisions behind it, the way real founders do.
In the next 12 weeks, which we call Startup School, students build on their idea the way a real startup would: they validate the problem, find their users, gather feedback, iterate, and think through how the product actually grows. Students who complete both semesters can also earn upto 3 college credit through our partnership with CU Denver.
One of our students, an 8th grader, just got her work approved for 3 college credits. A middle schooler with 3 college credits and the confidence to blaze their path is the kind of success we hope to see across millions of students!
What sets us apart is that we bring what we see today in the workforce to what we teach kids. Both me and my co-founder are leaders in Fortune 500 and startups. Our teams use AI for development amongst other things. AI can generate code in seconds, so we teach students to think first: choose the right problem, make good decisions along the way, and be able to explain every choice they made. Students don’t just demo an app. They explain it, pitch it, and stand behind it. That builds critical thinking, judgment, and a kind of confidence you can hear when they talk about their work.
What I want parents to know is simple: this is not more screen time. It is your child learning to use the most powerful tool of their generation with their brain switched on. If you are curious how it works, we run free parent consults where we answer your questions on fit.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
Ayesha Hameed, my co-founder and Flintolabs’ CTO, deserves a huge share of the credit. We built this together, and she co-teaches the program and our parent sessions with me. She was a leader in ADP, the company that publishes annual workforce reports, and so has seen the workforce transformation happen first hand. She is also the mom to a high schooler and a middle schooler, and so experiences some of the same challenges we want to alleviate for parents and their kids.
Our students’ families deserve credit too. The first parents who enrolled trusted a brand-new program with their kids’ time, and that trust is something we work to earn every week. That student went on to join UNC Chapel Hill and told us Flintolabs was #1 on his Common App, for the experience working with industry mentors.
Our Demo Day judges and mentors give up their time to take our students’ work seriously and ask them real questions, and that generosity changes how hard the kids push themselves.
Closer to home, my parents deserve credit for everything underneath this. What I know about hard work, education, and showing up for people, I learned from them. And my family: my daughters are the reason this exists, and my husband has carried the invisible load at home so I could build this in the margins. Nothing about Flintolabs happened alone.
Pricing:
- $1250/semester
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.flintolabs.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flintolabs/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574180071499
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flintolabs/
- Twitter: https://x.com/flintolabs
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Flintolabs
