August 28, 2020

#156: Will Houghteling, Founder and CEO of Strive, a Practical and Personalized Leadership Development and Management Training Platform, on Helping Emerging Leaders Reach Their Full Potential, Knowing When to Pivot, and Bridging Work and Education

57 minutes

Will Houghteling is the founder and CEO of Strive, helping emerging leaders reach their full potential through personalized and practical management training. Strive's mission is to empower working professionals to find meaning, belonging and opportunity at work. Strive was founded on the belief that transforming managers into leaders is an essential first step to building the more just, inclusive, equitable workplace and world we hope to inhabit.

Will is an analytical and conscientious leader focused on bridging work and school, with experience building marketing, partnerships, sales and operations teams, largely in education. Prior to starting Strive, Will worked at Minerva building a top-tier university from scratch, and on educational initiatives at Google and YouTube.

Connect with Will Houghteling

Strive
Facebook
Strive on Twitter
Will on Twitter
Strive on LinkedIn
Will on LinkedIn
[email protected]

Some of the Topics Covered by Will Houghteling in this Episode

Will's passion for education and how it led to working at Google, YouTube, and Minerva
Why the university system is inherently broken
What inspired Will to start Strive
What Strive originally started as and how Will evaluated potential paths to success for the business
Raising the first seed round for Strive
Scaling and going from 3 to 25 customers in one quarter
Why and how the model for Strive broke
How Strive pivoted from a competency based hiring and training platform to management training and leadership development
How Will knew it was time to pivot
Addressing the pivot with investors
The best advice Will has received
How Strive approaches management training
Acquiring customers after the pivot, customer testing, and Strive's "leadership circles"
Strive's business model
Building out the team for Strive
Being rigorous with hiring and rooting out unconscious bias
The 3 things that are most predictive of job performance
The impact of managers on employees
Determining pricing
The ins and outs of Strive's programs
How Will is approaching acquisition and growth currently
The biggest challenges Will has faced on his entrepreneurial journey
The big vision for Strive
Will's experience with an executive coach and therapy
Will's book and educational recommendations
Will's takeaways from working at Minerva project

Links from the Episode

Minerva
Kara Nortman at Upfront Ventures
Kapor Capital
Ryan Craig at University Ventures
NextView Ventures
Dreamforce
Coursera
Udacity
Minerva Active Learning Forum
Intuit
Chime
Confluent
TripActions
Slack
Airbnb
Far transfer of learning
Strive's Conversation DE&I
Dr. Cameron Sepah
Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler
What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
YC Startup School videos
Paul Graham essays
What Keith Rabois Thinks About Basically Everything (Venture Stories podcast episode)

...more

View all episodes

By Justin Gordon

4.9

165165 ratings