The Innovators - A Conversation with Manny Smith

This is the third in a series of episodes where I interview interesting innovators that I ran into at the recent ASU + GSV Summit. In this episode I talk with Manny Smith, Founder and CEO of Edvisorly. Manny shares his experiences in higher education, his personal journey and he highlights the work happening at EdVisorly, and online platform for helping students transfer and succeed.

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Hi, this is Ilo Ortiz Oakley. Welcome back to the Rant, the podcast where we pull back the curtain and break down the people, the policies, and the politics of our higher education system today. We're hanging out here at ASU, G S V down in San Diego, and I've had a chance to meet with several innovative thinkers, people who are creating solutions for learners across this country. And a lot of new innovations in the space of opening up access to post-secondary education for more Americans. So today I'm joined by a special guest. His name is Manny Smith. Manny is the founder and CEO of Advisory Lee. And so welcome to the podcast, Manny. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for taking the time. I know how busy you are in a conference like this. But before we get into exactly what you're doing here at A S U G S V, Tell us a little bit about your journey. Tell us about your education journey and what led you to start a company like Advisor Lee. That's a great question. So I believe that the founder journey matters the most. Mm-hmm. So for all founders out there, especially founders that come from, I would say founders of color mm-hmm. A lot of conviction matters. I was Born in California and raised in Georgia to two parents who didn't go to college. They didn't have a single credit. Mm-hmm. Between both of them navigating how to apply for college was a challenge. We went to public schools and I come from humble beginnings. My family on my father's side had served in the United States military for a really long time. Mm-hmm. My dad also was army enlisted and my mom on her side, they immigrated to the United States. at the time I was exploring college less than a hundred years before that. Right. So for me, you know, there was no legacy or history of going to college. Right. I mean, it was, you know, it was, try to figure it out yourself. But I, I was blessed in, especially in the community. That I spent most of my youth and have two parents. I was blessed that they helped me focus on getting good grades, which really set me up in high school to, to do well on standardized tests, which we both know how we feel about. Yes. But I think our listeners know how I feel about Stry test. I feel the same way. So yeah, hopefully we don't, we don't go off on that yet. But I, I think most importantly, it was the the journey to college was not linear for me. Mm-hmm. So I was in my second semester, senior year, I had no idea if I was gonna go to college, if I could afford to go to college. And I was blessed and fortunate to be offered a sports scholarship to play football at the United States Air Force Academy. Wow. That's great. And I'll never forget the day. It was January 8th, 2008. Coach Charlton Warren came in and watched my tape, offered me a football scholarship. I didn't think it was real. I had imposter syndrome, right? But apparently I was, you know, somewhat of an undiscovered athlete. Thereafter, I got offered from the Naval Academy as well as a number of other schools that I didn't consider because those are the two institutions that would pay me a stipend and give me the structure that I needed, right? As well as had the support systems for a first gen student in my, you know, in my experience to be successful. So I went to Air Force mostly cuz I watched too much Top Gun and thought I had a better shot to fly. Wanted to be a fighter pilot. I ended up being a, an engineer and or a technical product manager. Mm-hmm. Developing satellite systems for national defense. Wow. So after Air Force Academy at commissioned as an active duty officer I did track and football at Air Force and then went on to develop, Space systems and and then eventually software in between. I had a deployment. I went to a Ued air base in Qatar and learned a lot. Had a great time. And I had a really awesome guy who was a mentor of mine. Mm-hmm. He was a successful entrepreneur. He was working with California community Colleges. Wow. And he invited me to the CS s O conference which is for all the vice presidents of student services Right. In California community college. My first take was why would I go to a community college conference? I'm building technology for the military. Mm-hmm. And then he told me that he was a transfer student. Right. And so it opened my eyes to what a community college was. And for, for me, I started to reflect, not everyone gets to be a military officer. Not everyone gets to go to the Air Force Academy or play sports, but many can go to community college and that's what over 6 million people in the United States are doing. Right. With the hope to then move on to a four year university. Right. So naturally I my heart was torn in the direction of supporting and building a a company focused on helping, I shouldn't, I should actually back backtrack that word. Mm-hmm. Because I don't help anyone. But we illuminate the path for students. Great. So, illuminate's the path, right. For community college students to go to institutions that will actually embrace the community college transfer student. So I, I separated from active duty, joined the reserves. Mm-hmm. And went to uc, Berkeley for graduate school, where I founded Advisor Lee. And. Wow. But a couple of awesome teammates, Hannah and