On a Mission to Combat Student Debt

Coming to MIT was a lifelong dream for Laurel Taylor, EMBA '15. “I wanted to become an entrepreneur and create change in the world,” she says. Pointing out that less than 2% of VC goes to women founders, Laurel explains that coming to MIT was a “deliberate strategy” to put herself in a position to succeed. “I knew that MIT would give me the credentials, credibility, and network I needed to achieve my goal.” During the MIT Executive MBA program, Laurel came up with an idea for a startup to solve student debt. While she worked on the idea as class projects at MIT, it wasn’t until a year after graduation that she left her position as Google’s head of industry for the Health Services vertical and jumped into entrepreneurship full-time.

When did you decide to launch a startup?

Before coming to the MIT EMBA, I participated in the MIT Entrepreneurship Program, which was one of the best experiences of my life. Afterward, I decided to get an MBA and pursue my goal of entrepreneurship. However, I was working an extremely intensive schedule at Google and doing coursework every moment I wasn’t sleeping. I also knew that entrepreneurship is not a spectator sport. It’s not something you do on the side. If you’re going to succeed, you have to be all in. So, launching a startup needed to wait until after graduation and after my departure from Google.

How did you come up with the idea for FutureFuel.io?

I came up with the idea when I was standing in the Google cafeteria during the first year of the MIT EMBA. I had just received a 9% interest loan to fund my tuition. That was a shocking interest rate. I thought about all the spectacular benefits that Google provides employees and wondered: What if employers could provide not only tuition assistance, but also student debt repayment as an employee benefit? Most employers have only an 8% utilization for their tuition assistance budget. This is because the U.S. workforce brings in so much student debt ($1.6 trillion) that people aren’t as interested in going back to school as they were when tuition assistance was introduced in the 1980s. In that moment, I envisioned every employer in the U.S. offering benefits to address student debt across today’s multigenerational workforce. That kind of benefit didn’t exist yet, but today it is the fastest growing employer benefit.

Student debt repayment was part of the recent CARES Act. How were you involved in that Act?

I am part of an aggressively mobilized coalition in Washington, D.C. that lobbies for benefits that address student debt in the workplace. We have focused on a few key pieces of legislation and one of these provisions recently made it into the historic $2.2T stimulus package: The Employer Participation in Repayment Act, or HR 1043. HR 1043 modernizes the Internal Revenue Code 127, which enables employers to offer tax-free contributions to student debt, receiving the same tax treatment as tuition assistance. The CARES Act of 2020 included this provision, which allows employers to contribute $5,250 toward student loans in a tax free manner over 2020. We are hopeful that this law will become permanent via inclusion in a tax extender. This is the most important benefit, to the health and wellness of our workforce, since the introduction of retirement savings. 

Did your approach to leadership change at MIT?

My favorite class was System Dynamics with Prof. Nelson Repenning. It is fascinating to me to see (and hear) how politicians, business leaders, and those unaffected by student debt struggle to see the financial ruin and devastation that results from 17 to 20 years of compound interest on debt. Because the feedback loops are so long, and humans struggle to grasp implications realized two decades from now, student debt has been in hiding. It is the invisible problem that is robbing individuals and households from retirement savings, savings, home ownership, the development of small business and entrepreneurship, and even family formation. 

I also often think back to my Organizational Processes class, where we learned about driving maximum alignment across an organization. Purpose and vision are essential, and everyone within the firm needs to understand, very clearly, how they personally contribute to the mission and vision of the organization. Incentive alignment is also key. Culture is above all, with the exception of the mission. That understanding creates a rare and special culture. 

I strive to live the values of MIT Sloan: leading with mind, heart, and hand. I learned some of my approach in the classroom, most of it from my classmates/professors/mentors/fellow founders, and the majority of my leadership style while in hand-to-hand combat as a founder creating a net new category. Running on a 90-day cash out position for two years, while fundraising, and now leading through a pandemic, reveals style quite quickly. And, I hope that I never feel satisfied with where I am, as a leader. There are many greats, and I am on my own personal journey to attempt to become one of them.

What is it like to lead a startup in such a volatile time?

Everyone’s lives have been turned upside down. I try to keep that in mind on a personal level. I ask: How is your family doing? Is anyone sick? How are you feeling? I want employees to know I will be there for them and that I genuinely care. We are a small and tight team. We talk about mental health. We talk about what’s coming. Everyone on my team knows our current cash burn, cash position, and runway, based on on-target earnings as well as even more modest assumptions. I am extremely transparent with my team. I share every board deck following every board meeting. I share where we are, where we are going together, what may change in the future. I then do exactly what I said I would do and everyone on the team knows my ask of them – put your worries about your job aside; all you need to do is show up at your very best capacity. We are extremely disciplined and focused. We all need certainty in times of chaos. And, that’s one of my most important jobs – to be consistent, focused, and communicative. And to care.

You mentioned that less than 2% of VC goes to women founders. Is there a unique value for women in this program?

I knew I had been compartmentalized and was perceived for a certain job, before coming to MIT. I went to MIT knowing I had to do everything possible to boundary span beyond the roles I had previously held. And, to raise venture capital, you must be “fundable.” You want investors to know you have credibility and grit and that you are the horse to bet on. Having gone through this program and having MIT as part of my life demonstrates that I can win and that I’ve got grit. 

Laurel Taylor, EMBA '15, is the founder and CEO of FutureFuel.io, “a mission-first platform built to crush student debt as a workplace benefit and beyond” and has raised $16 million in funding.