[00:00:00] Debbie Goodman: The podcast On Work and Revolution, where I talk about what’s shaking up in the world of work and ed tech. I’m also CEO of Jack Hammer Global, which is a global group of executive search, fractional talent, leadership coaching companies. I’m an advisor to ed tech founders and I coach CEOs and founders all over the world.

And my main mission with all of my work is to help companies and leaders To create amazing workplaces where people and ideas flourish. And today it’s like a real treat to be able to host this podcast in front of all five of you. Sorry, and the tech guy. Thank you, Patrick. Because usually it’s just me and my dog in my kitchen nook.

And then of course, it’s really great to have Manny here. Okay. So welcome. All right, so let me introduce Manny to you. So Manny is founder and CEO of EdVisorly we’re going to a little more about what EdVisorly is in a bit.

He founded the company in 2019 and it’s This was after an eight year active duty service in the Air Force, U. S. Air Force. He did his undergrad at the U. S. Air Force Academy and then went on to do his MBA at Berkeley School of Business, which is where the idea for EdVisorly germinated, right? And for anyone, do you guys, have you heard of EdVisorly yet?

Yes. Yes. Okay, more PR, but I’m gonna do the little summary. All right. So it’s a platform that is designed to improve and simplify the process of transferring from a community college to a four year university, which apparently if you’ve ever tried it, and I haven’t done it. Yes, although I do have an almost college ready teenager.

Apparently, if you try to do this, it’s a bit like being a contestant in American Ninja Warrior reality TV, because there are, like, a ton of obstacles along the way. And then if you add in some of these FAFSA application forms, it’s totally treacherous. And so Since establishing EdVisorly, there’s been some amazing wins.

I’ll do the little highlights version. So 2023 EdVisorly was selected to participate in EY’s Entrepreneur Access Network. They were one of 20 companies, which is a big deal. They were, they were a 20 companies to be part of Google’s 2024 Black and Latino Founders Fund. So that’s like a massive selection process across four continents.

Growth over 150 percent in the last year, given the current market climate. That’s another huge achievement. Uh, recently closed a seed round. He wants me to keep that quiet. More to come on that. And then it just seems like every month these guys are closing partnerships with universities, which is amazing.

So recently Troy University, University of Connecticut, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, it’s on and on. So it may sound like it’s a walk in the park, but not really. Welcome, Manny. You’re gonna tell us how it’s not such a walk in the park. 

[00:03:15] Manny: It is. It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Everyone should do entrepreneurship. Yeah, it’s very easy. 

[00:03:20] Debbie Goodman: Yeah, okay So we’re gonna talk really about what it’s like to be a founder in today’s grind in the startup world particularly in edtech For those of you who know, it’s been a really, really tough couple of years. EdTech funding is down by, I don’t know, like a gazillion percent right now.

And so, we’re going to talk about the challenges, the opportunities, and what it’s going to take for EdVisorly to be the next unicorn-esque success story. Cause I’m assuming that’s what you’re aiming for. 

[00:03:55] Manny: Maybe. I think aiming for unicorn is an interesting goal for a lot of companies. I don’t know if that’s part of our part of our focus. I think Unicorn is something that More or less is a byproduct of all the other things that you have to do as a company So it’s also a product of market conditions So yeah 

[00:04:14] Debbie Goodman: 100%. Okay. So let’s talk about the transition from, excuse me, I feel like I’m turning my back on you. Okay. All right. Cause you could scoot in a little. 

[00:04:25] Manny: Okay. We’re a family. 

[00:04:26] Debbie Goodman: Yeah. All right. Okie dokes. So, okay. I want to talk about the transition from the air force. Cause that was like eight, 10 years into entrepreneurship and like what that was like for you. 

[00:04:42] Manny: Yeah. So the air force. And my journey in the Air Force was very interesting. So, a little bit of a back story. I’m a first generation college student. I went to Air Force for the opportunity to become a military officer. And the first military officer in my family. My father had served. Grandfather, great grandfather. And my great grandfather was actually a World War II veteran. He was still alive when I had the opportunity to attend the U. S. Air Force Academy. And just going to the Academy in and of itself was a little bit of a tough decision. But it helped me learn how number one to like take care of myself. I went there, I left the day I turned 18. So, it was, it was quite a, an interesting, uh, journey to adulthood. But when I commissioned active duty, I did so in a position where I was essentially developing technology.