Lizzie, and, and we were off to the races. That's great. Well, I really appreciate your, your story, Manny, because it's, it's a story of lots of people in this country, all, all across from coast to coast. I had a very similar story, although I, interestingly enough I was recruited to go to the us army Military Academy. But I didn't go, I didn't go to college right outta high school. I went. Join the Army as an enlisted person and, and it would always stick in me that, you know, some, somebody with a bar on their hat was telling me what to do and the only difference between him and me was a piece of paper, a college degree. Yep. And that's what motivated me to go into community colleges after I got outta the military. So I really appreciate your, your story because I think those are the kinds of stories that lead people to want to create a better world, a better path, a better environment for the kind of people that, we grew up around. So how is advisory going and tell us what exactly are you trying to, to do with this? Startup. Yeah, so Advisor Lee is going really well and just in short Advisor Lee is building a nationwide transfer platform to connect transfer friendly four year universities with community college students that have aspirations to complete their bachelor's degree Uhhuh. like any startup, there's a lot of challenges early on and I think one of the biggest challenges for us was really assessing and evaluating. What is true and what is not in higher education. Mm-hmm. As we know, there's a, there are bureaucratic layers and there's a lot of rhetoric. So we took a, we, we took an approach to study the actions of people mm-hmm. Who are in higher education and very simply put, who will join the platform and who will be part of this movement. When you really think about what we're building, a lot of people say things like the non-traditional student, right. And they use words like the non-traditional student. When in reality, when you, when you reflect on what higher education has been for generations, higher education actually has embraced the non-traditional student. The student who comes from a foundation that's extremely established, usually of privilege legacies into a school, right? And is told that they're gonna go get a four year degree. When you look at how many students are actually in community college, that is actually the traditional pathway, right? That's the traditional pathway. And so, When we think of what advisor Lee actually is, advisor Lee is a representation of what America should be, which is an institution. Mm-hmm. That allows merit-based capacity that allows you to pull yourself up by your bootstrap. You can't do that if you're a boot list person. Right. And right now, when we think about community college to university transfer, historically there hasn't been a boot for a community college student to pull themself up by. And there's, there's too many moments that are driven by luck. Mm-hmm. Instead of by actual merit and opportunity. Right. And so what we're doing is we're illuminating pathways to our partner universities mm-hmm. And help. Mm-hmm. And, and really focusing on that sense of belonging, where students understand the resources associated with transfer. Mm-hmm. It's not just an articulation agreement if we only lean on articulation agreements as the, as the sole interface. Mm-hmm. To help students transfer, then we're, then we're doing them a massive disservice. Right. So, well, you you pulled a couple of threads there that I wanna come back to. First, this notion of traditional versus non-traditional students. I mean, the reality in America is that less than 40%, certainly less than half, but somewhere around 40% of people enrolled in a post-secondary institution are 18 to 24 year olds. So the reality is they are the non-traditional student. They're not the majority of students. The majority of students, you know, somewhere around 60% are older learners students who are going part-time working, raising families, not going to your traditional residential college experience. when you talk about articulation agreements, it is about information. It's about accessing information that's clear, that's concise, and that you can follow along a path. both of us are former military. We know how important it is to have a plan of action. And we're trained to follow that plan. Mm-hmm. When I was a student, community colleges, somebody handed me a clear pathway on how to transfer to uc, Irvine, because uc, Irvine needed enrollment at the time. They don't anymore, but at the time they had these guaranteed pathways. And so that has always stuck with me. Mm-hmm. So, It sounds like what you're doing is trying to create that clear plan for people of all backgrounds, to be able to help them navigate. Absolutely, and I think the most important thing is to understand that there's various archetypes of students mm-hmm. That build relationships in very different ways. And so when, when you were likely going from community college to, you know, uc, Irvine, it was, you know, there were a lot of in-person interaction. I mean, even the way I grew up, like I, I remember a world before Google before this thing was sitting in our hand and glued to our hand. Yes, I didn't have a cell phone when I went to college, but I didn't either when I first went to college. But I, I, I think one of the most important, actually I did, I, I'd gotten one just before, just before I went. But I think the most important thing is to, to consider all the different archetypes of students mm-hmm. And who we're supporting. Right. So, you know, when we built and designed Advisory Lee, we understood that there needs to be different experiences depending on the type of student, but