Built Because Schools Deserved Better.
Marble exists because the enrollment lottery — one of the most consequential processes a school runs — was being handled with spreadsheets and hope. We built something better.
Where Marble Came From
Every year, thousands of admissions directors sit down with an Excel spreadsheet and a prayer. They sort a list of names, send out offer letters, track responses by hand, and spend weeks managing a process that should take hours. And when it's over, they hope no one asks them to prove it was fair — because their documentation wouldn't hold up.
That's not a technology problem. It's a priority problem. The enrollment lottery matters enormously — to families, to schools, to communities — and it had been treated as an afterthought for decades.
I've been through the school lottery three times. Three kids, three rounds of applications, three rounds of waiting — with almost no insight into what was happening, no clear communication, and no way to track where we stood. You submit an application and essentially disappear into a black box. As a parent, that's frustrating. As someone who builds software for a living, it's maddening.
When I started looking at how schools actually run these lotteries, I was floored. Spreadsheets. Manual emails. Offer tracking done by hand. Admissions directors spending weeks on a process that should take hours — and producing documentation that wouldn't survive a serious challenge. These are incredibly dedicated people doing critically important work with tools that were never built for it.
The problem was obvious. The solution was overdue.
I'm a designer, developer, and technologist by trade. I've spent my career building things that make complicated processes simpler. Marble is what happens when you apply that lens to one of the most consequential — and most overlooked — processes in education. It takes the guesswork, the busywork, and the anxiety out of the enrollment lottery for everyone involved: the staff running it, the families waiting on it, and the authorizers responsible for it.
I built the product I kept wishing existed. For the schools that deserve better tools. And for the parents — like me — who just want to know their kid had a fair shot.
— Patrick Iverson, Founder
What Marble Stands For
Fairness isn't just a feeling — it has to be provable.
A lottery that families are asked to trust isn't good enough. A lottery that families can verify is. We built Marble around cryptographic randomness and transparent audit trails specifically so that "was this fair?" always has a definitive answer.
Schools shouldn't need an IT department to run a compliant lottery.
The tools available to most admissions directors were either too expensive, too complex, or too primitive. Marble is purpose-built for the people who actually run lotteries — not for IT departments and enterprise procurement teams.
Every family deserves an equal shot.
The enrollment lottery is supposed to be the great equalizer — the moment when every eligible child has the same chance, regardless of who their parents know or how early they applied. We take that seriously. Every design decision in Marble is made with that principle in mind.
The Team
Patrick Iverson
Founder
Marble is designed, built, and run by Patrick Iverson — an entrepreneur and technologist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico with over 20 years of experience building software. Every school that uses Marble gets direct access to the person who built it.
Claude
AI Engineering Partner
Co-architect and full-stack developer of the Marble platform. Contributes to implementation, security reviews, accessibility, and technical documentation across every feature.
Where We're Headed
Marble's goal is simple: make the enrollment lottery fair, transparent, and effortless for every school that needs one — whether that's a single-campus charter school running its first digital lottery or a district managing school choice for thousands of families.
We're starting with the schools that need it most: charter, magnet, and public schools running lotteries on spreadsheets, worried about their next compliance review, and fielding parent calls they can't confidently answer.
Over time, we're building toward a world where every enrollment lottery — regardless of school size, state, or resources — produces a complete, verifiable, publicly accessible record that any family can trust.
Who We're Building For
For Schools
Admissions directors who are doing their best with tools that weren't built for this. Principals who want to run a compliant, defensible lottery without a month of manual work. Networks and districts that need consistency and compliance across multiple schools.
We built Marble to take lottery season from a source of dread to a manageable, documented, and trustworthy process.
For Families
Parents who want to know their child had a real chance. Families who speak languages other than English and have struggled to navigate application processes. Communities that have historically had reason to doubt that the process was fair.
We built Marble because every family deserves to see exactly how the lottery worked — not just be told it was fair.
Get in Touch
We're a small team and we read every message. Whether you're a school thinking about Marble, a family with a question, or someone who just wants to talk about the enrollment lottery problem — we'd love to hear from you.
Ready to Run a Fair Lottery?
Your first lottery is always free. We'll set you up and walk you through it.
No credit card. No commitment. First lottery is always free.