A Case Study on How to Build a Mission-Driven Startup

Intro 00:01
Welcome to Startup Success, the podcast for startup founders and investors. Here, you’ll find stories of success from others in the trenches as they work to scale some of the fastest growing startups in the world, stories that will help you in your own journey. Startup Success starts now.

Kate 00:18
Welcome to Startup Success. Today we have Tanya Van Court in studio, who is the Founder and CEO of Goalsetter. Goldsetter is an award winning financial education platform, and they have some white label things going on. It’s really cool. I can’t wait to get into it. Welcome Tanya.

Tanya Van Court 00:38
Thank you so glad to be here. We’re excited to talk to you.

Kate 00:41
So you have a really neat background. I mean, I saw you were at Nickelodeon, Discovery, ESPN, some companies that a lot of people listening, you know, respect and admire. And then you kind of went on and did your own thing to found Goalsetter. If you could give us a brief overview of your journey and what led to the founding that would be fantastic.

Tanya Van Court 01:06
Absolutely. So you know, Kate, I often say that starting a company, it doesn’t start in a moment. It doesn’t start with a single idea. It really is the culmination of the journey of our lives and where our lives lead us. And that’s how it was for me in Goalsetter. I grew up in California. My mom was an elementary school teacher, and so education was, you know, infused into me from birth, always very important in our household. I went to Stanford, got a couple of degrees in engineering. And came out and worked at some really great and interesting companies, including a company in Silicon Valley where they gave me a bunch of stock and stock options. And I will tell you, Kate, in spite of having this amazing mother who was a teacher and an educator, both at school and in our home, the one thing that she never taught me about was financial education. And so, you know, stocks and stock options, those were like, beyond me. So I just kept my head down and did my job. I picked my head up one day. I was 28 years old, and that stock was worth about a million dollars. Wow. Wow. Right? Exactly, yeah, wow. It’s a big deal. A big deal when you’re 28 that’s game changing. It’s life changing, and, you know, transformative in so many ways. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to experience any of those ways, Kate, because within two months, my stock went from a million dollars down to $20,000 because the big tech bubble burst.

Kate 02:43
Timing.

Tanya Van Court 02:47
Exactly. But the point is that you know that moment in time for me was probably the first pivotal moment that led me on this journey of founding Goalsetter. Because it was in that moment that I realized it doesn’t matter how smart you are, it doesn’t matter what fancy degrees you get from what fancy universities, if you don’t have financial education, we will all go broke.

Kate 03:07
That’s true.

Tanya Van Court 03:08
So that was a real aha moment for me about the importance of this body of knowledge that no one had ever taught me, that my family hadn’t taught me, that my high school hadn’t taught me, that my college hadn’t taught me. And so fast forward several years. I moved to Brooklyn. I have my daughter, Gabrielle, and I resolve that that cataclysm that happened to me would never happen to her, because I’m gonna teach her everything about money from the time this child is born. And I did. And when she was eight, about to turn nine, she said, Mommy, for my ninth birthday, I really only want two things. I said, What’s that? She said, enough money to save for an investment account and a bike. And I was like, hooray I am finally Mother of the year. I’ve done something right. (Yes.) I thought to myself, if I can get every kid like her to say that by the age of nine, then I can change the world. And so that was the moment, right, where I said, Hey, what if I could? What if I can? And really, you know, starting to put in place the seeds of Goalsetter. And, you know, really started to think about, how do I bring all of these extraordinary tools that I have built and added to my tool belt, tools from Nickelodeon and Discovery Education and ESPN. Tools that were all about engaging and exciting families, but also educating them. Tools that were, you know, that helped me to start really great digital products that became ubiquitous. And I thought, if I could use all of that and make financial education fun and engaging, Wow, that’s transformative. So, those were the moments for me.

Kate 04:53
Kate, wow. I love it, because your background and your experience lined you up perfectly to do this, and then being a parent yourself was kind of that icing on the cake. What a great story. So you get this aha moment that you want to do this walk us through, because starting something, going out on your own is so scary I can only imagine.

