Jen Mendelsohn and Mara Koffmann of Braintrust Tutors: The Power of Flexibility; How I Was Able To Pivot To A New Exciting Opportunity Because Of The Pandemic
It’s important to understand your strengths and find help where you need it. Building a business is endlessly complex, and it is not only painful but simply inefficient to try and do it all alone.
The COVID19 pandemic has disrupted all of our lives. But sometimes disruptions can be times of opportunity. Many people’s livelihoods have been hurt by the pandemic. But some saw this as an opportune time to take their lives in a new direction.
As a part of this series called “How I Was Able To Pivot To A New Exciting Opportunity Because Of The Pandemic”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mara Koffmann and Jen Mendelsohn, the co-founders of Braintrust Tutors.
Jen, a former tech executive and mother of a daughter with dyslexia and Mara, learning specialist and former classroom teacher, first met as client and parent, both frustrated by the systemic issues within schools to provide proper resources for children with learning differences. They founded Braintrust Tutors on a mission to help kids find their love of learning again by reimagining the tutoring space — previously cluttered with confusing claims, ineffective standardized solutions, and entirely focused on quantitative results.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Jen: I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. Growing up, my neighborhood was extremely homogeneous. The uniformity, sameness and judgement of a small town can be very stifling. I fell madly in love with NYC upon my first visit at 8 years old and I made a promise to myself to move there. Every meaningful opportunity in my life stems from that decision. As a result, I am a very proud and devoted downtown New Yorker.
Mara: I grew up in downtown Chicago, and as a child I always thought I’d become a doctor like my father. However, when I made my way to NYU for college, I quickly realized I did not want to spend my time in science and math classes, so I happily studied history instead. After graduating and spending a year traveling in South America, I returned to New York City set on finding a career where I could help kids and support families. After a final attempt at medicine in a post-bacc pre-med program, my mother suggested I try teaching instead. I’ve worked in education for the past decade, and I could not love my job more! I’m also so grateful that I’ve been able to work in the field in so many different capacities, including most recently as the co-founder of Braintrust!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Jen: That’s tough, I love quotes and keep an on-going journal. A lifelong favorite has always been “What would you do if you could not fail?” My mother kept a simple inspirational poem taped to the fridge aptly entitled don’t be afraid to fail. I think about that poem every day. It’s a bit of a mantra.
Mara: My first real job in high school was as a hostess at a fancy restaurant in Chicago called Blackbird. I was lucky enough to get the job because my parents knew the owner, Donnie Madia. He’s a genius restaurateur with impeccable attention to detail and service. On a particularly busy day when I was juggling seating people, answering phones, and responding to messages, he said, “Always take care of in-house problems first.” These words of wisdom have become a mantra. From juggling work and school, to managing the demands of the classroom and a growing business, the nature of my “in-house problems” has changed, but this simple phrase always helps me maintain focus and manage my time.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Jen: Cinema Paradiso is one of my all-time favorite movies. Anything coming-of-age really speaks to me. The young boy’s dream of leaving his little village to foray out into the world is very relatable.
Mara: I never imagined I’d be an entrepreneur, but I love building businesses! When I discovered the podcast “How I Built This,” I was hooked. Listening to the passion, hustle, creativity, and perseverance of other entrepreneurs is inspiring. In fact, I was listening to the interview with the founder of Angie’s List when I had my a-ha moment for Braintrust and immediately called Jen!
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before the Pandemic began?
Jen: Most of my career was focused in technology. Prior to the Pandemic we were sketching out Braintrust’s services and wanted to encourage face-to-face learning. By April we knew there had to be a prompt adjustment.
Mara: I began my career in the classroom, where I learned how much I loved teaching, but I also realized that I was going to burn out quickly if I remained in a school. I began to tutor, and slowly but surely filled up my schedule. As demand continued to increase, I hired additional tutors to work under my direction, and before I knew it, I was a small business owner. I spent ten years building my first tutoring company before launching Braintrust with Jen. We dreamed of building a platform that would help parents connect with expert local educators for at-home tutoring, and our plan was to focus on launching in NYC.
