We make technology work for you.
AI arrived faster than any team could absorb it. For most people it feels less like a tool they command and more like a current they’re being swept along by, speeding up and impossible to step off.
We change that. We help teams, mostly startups and small companies, get genuinely good at the tools already in front of them, so AI works for your people instead of happening to them. It’s the same work we’ve done since 2018: closing the gap between “we bought it” and “people are actually using it well.”
It was never built for you.
For decades, the industry poured almost everything into making machines smarter and almost nothing into the people who actually use them. The tools kept getting more powerful. The gap to the humans using them kept getting wider. When that gap leaves your team overwhelmed, that’s not a failing on their part. It’s a design flaw in how the technology got built and sold.
Here’s the part most vendors skip: psychology came a long way before technology did. People don’t adopt a tool because it’s impressive. They adopt it when it fits how they already think and work. Miss that, and even the best AI stalls right after the pilot.
The good news about design flaws is that they can be fixed. Taught right, the same technology that overwhelms a team puts them back in command: faster, sharper, more themselves. Closing that gap, between the tools and the people who use them, is the whole reason Startwise exists.
The third option.
When we went looking for help closing that gap ourselves, every option was wrong. Big consulting firms sell armies of juniors and hand you a deck. Tech-first shops lead with the tooling and leave you to sort out the people. Vendors have a product to move. We wanted a different option: senior practitioners who start with your team and your work, not the technology.
So we built it, and ran it on ourselves first. Small, senior, pointed at outcomes. The founders are the team. When you work with Startwise, you work with us directly, not a project manager who briefs us on Fridays. That gap hits startups and small companies hardest, so that’s exactly who we built for.
Who you’ll actually work with.
Between us, 25 years in learning science and a decade scaling teams at companies like Andela, Udemy, and Udacity. We come from the people side of technology, which is exactly why we’re good at the part most firms skip.
Scott Taylor
Founder
A West Point graduate trained in Systems Engineering, Scott served as a US Army Signal Officer training other officers in communications and networking. Before Startwise, he was a serial entrepreneur, then scaled sales at Andela, led sales at Appsembler, and ran accounts at Trusted Health.
Adam Lupu
Founder
Adam is a learning scientist with 25 years building learning programs across North America, Africa, and Europe. Before Startwise, he was VP of Learning at Andela, led learning at Udemy and Udacity (where he helped design the Nanodegree program), and earned an MA in Learning Sciences from Northwestern.
How we got here.
Every phase of Startwise taught us the same lesson from a different angle: the hard part was never the technology. It was helping people get genuinely good at it.
2018 to 2020
Operations consulting
We started in the trenches, helping businesses untangle operations, fix broken processes, and build strategies that actually stuck. 50+ engagements. No fluff, even then.
2021 to 2022
Software for real problems
We moved from advising to building, turning our consulting playbooks into SaaS tools so teams that couldn't afford a full engagement could still get the value.
2022 to 2023
Training takes center stage
We kept seeing the same gap everywhere: great tools, confused people. So we shifted focus to the skills side, with structured programs and workshops that close the adoption gap.
2024 to today
AI for every workplace
AI is the biggest tool shift workplaces have seen in a generation. We guide people, from skeptics to power users, through learning it, using it daily, and making it stick.
How we work.
People-first
Tools don't transform a company. The people using them well do. So we start with your team and the actual work in front of them, not the technology that's supposed to help. Every time.
Fear into love
Most people don’t need to be sold on AI. They need to stop dreading it. We turn “I’m already behind” into “I’ve got this,” because a tool someone’s afraid of is a tool they’ll quietly avoid.
No BS
We tell you what we can't do as clearly as what we can. No decks dressed up as deliverables, no jargon, no scope you don't need. We show it working before we ask you to believe it.