An interview series spotlighting global tech influencers, disruptors, visionaries, and of course, innovators.
As we move into spring, many individuals, teams, businesses and countries are excitedly, albeit cautiously, emerging from the coronasphere. Continuing to wear masks remains paramount, even for those of us who have had Covid-19 or have already been vaccinated. Thankfully, many can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and begin making future plans, including career decisions, with less angst.
Admittedly, for college seniors preparing to launch their initial careers, navigating their “next normal” post-grad life without any expert guidance can be daunting. For universities, staying in contact with the gamut of global alums during the pandemic has also proved challenging. How can these gaps be effectively bridged and bonds created while using digital innovation and human ingenuity that benefit both alums and university administrations?
What’s needed? Curated Alumni Career Engagement. By utilizing the newly launched startup Curatace and tapping into an engaged alumni community and their extensive expertise, college graduates can better navigate their job processes, identify and eliminate roadblocks, and achieve their full career potential. University administrations also gain invaluable access to and data about their ever-growing international alumni communities. Curatace’s tech solutions and wrap-around services address the key factor that correlates most directly with the perception of college value: career success after graduation.
Only a third of college graduates believe their colleges served them well in their initial career search. Intentionally designed to ensure that all students start their job search well-informed, especially those with low social capital without access to informal career networks and the so-called “hidden job market,” Curatace helps students and alumni achieve better careers by facilitating expertise, guidance and opportunities for all graduates through curated digital career communities, personalized support and programmatic offerings. In addition, college and university administrators may also obtain invaluable quantitative and qualitative information about the lives and careers of alumni that will help them engage their constituents and streamline philanthropic initiatives.
I recently caught up with Curatace CoFounder & CEO Dan Grace to learn more about his experience in the HumanTech sector, specifically about launching startups in the covidsphere. After graduating from Brown University and four years in the workforce, Grace studied at Kellogg School of Management, where he won the Kellogg Departmental Top Student Award in Entrepreneurship, and initiated a career focusing on Product Management before founding the international career guidance platform Return Path Global and then Curatace. Via Zoom we discussed how Curatace enables alumni, parents and friends of a college to provide targeted and personalized career advice to students and young alumni through industry and affinity-based communities. Grace covered a range of topics in our conversation including fundraising (expectations vs reality), pivoting during the pandemic, growth potential, connecting new and older alums and the importance of mentoring. Our interview follows.
EKMH: This past year saw global universities scaling back, remapping and digitizing nearly all of their activities, including alumni relations. How does Curatace partner with universities to (re)establish alum contact while also providing meaningful career engagement, growth and support for students, recent graduates and experienced alumni?
Dan Grace: As the world changed this past year, many colleges quickly became adept at moving their resources online – including career services. We believe this shift is fortuitous because it will enable colleges to more effectively reach their on-campus and off-campus constituents. With Curatace, there will ultimately be no need to reestablish alumni contact because incoming students are introduced early on to the notion of a 25-year continuum of career service: when students and young alumni need career help they can get it, and when they can give back, they are encouraged to do so.
Most of the career connections between students and alumni are online already. Curatace facilitates effective engagement through digital communities that are hyper-segmented by industry and affinity. Alumni, parents and friends provide inspiration, insight and information in areas where they have expertise, and every person seeking help and every alum who gives it will understand needs and expectations. This leads to a truly engaged experience.
Colleges can't afford to ignore their obligations to prepare students for their futures: The number one reason students go to college relates to career success. Yet, nearly two thirds say they aren’t getting the meaningful career support they need. For those who are first generation in their family to go to college and have less access to the “hidden job market,” the problem is even worse. The goal of Curatace is for all graduates to achieve their full career potential.
Brown University’s Van Wickle gates.
EKMH: How can universities’ alumni networks and philanthropic initiatives benefit financially from Curatace’s platform and crowdsourced expertise?
Dan Grace: We expect that Curatace will be a key driver in encouraging alumni to give back to their alma mater. Sometimes their contributions will be in the form of volunteering their time; in other cases, they will be more likely to make financial contributions.
It is a well-known fact that effective and meaningful alumni engagement leads to increased philanthropic activity. A particular challenge for colleges is that recent graduates--especially those who are unsettled in their careers--are less connected to their colleges than in the past. Aside from calls to give money or mentor existing students, it has become increasingly difficult for Alumni Relations to nurture strong, enduring relationships right from graduation. Curatace enables colleges to provide ongoing value to these alumni – establishing a connective thread from college to career that serves as a foundation for long-term engagement and giving.
EKMH: How does Curatace enable young alumni learn to “pay it forward” to future alumni?