What did you do to pivot as a result of the Pandemic?
Jen: We immediately directed our attention to embracing online tutoring engagements and we were so pleased to note that our students barely missed a step. Teachers embraced the technology and children were able to meaningfully commence with online lessons.
Mara: After our frenzied panic subsided, we realized that just as the Pandemic shut some doors (literally to the houses where our teachers and students would meet), it opened others. As learning shifted online, educators were forced to learn how to become great remote educators, and parents were eager (desperate) for remote support. Braintrust was able to create new professional opportunities for educators across the country while providing students with a dedicated teacher to help them through the challenges of this year.
Can you tell us about the specific “Aha moment” that gave you the idea to start this new path?
Jen: Mara (who also happened to be my former tutor) had the idea for an educational company based on a lot of her experiences as a teacher, she called me up, ran the idea by me and after many (many) iterations, Braintrust was born.
Mara: While building Braintrust, I’ve continued to tutor a handful of students I’ve worked with for years, as I will always be a teacher at heart, and I took my lessons online beginning mid-March 2020 as life in New York began to shut down. After some practice, I realized that while the experience was different, my students continued to learn and make great progress just as they did in-person. I knew that other tutors were seeing the same thing with their students. Jen and I were determined to make Braintrust a success, and the transition to online tutoring was literally the only path forward.
How are things going with this new initiative?
Jen: It’s been wholeheartedly embraced by both our teacher and parent community.
Mara: It’s been a blessing. It has allowed us to transform our business into exactly what it needs to be right now. We’ve created a broad network of passionate, certified educators, and this has created more access for families in this time of great need.
Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Jen: My most ardent supporter has always been my father, who believed in me way before I ever believed in myself. I was the kid in class who talked too much, and he always reminded me it was because I had a lot to say (he was right!). Also, it bears mentioning that I wouldn’t be as passionate as I am about education without witnessing my own family’s struggle. My daughter was diagnosed in 4th grade as dyslexic — that’s very late. That material misstep caused her a lot of anxiety and stress — which leeched into her self-esteem. All of which could have been avoided if schools performed early language assessments starting in K (this is certainly a long-term goal, improving education policy in NYS). My daughter is now 16, in a mainstream school and thriving. She’s been my hero for a long time.
Mara: I wouldn’t be where I am without the support of my husband. As an entrepreneur, I tend to think big and with a lot of passion. This means that not only do I create a bit of chaos in our life, I also talk a lot about the work that I do. And when I had my a-ha moment for Braintrust at 8.5 months pregnant with our second child, it meant that I would take on a massive additional challenge on top of our already very busy personal and professional lives. Instead of telling me that I was insane, he said I had to go for it, and he’s listened to me obsess about it ever since. I’m so grateful to be able to say that my husband has been my greatest champion at every step of my professional career.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?
Jen: Overhearing my 3 children (ages 16, 14, 10) debating education policy has been fascinating. They’ve really started to understand practically speaking that if you don’t speak up and advocate on your behalf someone else will decide for you.
Mara: Relationships are at the core of Braintrust. We consider ourselves to be learning matchmakers. With this in mind, I’ve spent a great deal of time connecting with teachers and parents across the country in order to better understand their needs and how we can meet them. As a result, I now have new friends from Florida to California. In this challenging time when we’ve all lived in such isolation, these new connections have brought such joy to my days.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my organization” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
Jen: That’s a challenging one. For better or worse I’ve been a leader way before Braintrust. Leading is exhausting and unforgiving but ultimately the most personally rewarding. I would highlight to pay attention to the blind spots, surrounding yourself with “yes women” is a waste of your time.
