Dave says there is no such thing as “the best university”--only the “best university” FOR YOU. You have to finish that sentence! Dave’s own story illustrates this. He began as a political science major at Georgetown in Washington, D.C., paired with an internship on the Hill with his hometown district congressman. Seemed like the perfect place to be for a political science major–but it wasn’t the right fit FOR HIM. Join us as Dave describes his undergraduate experience transferring to a school that was a better fit for him, despite what others thought about his choice, to his graduate work in Business at Northwestern, to his interesting career in product development at major corporations, where he worked on products we know like Totinos Pizza and Whirlpool washing machines. His experience all ties together as he decided to start his own company, Troove, serving students in helping find the best college fit for them.
You can check out Troove for yourself at www.troove.me
Dave says there is no such thing as “the best university”--only the “best university” FOR YOU. You have to finish that sentence! Dave’s own story illustrates this. He began as a political science major at Georgetown in Washington, D.C., paired with an internship on the Hill with his hometown district congressman. Seemed like the perfect place to be for a political science major–but it wasn’t the right fit FOR HIM. Join us as Dave describes his undergraduate experience transferring to a school that was a better fit for him, despite what others thought about his choice, to his graduate work in Business at Northwestern, to his interesting career in product development at major corporations, where he worked on products we know like Totinos Pizza and Whirlpool washing machines. His experience all ties together as he decided to start his own company, Troove, serving students in helping find the best college fit for them.
You can check out Troove for yourself at www.troove.me
Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening.
Carrie:Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with Dave, who's the founder and CEO of Troove. He has spent his career developing new products and services for a range of different categories, and now he is focused on improving success rates in college admissions and graduation. He has an undergraduate degree in political science and he has a Master's of Business Administration from the Kellogg School at Northwestern. Dave, thanks so much for joining us today.
Dave:Well, thanks for having me, Carrie.
Carrie:Absolutely. So can you take us back to your high school days and talk to us a little bit about how you approached your college search and what you were thinking regarding what you wanted to major in and any kind of vision you had for yourself with your career path?
Dave:Sure. From a pretty early age, I really took a liking to politics and history, leadership, you know, studying some of the big minds and big thinkers and leaders of political organizations, countries over time. And so that was really the focus of some of the things I was looking into in high school. As I was thinking about college, I thought political science would be a good major for me. I focused on programs that had good political science majors and then also had some sort of general, other features that were interesting to me. To be honest with you, I think I was probably most focused beyond that, on what's the best brand, what's the best school quote unquote, that I can get into. Mm-hmm. So, you know, the sort of center of the bullseye for me, was Georgetown, in Washington DC. Obviously great opportunity in the government major there to sort of be at the epicenter of that whole major and fuel the study and practice in Washington, DC. Applied to Georgetown did not apply early anywhere. That was less of a thing, when I was going to school. It's obviously a much bigger thing now. I think I probably would've applied early if I was doing that. On top of that, trying to stretch a little bit in that sort of reach and safety school mentality. I applied to Harvard and Dartmouth. Loved Dartmouth. Was sort of applied to Harvard because I thought I should apply to Harvard. And did not get into either one of those two schools and also applied to Vanderbilt and Northwestern, which I recognize today wouldn't really qualify as safety schools, right in, in any way. The numbers were not quite as daunting when I was doing this a couple of decades ago, three decades ago. But it was still, I think in the realm of possibility for me. So I was accepted at Georgetown. I was wait listed at the other two schools, and that was something that, as a prep school kid, was not unusual. The fact the guidance counselor came to me and said, Hey, we can essentially get you into Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Northwestern. You're not gonna get into the other two. And I think for very good reasons, I was not that great of a student. A good student, but not a Harvard student. And they said, which one of those do you want? Because we don't wanna give away your spot to some and have you not take it. So, it was a little bit of the sort of behind the scenes inside ballgame that they play at that level. Yeah. But I said, look, I'm gonna go to Georgetown. So I got wait listed at the other two and said, no, thank you. And happily headed off to Georgetown.
Carrie:You mentioned you went to a private school, so that was kind of a networking and opportunity for you based on the environment that you were in, in the school that you were attending. Cuz I'm sure some students listening are gonna be like, wait a second.
Dave:Yeah, yeah.
Carrie:How on earth did that happen?
Dave:Yeah, I, that, that is an admittedly privileged and I think relatively unusual circumstance, not unusual in that realm of private prep school. I went to a school called Chote in Connecticut. You know, really well regarded private prep school. They've got great counselors who have incredible relationships with college admissions folks all over the country. They're extremely helpful. And so I definitely recognize that I was getting kind of special white glove treatment in that process. But I, I would say that in terms of the general, application of that, if you can figure out with your guidance counselor and be the squeaky wheel with your guidance counselor because they are stretched really thin. And if you can be the student who has a real interest and is doing some of the research on the side is coming to them for guidance, not for, Hey, can you do this for me? But rather, this is what I'm thinking. What do you think? What do you advise in this instance? And then say, you know, I've visited these schools, or I've taken virtual tours at these schools I've spoken to alumni at these schools. These are the three or four schools that really interest me. Can you help me make a connection at those schools? So I had some of that provided for me. I was probably the kind of kid who would've done that if I was a student today. I probably would've done that on my own. That would be my best advice for students today is to go ahead and just assume that that is possible. It's not going to likely be handed to you, but it's possible for you to figure out, what do I really wanna do? And then ask for the help of the college admissions advisor to connect you with a person at the schools that you are choosing. And then make that connection. Be the one who reaches out to those folks and says, I love your school for A, b, and c reasons, and can you help me, give me a little bit more information about this than this. Demonstrate that interest, because that is absolute gold to those admissions advisors at the schools that you're gonna be interested in.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. Doing your homework in advance helps tremendously.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, take responsibility for your own outcome. Don't feel for one second that you're powerless in this. Yes, it's a big numbers game. But you are dramatically improving your odds every time you invest in yourself. Every time you say, I'm gonna reach out directly, I'm gonna demonstrate that interest. I'm gonna show them specifically why I'm interested, why am a good candidate. That's not a guarantee of anything, but it is other than actually that you are gonna have the attention, they're gonna know your name. So when it comes time to reading all those thousands of files and choosing which students are likely to come, because that's the game that the enrollment people are playing, they want to offer admission to the people that are likely to accept that admission. Admissions officers are judged sort of on two numbers or acceptance rate and yield rate. And so your yield rate is the percentage of the students who have an acceptance offer who take up that offer. And so it's important to those admissions officers at the schools that you're gonna apply to, to actually know whether they really think you're gonna come there. And the more context you can give to them and the more connection you can create with them, the better off your chances of acceptance are going to be.
Carrie:Yeah. So you ended up at Georgetown, but you did not graduate from Georgetown, right? So can you take us through your undergraduate experience and how it started and then how things changed and where you ended up?
Dave:Yeah. Sure. Like I said, I went to Georgetown because I was so focused on, well, political science is what I wanna study. Washington DC must be the epicenter of that. Georgetown's a great school located right there. I thought, well, DC's gonna be an exciting place to go. But I didn't really think much beyond that. I didn't think about myself, my own high school. My high school was about a thousand students at the time, sort of rural Connecticut. Everything was revolving around campus. Everyone was very involved in campus. You knew your professors, you played sports, you were involved in clubs and, and it was just a very, very tight community. So then I got to DC and by my sophomore year, yes, I studying government. I had a job as an intern for my congressman, on the hill. But I was living off campus. I was eating off campus. I was working off campus. I was sort of coasting through my classes. I just really didn't feel connected with the educational experience and a little bit by consequence, the social experience at Georgetown as well. I just didn't feel like after two years or I'd really connected with teachers the way that I had in high school. And so, I went to visit my older sister at a tiny little school outside of St. Louis called Principia College. And Principia at the time was again, about a thousand students similar to my high school, more rural campus. Everything looked and felt a lot more like my high school experience than this thing that I was doing in college. And it occurred to me after going to visit my sister and sitting in on a few classes, which were much smaller, the professors were much more engaged with the classes. Everyone was speaking. Everyone was sort of interested in each other. I flew back to DC thinking, you know, culturally this is a much better fit for me. Now, I have to be honest, there was nobody in my life outside of maybe my mother and father who said, you know what you should do, you should transfer from Georgetown to Principia College.
