How education entrepreneurs can succeed in a dynamic marketplace.
The momentum surrounding emerging education models is well on its way. Where the concept of alternative education once existed—for the most part, at the periphery—terms like homeschooling, hybrid schools, and learning pods are now familiar. A broad range of families are using these schooling alternatives as their preferred educational choice.
In 2015, I began one of these educational options, The Urban Cottage Educational Collaborative. As a former public school teacher who grew up being both homeschooled and attending a private school, I wanted to build a new concept that acted as a bridge between homeschooling families and professional educators. The Cottage is a part-time program that supports homeschooling families in the Tampa Bay area. We offer a curated education for over 100 students that focuses on core academic content, taught by professional educators. This allows families to homeschool their students, while also getting their children the part-time support they feel would best fit their children’s needs.
As the alternative education marketplace continues to grow, questions clearly arise. How do we, as founders, position ourselves to be consistent in our values and vision of education while still growing and adapting to a changing market? I believe there are two critical factors that allow education entrepreneurs to operate their emerging learning models with both stability and consistency.
The first factor is ensuring the quality of the model. One of the hallmarks of many of today’s alternative education models is the joy and happiness of both teachers and students alike. One of my clients, a parent of an 11-year-old, told me that the greatest reason she believes our business is successful is that the teachers and students are always smiling. She said that in other places, the teachers always seemed overworked and underpaid, but at The Cottage, our teachers are paid a living wage and only teach what they are most passionate about. As founders, this joy is one of the most intangible selling points of our business. It is produced by a combination of factors including, but not limited to, our innovative approach, embrace of permissionless education, and our emphasis on mastery learning versus assessment performance.
This crucial difference has led us to financial sustainability. It is vital that an emerging educational model be self-sustaining and its costs be covered, in large part, by its tuition. Chasing the next grant or scholarship, while helpful as additional support, does not allow the founders to focus on the quality of their models for the duration. By providing a quality product that focuses on teacher-student happiness and financial sustainability, we solidify our model’s existence, not as a new trend, but rather a durable model of education for the 21st century.
This focus on financial sustainability leads to the second critical factor for new founders to consider: forming key business partnerships. Within our area of Hillsborough County, we have one of the largest homeschooling populations in the country. As such, many of our homeschooling students are looking for extracurricular activities to support their education. For example, we partnered with a neighborhood art teacher who left his job in the public schools to open his own business teaching art. Rather than creating a separate art program for The Cottage, I am able to specialize in the areas that I am most passionate about while referring families to other local business partners. These partnerships enable us to be more flexible and dynamic in the programs we offer, responding to families’ needs, all while supporting the growth of new education entrepreneurs, leading to stronger communities through small business and educational choice.
Ten years in, our program continues to forge new local partnerships and grow in enrollment, while I get to witness the satisfaction of parents who have found the educational option they always dreamed of for their family. I get asked regularly when I will open additional locations, but I always like to remind parents and teachers that they, too, can build an innovative program that changes the lives of children and reflects their own community.
By emphasizing the quality of our emerging models through sustainability and key business partnerships, founders can solidify their values and succeed in an evolving and growing free market of education options.