Tanya Van Court 05:16
Well, you know, I think naivete is right – either, as a startup founder, you need lots of experience so you know exactly what your playbook should be, you know, what you’re getting yourself into. Or you need lots of naivete so that you can really believe, Hey, I can do this thing in a year, right? Like I’ve launched products in a year before. So do this in a year, and we can be like, off to the races. So I think I came with a lot of, you know, naivete quite frankly, I had been in big corporations, and those big corporations, I had certainly been intrapreneurial, but it is very, very different. When you’re in a company that is funding you to launch this thing, you already have a brand that is the foundation of your efforts. So even if you’re launching a new product or a new offshoot of that brand, you have the core brand that you’re leaning on, right? You have a team of people who are talented and experienced. And so I think all of those things and lacking all of those things. I remember, you know, going from being at Nickelodeon, where I had a team of 40 people working for me, and they were designers and they were marketers, and they were user experience and user interface specialists and great product people, right? Like I had amazing, extraordinary people working for me. And then when I decided I was going to go off and start Goalsetter, I was sitting in the middle of a cafe in Brooklyn with a piece of paper and a pencil sketching out wire frames because I didn’t know how to use, use any technology that would help me to make a wireframe, right. This was nine years ago, so there was no ChatGPT ‘make me a wireframe.’ I mean, this was literally, like, you know, 1000 years ago in technology lexicon. Yeah. So it was very, very sobering experience, right? You go from being an executive who is, you know, really well versed in lots of things, but you are not an expert at any of those particular disciplines that all of the people who work for you are experts in. You go from that to being on your own and really trying to figure this out by yourself. And, by the way, trying to figure out what the heck a seed round and a Series A round and an MVP and like, there’s a whole different lexicon when it comes to being a technology founder and entrepreneur. And of course you can read a book, and of course you can learn the basics, but there is a lot of learning on the job that comes with this territory.

Kate 07:53
I bet, and you have to wear so many hats, and you don’t have the resources that you had at those large companies. It’s a big change. What were some of the times in your trajectory where you gained traction? I know I read about you doing some white labeling and working with banks. Like, where, where’d you gain traction?

Tanya Van Court 08:17
Yeah, you know, I think that there were a couple of moments where we gained traction. And to your point, I think the first one was, you know, I really started to understand that the problem that I was solving was bigger than me and my passion around this problem. And when you start to understand that, and you start to realize there are trillions of dollars wrapped up in businesses that need to care about this problem, then you realize that you’re not just solving a problem for an end user, you’re actually solving a problem for a financial institution too. And a financial institution that really needs what you’re bringing into the marketplace. So for me, you know, one of the big aha moments was the great wealth transfer is something that a lot of people talk about, but it’s something that people have traditionally said, the great wealth transfer is coming. The great wealth transfer is coming. Well, the truth of the matter is, it’s not coming. It’s here. In the next five years, $30 trillion will be moving into the hands of women. In the next 15 years, $68 trillion will be moving into the hands of the next generation. And so families are truly the next bastion of the finance ecosystem, and any financial institutions that are not paying attention to families today, they are absolutely seeing that asset retention is a problem. Customer retention is a problem. You know, they are seeing that that head of household, who has traditionally been the man in the household, that head of household, is unfortunately dying before his wife dies and before his kids die. And so the new head of household looks different. She thinks different. She cares about different things, and she wants to be engaged in very different ways. And her kids also look different, think different, have different technology expectations, have different product expectations, and they want to be engaged in completely different ways. And so Kate, you know, it would be for you as if, one day you’re doing your podcast and you have one audience, you know them. You love them. They know you. They love you. And within a very short, truncated period of time, overnight, your entire audience changes, and their expectations of you and what you’re delivering from your podcast suddenly change with them. And all of a sudden you’re like, wait, wait a minute, you know, how do I adjust everything that I’m really good at, everything that I’ve been offering, all of my employees, and how they think about and talk about our client base? How do I adjust that to meet this changing demographic and this changing world? So, you know, that was our first real aha moment that there are financial institutions across the country and across the globe that are really struggling with this problem of serving the whole family. And this is not a problem that they can wait to address in 10 years or in 15 years or in 20 years. It’s a problem that they have to address now, or a tremendous source of their revenue is going to be walking out of the door overnight. So that was one, I think a second one for us was, you know, we have fantastic people, individuals, along with fantastic corporations who are part of our cap table. And, you know, again, that was, yes, there is the customer side of things, but there’s also the investor side of things. And who are the people who believe in your vision? Who are the people who believe in a world that looks like the world that you believe in, and will say that they believe that by writing you a check. And so we were very fortunate to have extraordinary people like Chris Paul and Kevin Durant and extraordinary corporations like MasterCard and PNC Bank, all of whom said, You know what we really see that this family financial wellness and financial education and women’s financial wellness and financial education is an inclusive financial wellness and financial education. Meaning like, you know, look, financial education is something that we all need as Americans. It doesn’t matter if you are red or blue, if you are wealthy or wealth-seeking, it is something that we all have to have in order for ourselves to be successful, in order for our kids to be successful. And so, you know, really seeing a world where people aren’t just graduating from high school understanding the periodic table, they’re graduating from high school and from college understanding the difference between a stock and a bond. What’s an ETF versus a mutual fund, a Roth IRA versus a regular IRA, right? If we both stopped 1000 people in Manhattan and asked them these questions, I guarantee you probably only 25% could tell us the difference between, you know, all of those above, very simple concepts that I just explained. So those, I would say, are the two, you know, pivotal pieces that happen for me. I realized that banks and financial institutions and wealth management firms really need us. I realize that there are other people out there who share our vision and whose hearts and minds want to see an America where lots of people are engaged in financial education and financial wellness. And both of those have come along on our journey, and not just come along on our journey, but really been a formidable part of our journey.