Carrie:Right.
Dave:In fact, I had many people while friends were like, You know, dude, you're nuts, right? You're crazy. Why would you do that? That's, that makes no sense. Or if they misheard me, and thought I said Princeton, then they thought it was fine. Uh but beyond that, it was really, it was just something I did for myself because I thought, you know, I have two years left and I know it. At 17, 18 years old, it feels like time is not an issue. That it's sort of, you have this endless supply of it, but college goes by so quickly. I had enough self-awareness to say, you know, I have two years left. What am I gonna make of those two years? What are the relationships I'm going to build? And I kind of craved those professor relationships and the learning from my classmates. And obviously my classmates at Georgetown were incredible. My teachers were incredible. And it was kind of me. I just wasn't connected. For whatever that reason was, I felt like the professors and the classmates at Principia. They were my people. I probably couldn't explain it more clearly than that. That's what I chose to do. And so I went out there and I ended up running for student government, and becoming the president of the student body. And I started playing soccer again, which I had done in high school. I actually, I played lacrosse at Georgetown. It's a DI lacrosse program. And just none of these things just really resonated with me. So I completely changed my environment for my last two years of school. And I think it was a fantastic choice for me. Not one that people understood or supported, but I didn't care. It was right for me.
Carrie:That's such an important lesson because I think there is so much pressure out there. Everything now, you know, your college decision letters, videos are on Instagram and there's so much public display of where people are going to college and what the campus looks like. It's such a different environment for students who are under this pressure to be able to like announce, their college decision and what they're doing and post all these pictures about it. So I think it's such an important lesson to really listen to who you are. If the fancy thing on paper that everybody's pushing you toward ends up not being the right fit for you and you know that in your gut, you know, you need to make the best decision for you as a person. The environment that you're in, the people that you're around, the opportunities that you have. Cuz that was a great point too, what you said about soccer. A lot of times at a smaller institution, you have more opportunities to be involved at a higher level on that campus than you would be at a massive institution. Right? There's just a lot more things that you can be involved in and have access to. So that's such a great lesson to just really do what you know is best for you. Even if people around you are saying, are you crazy? What are you doing? Why on earth would you do that?
Dave:Right? Absolutely. And I, I would also, I would just add two points to that one. Don't be too tough on yourself to think that you have to have all this figured out, by, you know, senior year in high school. You're gonna have it figured out to the best of your ability by then, and that's enough. That's good enough, right? I mean, keep trying to get better, but don't, like I didn't waste any time beating myself up saying, you know what? Geez, I've wasted these two years. I've made a mistake. You know, I'm such an idiot. I should have just known it from Yeah, forget that, the journey that took me to the right place, ultimately needed to go through the steps that I went through to get there. They were nothing but a benefit and a blessing. A lot of those folks, my classmates are still friends. That's the beauty of social media these days. I'm still connected to them and feel a kinship. I'm still root for Georgetown, on the lacrosse team. The basketball team is terrible and they're not worthy of my support. But the lacrosse team is much better than it was when I was there. So I bask in their glory. But those are all important steps. So don't beat yourself up if you don't feel like you know exactly what you want the rest of your life to be, is, is I think number one. Absolutely. And the second thing I would say in the context of what you were just saying is don't ever say, I need to go to the best school that I can without finishing that sentence to say, I need to go to the best school for me. Yes. There is no such thing as the best school. If you think, well, this one is ranked higher than that one in US News and World Report, who cares. Right. U US News and World Report, they did not create that listing in order to help you. They did that to sell magazines in the 1980s. Yeah. And stay relevant against too much bigger magazines called Time and Newsweek. This was pure clickbait stuff that they were trying to do to stay relevant. And it's taken on this life of itself. They don't even print the magazine anymore, I don't think, but they still do their silly rankings and they have everyone convinced that they need to live and die by those rankings. And the bumper sticker that your window decal lets you put in your parents' car. Those are not important things. Always finish the sentence of I need to go to the best school for me. And then, you know, be rigorous about figuring out what that means. And that's the company that I've founded to try to help you do that. But that's a vital part of that equation is best for you.
Carrie:Absolutely. And if you get there and you find out that you thought it was the best for you, and then it's not the best for you, you can transfer. Yeah. I think there's a big stigma with transferring sometimes because you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get behind. Or like you said earlier, I wasted this time. Or what if I make the wrong decision again? There's all of these things. But if you know that where you are is not working for you, there is a place that will work for you. You just have to keep looking and you have to, and take the plunge and transfer and invest in yourself in that way.
Dave:Yeah. And I don't recall any employer ever saying to me, now explain this decision as if it was a bad thing. I mean, yes, they want to know. Right. So, you transfer from Georgetown to Principia. Tell me what is Prince again? That actually just opens a door to a conversation that I think makes a pretty good statement about me and the kind of person that I would be working for them to say, look, this is what I thought I learned. I grew, I changed, and I took proactive steps to improve the situation. And if I come to work for you, that's the person I'm going to be. I'm not just going to sort of take it and just keep doing it because it's the way I'm supposed to be doing. I'm gonna think about it and I'm gonna take action to fix it if it's not right. And I've lived that lesson, and here you go. I've never lost a job because someone said, well, there must be some smoking gun. There must be some, like, you're not telling me the truth. There's just nothing there that doesn't actually help to define me in a positive way. Absolutely. And so, absolutely. So don't be afraid of continued growth.
Carrie:Well, can we back up just a minute? Cuz you mentioned you had an internship with your congressman on The Hill. So can you tell us a little bit about that experience and what that was like, kind of on a daily basis for you and what you took from that experience moving forward?
Dave:Yeah, that was fantastic. And it was a little bit of a unique circumstance. So my congressman from Connecticut, from my home district had been elected in a special election the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. The previous congressman had passed away and so there was a special election. So he showed up and I walked into his office. At the end of August, it was the worst office in Capitol Hill, the last member of Congress to be assigned an office. It was boiling hot Washington, DC and I walked in, he was literally in there with his shoes off and his sleeve shirt sleeves rolled up, unpacking boxes, and I said, Congressman, here's who I am. I'm a constituent and I'm a student at Georgetown and I would love to help you out. And so he had spent his career, the last phase of his career as a state representative in Connecticut and in a state representative job, you're dealing with local issues, and obviously as you then step into a federal job at congressional job, you're dealing with international issues. And so he did not have a kind of a polished point of view on a lot of issues that he would have to vote on in the coming weeks, months, and years. Mm-hmm. And, and so what he needed me to do, which was an incredible opportunity for a 19 year old, is to say, can you help me to understand issue A, B, C, D, write me a position paper and then sit down and debate with me about it and figure out how, what should I vote on? How should I vote on this issue? What are the concerns of our constituents? What are the both sides of this issue? and so help make him smarter and help sort of round out his point of view on issues. He just had never really had to focus on as a state representative. And so I got incredible access. I loved every minute of that experience. In terms of the applicability to folks today, I would say just beyond the lookout actively for those types of opportunities and figure out what, is it the person I'm going to work for needs from me? Is there some special circumstance where I can jump in and help out and just act as if, right? I mean, I didn't know anything about the issues that I was advising or member of Congress about,. But I read, I did the research and did some thinking and applied the things I had been learning in class and applied some of the natural instincts and knowledge that I had. And then sat down and just talked to this guy cuz you know, he's just a guy, or she's just a woman. They're just a person and they're trying to learn and trying to be helpful. And so assume that you can bring value to that situation. And just make the most of it. And so it was an incredibly fun learning experience that actually was all transpiring at that same time where I felt like my academic career was just spinning out of control. There was just, there was no traction there. And so it's possible to have two things in your life that are going in opposite directions and feel conflicted about that. And so I did wanna leave that job in my congressman, but I only had those two years left in my academic career. And so I actually ended up, when I went to Principia and was still a government major and got involved in student government, I had to do some work with the board of trustees at Principia. And one of the trustees happened to have been a member, not a cabinet level member, but a sub cabinet level member of the Reagan administration. And he said to me, Hey, you seem like a really kind of energetic government type. Would you ever be interested in working in the White House as an intern? and I thought, well now yes, I would. This was pre Monica Lewinsky days, and so it was still considered cool to be a White House intern. Oh gosh. I said, yeah, that, that would be fascinating. And so, he just wrote a letter for me. And the next thing I knew I was headed back to DC for 10 week internship working at the White House.
