Audrey Wisch and Alec Katz: Founders of Curious Cardinals
Introduction
Audrey Wisch and Alec Katz are the co-founders of Curious Cardinals, an edtech startup founded in 2020. Through Curious Cardinals, they aim to empower students to pursue their passions and center curiosity by matching the most passionate college mentors with K-12 students. Wisch and Katz were also included in the 2022 edition of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and featured on CNN.
Past
Wisch grew up in the heart of New York City, while Katz is a west-coast native. Although they grew up in different environments, both were hard-working, passionate, and engaged high school students. Wisch was an active member of the debate team, incredibly passionate about criminal justice reform and assisted in aiding hispanic refugees. Katz, on the other hand, was very passionate about entrepreneurship. He founded the entrepreneurial club at his high school (Venture), as well as a social microenterprise that empowers Senegal’s youth (Soles4Good). Additionally, his favorite class was physics and his love for aerospace prompted him to obtain his pilot’s license.
Both Wisch and Katz ended up at Stanford to continue their love of learning. Wisch studied history and continued her pursuit of social justice. Her research on the history of sexual assault narratives were published in the Stanford Historical Journal. Meanwhile, Katz pursued his love for aerospace by majoring in Aerospace Engineering, taking classes on building sustainable airplanes and pitching a new satellite idea to NASA executives. If it were not for Curious Cardinals, Wisch most likely would have gone to law school and Katz would have pursued work within the urban air mobility and electric vehicles space.
“I think our very different education backgrounds and interests academically brought us together to work on Curious Cardinals”
The COVID-19 pandemic hit when they were freshman at Stanford, and both Wisch and Katz found that they had additional time on their hands. Wisch began tutoring a middle school student and saw firsthand how disengaged she was towards her learning. This inspired Wisch to apply her passion of history to teach her student and make the learning come alive by applying it to the world around her. Wisch’s student then needed a math tutor, a subject which Wisch felt less passionate about, so she sent her to Katz. Katz was able to help the student apply what she was learning in school to how airplanes fly. Both Wisch and Katz saw how effective their teaching style was and started to envision how it could fit into the current macro education climate.
That led to the birth of Curious Cardinals. They first started through connecting their friends and then launched their first website on June 1st, 2020 and started as a passion project. A month later, Wisch wanted to take a gap year to pursue Curious Cardinals full time. The decision to go on leave was especially difficult for Katz because of his concerns around retaining the technical skills required for his degree. However, the potential of Curious Cardinals was too compelling for them not to explore. Katz and Wisch ended up convincing other friends to take a gap year to pursue Curious Cardinals full-time as well. During that gap year, Wisch and Katz were scrappy and had their friends help with Curious Cardinals. It was not until the next year that they received venture funding which allowed them to hire their first full time employees: Lucy and Zach. This was a turning point because both Lucy and Zach had previous experience in the education sector whereas Wisch and Katz did not.
“I don’t see entrepreneurship as an independent discipline. I really see it as a way to apply a problem solving framework to any of your passions.”
Highs and Lows
Overall, Wisch and Katz love being the founders of an edtech startup. They thoroughly enjoy having the opportunity to have agency over a cause and movement they both feel passionate about. As action-oriented people, Wisch and Katz are excited about creating a tangible impact they believe is filling a void in the educational world. Not only do they enjoy creating an experience for their customers, but they love having the opportunity to create a culture and livelihood for their employees who are equally as passionate about their work. Katz’s favorite part about starting Curious Cardinals is the people who make the community. He believes that Curious Cardinals attracts the most passionate people who believe in change and what they are creating. Curious Cardinals mentors are creating a movement across college campuses. They are the most passionate and impressive college students who want to share their passion and the knowledge they wished they had in their younger years. Katz feels constantly inspired by the mentors and their stories. Curious Cardinals students are equally passionate and driven and shows Katz how much potential there is within their student community. Lastly, Katz finds their advisors and investors who believe in Curious Cardinals and its mission to be inspiring. The mentorship they receive from their advisors pushes them to be the best they can be. Katz also loves the fact that he can build tangible solutions because it is his own company. He can see a problem and solve it without having someone tell him he can’t.
“The most important thing is if we make a mistake we don’t make it again.”
Of course, being startup founders is not without challenges. During their pandemic start, Curious Cardinals took off and had no shortage of students wanting to sign up as both mentors and mentees. However, once students were able to return to school post-Covid, there were a significantly lower number of people signing up for Curious Cardinals and many doubted the need/excitement/buzz for Curious Cardinals would persist.. Many people told Wisch and Katz that Curious Cardinals may not be able to sustainably exist outside the pandemic. Instead of quitting and going back to college, Wisch and Katz decided to simplify their offerings and focus on what they believed they were best suited to do: 1:1 personalized mentorship on a learning journey curated to where a student is at. They found that creating personalized mentor-mentee pairings was the most effective way to sustain Curious Cardinals’ growth, as well as remain aligned with the company’s mission.
Wisch and Katz also find themselves constantly learning new skills by being scrappy and surrounding themselves with people more knowledgeable than themselves. A recent example was when Katz and Wisch incorporated AI into the company’s workflow. Wisch was originally opposed to AI but challenged herself to become comfortable with it so she didn’t lack knowledge about a male-dominated field. Just as one of Curious Cardinals’ primary missions is centering and encouraging curiosity, Wisch and Katz certainly do so for themselves and their team by creating spaces where people feel comfortable asking questions and admitting that they do not know everything. A major highlight in the company’s journey, for Wisch especially, is the regularly held Curious Cardinals community events. Not only do they offer organic channels for growth, but a real opportunity for Curious Cardinals to consistently connect with their consumers in a meaningful way.
Moving forward, Wisch and Katz have concerns over their ability to execute as a company. When following an untraditional career path there are bound to be mistakes, but Wisch notes the importance of taking calculated risks. When they do make mistakes, they try to minimize their consequences. Through test running new concepts or ideas within a smaller environment, they are able to avoid irreversible mistakes. Wisch notes, “We want to execute really effectively… and we want to control our own destiny.” Katz also notes the importance of being able to learn from every mistake. He mentions, “the most important thing is if we make a mistake we don’t make it again.” Finally, the most crucial skill is the ability to stand back up with the same optimism and positivity after making a mistake.
“You are who you surround yourself with.”
Advice
Looking back on her high school experiences, Wisch believes all her mistakes helped her learn important lessons. Similarly, Katz strongly believes everyone should surround themselves with “awesome people” because “you are who you surround yourself with,” so there is importance in being aware of who you’re spending your time with. The goal is always to find people who bring out the best in you. He also believes there is power in building deep relationships with people who inspire you. Wisch looks back and thinks that her mistakes all turned into lessons learned. However, she does think that social issues took up too much of her time in the past and she should have learned to not care about what other people think.
Future
Over the next year, Curious Cardinals biggest goal is finding repeatability within their model. The goal is to have all incoming students know that they are on a Curious Cardinals call because of the quality and training of all their college mentors. Each mentor needs to be trained to be awesome leaders, which will create consistency across the company. Curious Cardinals long term goals include focusing on tapping into the power of the community. There are so many amazing people that Curious Cardinals attract; they are excited to connect like-minded people with each other to pursue amazing projects. The hope is to have a community of the most passionate students and change makers across the world. Wisch and Katz cannot foresee the future. However, they both hope to continue to make an impact in the world.