Dan Grace: We view the college to career process as a continuum that begins during the first year of college with career exploration and extends through the ongoing development phases of a graduate’s career. Students are effectively “future alumni.” By taking a more continuous stance, we think young alums will learn to “pay it forward” in a very organic way. We expect them to help their peers and the next generation, just as they were helped by those alums who came before them. Help in the early years can be as simple as publishing a critique of a terrific (or awful) internship experience!
At a more tactical level, the Curatace communities make it easy for young alumni to give back. They can determine how and when they want to contribute, according to their expertise and schedules. We are focused on providing an optimized engagement experience that is effective for both students and alumni – doing this right encourages ongoing participation and strengthens the quality of the relationships that are formed.
EKMH: Which key features set Curatace apart and have led to early-stage investor support?
Dan Grace: There are three areas that really set Curatace apart and have driven our early support.
First, Curatace integrates into the existing infrastructure of a college. Our platform incorporates student and alumni initiatives, such as clubs, affinity groups and courses. This is an important distinction from a traditional software vendor. We can best deliver results for students and alumni if we are embedded into the fabric of our partner ecosystems.
Second, we are focused on outcomes. It is not enough to just provide career guidance and engagement opportunities – we also need to measure the end results. By collecting data on how successful members were in achieving their desired careers or, at a more nuanced level – the strategies and tactics that were most helpful, we can feed the data back into the platform and help the broader community. We can also inform our partners on initiatives they can pursue to better support their students and alumni.
And third, we believe in the humanization of software – or “HumanTech.” This means that in addition to algorithms that push personalized recommendations, the community experience is bolstered by alumni volunteers and concierge services.
EKMH: What advice do you have for fellow entrepreneurs preparing to fundraise and launch in the current market?
Dan Grace: The current environment lends itself well to a cost-efficient approach. For example, Zoom (and similar tools) make it is much easier (and cheaper) to line up several meetings in a compressed timeframe. My advice is to be aggressive in establishing early market fit. Get your MVP into market and learn from your initial customers. This will not only help drive, and evolve, your strategy but will also increase the value of your company as you go to raise money. Showing traction in this difficult market is especially impactful – if you can start to prove the model now, there will be good momentum as we emerge from the pandemic.
EKMH: How have your own mentoring experiences influenced your approach to Curatace?
Dan Grace: I have been fortunate to have had a handful of great mentors in my career. They have rooted for my success, been great sounding boards, and have offered guidance and expertise when I needed it. They have also enabled access – making introductions, or even just opening my eyes to new opportunities. These are all important aspects of a mentoring relationship we have tried to instill in our approach with Curatace. Mentoring is a fairly organic activity that takes time to build. Our challenge is to understand the impact and benefits of a good mentoring relationship and establish the right community experience to encourage meaningful dialogue and feedback.
EKMH: How has Curatace pivoted during the pandemic? What on-the-job lessons have you learned during the pandemic regarding the importance of maintaining work/life balance, client engagement and teamwork?
Dan Grace: We made a significant pivot during the early stages of the pandemic. We had been focused on helping international students with their career development. As many of these students remained home during the current academic year, we shifted our focus to a broader market opportunity. It was the right move for us, and our evolved business model will allow us to better support these students in a more effective way.
Maintaining a good work/life balance has been a challenge for sure. I think we’ve done a reasonable job, but it requires a lot of discipline to create some degree of separation. For early-stage founders, having a great business partner is really key. Building a business is hard enough, but to go it alone ratchets up the difficulty level.
My background is in product management/strategy. My co-founder, Sheila Curran, and I have very different backgrounds which help us as a team to be more effective. Sheila led career services at Brown and Duke and has many years of domain experience. In fact, she wrote a book on the subject – Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads: Finding a Path to Your Perfect Career. I think the key is to be able to collaborate well, but also to trust each other to provide the expertise that is needed in a given situation.
EKMH: Where do you see Curatace in 2 years? in 5 years?
Dan Grace: In 2 years, I see Curatace as a go-to partner for colleges across the globe who want to provide their students and alumni with meaningful career guidance and access to opportunities. In addition to helping students and alumni, my hope is that we are helping colleges to remain viable in the face of mounting challenges. If we can help students and their families feel that college was worth the cost, we can help our partners drive enrollment and retention, as well as continuous engagement and philanthropy. In 5 years, I see Curatace further flattening the access gap to help all students and graduates gain the expertise they need and the opportunities they want, regardless of their background or where they went to school. To do this at scale, we will explore additional models that help us to reach a broader audience.
EKMH: And finally, which books, films and/or podcasts top your recommended list?
Dan Grace: A book I would recommend for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital is Get Backed by Evan Baehr and Evan Loomis. It’s a really helpful resource, packed with great stories and examples. There is also no shortage of web-based content on the fundraising process – I find the field guide from Unusual Ventures particularly good. My taste in movies is not the greatest! Outside of making my way through the Disney Plus library with my kids, I am partial to movies that take place in Boston.
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