McGraw-Hill had developed the Sharpen learning platform to serve students directly — a strategic move beyond its traditional institutional sales model. Launching a student-facing digital product required a distinct go-to-market strategy, a consumer-oriented positioning, and a partnership model that could deliver reach at scale.
Vivaldi developed the go-to-market strategy and brand positioning for Sharpen's launch, including the structure of a direct-to-consumer model and the mechanics of an AWS cloud partnership that provided the infrastructure for scale. The positioning was designed specifically for student audiences rather than institutional buyers.
Sharpen launched successfully with strong initial reception — described by early evaluators as a "cool new student app." The AWS partnership enabled rapid deployment, and the DTC launch model established McGraw-Hill's first direct relationship with student end-users at scale.
McGraw-Hill partnered with Vivaldi to launch Sharpen, a direct-to-consumer learning platform that marked the company’s first scaled relationship with student end-users beyond its traditional institutional sales model. Vivaldi developed the go-to-market strategy, consumer-oriented brand positioning, and AWS cloud partnership mechanics, supporting a launch that was received as a cool new student app and gave McGraw-Hill a direct channel to its end-user audience.
McGraw-Hill is a global learning company and one of the world’s leading providers of educational content, software, and services. Founded in 1888 and headquartered in New York City, McGraw-Hill serves millions of students, educators, and professionals across K–12, higher education, and professional markets with a growing suite of digital and platform-based solutions.
Vivaldi developed the go-to-market strategy, consumer-oriented brand positioning, and AWS partnership mechanics behind the launch of Sharpen, McGraw-Hill’s first direct-to-consumer learning platform aimed at students rather than institutions. Sharpen launched successfully and was received by early evaluators as a cool new student app, giving McGraw-Hill its first scaled direct relationship with the end-users its institutional model had historically reached only through intermediaries.
The shift required structuring Sharpen as a standalone product with its own positioning, pricing logic, and acquisition motion rather than treating it as an extension of McGraw-Hill’s institutional offering. Vivaldi designed the DTC model around how students actually discover, evaluate, and adopt learning products on their own terms, which is fundamentally different from how universities procure courseware, and built the AWS partnership in to support the technical scale a consumer launch demands.
Institutional buyers care about adoption analytics, faculty integration, and accountability outcomes, while students care about whether the product makes a specific course feel less painful and a specific grade feel more attainable this semester. A positioning that talks to one audience as if it were the other will under-convert, which is why Sharpen needed a consumer-grade voice grounded in student outcomes rather than the curriculum-aligned language McGraw-Hill historically used with institutions.
The AWS partnership provided the cloud infrastructure to scale a consumer-grade learning product without McGraw-Hill having to build that capability internally first, which is what made a credible DTC launch possible inside the timeline. More broadly, the partnership signals that legacy education companies entering direct-to-student markets benefit from leaning on hyperscaler infrastructure rather than treating digital platform delivery as something they need to fully own, especially when the product is moving from institutional B2B economics into B2C unit economics.
