Meet a Founder/ Executive Coach Making a Difference
Interview with Daniel Koffler, Founder of New Frontiers Executive Functioning Coaching
Tell us about New Frontiers Executive Functioning Coaching. What do you do?
We provide individualized (and in some cases, group settings) executive functioning coaching, leadership development and transition support, predominantly to middle/high school/college/work force entrants (though not exclusively as we do work with younger and older populations, and also provide professional development to teachers/professors/support staff as well as employers).
What is your startup’s origin story?
My family is in the education business — specifically, we have historically been focused on building and operating private schools in and around New York City.
One of our schools was a K12/college-prep program for students with learning differences. We offered a relatively high level of support in a variety of formats, to ensure the students were able to develop both academic and social competencies, as well as the confidence to deal with the challenges that life presents as we move towards a more independent reality (for example, college).
As students began to approach graduation, families began approaching us with concern about how their children would manage the transition to (and through) college successfully without the supports many had become accustomed to. There was an understanding that these supports are not meant to exist in perpetuity (rather, they are designed to lead to skills development that negate the need of supports), but also that this particular inflection point was perhaps not the one at which these young men and women were ready/able to take on these challenges alone.
Initially, we wanted to ensure the validity of our work at the school in question. As time went on, we began to think, “What about the kids who are already in college? What about the ones who are still in high school? Middle school? Younger still??” Then you have individuals entering the work force, the next major transition, through which the stakes are even higher and the level(s) of direction/support even lower.
So we embarked on an effort to create a program that would provide individualized coaching on the soft skills (aka executive functions) that really aren’t taught in any formal way, but are absolutely required to be a competent and productive member of a team, let alone a student, an employee, a parent, a spouse, or really any adult role that society has to offer!
8 years later, we’re still going strong, growing in various directions and thrilled about the various opportunities out there to make a positive difference, both for our clients, and our industry!
Had you been involved in the industry before this startup? What is your background?
Yes! My family is in the school management business. The genesis is that my mother was trained as a speech pathologist (she technically is still one, but she no longer practices). She and my father started a small (now large) school in the 80’s geared towards preschool-aged children with a range of developmental disabilities. Through that work, they learned a lot about both early childhood and special education populations.
As time passed and they became more competent administrators, my mother re-focused her energies on raising my brother and I, while my father (who was also very involved in raising us!) began to expand the business by identifying gaps in the market where our expertise could play a meaningful roll. That effort turned into multiple large-scale and well-regarded private schools in and around New York City (most of which we have since sold), creating programs for general and special education populations from early childhood through K-12.
I got involved with the family business in 2005 (after a summer spent attempting my first, and failed, entrepreneurial undertaking) right when we were opening our largest and most prestigious program to date. I ended up playing a meaningful roll in the entire operation (from sales/marketing to facilities to finance to staff development), and getting a very special (and at times, painful) education in a couple of categories, including: -How to start/grow a (for-profit) school -How to participate in a family business -How to be a productive citizen/member of society The rest, as they say, is history.
Take us through a day in your life. What does the typical day look like?
Starts around 5am. Catch up on some work, read a little, then gym at 5:30am sharp. Go HARD for anywhere from 45 min to 2 hours, depending on the day/program. Breakfast/mess around with the kids (I have 3, Chloe, Lucas and Lily, all under 7 years old). Out the door by 8:00am (my office is a 10 minute walk from my apartment). Most days are scheduled at least a week in advance, and I don’t even know what I’m getting into until I check my calendar that AM. When I do have lighter days, I tend to spend more time on the tactical tasks (research around and outreach to potential collaborators/referral sources) as well as overseeing our digital marketing efforts — so a lot of focus on driving business. The time in between sets at the gym, the walk to/from work, the shower, and when the kids are asleep are generally dedicated to strategy. I try to be really intentional with my time, really ensuring that the limited time I have to be focused at work (as compared to family responsibilities or personal obligations — which I also try to be intentional with) is dedicated to that effort from wire to wire. In short: Exercise, Learn, Work, Parent, repeat. (full disclosure, there’s not always as much separation between these activities as there should be!)