Yeah. And in developing technology in the air force is very interesting because you can be in different jobs that have different responsibilities. And I was in one that had a very broad scope of responsibility where you had to some degree the ability to look at a problem and create solutions for it.

And those solutions could look like different things. It could look like the limits of your creativity to some degree. You didn’t have as much autonomy as an entrepreneur, but you were looking at really big challenges. I had the opportunity to develop satellite systems for the United States and software.

software. It was super flexible. You could design solutions and build them. So a really amazing foundation for me as an entrepreneur before ever, you know, venturing off to Berkeley and starting a tech company having the opportunity to be a technical product manager, program manager in the air force with, you know, funded programs that were, really well funded.

So when then going to Berkeley, Berkeley. It’s the opposite challenge. It’s how do you perform at the same level with scarcity? And that’s kind of the entrepreneur journey. And it’s actually, and it should be the journey in the government, but the government tends to be a little bit more performance oriented and needs acute results, so they overspend on specific things to be able to create those results.

[00:06:48] Debbie Goodman: I guess I never really thought about the military as a place for people to use their own individual innovation and ideas to move things forward. I’ve kind of assumed that it would be quite rigid and require a much more structured way of operating, which is very different to the world of entrepreneurship, where you’re literally creating something out of nothing pretty much every day.

[00:07:09] Manny: Yeah. And I would say also, entrepreneurship is interesting because most people in general reach into whatever their network is and that is their entrepreneurship. That’s their toolkit. So if their dad was a doctor and they want to open like, you know, they might innovate by opening a medical practice and hiring doctors.

You know, I didn’t have much of a network in the education space at all. I only had my experience developing technology in the military. And you know, whatever that brought forward. So I think that this concept of, you know, leaving the military and going to Berkeley was really just this aspiration to focus on continued service.

I wanted to, uh, make sure that whatever I did after the military was something that was, uh, that drove systemic, positive impact for society and for people. The United States and for the world. And so when I did go to Berkeley, I resolved to just focus on something that will drive, drive systemic opportune opportunities.

One of the other things that’s interesting about the military was that, you know, without going like way too deep into like what exactly I did, we can all just imagine that satellite systems are pretty complex. And that, like, specifically developing certain types of satellites requires people that are allowed to develop those kinds of satellites.

I think in the military, one of the things that I quickly noticed was that in the United States, we value human capital at a level that is almost unprecedented in the rest of the world. However, education, I learned a lot about community colleges when I was active duty. And I learned about the importance of community colleges as a pathway for folks, especially how I grew up, which was not over resourced, right?

It’s the, quite the opposite. It was, you know, from humble beginnings with parents that didn’t go to college, didn’t have college credits. I learned about the importance of students being able to have that pathway to an affordable bachelor’s degree. In the military, on the other side, I saw all kinds of things.

I have deployed. I have had the unique opportunity to, do different jobs in the military. One of those was, like, space surveillance. One of those was, like, launch satellites. It sounds very 

[00:09:13] Debbie Goodman: glamorous. I’m surprised you made the transition. 

[00:09:15] Manny: Uh, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, it seems glamorous. But, like, it’s, I think that anything on the outside, just like entrepreneurship seems glamorous. It’s not, it’s like, what you have to do every single day is not glamorous. Just Kobe Bryant, his job wasn’t glamorous. Right. It was hours and hours off the court. It was the thousands of hours for the seconds of fame. So, 

[00:09:34] Debbie Goodman: yeah. Okay. So then that leads into my question around. Okay. So why EdVisorly and why this particular problem that for now seems like your life’s mission.

So, yeah. Say a little bit more about that. 

[00:09:47] Manny: Service. So I think one of the most important things that I learned when I was active duty was that a lot of the limits that we see in the United States that we put on ourselves are really self-imposed. We’re in a very privileged country.

And when I say self-imposed, I’m not referring to people that are in the system that don’t have essentially agency over the system. I’m suggesting that we have a system that called the United States that we’ve built and we get to invest in different things throughout the country, whether it’s sending money overseas for wars or investing in national defence, which I think a national defence must happen.