Carrie:Wow. Well, two huge things that stick out to me that are fairly simple, but obviously made a gigantic impact for you. One, is when you walked into that congressman's office, just ask. I think a lot of times people are intimidated on the very front end of things to just ask, you know? Right. Hey, can I work for you? Can I do something? Can I volunteer? Can I do this? Because the worst that's gonna happen is they're gonna say, no thank you. Right. I mean, that's the worst thing.
Dave:Right. Have you ever gotten up upset with someone who came to you and said, Hey, can I help you out? How can I wake you up, like.
Carrie:Right, right. And then also your conversation with the faculty member about the White House internship. You just never know, you know people are watching you with what you're doing and they're feeding off your energy and they're observing the things that you're interested in and how you interact with your peers and your faculty and your mentors. And you just never know who's gonna see something in you and just have a conversation with that person. And an opportunity will come out of that. I'm sure you had no idea that day that you talked to him, that at the end of the day, you would potentially have this huge opportunity that you had no idea about when you woke up that morning.
Dave:Yeah, no, that's exactly right Carrie. And I think that's, you know, to me that was one of the benefits of a small school. That was the kind of connection that I was craving. not because I was trying to affect that outcome or that I had that particular type of thing in mind, but I just never felt connected to the people in my school, whether they be faculty, staff, or my classmates in the way that I really wanted. And I couldn't articulate why, but I just knew that I needed a change. And so I made the change and then I continued to sort of just be me and to try to get involved and try to make those connections with people. And then all of a sudden, good things happened, right? I mean, this guy sort of out of the blue asked me that question. Like you said, I didn't wake up that morning thinking that was the thing. I never would've occurred to me. But then there it was, and it was such a great experience. I mean, who wouldn't love that kind of opportunity as a young person to be on the south lawn of the White House with the, I at that point, George Bush was president, the first George Bush was president, and I remember going to a reception, I mean, I had zero access, right? I was the lowest of low interns, but, I was invited, like we all were out onto the south lawn of the White House when, president Bush and President Gorbachev were meeting after signing a treaty document together. Wow. And so seeing those two historic figures together and being so close to it was great. In fact, I'll tell you one quick funny story. This was back in the day when, part of my assignment to for credit was I was writing a weekly article for the newspaper, for the school newspaper kind of letter from Washington kind of thing. And so I asked whether I could get my picture taken with the president and I was told no, that president has better things to do than to take his picture with you. Yeah. So being sort of a self-deprecating smart ass, I actually went out in front of the White House and they used to have people out there with cardboard cutouts of famous people, including the president. And they would take a Polaroid picture. Nobody had cell phones in those days. And so I went out there, I put my arm around President Bush, the cardboard cutout and standing in front of the White House and someone took a Polaroid and I sent the Polaroid back to the school newspaper with my first article, and they reprinted that with each one of my articles, with my picture of my And it was such terrible quality that no one could actually tell This was a cardboard cutout. Oh, that's great. So when I got back to campus, everyone's like, oh, Dave, that was so great. You know, you got to meet. What was he like? You know, I thought he was taller and, you know, I, and I, I just decided not to b burst the bubble and tell him the truth that it was actually a piece of cardboard. But that was one of the benefits of lousy printing presses and Polaroid cameras back in the eighties.
Carrie:Yeah. So what was your role as an intern? What are the things that you got to work on while you were there?
Dave:During that time, I mostly answered letters that constituents were writing in. I worked in the office of Environmental Policy. So when anyone would write the president a letter, and say, Hey, this is a concern that I have, that would typically get staffed out to my boss who was the head of those environmental policies. And then when it was appropriate, I would write a letter that would be signed off by the assistant secretary. So that would be my role to sort of research those things and to write a nice response that was personalized, to that person to let them know that the president had heard them and that this is what the president believed. Not to go too far out on a limb with any policy positions, but just people like to know that when they take the time to write their members of government, that they're being heard. And so this was just a way to do that, to personalize that.
Carrie:So once you graduated from Principia, you graduated with your political science degree, what did you do following graduation?
Dave:I went into the business world. I had looked the idea of going into government and the, actually the experience of working in the White House and the executive branch of government was really helpful to me in the sense that the people that I met there, that I admired the most were actually people that had not come from a career in government. They were people that had gone out into the world of science or business, or academia, whatever it might be. And they had developed expertise that they were now bringing back to government. And so I thought, okay, the idea of spending the next 20 or 30 years in a bureaucratic government position just did not appeal to me. That was just not for me. And so I said, you know, my other interest is business is new product development. In the same way that creating new policies is kind of what excites me about government and solving problems and saying, okay, here's what we're trying to accomplish. How could we do that? And instead of applying that in government, I decide to apply that in business.
Carrie:When you said you had this interest in developing new products and services, you just gone through a political science degree, you know, you told us about the internships you had. So where was that idea planted? Like how did that develop it within you to know that that was a direction you wanted to take?
Dave:I would have to say my dad. I am actually, I'm the third generation of my family to have an MBA. So my father and his father before him, were business people, who had MBAs. My dad worked for a large food company called General Foods, which has been bought and sold by a few times, but it's sort of part of Kraft now. I grew up with him developing new food products and launching those products into the world. And so it was not unusual for me to have dinner at night and dad would pull out some white box of something that they were developing. Say, okay, tell me what you think about this. Why do you like this? Why do you not like this? How would you articulate this? Oh, wow. And so my dinner table conversation was all about new products and trying to hear consumer feedback and to understand and articulate what's good and bad about something. And so I think that was always sort of in my mind. And so I went to work actually initially for an advertising agency in New York City because I thought, you know what? My dad does sounds pretty cool, but if my dad's doing it, it can't be cool. And so the cool side of it must be the advertising, right? Because he works with big global advertising agencies who help create TV commercials for the new products that are launching new foods that get'em on shelves. But all the manufacturing and selling and distribution, that's not the sexy cool part that interested me is a 22 year old. I'm gonna go work on the advertising side. And, and so that's what I did. And I was fortunate enough to kind of find my way into a job on Madison Avenue, working on some big consumer foods brands. And pretty quickly though, realized that I was wrong, that I really actually wanted to be on dad's side of the fence. That the idea of creating the advertising was interesting and fun. You know, I got to go on a shoot in The Bahamas. I get to do fun stuff, but after a while you're like, okay, whatever that was great, but am I really growing into what I want to do? And I really wanted the full suite of control that the client side, not the agency side had in the business world. So being able to actually figure out what are the new products we should create? Why should we create them? Who buys our stuff? Why do they buy our things? Who are the competitors? All that stuff was just absolutely fascinating to me. And so that's what I started to dig in to do. And I moved from the agency side over onto the client side. I knew that I couldn't just go become a product manager, that I needed to take some steps to get there. And I threw my focus on political science in college, really had sort of stayed away from business classes. And that's an area that I think has changed over time. I definitely recognize that I had the privilege of parents who had gone to college and grandparents had gone to college. And so my dad who had an MBA said, Hey, if you wanna go into business, don't spend all of college in business study. Learn to think, spend some time learning things that are gonna expand your mind, make you a better critical thinker. You can apply those to your business career later, or to whatever career you choose, but you don't necessarily have to use college as career training.