Kate 13:51
Really savvy to get financial institutions involved. That was very smart. I’m sure it raised the pressure and the stakes of it, but you can even reach more people that way too, so it goes to your mission as well. And then what a testament to what you’re doing that you have such exciting investors, right? Was that hard to do?

Tanya Van Court 14:17
Listen Kate, it’s all hard to do.

Kate 14:22
That’s, I mean, you have some impressive roster there.

Tanya Van Court 14:25
Yeah, we do. You know, what I’m really grateful for is, you know, the fact that I do believe that birds of a feather flock together. And so, you know, I remember when, you know, we got investment from Chris Paul and his team. You know, I was really excited and grateful. Not just for the fact that they wrote me a check, but for the fact that I could go and look at his history of the things that he and his team had invested in before. I could go and look at his history of who he was as a human being and say this is a person who I’m really proud to have on my cap table, and a person who I know will be helpful to me and a person who I can be helpful to as we are both traversing this journey of just trying to make the world better together. And so that’s the part that, quite frankly, I get really excited about, that it really has not been just a check with him. He does an amazing three day retreat for students across the nation as a part of his foundation. And so I’ve had the opportunity to go and teach those kids financial education. And you know what a transformative experience for the kids, but also a transformative experience for me and for anyone who is graced with the ability to be a part of young people’s lives and their journeys in that way. So I’m really excited about the fact that my company, yes, we do well, but we also do good, and we can do good, because we have such amazing and good investors and people.
Kate 16:10
It says a lot. So tell us a little bit more about Goalsetter, if you wouldn’t mind? Walk us through, you know, the components,