It’s an important concept to keep the United States safe. But one of the things that I didn’t like was the underinvestment in education that our country continuously does. And it’s not even just under investment from like a, we need to give the department of education more money. It’s an under investment in the most important demographic of people.

Westmore just talked about this. Yeah. The people that, if you give them a job, a service based job in the community, they’re going to have agency in those communities. I was that person who, if you gave me an air force officer job, I was going to do the best I could to take it seriously and to do, to perform.

If you gave me the opportunity to buy a four bedroom, three bathroom house, That was an unprecedented opportunity for me as someone who like, you know, grew up with, without the kind of like vision to go to Harvard, didn’t even understand how much an institution like that should cost and would never have taken out 10, 000 in debt a year to even go to Harvard, even though that we all know today as adults, that that’s not actually a lot of money to go to college.

These are all concepts to me that were just like farfetched. And so for us, we always, I always had the kind of sense of gratitude that I made it through Air Force Academy, which has a very high attrition rate. It has a very low acceptance rate. It’s a very hard institution, but I also had the sense of responsibility and always looking for how I can give back to my community and build something that was greater than myself for all the sacrifice that my family and my parents and those that came before me ever, ever made.

[00:11:48] Debbie Goodman: And so how did the how did the actual idea come about? Did it just, was it part of your course or did somebody, you, I mean, you hadn’t tried to do that transfer process yourself. So how did you figure out how much of a big issue and problem it actually is? And I also did not realize that this was such a huge problem.

My oldest daughter is about to apply to college and she’s thinking, Oh, you know, maybe I’ll just do a two year degree, I’ll do a two year community college and then I’ll transfer. And I said to her, hold on a second, apparently it’s really hard to do that. 

[00:12:18] Manny: So it’s not depending on your background and how you get started in the process. So, out of a hundred students, how many of those students, maybe we’ve done this before, but how many of those students do you think want a bachelor’s degree? Out of a hundred students that start community college? 

[00:12:33] Debbie Goodman: I have no idea. 

[00:12:34] Manny: Okay. Let’s make the number even bigger. A thousand out of a thousand students that start community colleges. Anyone have kind of an idea of how many of those students want a bachelor’s degree? 

[00:12:41] Debbie Goodman: A thousand. 

[00:12:42] Manny: Yeah. Like, I mean, so like 800 want a bachelor’s degree. They start with the intent. Like I’m going to get a bachelor’s degree. The other 200, maybe they don’t know about it. Maybe they started for a trade, right? They should also have a shot at getting a bachelor’s degree. And out of those thousand students, how many of those students do you think will ever get a bachelor’s degree? 

[00:13:00] Debbie Goodman: 500? 

[00:13:01] Manny: Nope. It’s 120. Right. So we’re talking about like 12 percent and out of all of those students, out of the entire thousand, if you said how many of these students in two years will be at a university, the number is 24. So that is a extraordinary, extraordinary right. Thing that our government and our country and we really need to pay attention to if we’re really going to upscale people because it’s not the, It’s not the students that are getting through, it’s the students that are not getting through, and what are they not doing?

What are they in the system? Are they, you know, what are they not doing that we could otherwise be benefiting from as a society by figuring out how to get them through? At the moment in time they have ambition, and they’ve chosen to go to school, and they show their commitment by showing up to class, being on time, maybe taking the bus back and forth to school. How do we think about that as a commitment mechanism? How do we think about supporting and fostering those dreams? 

[00:13:51] Debbie Goodman: Okay, so now you’ve got the idea. And now you’ve finished your MBA. And then what’s that like sticky bit of getting from idea and you know, it’s a big problem. Everybody says to entrepreneurs, find a big problem that needs to be fixed.

So you got that. And then how do you get out of that bit to the actual start phase of now you need people to help you work on this thing and you’ve got no money. 

[00:14:16] Manny: That’s very interesting. So when I was active duty, I actually started Berkeley when I was still active duty. So I was like I was on what’s called terminal leave.

I, officially like had my last day as a captain in the Air Force and having to do that work. And then started and one of the things that I initially wanted to focus on was community college because I’d been taken to a conference when I was still active duty and it inspired me. It was the journey of students that have a dream but have trouble connecting with universities and are under recruiting them.

