What triggered your interest in education innovation and entrepreneurship? How did your experiences at Stanford as a student influence your approach to entrepreneurship in education?
Frustration. Over my 7 years of teaching, I grew tired of students asking me “How can I improve my grade?” and almost never asking me “How can I improve my understanding?”. That thinking manifested itself in me spending hours giving feedback on student writing only for them to ignore the feedback, look at their grade, and move on. So my co-founder Alexa and I wanted to build a writing platform that would get kids to think about feedback and, through grant funding we received from the Stanford Accelerator for Learning and the Learning Design Challenge, that led us down a path of entrepreneurship that we’re still on.
What inspired you to start Short Answer? What challenge were you trying to solve?
I agree with Stanford Graduate School of Education’s Dean Dan Schwartz: Education is the single most powerful lever we have to improve the human condition. It’s why I got my teaching license and taught for 7 years and it’s why I’m building Short Answer. The practical challenge we are solving is in getting kids to think about and use feedback on their work. The larger challenge inherent in this is in inspiring students to prioritize learning and self actualization over performance and grades.

How did learning science influence the founding and scaling of Short Answer?
Learning science is central to our tool, specifically Dr. Dylan Wiliam’s work on formative assessment and Dr. Scott Bartholomew’s work on applying adaptive comparative judgment to formative assessment. We developed a theory of change based on these principles before and while we developed V 1.0 of Short Answer. I’m proud of this and feel lucky to have started from such solid footing in research.
What were your career steps to becoming Co-Founder and CEO of Short Answer?
I graduated undergrad in 2014 with a degree in History and Secondary Education and taught for 7 years before joining the Learning Design and Technology (LDT) program at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education in 2022. My time in LDT was really the impetus for cofounding Short Answer in that Short Answer started as my master’s capstone and quickly became a startup with the support of the Accelerator for Learning and The Learning Agency through their Tools Competition. When we won the grant funding, we then decided we should probably figure out what all this “entrepreneur” stuff was about from the business side, so we also completed the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Ignite boot camp during my final summer at Stanford.
What surprised you the most about the founder’s journey?
I’m still on the journey, so I continue to be surprised every day, but I’d say it’s been how my understanding of “sales” has changed. If you’d asked for my thoughts on sales prior to this journey, I would have had mostly negative adjectives to share. I probably still do, but I’ve also come to view it as inseparable from developing a meaningful learning product.

How do you see the future of education evolving?
I believe AI powered learning products will open up more opportunities for students to iterate on their work over time and, in doing so, make mastery based learning easier to implement at scale. As a result, I’d love to see the end of traditional A-F grading and a move to competency based grading and a competency based progression through curriculum at the high school level rather than age based progression. I believe students should move to more advanced content if/when they show they’ve mastered prerequisites first.
This type of self-paced learning would open up opportunities to rework K12 scheduling such that teachers could have less “contact time” (i.e. less time in charge of large groups of students), freeing them up to have more time during the day to work 1-1 with students, lesson plan, grade, and do the 10 million other things we ask teachers to do but don’t give them time in the day to complete. This would decrease teacher burnout and create a more sustainable career compared to the wildly unsustainable structure we currently place teachers in.
None of this can be achieved by AI or any one learning tool alone, it will require systems level change. I love the work of The Modern Classrooms Project in this regard. I think their instructional model + high quality curriculum + highly effective teachers + AI powered instructional technology tools = the future of K12 education.
What was your favorite class or experience at Stanford?
I learned more from peers at Stanford than I did from my classes. And that is really saying something because my coursework was incredible. I just think so much of the magic of Stanford is taking a bunch of ambitious, intelligent, hard working people and throwing them into a shared space to let them cook. I recall many passionate, perhaps over-earnest conversations with friends on the CERAS rooftop or at a party at Rains or in a dorm at EVGR that challenged my views on education and inspired passions for wholly new ideas. Stanford is such an energizing place to live if you’re a curious person.
What advice would you give to aspiring founders looking to start their ventures?
I can only speak to K12 edtech founders here because I think our path looks different from traditional silicon valley startups. First, discuss these 10 questions with the person/s you’re founding the venture with to make sure you’re aligned. Then, ground what you’re building in a research backed theory of change and interview potential users to try to validate your idea while it’s still an idea. Start trying to sell it before you build it. Finally, as soon as possible: Build it, launch it, and sell it. That’s when co-design with educators and students becomes most meaningful. That “try to sell it” part is where we screwed up the most at Short Answer – we didn’t start this soon enough.
Given the incredible challenges of selling to K12 schools, I believe a revenue based approach to scaling your startup is the best path for the overwhelming majority of K12 founders. I (perhaps somewhat controversially ) don’t believe that traditional venture capital funding makes sense for the overwhelming majority of K12 edtech founders. As such, my final piece of advice would be to do some serious self reflection on your motivations for wanting to start a venture. Startups are hard. K12 edtech is even harder. Persistence is vital. How/if you’re able to persist will depend on what is truly motivating you.