Carrie:Along those same lines. I think as you're telling this, you know, I think some students get really hung up on the fact that, like for your situation, I have a degree in political science, what do I think I'm doing just applying to a job in marketing? You know? Yeah. Yeah. So how do you advise students to articulate what they're taking from a degree, like in political science or a degree in something else. You know, like your dad was advising you to do, to learn how to think and to explore more. But I think sometimes we're so focused on, you know. I get the degree in this and that means I can go do that. Right. Instead of thinking like, I have a degree in this, but I can also go do all these other things if I'm able to articulate what I've learned from that and how I can contribute to this other thing, right?
Dave:Yes, yes. Now, there are clearly careers in which very specific knowledge is going to be vitally important to you. My youngest daughter is actually has just gone back to get a second bachelor's degree, in nursing. She wants to be a nurse. And as someone who may no doubt be a patient in a hospital again at some point in my life, I want my nurses to know exactly what they're doing. Yeah, right. But outside of those type of specific career choices, I think you have to think about transferrable skills. What are the things as a political science major, what was I learning? I was learning how to look at a situation, establish what the facts are, figure out who's done what and why. What were the outcomes of that, and how might things have been done differently. It's creative problem solving. Those were the applicable skills that I was bringing to business. And so, like I said earlier, when I sat down with job interviews and someone said, now I see here you transferred from Georgetown to some school I don't know of. Tell me why you did that. I was able to tell a story very credibly that said, look, here are the set of facts. This was my self-awareness, my analysis of that situation. And here are the steps that I proactively took sometimes in spite of what people were telling me. To do because I knew I trusted my gut that it was the right thing for me. As an employer, and I've now been on the employer side of this for a long time and hired an awful lot of people, I am much more attracted to someone who comes to me with clearly demonstrable skills in creative problem solving and self-confidence, in motivation, in follow through. I've never sat down and said, okay, now let's go through your transcript. Did you study this, this, did you study that? Or even, honestly, I don't care about gpa. And again, I recognize that in certain professions, certain grad school programs, you do need to focus on that. Generally speaking, the transferrable skills you're gonna get no matter what your major, are the things that you should really be focused on. What am I good at? What am I passionate about? What did I actually learn? It's sort of the Miyagi thing, right? He's got him, you know, waxing on, waxing off. He didn't realize what he was actually learning to do is defend himself in a fight. If you're in a class and you're learning how to think critically and to look in a situation, look at a set of facts and say, let me summarize exactly what's going on here, being articulate about that is an unusual quality. And when I can find an employee, regardless of what they majored in, who says, look, I can distill down complex things into simple pros that everyone can understand. I can convince everyone on my team to get on board with a certain direction. I can force a decision, not in a bad way, but I can help the team to actually reach a decision and move forward. Those are incredibly valuable skills and they can come from people with any type of major.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything specific from your studies in political science that you felt was really a key thing that you took away from studying that discipline, that's helped you in your career?
Dave:I think there's a lot to be learned from leaders and communicators. I'm a big fan of great communicators. And I may not agree with their policies. I may not love all of Ronald Reagan's policies, but I admire the way he communicated those. He was the first president, for example, who really kind of went around the media and went straight to people, and communicated what he wanted them to know directly. And that's the kind of world we live in today, where every politician has a Twitter account. And so that's not an unusual thing today, but the innovators and the thinkers and the great communicators, I love learning from their examples, good and bad. I think we all tend to shy away from thinking that all of our examples have to be coming from, the most perfect human beings when some of my most important lessons in life have been, these are the things that I should not do. These are the ways that I should make people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want people to feel that way. I remember in that job in advertising, that I was stopped in the hall by, so someone who was, I dunno, four or five levels above me. He asked me a question about something we were working on, and I tried to explain to him. And he got so angry about my response and the inadequacy of what I was telling him that he was pounding on the wall and there were long, these big sort of metal file cabinets. And so it's this long hallway and he's pounding on these metal cabinets and swearing at me. Wow. And it was a sort of a, I don't wanna say traumatic experience, but I just came away from that and I went in my office, I closed my door and I promised myself I will never make someone else feel that way. And what a huge lesson. I mean, I'm sure in the moment I didn't say, you know what, thank you, sir. Thank you for telling me and showing me what being a jerk looks like, so that I will never be that kind of jerk. Right. Right. But that was decades ago, and I still remember it. Like it was, I've got goosebumps here. I can remember that experience. And so we learn from good and bad. And to me, the study of politics is about the study of people, the study of communication, the study of how do we get things done at a macro level that then is translated into the micro level. How can we take a major policy direction, and then affect that at a level where it really comes down to each individual person. You know, how do I get that benefit in someone's hand? How do I get them the training program they need? How do I envision that training program? How do I fund it? All those sort of big to little transitions that are affected by great leaders is what attracted me to the study of politics and business.
Carrie:Yeah. So you mentioned you have an MBA. So at what point in those early years of your career did you decide, okay, now it's time to go back to school and get a master's degree?
Dave:Yeah, that's a great question cuz the answer is when I hit the wall that said, in order for you to get access to the jobs that you want, you probably need to have a different degree. Yeah. Or at least a more advanced degree. Because I was a political science major and I was looking to get into sort of deep business areas where an MBA would be helpful. Then I started to think, okay, I need that credential. But more than that, I need the learning and the knowledge that would come from that because I had stayed away from accounting and stats and finance, and business law and those types of things. Yeah, as an undergraduate I would be at a disadvantage. Those are things that I needed to know in the kind of jobs that I wanted to have. It was more actually that realization that I needed to improve my knowledge base. I needed to expand. What I knew about business in order to be an effective version of the person I wanted to grow into.
Carrie:That's a great point for students to think about later down the road because you know, frankly, whether you feel like you need something or not. You know, in reality, there's some jobs where people go, why are they requiring this degree? I can do this job without having that degree. You know? And that may be true in some settings. But the reality is that in a lot of fields, once you get to a certain level, there's just this automatic, you know, requirement that's slapped on that they're gonna weed people out if they don't have it. You know? And that's just gonna be the case in a lot of situations. So it's important for students to start to look ahead and not only talk to people who are in those kind of positions that they think they want further down the road. But you can even look in job postings, looked on LinkedIn, and if everything you're seeing says, either it's required or that it's highly preferred that you have a blank, start planning for that and start thinking about, you know, if you really do want that, is that what you really want? Knowing that you need to take this extra step and get that other degree or certification or whatever it is. And if that's true, you know, figure out a way to fit that in.
Dave:Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Carrie. I hate to say that you're right about that because I, right? Yes. On a personal level, I have a very strong reaction when someone says, well, you've gotta have this credential or that credential to be able to get into this club. That bugs me and I'm inclined to run the opposite direction. But when I was looking at the jobs that I wanted, what I realized was that the skillsets required for success in that job came hand in hand with the degree that they were talking about. So in that sense, it wasn't just some empty degree, it was much more of a, look, I need to know these things because these are you know, think of it as accumulation of tools that in order for me to build this product or do this job, I need to have these 10 tools. And I had three of them in my belt, and I might have had all the natural talent in the world, or the energy and enthusiasm in the world. But absent those tools, I was not gonna be successful in the job.
Carrie:And that's such a great point to realize that even if you think you don't need it going into it. Right. I agree with you with saying, you know, there are a lot of situations where that is just something that, you know, HR is slapping on, where someone with 20 years of experience really could do that job without the degree. But if you know that that's something that is just a reality that you're gonna need to pursue, I don't think there's any degree that's wasting your time because you're in charge of your education and your experience and that degree. Right. So even if you have mixed feelings about the fact that you have to get it, I mean, if you approach each class as, you know, getting to know that professor and getting to know the people in your class and learning from the people around you, it's not just about your textbook or the paper that you're writing, although those are obviously contributing things toward your education, but there's so much more to it than that, that you can really approach it as an opportunity for yourself to build your network and learn from other people and learn about different things in the industry that you weren't aware of. And different work that people are doing and research that they're doing. There's so much more to it than just getting the piece of paper. And if you approach it with that mindset as a growth opportunity for yourself, then hopefully you can utilize it in a better way than what it might feel like going into it from the beginning.