The pathways that, essentially have been underinvested in by, call it the state, call it the, but whatever system is there. But most importantly for me, I just had enough community college folks around me and I was fascinated with this opportunity to serve. So in my very first like day at Berkeley during week zero or week at Berkeley, I in a weird way, I called like everyone I know who would talk to me about community colleges and we all just kind of started ideating on like, how do we overcome this, the solution and these opportunities that exist in the community college space to get students from community college to universities.

So we were digging into all kinds of things, counsellors unions like that were just like completely getting in the way of like students being successful and like blocking out all innovation. And I know that there’s going to be a counsellor that listens to this one day and probably crucifies me in public.

I don’t even care. Like I am here for student success in real life and I’m not just saying that as a sound bite. I’ve committed my life to this and I would go toe to toe with any counsellor, any counsellor union that thinks that I’m ever going to end this journey or this mission or I’m going to not be successful.

I’m hyper competitive and we’re going to win. And one of the things that that we learned was that a lot of people use that soundbite of student success to perpetuate their own goals instead of actually digging into like what is the root cause of the challenge we’re trying to solve. I have developed satellite systems that are pushing the limits of physics.

We, there are no problems that are in our society that we can’t fix if we actually want to fix them. 

[00:16:11] Debbie Goodman: Okay. But then how did you actually get started? I’m still like, Oh back to the question, the, the, the sticky bit, the 

[00:16:17] Manny: people I could afford, let’s start with that, who would show up every day, who also, for almost no money.

[00:16:23] Debbie Goodman: No, 

[00:16:24] Manny: I was at Berkeley. We had no, I had no money. I was a college student, that was, you know, on, on scholarship at Berkeley. Sure. But like I, bootstrapped my education or bootstrapped the company for as long as I could, which is basically the two years when I was at Berkeley. 

[00:16:38] Debbie Goodman: Okay. 

[00:16:39] Manny: I put like a ton of my own resources into the company and just, bet on myself and bet, burn the boats.

Right. Like that’s what I did. I don’t recommend it for most entrepreneurs, but, I did it because I wanted to get as far as we could, because I knew I had 21 months to build a company that could feed the team. Okay. And I had to take that really seriously. 

[00:16:56] Debbie Goodman: Yeah. Alright, well, I saw you pitch at EdTech Week in New York last year.

So I’ve seen you pitch. And I know that fundraising is a huge part of What you do now, I mean every entrepreneur if they say I hate fundraising. I hate being on the road I hate doing the constant being under the constant pressure of needing to get money from investors or Grant donors that is just part of the day in the life.

It’s constant but what is the fundraising experience being like for you? Do you like it? Is it a pain in the butt? Is it something that energizes you? 

[00:17:35] Manny: No Doesn’t energize me. No. Okay. I think fundraising is really hard and it’s really nuanced and for most people it’s not fair for me. I had a lot of privilege and I just want to acknowledge a couple of things.

Fundraising is really hard and this is just, let’s just look at the data for people who identify as black African American, which I do. And for, uh, people who don’t have like the traditional backgrounds of growing up with parents who went to like Stanford or Berkeley. Yeah. I didn’t legacy into anything.

[00:18:04] Debbie Goodman: Yeah. 

[00:18:05] Manny: That’s who I am. Yeah, do you guys 

[00:18:06] Debbie Goodman: know sorry to interrupt? Do you guys know the data on how much money gets distributed to minority groups, for startups? It’s like under three percent And declining since the pandemic 

[00:18:19] Manny: for women. It’s terrible. The numbers are like it’s 2. 8. It’s abominable Yeah, and our government has taken no interest in correcting that which I think is we can talk about that probably in another podcast All right.

[00:18:31] Debbie Goodman: Yeah 

[00:18:32] Manny: Yeah, I, I, I see some people out here that I’ve had conversations with about that specific topic. And at a minimum, like, we can pretend race doesn’t matter, right? Okay, like all, you know, race doesn’t matter. Okay, great. Well, does gender matter? No, no, let’s not 

[00:18:45] Debbie Goodman: pretend that. It does. Well, I mean, let’s just, let’s just control 

[00:18:47] Manny: for that variable.

