In this Real Humans: Alumni, we join Dan Cataldi on his entrepreneurial path from Wharton to Founder and CEO of Groov, a company that makes precision-crafted insoles for an optimal footwear experience. While his app can create a perfect map, life isn’t always laid out that way–and Dan shares the unconventional journey of uncovering and then going “all-in” on pursuing his true passion. Read on for his story.
Dan Cataldi, Wharton MBA ’23, Founder and CEO of Groov
Age: 32
Hometown: Great Neck, NY
Undergraduate Institution and Major: Brown University – Theoretical Math (with a subfocus in Poetry)
Graduate Business School, Graduation Year and Concentration: Wharton Class of 2023 Candidate (on leave of absence) – Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Pre-MBA Work Experience: Corporate Strategy @ Capital One
Post-MBA Work Experience: CEO @ Groov
Why did you choose to attend business school?
Put simply, I felt unfulfilled by my career and uninspired by the path I was on. Business school felt like a chance to reframe my relationship with work—to create space for exploration and reconnect with something more personal. I’d come to believe I needed a deeper sense of ownership in what I did, a reason to care beyond the quarterly goals and performance reviews.
I also realized that my appetite for risk hadn’t matched the ambition I quietly held for myself—and that bridging that gap wouldn’t happen passively. In a way, I saw business school as a safety net that would let me flirt with the kind of failure I’d previously gone to great lengths to airbrush out of my resume. It was less about the MBA, more about the chance to rewire.
Why Wharton? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to attend?
Reputation, prioritization, and location. So much of the value of a top-tier MBA comes from the connections it facilitates—and in that sense, Wharton’s alumni base is a powerful lever. The network is both broad and deep. It offered a shiny name to sit beside mine, yes—but more importantly, it had produced founders whose success helped humanize the kind of path I was seeking.
The school’s grade non-disclosure policy and focus on learning outside the classroom gave me the freedom to experiment and take risks. I felt like I could live the work, not just study it. Being close to New York—where I’m from—was a meaningful plus.
What about your MBA experience prepared you for your current career?
The freedom, focus, and time to explore, ideate, and wrestle with important questions. And, for lack of a better term, pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz.
Our culture mythologizes founders—puts them (us?) on pedestals. Not having grown up around many, it was enabling to meet “big names” in business and realize they were just people. Brilliant and driven, sure–but human; fallible and uncertain, yet nevertheless willing to try. That shift made the whole idea of starting something feel a lot more possible.
What was your internship during business school? How did that inform your post-MBA career choice?
I worked for Groov—my fledgling company. I remember a conversation with a former boss and mentor when I was starting to gain traction but still planning to apply for an internship. He asked why I wasn’t using the summer to go all-in on the business. I told him it felt too risky (as if I hadn’t just gone to business school to embrace more risk).
I said that if the business didn’t work, the summer would be wasted—that I’d lose the chance to add a nice, clean corporate datapoint to my resume. He pushed back: in his view (as a hiring manager at a prestigious company) it wouldn’t take extraordinary success for my entrepreneurial efforts to be more interesting than a cookie-cutter internship.
That helped reframe things. I’d been thinking in binaries—either I build a unicorn, or I’ve failed. That summer taught me to spot the smaller, compounding wins that would exist along the road ahead. I realized that entrepreneurship doesn’t begin with certainty—it begins with motion.
(Sidenote: I also did a brief culinary stage as a line cook at Vernick. It didn’t last long, but it definitely reframed my definition of hard work.)
Why did you choose your current company? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to work?
In my first semester at Wharton, I took Serguei Netessine’s Innovations class, which focuses on the business ideation process. I came up with several concepts—one of which was an early (and much worse) version of what eventually became Groov (then called SOUL).
Groov checked a lot of boxes: real human impact, minimal negative externalities, validation from people I trusted, and personal intrigue—enough to keep me energized and self-motivated through the inevitable ups and downs that would lie on the path ahead. Importantly, the class culminated in a pitch competition, in which Groov was named a finalist; that early sense of momentum helped me believe this was something I could actually build.
Advice to current MBA students:
–One thing you would absolutely do again as part of the job search?
I’d again be very intentional about what I wanted—and didn’t want—from business school. Having worked briefly in consulting and interacted with many who pursued high-pay, high-prestige recruiting paths, I knew I didn’t want to go that route. To prevent the allure of FOMO from steering me off-course, I made a firm rule: no recruiting in my first semester.
–One thing you would change or do differently as part of the job search?
I’d recognize earlier that so-called “failed” attempts at entrepreneurship are still valuable—and often necessary. I would’ve committed to striving for that success and exposing myself to the possibility of failure, using my time exploring business ideas sooner, rather than assuming I’d need to recruit for a fallback internship. While I did ultimately pursue Groov that summer, I carried the assumption for too long that I needed to hedge against the potential of failure—instead of viewing it as the exhaust trailing behind anyone motoring toward real success. There were a few serendipitous moments where I took action that enabled this opportunity to be real – If I were to do it again, I’d be more decisive and focused and proactive around what it would take to make the entrepreneurial path real.
–Were there any surprises regarding your current employer’s recruiting process?
One surprise? I ended up recruiting a team of interns of my own. After raising a bit of capital near the end of my first year, I hired a software engineer to begin building our MVP—and brought on four undergrads as summer interns: two from Penn, one from Brown (my undergrad), and one from UChicago, referred by an existing teammate.
It gave me my first real taste of leadership—and a deep sense that I could rally people around an idea, even before it fully existed.
–What piece of advice do you wish you had been given during your MBA?
Soul-search before starting. Get clear on what you want from your career—and what you don’t. Then build your time around that (deprioritizing as actively as you’re prioritizing).
Focus on the real levers business school offers: the people you meet, and the opportunities placed in front of—but not handed to—you. Identify and confront your own fear-based decision-making. Be willing to bet on yourself. Be willing to say no.
Find ways to fail constructively and earnestly (because only failure born of real effort counts). Build something. Sell something. Laugh at yourself–ideally with others. And don’t take it all too seriously.
