Achieva's Founders

Achieva is a Silicon Valley start-up, but it's run by three African Americans in a world that's mostly white and Asian. It does not center on software. And it is the brainchild of three people with no consuming ambition to strike it rich.

Achieva's CEO, Carlos Watson, 30, once a consultant at McKinsey & Co. in Palo Alto, says education is a family value that started with his 96-year-old maternal grandmother, one of the few black women of her day to complete college and earn an advanced degree. All seven of her children and 19 grandchildren also went to college. His father Carlos Sr., a Jamaican immigrant, and his mother Rose are retired teachers. Carlos, who went to Harvard, says he probably wouldn't have ended up there if he hadn't buttonholed his high school counselor, promising to bring her powdered doughnuts for breakfast if she'd take the time to tell him about colleges. In the summer of 1996, Watson, his sister Carolyn, 28, a manager for an academic-enrichment program, and his best friend, Jeff Livingston, also 28, a Merrill Lynch banker in Atlanta, seized on the idea for Achieva. They took three months to interview teachers, counselors, principals and admissions directors, gave up their day jobs and launched in February 1997. At first "I just watched my bank account in Atlanta get smaller," says Livingston. "But at Merrill, what did it matter if I sold $5 million more worth of options of Microsoft stock? This really matters to me."

The company has attracted high-powered investors like Laurene Powell, wife of Apple's Steve Jobs, and venture capitalist Audrey MacLean. The two helped raise the first $1 million and plan to raise $20 million for a national rollout plus, of course, an IPO. It's education, yes, but it's still Silicon Valley.