Okay. Does gender matter? Like, I didn’t wake up today with the overwhelming urge to solve women’s problems. Because I don’t live in it every day. So if I don’t give capital to women, how, how are those problems ever going to be solved? And ever going to be solved by the representative group. It’s not going to be by giving money to men and hoping that they find women to solve their problems when their fiduciary responsibility is to the company and to themselves.

Yeah. So I have, yeah, this is a very interesting topic. So fundraising is hard. Yeah. It’s nuanced. And I was just at a session earlier. It’s uh, it’s often not a fair process, but it’s one where I think mentorship and advising is one of the most important things that you can do and being being patient because the right capital at some point in your mission as you continue, it will show itself if you’re persistent and if you have a good product and if you’re, you know, early on, your product is really your team and it’s your vision, it’s your mission, it’s your capacity to lead.

[00:19:47] Debbie Goodman: And you got to be good at pitching. You got to be good at presenting. You can have an amazing product. You can have a great team. And if you suck on the stage, It’s going to be a problem. So it’s another skill that some people are just, you know, good at or really work at, but I don’t know that many entrepreneurs who are thinking about this huge problem that they want to solve also factor into that, that they’re going to have to become expert communicators and presenters so that they can shine on any stage because often it’s more about your performance that that puts you ahead.

[00:20:22] Manny: I think that’s true in this circumstance of like EdTechWeek, for example, and I think it’s mostly true. Especially in the days of fundraising before the pandemic, before like Zoom. Zoom was kind of a thing. I’m gonna guess that like what you described is also true because pitching on Zoom is oftentimes like something that you have to do as you’re fundraising.

And it’s a different skill. I remember when I was learning to pitch on zoom, I was just like, I don’t even know how to start or do this. Like, it’s kind of weird. It’s virtual. Is this a real pitch? Are they going to take me seriously? So I think the most, as much as possible, elevating the stories of the people who have successfully fundraised, who are part of the demographic that you identify as, whether it’s a veteran for me or black, African American or male, or whatever those things are, just understanding how those people have been successful.

It’s probably a great first step. And not reaching out to those folks like, Hey, help me make money, help me raise money, but rather reaching out to get like advice on specific, very focused topics. Like an example would be, what is a lead? What is a lead for a funding round? Not help me raise money. Not like, Hey, I want to be an advice, but like, seriously, like, how are you thinking about adding value to the person who you’re asking advice from as well?

Because in reality, like, Just asking, just asking for things is kind of a hard sell for us. Like I actually didn’t know how to fundraise to start with. I found somebody who was willing to be an advisor for us. His name is Chris Cueto. And he was one of my classmates at Berkeley. Actually, he was a year younger than me, behind me in class.

But for me, I’m not going to sit here on my, you know, pedestal of pride and say, Oh, well, Chris isn’t going to be able to help me because he’s a year behind. Chris was amazing. And like the things that he taught me to go from zero to one and get our first VC investment. That’s That was foundational for our continued success.

[00:22:16] Debbie Goodman: Do you stay in touch with all the people that you knock on the door of? Because what I’ve heard from a number of investors, and I’ve interviewed so many investors in particularly this, uh, the tech sector, is that they might not be ready to give money now, but they really like it when entrepreneurs stay in touch and they keep them posted.

They send their updates, they send their, like, little emailer, on a regular basis because they get to know them over time and then the right time comes and then they’re ready to give money. Do you do that? 

[00:22:48] Manny: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:22:51] Debbie Goodman: Has it worked for you? 

[00:22:52] Manny: Yes. 

[00:22:53] Debbie Goodman: Okay. 

[00:22:54] Manny: But one of the things I’ll say is once an investor has shown you their colors and their colors don’t look like your colors, you’re okay to walk away from them.

So like it’s okay not to reach back out to them. It’s okay to make sure that you don’t, you know, you’re not interested in taking their investment. And I’m, and under, and I don’t think you should do that under a lot of circumstances because usually investors fall into like a few categories and categorically, like you may start another company in their category.

