When Dashstrom founder Cristina Ramirez talks about resilience, she isn’t speaking in metaphors. “As a teen, I was the gal smoking pot at the back of the gym,” she says, laughing. “When I became a mom I wanted to be healthier and ran my first 5K. That turned into a triathlon. Then three Ironmans. The more I learned to push through the hard things physically, the more everything else in life started to get better.”
That mindset—of transformation through physical challenges—became the seed for what would become DashStrom, a company built to teach kids confidence, grit, and growth mindset through movement. And it worked! Founded in Miami, Cristina grew the program from 20 kids to over 12,000 but she knew the potential to reach millions was real, she just didn’t know how to scale from there.
A Different Kind of Experimentation
While Cristina was building her youth programs, Dr. Ketaki Desai was uncovering what helps companies reach the finish line. “I’ve mentored more than 500 companies,” she says. Holding a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences, and a Masters in Public Management from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Ketaki’s career spanned academia, innovation, and investment. Ketaki left Pittsburgh for Canada becoming the VP of Business Development at the Ontario Center for Innovation. She spent years helping founders grow ideas into organizations and understanding why so many failed.
But despite her credentials, her own entrepreneurial attempt in Canada had stalled. “I failed at building my company,” she admits. “It takes a village, and I didn’t have that. I realized my community, the people who really support founders, was in the U.S,” and to Pittsburgh she returned.
After years of academic research and non-profit leadership (with a stint at being an institutional investor at UPMC Enterprises), Ketaki wanted to get closer to founders again—to the messy, experimental heart of building something from scratch.
“I interviewed about 18 CEOs,” she says. “Almost partnered with someone who looked perfect on paper —but something didn’t feel right. Then I met Cristina.”
The “Aha” Moment: Finding Each Other
The two met through the Y Combinator co-founder matching platform, of all places. “It is not easy finding a founder with their heart in the right place and the urgency of building a startup ,” Ketaki says. “But with Cristina, I just knew.”
They came from different worlds, one from coaching and education, the other from tech and organizational systems. Yet they shared one belief: confidence is built through facing challenges
“What we’re doing is bigger than us,” Cristina says. “We’re helping kids develop resilience so that “I failed” turns into, ‘I am learning, I can try again.’”
It was a natural partnership. Cristina brought the emotional and experiential side of resilience; Ketaki brought the strategic and analytical one. “We can translate for each other when needed,” Ketaki says. “We trust that things will be messy, but we’ll always find our way.”
The AlphaLab Catalyst
When DashStrom joined AlphaLab, everything started to click. “For me,” Cristina says, “AlphaLab was our landing place. It helped me think like a startup. It framed my dream into something scalable and gave me permission to evolve.”
“AlphaLab was our landing place. It helped me think like a startup. It framed my dream into something scalable and gave me permission to evolve.”
– Cristina Ramirez
Ketaki agrees. “Our current model of selling through schools, daycares, and organizations who already work with children wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for AlphaLab. The support we had from the team made it possible to pivot in the Summer of 2025. AlphaLab gave us the confidence and community to experiment fast—and the space to get it right.”
Cristina even relocated from New Mexico to Pittsburgh for the program. “Ketaki is Pittsburgh’s number one
fan. And now, I get it—this city feels like a warm embrace. It’s a place that lets you try, fail, and try again.”
Teaching Growth Mindset by Living It
Together, Cristina and Ketaki built DashStrom, a mission-driven platform addressing the youth mental and physical health crisis by empowering children with confidence, grit and growth mindset through physically active games in schools and communities.
“We teach and live a growth mindset,” Cristina says. “Confidence comes from doing difficult things, your discomfort is simply a call to action, not a stop sign.”
For both founders, AlphaLab didn’t just shape their company, it reshaped their own definitions of success. “We’re constantly unlearning and relearning,” Ketaki says. “AlphaLab gave us the courage to build something real, not just a company that talks about confidence, but one that lives it.”