Dave:Yeah. I think that's such great advice. And I would also just add that, as you're thinking about your career and what do you want to do and what type of, of education or credential do you need to have to get the next job? Don't just look one step ahead. Look at the people. Look at your boss's boss and their boss. And her boss and keep, keep going up that chain. Yeah. A few layers and say, okay, some of those things might change over the course of, you know, a few decades when you get to those top levels. If that kind of career progression is what interests you. But just think about not just how do I get to the next level, but what are the set of skills that I need to have in order to reach kind of a longer term goal? Even if you don't know the answer specifically, just that thought process is a really helpful thought process yeah for you personally.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. As far as your MBA experience goes, what was that actual experience like for you? Were you working while you were getting the degree or were you going full-time during the day? What kind of program were you in?
Dave:I was in a full-time program, so it was almost two full years, you know, starting the fall and, sort of like two years of college, right? You start at the end of the summer and finish at the end of the spring. I managed to make my life more complicated because by the time that I decided, okay, in order for me to keep the career rolling that I'm building here, I need to go back and get an MBA. By that point I was married. And then I decided, okay, I think I wanna do this full-time now. How can I afford that? Became the other question. And then we found out that we were pregnant as well. And so, I managed to quit my job and go back to school, and, have a baby. I think it was a week she was born a week before finals, my first semester at business school. Oh my gosh. We were both unemployed. and had this new mouth to feed and I had the rigors of a pretty serious MBA program going on where I was taking things like accounting and that I was just, I'm terrible at accounting. It was a challenge and certainly I would advise, I think more planning, financial planning, life planning, but sometimes you just gotta of keep going. You just keep making the right next decision and the right next move. As long as you're keeping your head above water, it's gonna be okay.
Carrie:Yeah. So did your MBA experience change anything about what you wanted to do moving forward? Or did it open up any other ideas for you regarding your own career path and the steps you wanted to take?
Dave:Ultimately it didn't change them, but it did sort of stress test those decisions. So when I was in business school, the really cool job for people in business school was to go into investment banking or to go into consulting. And that may still be true today, but the less cool thing was to go become a consumer package goods product manager, which is what I went into business school thinking I wanted to be. And it's the job that I took coming out of business school. The beauty of going to a full-time business school program, especially one that is as well regarded as Northwesterns, you get a lot of employer attention. And so almost every night we had employers from just every kind of industry you could imagine coming to campus and present. Trying to sort of woo the first and second year students into paying attention to them and applying to work there. And so I was able to go to a range of different types of careers and say, is that a better choice for me? Most of those consultants and investment bankers were making double what I was making coming outta school as a lowly little product market. but that was what I wanted to do, and I sort of already demonstrated that I was gonna go ahead and do what I wanted to do, regardless of what everyone else around me thought. And so I accepted the lesser of the two paychecks, and ended up doing exactly what I went there thinking I was gonna go do. But, it was definitely worth it to go to all those other presentations and to step back and, and not, it wasn't a question of being bullheaded, it was a question of saying, would I rather do this or that? And I kept coming back to where I started, which was validation of what I was doing, which was good. But I would say that business school is a great opportunity to pick your head up and to look around, and grad school in general and think, is this still the plan that I have? Because you could always adjust and tweak, and you just don't wanna say, well, look, I'm sort of halfway down this path. I've invested in this education now. I don't want it. Just go ahead and be brave enough to say, Nope, I'm gonna make a course correction here. I'm gonna step off and do this instead. And don't just sort of chase whatever shiny thing that comes along. Next, be purposeful, but don't be afraid of thinking about what that purpose is.
Carrie:Yeah. So that position that you took out of grad school, what kinds of things were you doing and what kind of change did that make in your career path?
Dave:I was the associate brand manager at Pillsbury, and we were working on Totino's Pizza Rolls.
Carrie:Which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with.
Dave:So I, I had firsthand knowledge. We were trying to figure out how to launch new flavors. This sounds sort of silly and trite these days, but, when you think about a pepperoni pizza, you think about the little disks of pepperoni, right? And Totino's Pizzas back in the day, I don't know what they are now. Fortunately I don't have to eat them anymore, but, they would cost about a dollar in the grocery store or something, like something really tiny little price, right? So I ate a lot of Totino's back in the day. For that kind of price point, no one had ever been able to figure out exactly how to cut and apply fast enough. A disc of pepperoni, they would have to sort of dice it up and then just blow it onto these things as they flew down the, the belt. So one of the big innovations that we had the manufacturing team came up with was the ability actually, and I still remember the name of this thing, they came up with something called a wiggle bottom slicer. And the wiggle bottom slicer took these huge tubes of pepperoni and sliced them and made those little disks and distributed 12 of'em on a pizza or whatever it was evenly distributed at a line rate, which was just, you know, fractions of a second blowing by. But the magic of the wiggle bottom slicer, was the big innovation as we launched for a dollar regular pepperoni pizzas, which, you know, wow. So those are the kind of little things you throw yourself into, and figure out what's their favorite pizza? And the top of the list are a lot of people is pepperoni. Why don't we have pepperoni? so it's just problem solving and creativity. And it wasn't my creativity and I couldn't have invented a wiggle bottom slicer if my life depended on it. But I knew that that's what the consumer wanted. And so you challenge manufacturing folks to say, how can you do this? We've gotta get this done. And they did it. And so Totino's pepperoni pizza was launched and was a big success. And then allowed me to move on to my next job.
Carrie:So what are the other kinds of products and services that you've worked on throughout your career and kind of how did you move from one to the next?
Dave:Yeah. You know, I sort of moved around between very large and very small companies. I am inclined more towards a more entrepreneurial kind of work environment, but I also felt like big companies had a lot to teach me. And that maybe I wasn't quite ready to be a practitioner on my own right to go start a company. Maybe I was a little fearful that I needed some more training. And those companies have great training programs. They've got great mentorships. And so I spent a couple years at big companies and then made my way to little companies. The last big company job I had, that I really loved was at Whirlpool. I started out at Whirlpool as a senior brand manager on their washer and dryer business. which doesn't sound that exciting, but it was at the time a$900 million washer and dryer business. When I started, 99% of that was top-loading, washing machines. And one of the things that we did as a team was to actually figure out why Americans weren't buying frontloading washing machines and then design the frontloading washing machines that Americans would love, which today I think most households have them, they're these very large format frontloading washing machines that are sitting up on pedestals and, you know, they look really cool and they're great. Our team developed those and launched those in the early two thousands and totally transformed that industry. And I think that original product we created ended up selling more than a billion dollars worth of washers, before we were finished with it. And so that was just a really great learning experience for me and opportunity to use the resources of a huge company like that to make a fundamental change. And the environmental impact of a front loader is significantly better than a top loader, at least a traditional top loader. So they were huge environmental reasons. They were good, cleaned better, looked better at the dealers who sold these things got super excited about this. Consumers would write us letters and say, thank you. We've redone our house and we took the doors off the laundry room because we want all our friends to come over to our house and see our washing machine. That's not a paradigm you start with when you're thinking about creating a new washing machine is that people are going to write you a letter like that.
Carrie:Yeah.If students are listening and thinking, you know, I'm really interested in this product development and creating new things like you're talking about, and meeting demands and desires of consumers. Can you talk a little bit the different people within that ecosystem of creating a product? You mentioned earlier, you couldn't have invented that invention that they needed to cut up the pepperoni, but obviously you were part of that project and that development. For students thinking, the role you had may not be the role they're interested in, but they're interested in this kind of a path. What are the other types of people and backgrounds that are part of those teams that are creating these new products?