You don’t want to like, if they’re good people, that’s fine. Right. Maybe it wasn’t a good fit, but there are some investors that are like, truly like 

[00:23:29] Debbie Goodman: when they’re pound of flesh, 

[00:23:30] Manny: they’re not even a pound of flesh. They’re just like bad to work with. And I, I’m not going to like name names and I’m not just not going to do that.

But usually founders, you know, have a conversation with other founders. You can talk to people, other portfolio company founders and get the real scoop on like whether those investors are actually like, you know, they’re worth taking on as investors. Cause in reality, when you bring an investor on, you’re not, you’re not In any reasonable period of time, you’re going to get them off your cap table.

You’re never going to get them out of your company. Yeah. So if you take their capital because you think you need it and you’re in an acute place of pain, it may actually be like, it may be forbidden fruit that you really kind of need to stay away from. We’ve dodged bullets. 

[00:24:08] Debbie Goodman: Yeah. I’ve heard that from a number of founders that I’ve advised as well, is that not all money is good money.

So, yeah. Okay. But you have been the recipient of some good money and more recently EdVisorly was selected of one of 20 companies to be part of Google’s 2024 black and Latino founders fund. So what does that mean for you? What is the impact? 

[00:24:34] Manny: Yeah, so first of all that program we’ve applied to it before and again kind of going back to like whether or not you know update the website Folks on like your progress that was kind of I think probably something that I’m gonna guess it helped us Just to be consistent year over year making that progress We were actually JFF Entrepreneur in residence company like two years ago And so I think that was a huge opportunity for us to elevate the message that EdVisorly has during that program we took on investment from like ECMC Foundation, who was, I would say our biggest, our dorm room fund was our first VC investment.

Yeah. And after that, like our biggest, our first like, kind of bigger investment was from ECMC Foundation. Yeah. JFF. Or JFF Portfolio Company as well. So very grateful for that. Mm-Hmm. . 

[00:25:20] Debbie Goodman: Plug. Plug to JFF. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:25:22] Manny: But, I would kind of say, uh, you know, the Google opportunity is very different because Google is not just backing us with 150, 000 investment in like six figures in cloud credits, which is really important for an AI company.

We have like been doing and working with AI engineers for four, four and a half years now. We have been able to accelerate a lot of the work that we’re doing with Google in a way that we would not have been able To do without Google. Yeah anything from collaborating on our different use cases for AI inside of our platform to feasibility around doing specific like very technical tasks, collaborating with their technical teams being able to collaborate with their PR teams on just like press releases that EdVisorly should do over the course of the year with Google that are going to really help catalyse our momentum and growth to like talking to marketing and marketing experts who we can connect with.

I mean, Google is really like opened up the, you know, opened up just the treasure chest for EdVisorly to be able to kind of get mentors throughout the year. 

[00:26:29] Debbie Goodman: So it sounds like it’s been just one amazing opportunity and accolade after the other. I know that it is an incredible amount of day to day hard work and grind.

What are you still struggling with right now? 

[00:26:46] Manny: Uh, that’s an interesting question. So I think the most important thing that any company struggles with that’s in growth phase or like in the scaling phase always, and they can say that they are, but, or they’re not, but most companies are, you’re always struggling with two things.

It’s the balance of culture versus competitiveness. So if you are a win at all costs person, you’re going to build an organization that’s not successful. And that doesn’t mean that your organization as a whole can’t focus on the entire organization winning. It’s just that like when you’re playing this, it’s like game theory.

Yeah. You’re looking for games that you can play amongst your team, right? Like in the ecosystem of like creating a nationwide platform for transfer students, we are aggressive and we are competitive and we are hungry and we’re, and that’s what we’re building. And we are committed to being the best in that space, but amongst ourselves, we have to think about how do we play together as a team?

It’s kind of the Kobe Bryant and Shaq, like Kobe’s not going to win those championships without Shaq. So for me, the biggest thing I kind of continuously focus on and worry about is culture. Mm-Hmm. . But how are we also keeping a competitive spirit in the team to make sure that we stay mission driven and that we continue to lean in and really think about advisor lead, like in kind of those like spaces when maybe we’re not working our nine to five.

Right? Or in a startup, it’s not that, but but like thinking about how to make EdVisorly leave. rather than just like working harder, because working harder doesn’t really get you there. You have to have really smart people that like want to come up with creative solutions that feel empowered, have agency, and then have good culture where they can bring those things forward.

