Tejal Shah

CEO/Founder @KidAdmit, Previously Principal @Peninsula Wealth, multiple roles in business development and sales cycle management.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tejaltshah/
Twitter: @tejaltshah
San Francisco, California, United States
Member since February 06, 2014

Rainmaker @KidAdmit + 2nd degree black belt (yup!) Quote_down

About

Education

University of Rochester , BS , Mechanical Engineering

I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:

KidAdmit, Inc., Peninsula Wealth

Companies I work or worked for:

Merrill Lynch, American Heart Association, Ford Motor Company

Achievements (products built, personal awards won):

Merrill Lynch: Executive Recognition Club
American Heart Association Awards: GOLD Award for achieving high growth over prior year at Affiliate All Staff Conference, Highest New Dollar Increase over Prior Year, Highest Percentage Dollar Increase over Prior Year
University of Rochester Helmut Weymann Prize for Insight and Skill in Engineering Experimentation

If you're an entrepreneur or corporate innovator, why?

I want to change the world.

My favorite startups:

Uber, Twitter, Sosh, Kiva, Airbnb

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?

The most rewarding is when you help people with their problems. We love that our customers save time and avoid headaches by digitizing their admissions. We love that they can spend more time with the families and in the classroom. The most frustrating part is when there is not enough time to change the world.

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs/innovators make?

Getting distracted.

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

Stay focused, trust your instinct/gut, have a plan but be nimble to correct the course.

Full bio

Tejal Shah started KidAdmit after her own experience of participating in the (very) frustrating process of enrolling her kids in preschool. She spent countless hours researching and manually applying to preschools. She knew that technology could be leveraged to bring transparency and simplicity to the admissions process for both parents and schools. With her engineering background, Tejal and her co-founder & CTO Parth Shah created KidAdmit to help take away the headache factor of managing the paper admissions process and focus on the human/heart factor of building the relationship between schools and parents. Before starting KidAdmit, Tejal started an independent financial services firm, Peninsula Wealth which focused on wealth management of high net worth clientele.