most importantly, the student needs to be able to build relationships the way that they do in today's world. Mm-hmm. In today's world, we have LinkedIn, right? We have Instagram, we have YouTube. We have. You know, some people have talks and so we've kind of revolutionized this concept of only focusing on articulation agreements to say, mm-hmm. There also needs to be an exploratory experience around resources, around senses of belonging, around what does that actually, that university offer students that is part of the intangible value. The communities that students can be part of when they go to that university. Mm-hmm. If the student identifies as Latino, is it a Hispanic serving institution? Right. Because maybe that's what they're looking for. Is it a faith-based institution? Mm-hmm. But at its core, advisor Lee is bringing together and standardizing the concept of transfer so that students can have a single resource that they can go to that's reliable and trustworthy. Mm-hmm. With committed institutions that will support them. Mm-hmm. And we do not prof work with for-profit institutions. Well, that's good to know. That's good to hear. Yeah. is part of the solution here creating networks of individuals who are trying to follow similar paths? Absolutely. Yeah. That's great. You, you you might have our product roadmap in front of you, but the cats cats out of the bag. Absolutely. So this summer we're gonna be working on connecting students to students. Ah, great. So that they can build that sense of community as they think about transfer. Especially when you think about specialized institutions mm-hmm. Where a student may otherwise not be able to find that sense of community. Mm-hmm. So you know, we just partner with Mount St. Mary's. Right. Mostly they're focused on enrolling women. Right. Unless it's their evening and online program. So how do we think about women who are most likely faith-based or interested in a faith-based institution? Mm-hmm. Connecting with others. And also then, you know, moving into Mount St. Mary's together, we know that community. Is really important in everything that we do. Right. So as we think about that, the most important thing is that we invite leaders to the table to make ethical decisions about how we use this information with students and, and the data and make those connections. Mm-hmm. Ethics really matters. And as we continue to build, we're very fortunate to have partnered with Lumina Foundation. Mm-hmm. ECMC Foundation, strata Education Network. As well as our current institutional investors who actually are very, very aligned with us on how do we think about the ethics behind what we're doing. Great. We have impact metrics as well. one of the things in my experience is a challenge for transfer students is this, this notion of, you know, you're hanging out at a community college campus, you've got to know the campus, you got to know the people, you got to know the faculty, and all of a sudden you're thrust on a big four year university campus and you know, your graduate school alma mater is a great example. You see Berkeley it's really tough for a transfer student to land on a campus like uc, Berkeley. And, and not have all the information that say, freshman admits have about the institution. How, how do you think about helping students when they land on a college campus ensuring that they're successful? A lot of the Advisory League experience is about helping that student really understand what that institution is before they get there. Mm-hmm. Right. And so one of the biggest challenges, or that has been a challenge in the past was phantom applications. Mm-hmm. Which is a community college student just applying to a four year university because, you know, they. You know, did their journey, they did maybe an articulation agreement pathway, right? They never really corresponded with the institution. They never felt like the institution wanted to correspond with them. Right. And so I think the most important thing is that they feel that sense that the institution wants them there. Mm-hmm. And so really through the Advisory League platform, we work to curate that experience and we actually do counsel and advise a lot of our partner universities on how to even think about the messaging and outreach that they do for students. Right about the things that get students engaged, because we see the engagement for the students on the platform. Mm-hmm. We know the things that they wanna see. And so when we get to work with, with enrollment teams and universities, we really, really see it as a partnership and to, to kind of like, you know, take that a step further. There's no such thing as partnering with advisory. And being removed from the Plat platform. Mm-hmm. If you actually have students who have pathways to your institution, it, it really very much is kind of like a marriage. You know, if there's 10 students on the platform that want to go to your school, that dream of going to your institution, we're gonna know it. Mm-hmm. And so then it becomes the relationship that we have with the enrollment team to think about addressing those students and supporting them. Mm-hmm. So it's really exciting for us. So you mentioned something in your original description of how you partner and you mentioned transfer friendly universities. just the fact that you have to say that, I mean, you would think that every four year university would be transfer friendly, that would want the kind of talent and diversity that come from a community college campus. But how, how do you, how do you define. The kind of partners you wanna work with in your four year university partners? Yeah, that's a great question. I, I wish that were true that every