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Interview with Katherine Cohen, CEO & Founder of IvyWise and ApplyWise

BrownHen interviewed Katherine Cohen, ‘Brown ‘89 – CEO & Founder of IvyWise and ApplyWise, New York, NY.

1. Katherine, how did you get into writing books? Was that part of your plan from the beginning?

No, it was not. I entered the profession of college admissions and I wanted to organize my thoughts for myself and high school students. So I created a manual, which ended up as my first book, The Truth About Getting In.

2. Did you have to raise funds to start IvyWise? If so, please describe your strategy?

No, I started out in my apartment, with $5K saved. My business had the barebone basics. I am still the sole owner of IvyWise. In late 2007, Liz Hamburg (Brown ’86) and I launched a sister company, ApplyWise.com, an online college counseling and management tool, which is affordable and accessible to more families globally. We did bring outside investors into ApplyWise

3. What percentage of your time can you now spend advising individual high school students?  Would you like to spend more?

In the last year and a half, due to family priorities, I have only spent half of my time on advising individuals. I have hired other counselors to work with the growing market of students coming to IvyWise and have been spending more of my time with the launch of ApplyWise.

4. Please compare working with high school juniors and seniors to working with college sophomores.  How do you adjust your advising strategies?

When I was working with college sophomores at Yale, I was counseling students on course selection, personal and academic problems, and wrote recommendations for students seeking summer employment or social service experiences. 

IvyWise now works with students of all ages and stages.  However our core business is counseling high school students and students as young as eighth graders for the college admissions process. We help them make an impact in their classrooms, campus and community.  We help them focus on the soft factors: we help them develop mature responses to setbacks, work better with their teachers, and find joy in what they are learning in school.  If students are making the most of their high school experience, this makes them become better college applicants. We help them tap into their potential and empower them with skills to contribute to their school / community.

5. You have contributed strongly to the Entrepreneurship Program at Brown. What do you think can be done further to support Brown undergraduate entrepreneurs?

Brown EP is doing a great job; it is nice to see its growth. The Board members are exploring more ways to get involved and to get more mentorship.

6. What is your vision of the future of IvyWise? How can it be structured to reflect your ideals as it grows?

Our mission focuses on empowering students to achieve their academic and personal goals; we are adhering to this everyday.

We envision growing it slowly and steadily to maintain quality control. We do not want to dilute our services. I have hired and trained only a handful of new counselors, all who have great experience in admissions. Our approach reflects my vision, which is that while each student works one on one with an individual counselor (and each counselor is limited to 20 students); behind the scenes IvyWise counselors work together collaboratively as a team.  This way, each student gets the entire team’s expertise and feedback and several sets of eyes on each essay and application. We interact like a real admissions committee, which sets us apart from most independent counseling services.  I am very excited about the growth opportunities for ApplyWise, which can reach a broader group of families around the world.

7. What are the top qualities you would ascribe to an entrepreneur?

• Know what you know and what you don’t know.
• Do not do it all; delegate.
• Be a great leader.
• Be a great listener.
• Recognize that you are not always right; listen to clients/customers and colleagues.
• Be flexible; business changes and grows according to customer needs.
• Be a multi-tasker who can wear different hats.

8. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

Fear is a underlining motivator: not being successful, not making enough money, not leaving a legacy behind. Fear may play a part in many of the things that I do, but it is certainly not the driving factor.

I also don’t think fear is necessarily all bad, but I try not to let fear overcome me. If there is one bad article written about my company, if I lost a big sale, it’s time for me to step back and look at the big picture, regroup, and find the best path forward.

10. What is the latest insight / book(s) (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?

I believe you need to have passion for what you are doing; you must absolutely LOVE what you do everyday. I am lucky because I love my work.  I had a baby about a year ago and it has been a challenge finding the balance between work and family.  It is easy for entrepreneurs to be workaholics. Work should not be about money because in one hundred years, no one is going to know about your business or care how much you had made; this gives me perspective. I have been practicing yoga since high school; it is a constant in my life and it teaches me to focus on the present. I make time for myself, and time for reflection (in fact, that is where my greatest business ideas come from!), which is crucial to my wellbeing and growth.

11. Who are the top three individuals / sources that have influenced your development?

One is my uncle, a corporate lawyer and my life mentor. He helped me set up my business, go through work-related trials and tribulations, taught me the art of negotiation and has helped me see many business situations from different perspectives. 

Second is my husband, who is my best friend and perfect mate. He is very grounded; he is a calming force who thinks before he acts. He helps me in my relationship with work, reminds me what is important in life, and brings me a lot of joy.

Third is my daughter, who teaches me that I can’t control things all the time.  She showed me the infinite capacity for love.  Now a new motivation for my work is to provide her with a good life.

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© BrownHEN.org – 2008

 

Interview with Kevin Mundt, President of Vestar Resources & Managing Director of Vestar Capital Partners

BrownHen interviewed Kevin Mundt, Brown ‘76, President of Vestar Resources & Managing Director of Vestar Capital Partners, Boston, MA.

1. Kevin, you were a highly respected consultant in a major firm. Do you recommend that a person interested in entrepreneurship spend some years with a consulting firm?

Not necessarily. I will say that a consulting career does provide incredibly steep learning curves. One can take advantage of the exposure one can acquire in a short time in various industries. So it’s an attractive career experience, but not a requisite for success as an entrepreneur.