Dave:Yeah, that's a great question because it is a very broad, diverse team. I hesitate, to say, oh, I led that team. I was the brand manager for the laundry business. But, there were a ton of other people who had leadership roles in that team that were vitally important. From the engineers who designed the product, there are people that will draw sketches of a product like that so they have more of an artistic background and say, you know, if we could figure out under the hood, beneath the drawing what it is actually, how do we deliver That is one thing. But actually coming up with a rendition of what it might look like conceptually is one set of skills. And then the engineering piece of, okay, this is how we're going to build this. There's the manufacturing engineering. that says, okay, I understand what it's gonna look like. I understand how mechanically it has to work. Now we're the ones who have to build this and we have to do it for the certain price point, certain line rates. There are supply chain people that then come into effect who, who say, okay, you need one of these and three of those, and we need, we're gonna make these, we're gonna buy these. They help to make all those decisions. They're all the accounting and finance people that helped figure out how to get all that done. They're the logistics people. One of the interesting facts I'll never forget about Whirlpool, was that factory, the factory Whirlpool had at the time, one major factory in Ohio that built all of their top loading washing machines. And that factory ran 24 7. On a daily basis, if you lined up all the washing machines they produced just in 1 24 hour period, if they were all stacked right next to each other, that line of washing machines would extend nine miles. Wow. And so how do you have enough trucks coming in and out and how do you have enough raw materials coming in one side of the building, enough finished washing machines to have enough cardboard? How do you enough printed ink? I mean, all these things have to get figured out. So there is a role for so many different disciplines, and that's just what happens to get the product built. Then the selling side of it. The advertising and promotion side of it. Those are whole industries unto themselves. So if the idea of that kind of commercial interaction is interesting to you, then you can really come to that with so many different backgrounds. And I think maybe the best way to access that is to just think about, spend some time wandering around a job board for a company like Whirlpool and read some of those descriptions and talk to some people like me or people from engineering who have been at places like that. Because I think you'd be surprised at kind of what a fun, rewarding, team oriented experience that can be, even though you probably are not sitting there in high school thinking, you know what I really want to do when I grow up? I wanna make washing machines.
Carrie:Yeah. right. But that just goes to show too, for students to keep in mind there are so many things out there that you have not yet discovered and you have not yet heard about, that could potentially become a significant part of your career path. I mean, there's entire companies, that when we graduated from college, a lot of the big 10 companies that everybody wants to work for where they graduate didn't exist either back then. Yeah, that's right. So that's gonna be the case for the next generation too. So there's just to be open to that and to, you know, of course, start to investigate what you're interested in and what your strengths are, be aware and be open to the fact that there's so many things out there that you haven't yet heard of and haven't yet developed that could be a fantastic fit for you.
Dave:Absolutely. Yeah. The flip side too is that a lot of the big companies that were absolute staples back when I graduated from college, don't exist anymore. Yeah. I tell my own kids and know from my own experience that the security that you think might come from a big company versus a startup, it's not real. Big companies come and go. They have big divisions that, you know, you might be part of a giant company that has 12 different divisions and one division that's not related to you in any way has a bad quarter. And so they need to make cuts across the board. So they might cut your team to compensate for mistake someone made in another part of the world, in another part of the business. And so I'm always sort of more inclined to small business where I think you do have more direct control because there just aren't so many moving parts. But it's a little counterintuitive to think maybe a small company actually affords you more opportunity and gives you more security, because I would rather have my hands on the wheel as opposed to saying, I'm just a passenger in this great big ocean liner and I don't even know where the wheel is.
Carrie:Right. Yeah. So how did you go from working from these big companies to starting your own?
Dave:I really just decided ultimately that I was ready. And that's something that you have to answer for yourself if you want to work for yourself. I would not sit here and tell you, oh, well you have to put in X number of years or have X number of experiences at large companies first. That was my path. That does not have to be everyone's path. There certainly are lots of examples of people who have gone immediately into entrepreneurial endeavors and been incredibly successful. I just felt for me that at some point I said, you know what? I think I know what I need to know. I think I'm ready. I think I'm honestly, I'm hiding a little bit in big companies and I'm ready to step out and try this on my own, and I have to do that for myself. And so I did, I, you know, in my life I was, I was at a point where I'm, I'm married and my wife was supportive of that. And the level of risk that I have assumed by starting a software company is probably not exactly what she would choose for herself. So, you know, just without turning this into a relationship show, making sure that your partner in your life right, is on board with that and understands this is what it's gonna mean from an income standpoint, from a benefit standpoint, this is how we're gonna keep paying the mortgage. This is what it might mean to how many vacations we take a year for the next couple of years. Yeah, just thinking that stuff through and then just, you know, just do it. If you think that's an experience you want to have, the advantage of doing it younger is you are less encumbered by all those other things. You might not have a partner, you might have to worry about a mortgage. And I just needed to make sure that in my life and my circumstances, that had that sort of all taken care of and thought through. And I did. My journey to start my company Troove, actually coincided completely coincidentally with the beginning of Covid. You know, obviously had no idea that was coming. My first day working full-time on Troove was February 10th, 2020. Oh wow. February 11th, 2020. They named this thing Covid 19. So I, I didn't know that what was gonna happen. But it ended up being, we turned a lot of the sudden neighborhoods locked in at home and everyone is willing to jump on a zoom. Who knew what that was before? Those all became positives that we used in order to reach customers in order to reach school administrators, admissions officers and have them be at home with time to talk to you. And so we just sort of persevered through all that. But, it's been a roller coaster ride for sure, but one that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Carrie:So why Troove? first of all, tell us what Troove is and what you do, and then also why is that what you chose to do for your company?
Dave:Yeah, so this is the seed of an idea that had been sort of in my mind for a long time. And you know, you've heard from my background, the way I look at problems or things that I run across in my life is to sort of step back and say, okay, does this actually work the way it should work? Is it optimized? Is there a better way? Is there a better product? A better service is what's out there now working for the people that are using it? And that's just the way I look at a lot of things. It could be walking into a restaurant, could be walking into department store, you name it. I tend to look at things that way. And so as a father of three children who are no longer children, they've all graduated from college. I went through the college search and, and enrollments and learning process with all three of my kids. And I was so surprised that after 20 years away from the admissions business, when I was in grad school, I was on the admissions committee. I was a student member of the committee. So I was very involved in that sense. I thought I knew what it was like. That to take my oldest daughter back through the college search process where now we have the internet and now we theoretically have all these technologies that can help us to affect a better outcome. I didn't find any of that at play in the college search process. And the further I got into to sort of research, I recognized that the way that we all to school today is to essentially ask teenagers to do some research, to get a little bit of support. Sometimes it's very unevenly applied, it's very biased towards those with more money, have better resources, and people tend to only consider a few options out of the thousands available to them. They supply information, which is really incomplete about them to schools who have to make choices on that incomplete information. And more often than not, those are the wrong decisions. You know, I live that myself, but the reality is by the numbers in the US today, you are more than twice as likely to transfer or drop out of your first choice school than you are to stay and graduate in four years. Hmm. And so I started to think about how might this system be different and how might we get a better flow of information, more visibility and accessibility, more equality, because there is such a clear division between students whose families have higher incomes, whose families have higher educational levels. They just simply do better in this process, and that's wrong. Right. And technology typically has historically been one way to squeeze out inequality. I spent a few years, you know, my daughter, is 28 now, and I started Troove three years ago. I spent a few years thinking about this and my point earlier about you need to make sure that your life and your partner, whomever, is sort of on board your finances are ready for this. Because you don't step away from a salaried job into a startup and think, I'm gonna keep making as much money as I was making before. Right? So I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and then ultimately my life kind of got to a place where I could afford it. And my wife said, you either need to do this or shut up. Right? I don't wanna hear about it anymore. Yep. And so I said, okay, I will do both. I'm gonna get to work and I just won't talk about it. I took that plunge three years ago and, spent a lot of time learning about the industry and really figured out that to me, the problem with college admissions isn't so much getting into college, it's getting outta college with a degree. And that there's so much of the focus is on how can I get into the best school, again, that incomplete sentence of the best school, right? And there's no doubt that it's really, really hard and it will always be really, really hard to get into an Ivy League school. That's always gonna be true. That's just supply and demand. But if you look at the statistics, it is fewer than 5% of US colleges and universities accept fewer than 25% of their applicants or so are so-called highly selective schools. So flip that around and say 95% of schools accept most of their applicants. In fact, the average acceptance rate in US colleges and universities is almost 75%. And so the wow problem isn't really, for most students, the problem is not getting in. The problem is then completing your degree and graduating with that degree. And so that's the problem that we set about trying to solve. And sort of by consequence we're solving the enrollment problem and helping you find your right place. Because from our perspective at Troove, the reason why most students drop out or transfer is because they're in the wrong place. They made a poorly informed decision or a decision that was right for them at the time, that more information could have helped to affect a better outcome. That if we could help you find your people, find your academic and social fit in college to the best of your ability at that time, then you have a much higher probability of actually succeeding, staying, learning, graduating, and even going on and saying, I feel like this is my people. All right, these are the people that I want to go through my life with. Because that disconnect where most high school students are looking at college thinking, it's kind of like Tinder. It's like first dates, right? I'm just trying to ask out as many schools as I can in the hope that one of them will say yes. And that short term thinking is completely understandable. But if you step back and say, what are the people on the other side of that decision thinking, what are the college admissions officers thinking? They are not thinking Tinder. They are thinking lifetime commitment. They want to literally have your children come to the school. And so you have to think more broadly about, I'm looking to create a lifetime relationship with a learning institution, with a culture of people. If that's true, then what are the questions that I'm asking about that school? It's not, did I like the dorms? Do they have a cool logo? Do I look good in the school colors? And honestly, those are things I do hear students say.
