Lisa Love, Tanoshi | Founder Interview

"I knew if I was going to work hard, then I might as well work hard for myself - doing something I truly believe in." In this From the Founders session, we talk to Lisa Love, Co-Founder of Tanoshi, an edtech startup that builds computers for kids aged six to twelve, with a mission of serving underserved communities in particular. Learn more about Lisa’s upbringing with a mom as an educator and a dad as an engineer, and how that led her to co-founding an ed-tech startup from a pitch competition.

E: Can you give a brief introduction of yourself and your company?

L: I’m Lisa Love, one of the co-founders of Tanoshi, where we’re preparing all kids for the digital future, no matter their socioeconomic background. We’re a mission-driven company that believes all kids should have access to the basic educational tools such as a computer. We target underserved, underrepresented communities. We launched our first product in 2018, and I’d say 2020 was our breakout year once we went on Shark Tank. We’ve just been pushing forward ever since.

E: Tell me more about your background leading up to Tanoshi. For some time, you were running your own marketing consultancy. What made you want to start this new company?

L: I grew up with an educator. My mom taught in the LA Unified School District for 50 years. My dad was one of the first Blacks to graduate from Purdue University’s engineering school back in the fifties. With him being in technology and my mom being in education, I guess you could say I merged the two together by going into ed tech. That’s part of the reason.

I was doing my marketing consultancy when I met my co-founder at a pitch contest in Oakland. When I heard him pitch the product, I thought to myself, “this would be perfect.” I went up to him afterwards, introduced myself, and it just clicked.

E: It sounds like the idea really spoke to you. Did you always know you wanted to start your own thing, or was it the idea that really drove that in you?

L: I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just never had the idea figured out. I thought I was going to do something in food, because that’s been my passion. It took me a long time, but I finally realized I was meant to be in education technology.

E: Where do you think that drive came from? The desire to be an entrepreneur and find your own thing one day?

L: I knew if I was going to work hard, then I might as well work hard for myself - doing something I truly believe in, as opposed to working at a job and not being fulfilled. I felt the need to build something that's going to have a positive impact on others.

There’s a certain mindset you have to have as an entrepreneur. A certain characteristic that’s ingrained in you. It goes back to your question, were you the entrepreneur first or the idea? I knew I was the entrepreneur. I knew that I had this mindset and characteristic engrained in me.

E: Can you tell me more about this mindset, or characteristic?

L: To me, it’s things like taking action. Getting stuff done. Not just the great ideas, but also taking the action to do it. I find myself getting annoyed at the "what ifs", that would haunt me for the rest of my life. So to me, it's about having all these "what ifs" and trying to do something about it.

E: Was there a specific moment with Tanoshi that you knew you wanted to leave what you were doing and commit to it full time?

L: It’s a good question. At the pitch contest, I believed in what Brad Johnston, my co-founder, was doing. At the time, he was targeting young women because he wanted to get more girls involved in STEM. There were things like pre-loading coding apps onto the computer, which gave girls and underrepresented communities exposure to coding at an early age. That really resonated with me.

That was the initial draw, then as I worked closer with Brad and the team, it became clear. The team was crucial.

E: I’d love to hear more about the mission of Tanoshi that drew you in. What was it about the company’s vision in particular?

L: There’s an untapped market here. We target six to twelve-year-olds with our computer. Of course, there’s all sorts of tablets for kids, but it’s more for consumption — to keep the kid busy, sort of like a babysitter a lot of times. Then it jumps to high school, college, and computers for that age group. But there’s nothing really for the six to twelve age group. They actually need a special computer where there’s parental controls, so they don’t have access to everything online, but that there’s still educational content. Content where they can learn to code, or I’m on the hunt for a financial literacy app, or apps to help them learn a different language. Technology consumes so much of us these days, and it’s starting at an early age.

But it’s also about the access that we’re providing. We’ve taught kids coding workshops in East Oakland, which is a lower income community in the bay area. We’ve also taught kids coding workshops in the Silicon Valley, where the parents are engineers at Facebook and Google. There’s a digital divide. We travel to East Oakland and the kids barely have a computer. Before we start, we ask the students who has a computer at home. Maybe one or two students raise their hand. We teach the same coding class in Silicon Valley to the same age group - fifth graders. We ask the same question and all of the students raise their hands. They’re already learning Java. It speaks to accessibility, you know? Having basic educational tools like a computer is equivalent to a textbook nowadays. We've partnered with non-profits and helped get computers into the hands of kids that are most in need. For example, we provided a computer to a family transitioning out of homeless. We worked with a philanthropist to provide 500 Tanoshi computers to kids during the pandemic. These are the things that keeps me going.

E: That’s really special. We’ve talked to CTOs who talked about not growing up around technology, but learned to code on their TI-83 calculator in algebra. That type of exposure and access to education at that age could be pivotal to even just giving kids the choice, the option to explore and learn about other facets of the world.

L: Exactly. It’s what keeps me going.

E: I have just one more question for you here — as someone who’s been running a startup for a few years now, what’s been your biggest takeaway?

L: It’s a great question and my answer is pretty simple: if I knew then what I know now, I would have networked as hard as I could. I would have spent much more time networking, getting out there, getting to know people. I didn’t even want to go to that pitch contest initially, but my friend dragged me, and here I am 5+ years later. So that’s been my biggest takeaway: you’ve got to get out there and network. Everything starts with that.