Tanya Van Court 16:18
Sure, absolutely. So we are a finance and financial education platform. We are providing a holistic financial education experience to students, and that means middle school students and high school students. It also means college students, and sometimes it even means alumni. We have had universities that have said, you know, we have alumni who have graduated and have said, Why didn’t you teach me this before I graduated? And so they are contracting with Goalsetter to go back and provide a financial education curriculum to their alumni. So that’s really exciting. We work with professional sports leagues. We work with student athletes and provide them with an entire curriculum that’s centered around NIL and so, you know, these are student athletes who don’t understand that when they get a $10,000 check in, you know, January of 2024, they’re going to owe taxes on that in April of 2025 and that those taxes may not be sitting around in their bank account. So, you know, we teach them about taxes, we teach them about budgeting, we teach them about investing, we teach them about saving. All of the critical things that they need to know in order to responsibly manage those NIL checks that they’re getting in we partner with financial institutions. We partner with financial institutions to cultivate their next generation of customers and members, if it’s a credit union. So you know when, when we talk about next generation doesn’t just mean the next generation of quote, unquote kids, right? It could absolutely be, Hey, we are providing financial education to the whole family, because they need to know how to engage the women who they may not have talked to so readily as well. So we are working with financial institutions both on their current client base as well as to cultivate a new client base. And so there are some financial institutions who work with us to sponsor financial education in their local school systems, their local community colleges and their local four year universities. So we are doing a robust suite financial education, you know, kind of from soup to nuts. So that’s what we’re doing. The how we’re doing it, I think, is, you know, equally exciting. So we’ve trademarked the term “Moneylingo.” So I’m sure all of your listeners can understand, if you know, if you like Duolingo, you’ll love Moneylingo. But it is a mobile-first financial education experience with these mini modules. And so when we’re teaching financial education in college as an example, it’s not a personal finance class, it is a we can get this entire suite of financial education to all of the students at that university, and they can do it through these Moneylingo modules. So you know, short modules, it’s fun video and a quiz and interactives and gamification. So that’s one really fun piece of what we’re doing. The second really fun piece of what we’re doing is we’ve also trademarked the term “competuition” as opposed to competition, and so we are allowing every time that student takes one of our financial education modules, they’re entering their name in the hat to win money towards their tuition for free. So all fun, all gamified, you know, really engaging this next generation audience around core financial concepts that they really want to understand, but doing it in a way that is not boring is not, you know, 10 years old, is not reading, right? They don’t want to do any of those things. And so, you know, we are doing it in these fun Tiktok like ways that make financial education accessible.

Kate 20:20
Okay? Incredible. As a mom of three teenagers, I can see why you’re so successful. That is the way they pick up these days. And you’re right, they so need this education. It’s amazing to me what they don’t know.

Tanya Van Court 20:35
I know. (It’s actually scary.) It is scary, but Kate, it’s also, you know, what I find is interesting, because I’m also a mom of two teenagers and a 20 year old. And what I find that’s really interesting is think about what our kids have lived through, the things that we’ve never lived through, right? They lived through Covid, and you know, the economic implications of that. They’ve lived through a great recession. They’re living through really difficult financial and economic times right now. And so these kids, they want financial education in a way that we never did when we were growing up. They’re thirsty for it because they want to figure out how they can put themselves on a path of financial stability and financial security. So we definitely have a willing and open audience. But you know, they are willing and open as long as it meets them where they are and speaks to them in the ways that they like to be spoken to, which, as you said, is they’re always on their phones, they’re always on Instagram, they’re always on Tiktok, we understand their language.

Kate 21:35
That’s great. You really do. And you’re right, they do want it after everything they’ve seen. I can see where you really, really have, like, found a niche. It’s so exciting. We always like to ask successful founders for some lessons for other founders listening. Because you’ve accomplished so much, please share.

Tanya Van Court 21:58
I will say, the first thing that I will share is, you notice that my title is founder. My title is not co-founder. I will say to all of your other founders out there, there is no glory in having a title of founder versus co-founder. Find a co-founder! It is really difficult to do it all on your own. We are all talented in so many ways, but I guarantee you, if you find a person whose strengths and whose skills complement your own, you will be you know better in the long run and in the short run, because you just have another person there to carry the load and to really excel in ways that you know you may be kind of, you might be be good at marketing and great at product. Great. Find someone who’s great at marketing, right? So they can do the marketing and you can do the product design and product development. So, that’s the first thing that I would say. I mean, if you don’t have a co-founder, go find someone who really compliments you and compliments your skill sets. It will make the journey so much easier. The second thing that I will say is, if each of us totals up our wins and our losses over the years, right. We probably have as many wins as we do losses. If you look at every single day and say, Would I count this day as a win, or would I count this day as a loss? And what that means is you can’t get too high or too low on any given day, because if you get too high, you think the highs are going to last forever, and then when that next low comes, boy, does it hurt. And if you get too low, you’ll give up without realizing that there is absolutely a high that is right around the corner. So you know whether you have a high day or a low day, just count it as a day and move on to the next day and give the next day your all. But I would really say, live in the moment. Live in the moment of the day. Give it your best every day, and don’t put too much stock in the highs or the lows, because you got to have enough energy to run the long race.