Carrie:Right. Dorms have become quite a different thing. Yeah. I mean, it's almost a concierge situation in a lot of places where what has the most convenient coffee shop and the fanciest upgrades.
Dave:Well, it's part of why the pricing has so significantly outpaced inflation, right. Is because we've turned these into these incredible resorts full of amenities and I mean, think about all the IT that goes into colleges that did not exist 20, 30, 40 years ago. Yeah. There's lots of reasons why all those things, they're just fine. I get it. I can understand why you would be swayed by them. I'll tell you a quick story. Thinking about, you know, I mentioned Tinder a minute ago. One of the businesses that I studied as I was working on the model for Troove was dating apps. I saw a research report from eHarmony, which is no longer the, kind of the coolest sexiest dating app out there, but eHarmony was one of the pioneers in this space. And they were really known for, and still are known for building long-term relationships, for helping you find a spouse. Their methodology is a little different. You know, if you go on a lot of apps, it's just a beauty contest, right? You're using your eyes to say, attractive, not attractive. Swipe right, swipe left. You do that based on just pure visual. EHarmony was different. You have to take a personality assessment. So they're assessing you and saying, you are a really good fit with this subset of people. And we're actually only gonna show you that subset of people. Now it's a big group, so you don't feel like you're missing out. But you're then choosing people who are attractive to you from within a curated subset of people. And the thing that really caught my eye was using that different methodology, eHarmony, did some research to find out that of the people that met and married through their process, the divorce rate, and this was tens of thousands of people, the divorce rate was 3.9%. So the normal divorce rate is Wow. Almost 50%. Yeah. And they were having a less than 4% divorce rate. When you put more thought into longer term compatibility as your upfront assessment tool. So wow, that is very much a model that we followed in truth to say, can we create a short, quick, you know, quiz an assessment tool about your academic and social preferences where you can say, look, I prefer this over that. I don't like this. I like that in and out of the classroom. And then match you up with the experience of people that have already been at the schools that you're interested in, so that we can say, look, if you're interested in an academic culture that looks like this, and a social culture that looks like that, these are the subset of schools that you should now go talk to, because they're the ones where you have the highest probability of connection. A feeling like this is my place, these are my people. And it's based on the real lived experiences of recent graduates and current students.
Carrie:So are you surveying recent graduates and current students to get that information?
Dave:Yes. Yes. So that, that's our model. Think of it as a two-sided marketplace of students and colleges. Everything we do is free to the students and your guidance counselor your parents. It's free for you. And it is paid for by the schools who are today collectively spending billions of dollars to try to reach the students, that end up applying. And yeah. And if you've ever been through this process, you know that you are gonna get deluged by spam, right. Because the way this industry has historically solved its problems is to just sheer muscle and volume and spending. They just send you more and more and more stuff because that, they know if they put a certain amount of junk in the universe, they're gonna get X number of applications. They're gonna accept most of them. And then a small percentage are gonna accept those offers and show up in the fall. And that funnel is really well grooved after centuries of doing it this way. And so we're coming along saying, look, that methodology is really, really outdated, and having such a wide funnel makes no sense. And so what we do is we say, look, let's base it not on getting into college, but getting out of college. And let's model the experience of people that have done just that at each school. And then connect people with the places where they're most likely to have the same outcome. And so that's where they should start their search process. I tell a story of, of going through the search process with my oldest daughter and she had a list of schools and we went out to visit the first school on her list. And we had to drive out in the middle of New York state. And I won't mention the school, it's not their fault, but we get all the way out in the middle of nowhere. And we get to this school and it's exactly what she thought she wanted. And we drove onto campus and she said, dad, forget it. Don't even get out of the car. N nope, never gonna happen. Oh wow. And I was like, no, no, no, you're getting outta the car. We've driven a long way here. But I said, let's take a tour. Let's take a deep breath, get some fresh air, stretch your legs and figure out where we are now. Okay. So we took the tour, we learned a lot of things. We had a really good conversation. We get back in the car, I said, okay, we're gonna spend the night out here and then we're gonna go to the next school in the morning. So I'll tell you what, you control the Spotify and I'll jump on Open Table and I'll find us a place for dinner. And so immediately Spotify said, these are a couple songs you need to hear right now. And they were perfect. And I went on open table and they said, okay, we know what kind of food you like. Here's where you are. And so here are a couple of restaurants you should choose from. And we had an amazing meal. And it occurred to me that the process by which we found dinner and music was so much more sophisticated than the process we were using to find a quarter million dollar college investment. Wow. Yeah. And so you start to think about that saying you know, what are they doing? It's a simple thumbs up, thumbs down with those types of apps, right? They're saying, did you like this song? If you did, then we're gonna show you songs that other people who like that song also enjoyed. And that's essentially what Troove is doing. It's like a dating app for college that says, do you like this kind of classroom environment? Do you like this kind of social environment? Because if you did, people who like that, just like you also liked or had a good outcome at these schools. And so we're not telling you, you have to go to that school. We're saying, here's a subset of schools where people with your passions and interests and values have found success. And so start your conversation with those schools and we can help you facilitate that connection. But it's all about trying to find that long-term compatibility based on successful outcomes of the people that have come recently before you.
Carrie:So for students, and also I'm just thinking for people who are alumni of different institutions who would be interested in entering their experience information, how do they find this and go about doing that? Whether you're an alum who wants to enter information about their experience, or a student who wants to use Troove to look for schools. How do they go about doing that?