[00:28:25] Debbie Goodman: So, are you what I’m hearing is that, uh, or maybe I’m misinterpreting, but Culture, are you viewing that as something that’s like not competitive, softer, looks after people’s well being in a more holistic, healthy way and being competitive and wanting to be the best and drive hard that those things are conflicting with each other?

[00:28:47] Manny: No, I think that the culture has to have some amount of competitiveness in it in order to grow. In order to survive. Otherwise you’re stagnant, right? Yeah. But it’s the, what’s the, you have to ride the line of like, what is good culture and what is, what are the threats to those good culture, especially as you scale.

And I think that for us, like, you know, there’s, there’s always a risk. So I’ll just give you an example. If you’re a venture backed company and you have sales targets and you have growth targets and you work across your company and you say, these are the KPIs for growth and for success. It could be anything from impact to students to dollar figures and sales and revenue and momentum.

And let’s just use numbers like the dollar figure, for example. If you know that you are not going to close your goals on sales, then the only alternative is fundraise or layoffs. 

[00:29:39] Debbie Goodman: Right. 

[00:29:40] Manny: Right. So when you look at your team and you say, Hey team, the funding ecosystem has changed. So maybe I can’t promise that we can raise a 15 million Series A.

The whole team has to be bought into that success and understand those things. So there’s like kind of an education piece of like what you’re doing. So communication is really important. We have core values. It’s teamwork, communication and integrity. And it’s because those are the core values that we believed are the foundational building blocks for a good organization and taking a good organization to an elite organization.

I really like the Nick Saban quote. You have like five decisions you can make. You can be bad at things, you can be average at things, you can be good at things, you can be great at things, or you can be elite. Mm hmm. I think for us, it’s the constant, uh, the constant auditing of how do we become elite is something that we should always be doing.

But we shouldn’t do it at the expense of like, you know, like a certain person’s mental health. It’s kind of the thing that I’m, and in a startup, it’s very, very, you can go from like, we’re working really hard and performing as a team, to like, somebody has a mental health problem. Yeah. Like, very quickly.

And so for me, I think it’s that balance of like knowing the strengths of the team, communicating extremely well and just being able to kind of like have that dialogue and open communication. 

[00:30:53] Debbie Goodman: Yeah. I mean, I think that this is a an issue that most Not only startups, actually, just most companies that are striving for success, there’s always limited resources, particularly in this environment.

There’s no guarantee there’s going to be another raise anytime soon. And when it comes to, well, I’ve got to deliver, and how hard do I drive my team because it’s a matter of, Not even growth. Sometimes it’s a matter of survival. What factors are you taking into account? Because if it comes to, well, layoffs or work your asses off sometimes you gotta be, like, sort of cracking the whip.

I think the Where it becomes more healthy and holistic is when it’s intrinsically motivated, where everybody in the team actually is not needing to have that whip from the outside, where they’re actually all feeling compelled to pull together. And they’re those rare companies where I do see that happening.

So how much of your how much of your background as a division one athlete track and 

[00:31:51] Manny: Track and field. 

[00:31:52] Debbie Goodman: Track and field. 

[00:31:53] Manny: And football. 

[00:31:54] Debbie Goodman: And football. Okay. It sort of informs the way that you show up and you run the company because that discipline of having to show up and train day in and day out, regardless of how sore you are or injured, how much of that is like a through line in how you’re driving hard now?

[00:32:15] Manny: Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, that is a great question. So I think that the foundation I have in sports and being able to have played sports at a pretty high level in college and then post collegiate was foundational for the way I think about teamwork. So I’ll just give you an example, like I had the opportunity to run the relays at the U. S. Air Force Academy. I had school records and did pretty Okay, so that’s fast, right? Yes, that’s right. 

[00:32:40] Debbie Goodman: Fast. Yeah. 

[00:32:41] Manny: Okay. And we had the individual 400 meter, which I absolutely love that race. And then we had the four by 400 meter, which when our team was performing well, I always loved even more than just the four.

And I like the African proverb, or maybe they say it’s an African proverb. It’s if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. 

[00:33:00] Debbie Goodman: It is. I’m from South Africa. I can confirm. Nice. Yeah. Cool. 

