BUFFALO, NY - Before Tán Ho ’14 was named to Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 list, he was homeless for a time and staying with friends while he looked for a job. His journey from sleeping on couches to creating an international social learning platform is a lesson in finding one’s passion.
Ho says he has found his passion as co-founder and chief operating officer of Fiveable, an innovative platform for high school students to learn and work together in online study rooms. Students from more than 150 countries are using Fiveable to connect through group chat, editable task lists and video streaming to learn about every topic from art history to political organizing.
“We started out as a study platform to help high school students prepare for AP classes and college admissions tests – in fact, the name is derived from the number five, the highest score a student can get on an AP exam,” Ho explains. “Today, we have a completely different model. Fivaeable is designed for students with students to democratize learning and provide equal opportunities for all to reach their potentials.”
With responsibilities that include design, marketing, product development and student engagement, Ho has helped Fiveable grow in just a couple of years to an empowering social learning platform that supports more than four million students worldwide. That meteoric rise in success caught Forbes magazine’s attention in 2022 when they named Ho to its annual 30 Under 30 list in the education category. Ho says there were several forks in the road in getting to this point.
A native of Utica, NY, Ho came to Canisius University initially to study pre-med, encouraged by his mother, a single parent and Vietnamese immigrant. While he wanted to do something that helped people, Ho soon found medicine wasn’t his passion. His grades slipped, causing him to lose a scholarship. On the advice of his advisor, he changed his major to digital media arts and things began to click. Ho became president of the school’s Advertising Club and won an award for his involvement in the student senate.
Ho held a few different marketing-related jobs after graduation but found himself struggling with depression and anxiety related to his coming out as gay. His situation started to change, however, after a chance online meeting with Fiveable co-founder and chief executive officer Amanda DoAmaral. The former teacher was seeking to hire the first employee at her just launched online company, which offered AP test support. DoAmaral couldn’t afford to pay a salary so she instead offered room and board. The opportunity to live and work in a shared space while building something meaningful was too good for the then-homeless Ho to turn down. He accepted the position and the rest, as they say, is history. Or biology, English or any of the thousands of study groups on the platform.
“Canisius gave me the skills and confidence to think about myself differently,” he explains. “My experiences at the college inform the work I do today to change the way we think about students and education.”