university would consider that the backbone of American education is community college. Mm-hmm. That when you think about truly creating a nation that, every, that every student can have the opportunity mm-hmm. To succeed. Mm-hmm. Community college should be a, not an afterthought, but a first thought. Mm-hmm. When I think of a transfer friendly four year university, it has less to do with prestige and more to do with an institution of access. And it's all relative. Right. So traditionally, highly selective institutions can be a little bit more they might seem harder to partner with. Mm-hmm. But it really comes down to the team. Mm-hmm. The enrollment teams that we like to work with are the ones that are. That lean into the concept of access and equity, and that actually will work with us to understand the perspective of the students that, that they'll enroll. Right now, I will say that we have to work on behalf of the enrollment teams as well. So the enrollment teams, the vice presidents of enrollment, they do have objectives that they have to meet, but it's our job to communicate those truths. To students. Mm-hmm. And if we partner with an institution like a community college or a transfer center director, making sure that they have the most relevant, updated, timely information, cuz that stuff changes year over year. Mm-hmm. And there's no way for every transfer center director in America Right to know what, what every single university's enrollment initiatives are this year. They change all the time. But it is good if we have that relevant information to be able to arm those transfer center directors and the teams at the community colleges. Mm-hmm. If they do wanna partner with us. So again, focusing on bringing forward the most motivated individuals in the space that want to continue to lean into creating opportunities and those lucky moments for students. Right. let's talk a little bit more about you. You know, you're relatively still young founder and entrepreneur. Given all the challenges that we've heard about in the news lately, the near collapse of svb, the challenges in the interest rate environment accessing capital, how has that been impacting you and, and your company and, and what kind of partners do you seek to help you keep going? That's a great question. We're very fortunate that we had a really successful funding round last year. Mm-hmm. We brought in sufficient capital to operate in, you know, more than enough over the next year for Advisory Lee. And I would say also the growth that we've seen in the first quarter, we brought on Texas Tech University. Wow. Emerson College, Hawaii Pacific University, Mount St. Mary's, the University of Denver. We brought on Los Angeles Pacific University, which is our online partner. Mm-hmm. And and university of Arkansas, Fort Smith. And in Q2 we expect to bring on 20 more partner universities. So that's great. In terms of growth, we have a lot of growth happening right now at Advisory Lee, so that, so that kind of hedges us from a lot of the economic conditions that are happening. Mm-hmm. But I would say for any new entrepreneur thinking about getting into a space, and specifically in education mm-hmm. The most important thing is to surround yourself with practitioners that are doing the things that you hope to, to, to create in the world. Mm-hmm. So, as an entrepreneur, my job is not to be anything more than a medium for which others can achieve their objectives. Mm-hmm. And so a student can achieve their objectives of transfer because I can go find. A VP of enrollment who wants to achieve their objectives of enrolling a student. Mm-hmm. From community college. Mm-hmm. Similarly, if a transfer center director wants to positively impact the lives of students mm-hmm. They can work with us to help work with their students. Mm-hmm. So I think the most important thing is to consider why we're doing things and to do it with a sense of conviction. Right. To work really, really, really hard and understand that nothing comes easy. Right? That you have to do all of the jobs in the company if you have to, to have integrity behind that, like military style, right? And to have extreme discipline. I watched Kobe Bryant videos every day and the, the mentality that I took from the military and from sports, right? Being able to play football and run track at Air Force Academy is the same that I take to advisor Lee. All right. Well, Mamba forever. Yeah. So as we begin to wrap up we're here at asu, G S v. What, what excites you about hanging out at asu G S V? Anything interesting that you're seeing going on? Yeah, well, this was the most exciting part of it for me. I, I was competing with a sale a conference university conference. And I would say the most interesting thing is having come to these conferences in the past years, years in the past coming here and seeing the familiar faces and just knowing that. You know, with consistency and dedication, we've brought on some of the top foundations, right? And being able to see kind of the progress that advisor Lee has been able to make year over year. And just knowing that next year we're gonna make even more progress and, you know, have just thousands more students we're gonna be able to work with and support and I think that's the most exciting part of A S U G S V. Well, that's great, Manny. Thanks for taking the time to join us here on the rant. I appreciate you being with us and appreciate the work that you guys are doing. Thank you. Thanks very much. All right. Thanks for joining us here on the rant. We've been listening to my conversation with Manny Smith. Look forward to more conversations while I'm here at ASU G S V, so we'll be back with you shortly with more episodes of the rant.