The Exchanges

Q um, I'm on the, I'm on the lower side of IQ here. Congrats on all the, the accolades, man. That's, that's awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it. So what made you, um, Uh, what interests you about entrepreneurship? You're in venture capital, um, you're at Harvard now, and then you built, um, early admin. What, what made you, you know, want to kind of jump in and build a startup?

A Yeah. So I think that entrepreneurship is somewhat innate to me. Um, it's, it's rolling through, it's rolling through the blood. Um, I've been very entrepreneurial curious since a little kid. You know, when I was young, I grew up in a single parent household, um, in Washington state. And that, that situation really caused me to have a lens of how to create value. And so, uh, I was 11 years old, Andrew, when I, uh, remember going to the dollar store and I went and purchased, uh, raspberry thin mints, peanut butter truffles, uh, and I went and created a sales script and I would go around the neighborhood and I would knock on the door and I would have this big smile on my face. Uh, and I would sell, uh, candy for a profit, and that was really the cusp of, uh, this excitement to wanna, wanna create value, um, and, uh, really be a salesperson, and so I took that with me kind of into, um, into different settings and started to try to find ways where I could create stuff for other people, and that led me ultimately after business, or sorry, after college and undergrad to starting early admin.

AI assessment note: “that led me ultimately after business, or sorry, after college and undergrad to starting early admin.”

Q like, the H-B visa process. Where it's kind of like a lottery. And so like, there's not a lot of, um, you know, the success rate is, is really low and it's really randomized. It's not really, you know, necessarily fair. I, I don't have strong opinions here, but to my knowledge, that's, is that kind of similar to how the admissions process can work? Like it's opaque and sorta.

A Yeah, you're, you're exactly spot on. Um, and you know, the issue with this idea that like, we, we obviously know, right? Like if you can afford Afford resources that help with a writing process, for example, that a key element and component of your application is how you write and how you can tell a narrative, um, that has like an actual impact and outcome. And so if there's a segment of people who can afford those services, um, then naturally the quality of their application is going to be higher than for people who just don't have access to those resources. And so again, this, this has a direct Correlation with the type of demographic and diversity that we see at some of these elite business schools, and it was just important to me that that was democratized in a way that would allow and uplift more diversity at these big schools, because it all starts with education, Andrew, and then after that, we see real outcomes happening in corporate America.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, you're, you're exactly spot on.”

Q Yeah. Yeah. How did you get them? How'd you get your first customers?

A Yeah, it was, it was scrappy. Um, it was scrappy. It was like, I feel like I was going back knocking those doors again, but, but digitally this time. Um, so it was a founder led outbound motion originally. And, and, um, it was, you know, either Cold outbound on email, or I think a high success rate was going on social media platforms, um, and, and finding those target market customers. And then I would say over time that naturally, um, that, that naturally morphed into, I would say a more sophisticated model, which was we developed, uh, core practices in SEO. Um, we really developed an online presence, um, with social media. With content marketing that allowed us to create a lot of organic leads. Um, and then we did a couple of things that I felt like were pretty unique. So, um, one was just, this isn't unique, but one was like, as we were able to have more successful customers who had positive experiences with our product, then referrals and word of mouth, uh, really helped flywheel that network effect for us. But we, as a, as, uh, As a company, we went and hired about 75 campus ambassadors is what we classified them as. And these were students that we, that we interviewed. Um, they were, what we wanted to solve for was someone who was extremely active on their campus, a leader, somebody who we knew and who we knew was interested in going to business school at some point. And …

AI assessment note: “it was a founder led outbound motion originally. And, and, um, it was, you know, either Cold outbound”

Q effective way to expand into other schools. Yeah. So I don't know if that was like, like you just kind of knew that would work, because the two situations that I know of, they kind of just sort of stumbled onto it. Like, was it, was this like, um, were you like, hey, we need ambassadors, or was it like, uh, did, were you approached Advice students to be ambassadors?

A It was a little bit of a stumble, um, to be fully honest, and it was, um, the stumble actually was fascinating. The stumble tended to be, we were, we weren't just first movers in a market, Andrew, but we were creating, we were creating this market. So you have, you have a parallel process with the, the university system and then early admin, and we were effectively parallel branding, uh, this new program. And so we needed a way that we could expand the market size. And so we actually used campus ambassadors as a way to help students understand about like this brand new two plus two deferment program. Uh, and then we found ways to monetize that. Um, and that, that was, that was really important for us.

AI assessment note: “It was a little bit of a stumble, um, to be fully honest”

Q sell baseball cards. I had an eBay store, like really young. Um, just, you know, I think there's some breed of entrepreneurs that just start really, really early and the bug just never leaves you. So that's, that's awesome to hear. Um, tell me about, um, just so people know, um, early admin, what does it do? What, um, problem does it solve? Um, and, and why'd you start it?

A Yeah. Um, well, I'll start with a problem statement and then kind of walk Talk through a little bit of the business model, but, um, when I was, so I was admitted into a pretty, a fairly new and unique program that Harvard Business School and other university systems alike offer called a deferment program. So you actually apply your senior year of college, and then if you're fortunate, you gain admission, and then you have an opportunity to go and gain two to four years of professional work experience before matriculating to the full-time program. And so, um, You know, when I was in college, uh, I had this ambition of applying to, uh, to HBS, and what I realized quickly was, uh, well, well, first, let me back up. First, what I did was I wanted to understand how you get into HBS. Um, for me, I was a first-generation student, and so I didn't really know what that process looked like when I was an undergrad. It was open enrollment, and so I would ask people who, uh, Who went to the University of Utah who effectively made it to HBS, and many of them said, hey, you should consider hiring an admissions consultant, and so the next thing that I naturally did was I went and looked at admission consultants, and there were a couple of things that were pretty surprising to me. The first was that the cost was just unbearable. I mean, legacy admission consultants were charging north of 300 do…

AI assessment note: “well, I'll start with a problem statement and then kind of walk Talk through”

Q Nice. Okay. Um, one, one other question related to the acquisition process. What was your first impression when you listed on a bar.com? Like what the, did you expect like seven NDAs signed like that?

A No, no, no, I did. I was, you know, like you get that first one too, right? And you think your business is going to be sold right away, which is great. Um, but it's, it's exciting, right? Like it was my first business. And so I had, I was overwhelmed with, like, the number of NDAs, to be, to be fully honest, uh, or, you know, these intents of interest, I would say, and I was really excited, Andrew. Like, it was, it, it demonstrated to me that, number one, we were building something that was important, um, and that people cared about it, and that there was some value that, you know, some person out there felt like was being left on the table, and so now, It was up to, uh, my team and I to, to go and deliver a message and a story, um, to a potential buyer, uh, to see if that, that was the right fit. So yeah, I was very, I was very much excited by the active interest on the platform. So, and that's kudos to you, by the way, because you're creating a marketplace as well, and you have to have both that supply and demand to be successful. And had there not been, uh, really that, that supply side For me, then I would have just tried to go somewhere else because you have to spend your time efficiently, um, in a cell process.

AI assessment note: “I was overwhelmed with, like, the number of NDAs, to be, to be fully honest”