Austen Allred

Austen Allred is the co‑founder and CEO of Bloom Institute of Technology, a tech‑education startup launched in 2017 that pioneered an income share agreement model, enabling students to pay tuition only after securing a job earning at least $50 k/year. He previously co‑founded news platform GrassWire, co‑authored the growth‑hacking book Secret Sauce, and built BloomTech into a multimillion‑dollar venture—despite controversies including a 2024 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau order citing misleading job placement and loan representations.