Kerry Ao of Newburgh-based Intertwined up for second Mira award
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Kerry Ao of Newburgh-based Intertwined is one of 10 nominees for Rising Entrepreneur at this year’s TechPoint Mira Awards in downtown Indianapolis. The winner will be announced at the 25th annual ceremony on Friday at Old National Centre.
In 2023, Ao won Student Entrepreneur of the Year at the Mira Awards and then graduated from Evansville-based Signature School. That’s where he, Naina Muvva and Cooper Croslyn co-founded the financial literacy startup that offers schools personalized curriculum and resources.
Ao entered the Indiana University Kelley School of Business as a Kelley Scholar last fall. In November, he and Muvva were named among Forbes 30 Under 30.
“I sent in my driver’s license as proof that I was under 30. I thought the fact that my name was right next to a high school was enough,” Ao said. “It’s been a wonderful experience connecting with entrepreneurs all around the world.”
Intertwined’s beginnings
A few years ago at Signature School, Ao, Muvva and Croslyn were exploring entrepreneurial ideas for a pitch competition, which included a biodegradable dishwashing detergent and a memory foam chair.
“We eventually landed on financial literacy because no matter what you do, if you go into a career, if you go to college, if you go into the workforce, everyone encounters personal financial decisions. And for us, that suddenly became a personal passion, both on the business and political side,” Ao said. “Being a part of the change and attacking the root of the issue in the education system.”
In 2022, the Intertwined team won the University of Evansville’s High School Changemaker Challenge. They also won the Innovate WithIN regional competition and advanced to the state finals.
“Indiana, for the past couple of years, particularly since the pandemic, has been investing in youth entrepreneurship,” said Ao.
When Ao won Student Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2023 Mira Awards, he credited the Indianapolis-based STARTedUP Foundation for accelerating his personal and professional development.
“There are some great resources out there that try to teach [entrepreneurship] at the high school level, but it teaches the foundations and doesn’t advance further. Those resources tend to be either in the Bay Area or located on the East Coast,” Ao said. “Doing my own research, reading case studies of other companies and startups and learning from other startup founders as mentors helped guide me along.”
The platform’s status
Intertwined filed as an Indiana Limited Liability Company in 2022. However, the business is in the process of becoming a Delaware C corporation.
“We’re raising a pre-seed round of about $500,000 to accelerate our growth and become that go-to financial literacy resource,” said Ao. “If any angel investors are out there looking to put some money in, happy to have a conversation.”
As Intertwined continues to grow, the startup’s audience is globally expanding.
“These are universal principles. What is the difference between credit and debit? How do you budget? How do you invest? What is a 401K? Because of these universal principles, we’re finding interest not only in the U.S. but in Canada, Tunisia, Spain and New Zealand,” said Ao.
The team is busy enhancing its software powered by artificial intelligence and mastering sales techniques.
“We’re going through multiple iterations of improving the platform. We learned how to sell to schools, the sales cycle. How do you cold email? How do you cold call? It’s just been a whole learning experience of soaking up as much knowledge as I can from all of my mentors,” Ao said.
Intertwined is also engrossed in increasing its offerings.
“We’ve built out the back end of the platform where we can plug and chug curriculum content. So we’re expanding course titles. We’ve engaged in a partnership to build out a course on financial inequality. We have other course titles for college and career readiness, investing 101, more just digging into credit versus debit,” Ao said.
The team has built a stock market simulator that pulls live data from over 500 global exchanges.
“We’re building even more simulators, like a budgeting simulator, in our long-term plan a startup simulator, to build an arcade of simulators to engage and immerse students. Using generative AI in multiple ways to build out these simulators to personalize that experience to our students, our teachers, our users, as well as in the actual curriculum content, adapting it to personal reading levels. Reporting the data, as much data as we possibly can, to our teachers,” said Ao.
EdTech challenges
One of the challenges Intertwined has encountered is selling the platform to underfunded schools. The Community Reinvestment Act—which encourages federally insured banks to address the credit needs of their communities—helps the team overcome this obstacle.
“[The schools] have limited budget space, which for us, we just say, ‘That’s fine. We’ll just have a bank pay for you,’” said Ao. “We generate revenue from the bank, and then the bank gets a rating by the federal government that can go up. So it’s a classic win-win-win scenario for everyone, and it allows us to expand financial literacy resources in these schools and underrepresented areas where there isn’t necessarily the funding to invest such resources.”
Ao said schools also tend to have a sense of complacency when it comes to adapting or changing resources.
“There are so many fintech and financial services becoming more and more accessible to everyone, but no one’s teaching about it because somehow we’re still using a textbook that was made in 2015. It’s just being able to be part of the times and helping our schools democratize the knowledge, as well as help our students and our teachers be up to date, make the learning process even easier for them,” he said.
Ao called the EdTech sales cycle “brutal”, estimating 10-15 weeks between point of contact and close of sale.
“Schools, by nature, it’s a bureaucratic process, I have to jump through this hoop or that hoop to get approval. Then I have to go to the accounting or finance department to get it paid for. It just takes a long time,” he said.
Fundraising, an essential component of the startup world, can sometimes detract from the Intertwined team’s focus.
“A lot of people view fundraising as an accomplishment. No, it’s an obligation. I need the money so I can grow the company,” said Ao. “It distracts our team from improving the product, from delivering a product to our customers, having our customer service be top notch.”
Ao at IU
Besides working on Intertwined, Ao is wrapping up his first year at IU’s Kelley School of Business. After he became a freshman, the budding entrepreneur wasted no time shooting his shot with a famous alumnus.
“I shot an email to Mark Cuban, saying that I’m an IU student now. My email was, you know, ‘Would you invest?’ And he said, ‘No, thank you. Good luck,’” Ao said.
The 19-year-old said managing his time between schoolwork and the startup has been difficult. Through IU Innovates—a new university-wide initiative that connects and expands support for students and faculty in the creation and growth of startup ventures—Ao will start a gap year next fall while maintaining his scholarships.
“As Indiana University entrepreneurs gain traction launching their companies, we are exploring program concepts that allow time to focus on their startup while simultaneously enabling the entrepreneur to remain connected to their studies and/or research. We plan to test the Founder-in-Residence concept this fall with student entrepreneurs such as Kerry Ao,” Julie Heath, executive director of IU Innovates, said in a written statement.
“We’re trying to do good, make some positive change in the education system as far as curriculum content, assessments, tools. That’s what keeps me going,” added Ao. “It’s just so amazing the impact that we’re making so far, and I can’t wait to see or hear about the stories that we continue to make an impact in for the next several years.”