[00:33:05] Manny: One of the things that I liked was the 400. It was a great race. A lot of fun. But the relay was always a little bit more fun because on that day that your entire team is clicking when you can run at Texas Relays, when you can run at, you know, Mt. SAC Relays, or you can run at like, let’s say, NCAAs or something, it’s just a different experience. You have four people that are performing extremely well that are like, you know, running fastest times in the country and you’re winning, you’re beating people. And you’re doing it in like the last event of the day.

And everybody knows like that is a hard race. And now you have four people willing to run that hard race that all take personal accountability over the, the one 400 meter, the one full lap, they have to sprint. And one person’s going to run slow. They’re going to come out of the blocks and they’re going to give you the baton and you’re 10 meters down.

And what are you going to do about it? Are you going to make excuses or are you going to be a strong individual contributor and figure it out? Because of all that discipline you put in after hours, on the weekends, because you ate right, and you made every decision right that you could. And I think for me, like, just that understanding of responsibility and understanding what inputs create what outputs, and measuring those things, and being process driven, and being an absolute, as much as possible, perfectionist.

Knowing that on, there will be a day that you will show up, And you either will or you won’t perform and you have no idea how who’s out there Who’s going to race you and if they’re ready and what their preparation is So everything you have to do today is about beating yourself every single day to be the absolute best you can so that tomorrow Whoever races you You are You are guaranteed to give your best effort.

I like the saying, Today I do what others won’t, so tomorrow I do what others can’t. And so today, and every day that I work, I have to justify why I wake up and even have the opportunity to build EdVisorly. I just want to say that I feel super blessed for the opportunity to do this. It’s something that I spent many years soul searching and praying for, and I’m just fortunate for the opportunity to continue to day in and day out have a purpose.

[00:35:00] Debbie Goodman: Okay, well then I have one last question, which is, in the next, let’s say three years, people like to have a five year plan, but I just think that that is so far ahead. So, let’s say three years, if the magic fairy godmother comes and waves her magic wand, what does EdVisorly look like in the next, for as far as you can imagine?

Okay. 

[00:35:21] Manny: I’d like to set more near term goals. I would say this year we’re looking at like 80 partnerships with specifically universities and colleges, expanding our partnerships with community colleges and working with the most innovative community college leadership presidents, chancellors vice presidents of student services and transfer centre directors, working closely with community colleges to develop The initial set of, essentially, technologies and a go to market strategy for dual enrolment so that they can help high school students navigate what it’s like to transfer to and through community colleges, elevating the value proposition that they can have to high school students.

Yeah. Tracking enrolments. But most importantly you know, we talked a little bit about this earlier. I don’t really want to be famous to the whole country. I just want to do really good work. with the institutions that we work with, and have the opportunity to connect with the most innovative community college leadership, the most innovative universities that believe that community college freshmen and sophomores deserve an opportunity to chase their dreams.

I want to work with, uh, institutions and states that also believe the same, and, uh, local governments that believe the same, and community based organizations that believe the same. And for me, again, it’s never, it’s just not about being big, but it’s about being effective because for every student that we successfully transfer the lives, their lives, them and their families are impacted positively.

You create, I think it’s like between 900, 001. 2 million dollars in economic opportunity over the earning potential of that student. Once they graduate, the average student who gets a bachelor’s degree. So when you take that and you say, if 10, 000 students can transfer, I mean, we can all do math. That’s about a billion dollars in economic value.

And so, for me, it makes more sense to focus on how do you help one student rather than How do you help, like, the whole country at once? 

[00:37:06] Debbie Goodman: Okay, well it sounds like it’s worth it. 

[00:37:08] Manny: Wasn’t my math 10, 000 times a million?

[00:37:09] Debbie Goodman: I don’t know, you lost me with the math, but I love the ambition.

[00:37:13] Manny: That’s actually 10 billion. Let’s go back to that. What’s my public math? Did I ever do engineering? 

[00:37:18] Debbie Goodman: That’s an amazing, it’s an amazing vision and I love your passion and your drive for purpose and service and It’s been a pleasure to Have this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you to all of you. It’s been lovely to have you here and Enjoy the rest of the conference.

Thank you