What has been the most challenging part of growing your company?
Helping the marketplace understand the difference between executive functioning coaching and more common/familiar types of support (i.e. tutoring, therapy). It’s also one of our most important long-term goals, and it’s the sort of thing where you shoot for the stars and hope to hit the moon.
What has been your best marketing channel? What are some channels you are looking to explore next?
We’ve had relative success with Google/AdWords. They just own the market (I don’t know anyone who goes online to find something and describes it as anything but “googling it”), and we get quite a bit of in-bound traffic as a result of those efforts. We still strive to “own” the categories we live in! We were a bit late to the social media game. My team didn’t have expertise in the space, which probably gave us justification to shy away from it. That said, 3 billion people on Facebook is just a slightly larger market than feels appropriate to ignore, and after partnering with a digital media firm we’ve been putting a lot of emphasis in that (and other related channels) for the better part of 2020.
What apps do you use that you would recommend to others?
My preferred platform is (Microsoft) Teams. It allows us to keep conversations in their appropriate silo, complete with relevant documentation, and the ability to have organized, department-level (virtual) meetings with the click of a button. It’s also great that it can work as a downloaded app on your desktop/laptop/mobile (and functions great on all of those), but also can be accessed via the web if for some reason I don’t have any of those devices with me. We use Sendible for digital/social media marketing support, I’m happy with it! I’ve also used Slack, and it’s fine too! (One that I love that is a productivity app but not interactive like the others is Genius Scan, which allows you to ‘scan’ (aka take a picture of a document and save it as a pdf) from your phone. Much cleaner than an jpeg (in my humble opinion)!
Do you have a book, podcast, or Youtube channel you would recommend to other Entrepreneurs?
Quite a few in fact. I’ll start with Traction, by Gino Wickman. The book “offers a system that focuses on improving operations in key areas of an organization to improve growth, as well as easy-to-use tools that provide insight, and help leaders make quick decisions”. It was recommended to me by my business coach (and a few other people), and I’ve become a real evangelist of following the processes laid out. It’s made a huge positive difference in how we work both ON and IN the business. Super easy read too, can’t recommend it enough. A few others that I have really enjoyed lately and am in the process of distilling the information into a useful set of recommendations for how to improve our team performance (both inter-personally, and from a results POV): -The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni -Hug Your Customers, by Jack Mitchell -Dare to Lead, by Brene Brown
What are your short-term and long-term goals for your company?
We have short and long-term goals from a strategy perspective, as well as a revenue perspective. For the purposes of this effort, I’ll focus on the strategic if that’s ok? Short-term we’d like to improve the quality of our team dynamics, and really buy-in to some of the higher-level thinking that has been published in the past few decades (much of it is referenced in the titles I shared earlier). I think that we are working well, but with one hand tied behind our back due to poor training (starting with me!) Long(er)-term I’d say the goal (or one of the major ones) is to bring Executive Functioning Coaching into the ‘mainstream’ (in other words, when I say that phrase, nobody looks at me needing a further explanation as to what I am referring to). Not only does that aid our business growth goals, but it’s the right thing for society to be able to differentiate between this and other supports! We’re making progress, slowly but surely, on all of the above!
If you could go back in time to the day you founded your company, what advice would you give yourself?
Think carefully about YOUR NAME. It’s the primary touchpoint that people (both internally and externally) have with your brand, and it’s very hard to make adjustments as time goes by (how many people do you know who refer to anything happening in/around Google as “Alphabet”?). Our name is representative of the work we do to help our clients accomplish, and that’s important. However, I think if we had spent more time in the creative process it would have been nice to come up with just ONE word rather than multiple.
What is the best way for people to find out more about your company?
Our website, www.nfil.net, email us @ info@nfil.net, or any of our social media channels: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/new-frontiers-efc/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_newfrontiers/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewFrontiersNYC Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPQAl1A1nqq3FEMWh1bxUuQ Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user108277691 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NewFrontiersNYC