Kate 24:10
Great advice. I could see where it’s like, probably a roller coaster of ups and downs, and if it can throw you off. You got to stay kind of even keel, which would be easier to do, like you said, if you had a co-founder to talk it through. (Yeah, absolutely.) Did you put a strong team around you?

Tanya Van Court 24:30
Listen, I could not have done any of what we’ve been able to do, Kate, without a strong team. Our team is not just strong, they’re extraordinary. And they’re extraordinary because, you know, I just had a call with my team not too long ago. And our Director of Sales, I talked to him this morning, and I called him, and I said, I have a great idea. And so I shared with him my idea, and he was like, well, not to rain on your parade, Tanya, but I don’t think this piece will work, and I don’t think this piece will work, and I don’t think this piece will work. And so then later on in the day, we had a call with the entire, you know, the larger team. And I said, Hey guys, I already shared, you know, my idea with our Director of Sales, and he already rained all over my parade, so I’m sure you guys will too. But I’m gonna say it anyway. Here’s the idea. So a couple of them said, well, won’t work for this reason. It won’t work for that reason. I said, Well, look now we got two people who are raining on my parade. So if you guys want to rain on Tanya’s parade, you guys are going to have to figure out how to develop an umbrella to prevent us from getting rained on as an overall team, I’m happy to catch the rain for myself. You guys got to create the umbrella. So go figure out what is going to work. We had a few more minutes in the call, Kate, and they started talking, and they’re like, Well, we really like this part of the idea, but we should change it and do this instead, and this instead, and this instead. And within about 10 minutes, they were like, All right, we think we got a plan, Tanya. We think we have a plan that’s going to work. And that is, that’s the team that we have. We have that team that fights through, that is creative, that is innovative. They are not yes people. So they don’t just, you know, nod and agree with anything that I put, that I put out there, you know, we debate it, we talk about it, and we get to a place that is a place of yes, because it’s the right place for the business to be. It’s the right place for the business to be able to be successful. Not because it’s a place that Tanya has ordained as the yes place. So that’s what makes our team great. Yes, we have extraordinary, talented individuals, but their ability to fight through tough moments, work as a team, collaborate to come up with creative solutions. And, you know, not just run because I’ve pointed out a direction, but helped to make my direction a better direction. They are really fantastic at all of those things.

Kate 26:56
I love that example, and I hope the founders listening take note of it, because you’ve set up this culture where people can be honest, give you real feedback, take your idea seriously, look at alternative ways. Like that’s what you really need. You don’t want them to just say Yes. You want all of their collective wisdom to take your idea and actually make it, you know, change it so that it works, you know, put some little spin on it. Yeah, that’s great. That says a lot about you as a leader. Thank you so much for being here today. Tell us and tell the audience where we can go to learn more about Goalsetter.

Tanya Van Court 27:36
Absolutely, go check out Goalsetter.co. That is our website, and it’s the place where you can find out all about the things that we’re doing, our products, our platforms. And you know, I think most importantly, for me, and everyone who calls themself a part of team Goalsetter, can find out about how we’re changing lives, and that’s what makes this work really exciting.

Kate 27:58
So great. Your story was so interesting, and I love what you’re doing. Thanks so much for your time.

Tanya Van Court 28:04
Thank you, Kate, thanks for having me. Loved talking to you, and I appreciate you offering us the opportunity to be here.

Kate 28:10
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

Intro 28:13
You’ve been listening to Startup Success. To make sure you don’t miss out on future episodes, subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player. Like what you hear? Tap the number of stars you think the show deserves in Apple Podcasts. For more tools and resources for your own startup success, check out burklandassociates.com. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time you.