#882: How to Teach a 3-Year-Old to Read and Rethinking Education — Tim Coaches Niels Hoven of Mentava

About this episode

This episode is a bit different. It's a live, unscripted working session with a founder, and I've only done one other earlier this year. Niels Hoven (@NielsHoven) is the founder and CEO of Mentava, a company building software to support fast learners. Eager kids are dramatically underserved by today's education system, and Niels created Mentava to allow students to achieve their potential. Prior to Mentava, Niels worked at Cloudflare, ClassDojo, and Pocket Gems, where he ran the highest-grossing mobile game in the world in 2011. He has a graduate degree in electrical engineering from UC Berkeley. This episode is brought to you by: • Fin powerful AI Agent for all your customer service: Fin.Ai/Tim • Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: Shopify.com/Tim • Wealthfront high-yield cash account: Wealthfront.com/Tim New clients get 3.30% base APY from program banks + additional 0.75% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms and conditions apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 1/30/26 is representative, can change,