One notable — I was a very successful tech salesperson for 15 years. Corporate sales is all about the hustle. It’s often pride sucking and humbling. I worked with C-level executives at some of the biggest enterprises but all that experience and exposure to difficult personalities (and arrogance) didn’t prepare me for the shocking unhinged mostly “bro” culture that exists in the VC world.
Mara:
1) Nothing is as easy as it seems. Even if you can see how all of the pieces of a business fit together, building it and bringing it to life is so much more challenging (and fulfilling) than you think it will be!
2) You’ll make mistakes, and that’s ok. When we’d developed the MVP of our software, I was hesitant to launch because I wanted to be sure everything would work perfectly. In reality, no product is ever perfect, and recognizing mistakes and imperfections is the only way to learn and improve!
3) It’s important to understand your strengths and find help where you need it. Building a business is endlessly complex, and it is not only painful but simply inefficient to try and do it all alone. I know teaching, and I understand tutoring businesses. Jen is an expert in sales and a networking pro. Building a team with a diverse range of expertise with a complementary set of strengths and experiences has been instrumental to our success.
4) Being organized is key. There is not enough time to do everything that I’d like to do each day. Luckily, I’ve spent a large part of my career helping others build executive function skills, and I love nothing more than creating an organizational system that works! This has been central to building a successful business and maintaining my sanity.
5) You’ll learn new skills you’d never imagine you’d have. As a startup, there is endless work to be done and never enough time and resources to do it. That’s why hustle and confidence are key. The learning curve is endless, but that’s also part of what makes it so fun.
So many of us have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. Can you share the strategies that you have used to optimize your mental wellness during this stressful period?
Jen: Mental health is absolutely critical. I am a rabid fitness fanatic and not going to my daily soul cycle class or the gym was challenging — at first. But I rediscovered running outside and it’s been transformative. Making sure I was seeing other humans (from a safe masked distance), breathing in the cold air and just having a moment with my thoughts in my urban jungle, was so restorative through the height of the pandemic.
Mara: When quarantine began, so many of us went into hibernation mode. I know I certainly got a lot lazier, basically lived in leggings, and felt an overwhelming sense of dread with each new soundbite of news. My saving grace has been morning exercise. Having just a half hour to move my body and quiet my brain helped me create a much happier, healthier, and more productive new normal.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Jen: If every parent in this country took the time to understand literacy and education policy and how it will ultimately shape our society! That would be a meaningful step forward in designing policy as a whole. Sadly, most parents only pay attention when the school system isn’t working for their child, but the truth is, all these kids are all our kids. If your child can’t read because of a poorly vetted literacy program or teachers that aren’t well-versed or a school district that chooses not to support their unique learning profile, ultimately that will become a community problem with an unfavorable outcome. Early intervention and remediation is a far better strategy than repairing broken souls. There is a science to reading. Lean into the science.
Mara: I would change the way we teach kids to read. We have decades of research highlighting the strategies that will enable 95% of children to become confident readers, but they are not used in a majority of classrooms across the country. As a result, 64% of 4th graders read at or below basic levels, and those kids are all at greater risk for falling behind in all other subjects — making them less likely to attend college or secure a living-wage job. A revolution in reading instruction could change the present and future for every family across the country. Literacy is justice for all!
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Jen: Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy is a great inspiration to me. He really opened up pathways of education for so many.
Mara: I’d love to break bread with Barbara Corcoran! I’m obsessed with Shark Tank, and I love the passion she puts into the feedback she gives after pitches and the support she provides to the businesses she invests in. Her entrepreneurial journey is such an incredible story. And of course we would bond over the challenges and opportunities a learning difference can create in life, and our mission at Braintrust to empower kids who learn differently.
How can our readers follow you online?
Jen: No following; walk alongside us. Join our crusade to change that way we support different learners. Become better education advocates and inquire about your school’s approach. Our collective shared experiences are much more powerful: Instagram at @braintrusttutors, FB at @braintrust.edu, Twitter @braintrusttutr and on our blog braintrusttutors.com/blog
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