2. When you were a consultant, you were well known for your writing. Do you recommend that aspiring entrepreneurs spend time writing articles or even books?

I don’t necessarily recommend that entrepreneurs write articles or books early in their careers although successful entrepreneurs usually have a long history of successes and failures, and thus have much to share in a book.

I co-authored a book, which involved three other colleagues—including one of the founders of Corporate Decisions—who possessed superior writing skills. I think I am one of the worst writers. For me, it was a way to codify our intellectual property and get our ideas to the marketplace. It turned out that book was a fairly effective marketing tool. 

3. You were one of the founders of Corporate Decisions, Inc., which was acquired by Marsh and McLennan. What are some key lessons that you learned from starting a company?

I learned innumerable lessons from co-founding Corporate Decisions, building it and running it for fourteen and a half years before selling it to M&M.

One, every startup is bankrupt, even if you just got $100M in financing. You still have to build and prove your products and services.

Two, you will face difficulties and challenges that will eclipse everything else; these are the ones you didn’t predict, could not have predicted. Even with a great education and great consulting experience, our resourcefulness was continually tested.

Another challenge that we faced as a professional services firm—first as a startup and later when we have grown—was finding the right people. We thought the hardest thing was finding new clients and hiring new help would be easy. It was the reverse; hiring great people was a real challenge for us.

4. Is there a right time to be an entrepreneur?

Yes, I believe there is a right time and place in one’s life to start take the entrepreneurial path. Starting a company will consume you. It takes a tremendous amount of emotional energy, intellectual energy, and incredible perseverance to see your way through hard times.

As an entrepreneur, you can never divorce yourself from asking the question, “Is this the right time for me?” Not just the right market or the existence of a demand, or a vacancy in the consumer space, etc. I co-founded a company when I was in my late twenties and single, and I was able to devote myself to building it and running. It was an incredible experience.

5. Do you miss the excitement of starting and running your own firm?

When you are starting something new, it is very exciting because it brings forth things you have yet to accomplish. I’ve co-founded and built a successful company before selling it. It was a fabulous experience. At my age, I don’t miss starting a new company because I really enjoy what I am doing now at Vestar, where I work with portfolio management companies, head up Vestar Resources (research branch), and advise management buy-outs in specialized large to middle upper markets.

My work taps into all my skills and experiences from 24 years in management consulting and the last 15 years in consumer product and retail. I started advising Vestar in 1992 when the firm was three years old. I got to know many of the partners, including Vestar’s founder Dan O’Connell, Brown ’72, whom I met on the freshman football field; so it was an easy transition when it was time for me to leave Marsh and McLennan.

6. As you know, the entrepreneur’s path is filled with trials and errors, and also failures. What’s a valuable insight for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when they’re experiencing setbacks?

As an entrepreneur, you should not lose sight of what your ultimate goal is and why you are in the business; you should not allow setbacks to derail you. You also need to have the courage to be honest and realistic about the situation that you are in. Recognize what is going on, what is causing your challenges, and develop a plan of action.

7. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment / performance? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

In my case, fear of failure was incredibly motivating for me. I was able to channel it into a motivation; I learned that from sports. I think many former athletes may recognize that little bit of nervous feeling—that little pit in one’s stomach. This pushes me along.

8. Currently, you are Managing Director at Vestar Capital Partners. Please discuss how your office interacts with the head office in New York.

Indeed New York is our headquarters, our deal center and the heartbeat of all activities. Our Boston office focuses on the private equity market and portfolio companies in five vertical areas: financial services, media, healthcare, consumer/retail and diversified manufacturers. Today’s technology facilitates our communication process; we work closely with our NYC colleagues and I am usually in New York two days a week.

9. Where do you see the entrepreneurial opportunities of the future?

I think it is an amazing time to be alive. There is an incredible atmosphere in the technology, medical and media sectors, to name a few. I think there is plenty of opportunity to be creative in every segment of every business.

10. While at Brown, you earned varsity letters in football and track, and you were also a four-time All-Ivy selection in track. You currently serve as the Chair of the Advisory Council on Athletics at Brown. What role do you see for athletics in undergraduate education?

Through football and track, I learned how to work closely with a group of individuals, share a common goal, and achieve success. We found ourselves in tough situations and learned to turn them around. We suffered a bitter defeat, losing to a team that we should have beaten. As an athlete, I suffered a lot of setbacks, which taught me humility. I learned that hard work might make you better. To be the best you have to work even harder. There is a correlation between effort, preparation and success. While I possess a tremendous respect for what I learned as an athlete at Brown and have applied that to experiences in the real world, I would add that many successful individuals were not athletes. I really enjoy chairing the Council on Athletics; for me, it is a wonderful way to give back to the school.

11. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you have culled and would like to share with BrownHEN?

• Never stop learning. I am still learning that it is a wonderful gift that one should give to oneself.
• Always take your career seriously, but never take yourself seriously.
• Never settle for anything but excellence, surround yourself with the best.
• So much about life is about attitude, with the right attitude.

12. You have a son who is in the class of 2011 at Brown. Is he also involved in track or football?

My oldest son Trevor was very involved in football and lacrosse in high school, but he decided not to pursue sports at inter-collegiate level. I am not sure which path he wants to pursue, yet.

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© BrownHEN.org – 2008