Dave:Well, thank you for asking, Carrie. You would all go to troove.me, t r o o v e.me. And then you can say, find my fit if you're a student, and you can also click on the alumni tab, if you are a recent graduate, and click on that and you can take a quiz. The quiz takes about 10 minutes and it really focuses a little bit on demographics, but then much more on the set of conditions in and outta the classroom that you found interesting. So you don't have to be articulate and say, well, I specifically like this, this, and this. We're just gonna ask you a bunch of questions for 10 minutes about the things you really liked. And then say, okay, based on your outcome, here are the schools and here's why. And so what you get from true as a student is a list of either green, yellow, or red fit schools. So good or bad kind of fit schools, and then a series of of, look, you said you wanted this, this, and this, and it has three out of four of those and this is what it's missing. And so you might wanna do some more research about that or decide if that's really gonna be something you're gonna miss. Because it's all about the acquisition of information and getting closer to what it is that I'm looking for and who has that. And so, you know, just going to troove.me is, is the way to do that. And really what we tried to do is create an atmosphere that's gonna be helpful through this sort of long-term process that college search represents. So most kids start looking sophomore year, junior year, and so this might take two or three years. And so we want to build an environment where you could come in as a sophomore, as a junior, take this quiz. And then come back maybe six months later or a year later and say, you know what, I've changed a little bit, and so I'm gonna go back and I can tweak these answers a little bit and see what outcome difference is. And the promise of Troove is that we will never share your fit information if it's not green. If it's not a good fit, we will never send your information to any school. But if it is a good fit and we are working with that school, we'll send them your contact info and have them reach out to you and say, Hey, we saw you're a great fit. We'd love to chat with you. We'd love to answer questions for you. We're helping to sort of filter out all those lousy fits when you're hearing from all these schools you've never heard of or or just nothing like what you would potentially enroll. We help fix that problem by helping to define what you like and then only sharing with the schools where there is a good fit for you. And you can opt out of that if you want to. But that role of helping to identify and then connect is what we want to do in the market.
Carrie:If a student goes to Tru and fills out this information, and let's say they have two or three schools that they're already looking at. Is there a way for them to search to see if those specific schools are a match to them?
Dave:Yes. One of the questions that I get is this name Troove. Where did that come from? I was trying to come up with a name that was sort of catchy and fun that would work well for students and for schools, but that really could become a verb. And the verb that we wanted in this category, I want you to Troove it. If you want to know if you're a great fit for a school, academically or socially mm-hmm. Troove it. Yeah. And so the act of trooving, it means that you can literally go once you've taken this quiz once, and you don't have to do it for every school. You do it once. And then you can Troove any school you want to. You take the quiz and then you can go back in anytime you want to on your phone and just type in the name of the school you're looking for. It'll pop right up and it will show you your fit. So as you go through the process, and a friend says, Hey, you know, I was thinking about Northwestern, is that something you're interested in? I'm thinking about, you know, Colorado College, I'm thinking about U C S D, whatever it is. You can type that into Troove. It'll pop up and immediately show you your fit score academically, socially, and cumulatively. Kind of like an SAT, right? You got math, verbal, and cumulative. We do academic, social, and cumulative so that you can really understand your fit and then drill into that. And so it's also a really good way to have a conversation with your guidance counselor, and your parents. If you're looking for schools or if you're looking to transfer schools to find out if this might be a better fit for you, you can go get some data from Troove and then facilitate that conversation and sit down with your mom or your dad and say, This is why I don't think, you know, I know you're pushing school X. Here's why I don't think it's a great fit for me. And it's not emotion-based, it's fact-based. It makes it an easier conversation to have.
Carrie:Does it tell you why, like if it says you're not a good fit socially, does it tell them why?
Dave:It does, it does. We follow the sort of red, yellow, green. So if you said, I'm looking for a school that has sororities and fraternities and division one football team, and you know, is in a city, and then you sort of look up, I'm trying to think of a school that might have all those things. But you look, you look like, oh, well why isn't Michigan on there? Well, I, I said I didn't want sororities. I didn't want a big city and I didn't want a large school. It would show up as missing those things that you had said you wanted. Okay. You can drill into it because our goal, is to help make the front end of this process easier and more efficient and more effective for you in the long term. So yeah, I think so many students are, are out there operating without great advice. They don't know where to start. They typically start from, these are the schools I know. These are the ones where most kids from high school go. This is where my family has gone. These are the schools my guidance counselor tends to push on everybody. So this is a way to maybe give you a little bit better data about those schools and all the other choices that you have at your disposal. And then you can start to engage with those schools. You can do some more research on your own. If I were to give one piece of advice to someone applying to school, whether they be transferring or as a first time applicant. Figure out who the admissions counselor is at the college or university of your choice and connect with them personally. You will have a dramatic impact on your chances. Not, it's not guarantee of anything, but you will significantly prove your chances if you connect with a human being that is responsible for you in their admissions process. And that's usually done either alphabetically or geographically, more often geographically. Connect with that human being and come to them with the set of facts that you learned from Troove and say, Hey, I see that you've got this, this, and this. This is why I think I'd be a good fit. Can you tell me more about that program? Or even better, can you introduce me to a professor in the music department or to a current student who might be from Ohio, like me, who's also interested in, you know, performing arts, whatever it is. The more specific you can be, the much better reaction you're gonna get from that school, because that's demonstrated interest. That's really sort of mature, clear thinking and they love that. You'll help yourself out a lot by doing some of this work upfront.
Carrie:Yeah. And I just wanna add to that even reaching out to people like academic advisors and the major that you're wanting to pursue. Anybody who's connected in that way, because there's other people outside of admissions that can also contact people at admissions. Yes. And say, Hey, we're really interested in this particular student. You know, and just kind of let them know that and sometimes have influence over that.
Dave:Yeah. Tho those are very, very, great points cuz think of your candidacy. They're only gonna have a few minutes to think about you. And if that individual, the admissions counselor that is responsible for your application. Knows you personally can put a face to you, a voice to it, and say, you know what? Dave has reached out to me three or four times. We've had some really good conversations. I can see from our data that he's been on our website a lot. Professor so-and-so had a conversation with him, coach so-and-so, all these different things. And he really is someone that would bring a lot of that kind of enthusiasm and follow through to our community and very importantly to them, I believe, and Dave has specifically told me, and I believe him. That if we offer him admission, he will enroll. Yeah. That's the strongest case, regardless of the school. That is the strongest case that you as an applicant can present to them. Is that very engaged, very informed, enthusiastic student.
Carrie:Absolutely. Well, we've covered a whole lot in this conversation, and I think there's so many great lessons that students have heard from you, everything from transferring and choosing schools and having one majors in undergrad to going to something, you know, seemingly unrelated, in your career in graduate school. Yet, you've talked a lot about how you connected those. So over the course of your journey, you've done so many different things. Do you have some big picture advice for students, you know, whether they're in high school or already in college and just kind of looking forward on their journey and on this path and not quite sure what's gonna happen and what they're gonna do. Do you have some big picture life advice for them as they embark on their journey?
Dave:Yes. I, I would say be the captain of your life. If you do not proactively think about where you're headed, then you're just gonna wander. My dad had a saying that he liked. That was, you know, if you don't know where you're going, any road will do. You don't always have to know exactly what your end destination is, and you don't have to set the timeframe as well when I'm 70, I want to be here. Just, you know, think about the horizon line. It's a few miles ahead of you and think, what am I doing? Can me step back for myself and ask myself honestly, where am I headed? Where do I want to go? What makes me happy? What makes me unhappy? How do I get closer to happiness than unhappiness? And think about those things proactively and then make some choices. And then do it. And don't be afraid to make changes in your life. Because if they come from that sort of sincere, thoughtful place, they're only going to help you. And so be brave, be specific. And keep doing it. It's not something where you say, well, I'm just gonna do this once. Don't do it constantly. But don't do it, you know, every 10 years, you know, step back every six months, every year, whatever it might be, and say, am I on the right path? Is this really the kind of life that I wanna lead? And I'm gonna be bold in demanding and putting myself in a position where I'm gonna have that life because there's nobody else out there. You learn this as you get older. There's no one out there gonna do it for you. And so be joyful in knowing that and affecting that for yourself and having that freedom. And that's the beauty of it, is that you get to do what you want. And so, you know, be specific about it and, and go get it.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. Well, Dave, thanks so much for joining us today and sharing your story and sharing all this great advice and these life lessons for students. And also just thank you for the work that you're doing to help create another resource for students to help in this. You know, it's such a big life decision and can be so frustrating for people. I think anytime there's a new resource that sheds light on things in a different way or helps students think about a different piece of the puzzle can just make all the difference. So thank you for doing that.
Dave:My pleasure, Carrie. And thank you for your work and helping them find those paths in progress.
Carrie:Thank you.
Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram@pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.