MEET THE FOUNDER BEHIND CLASSROOM EXPERT, A NEW PLATFORM CONNECTING WORLD-CLASS EDUCATORS TO ENGAGE STUDENTS

This past week I sat down with Courtney Bzymek to hear more about her entrepreneurial journey in creating Classroom Expert, a platform to harness the power of technology and bring world-class experts and professors into the classroom virtually to engage students and power educators. ‘The People Behind Innovation’ Podcast dives into stories of impactful entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators surrounding the XI ecosystem to learn more about their stories and the lessons they have learned along their journeys. The podcast series is available now under Google, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify streaming services, or on Anchor with no account needed to stream.

Can you share your story as an educator and what inspired you to start Classroom Expert? 

I have been a high school social studies teacher for about 11 years and as an educator, I've always wanted to have an engaging curriculum and content for my students but I see them more and more disengaged. They're on their phones, they're on TikTok, they're on Snapchat, and they're on YouTube. I was frustrated and I know a lot of other educators are frustrated about getting kids engaged. COVID happened and as educators, we were asked to re-tool our curriculum to teach online and hybrid. We had students in person and on Webex. It was a really difficult time for educators, and I remember just feeling really like I was struggling in the field. I felt really down about education in general and disengaged myself. I had an idea as I was teaching content and thought, “There are other people who are really good at particular areas of content”. For instance World War Two and the D-Day invasion. I know a little bit about it, but there are other people who are so knowledgeable and so passionate about it. I just thought about the possibility of bringing those people to teach my students. During COVID, I started working on a business plan. My sister had told me about a website called “The Expert”, which is an interior design website, and it lets customers video chat with interior designers from around the world. When I heard about that, I thought that this is the kind of technology that I could see working for my pie-in-the-sky idea. Knowing about that possibility and putting my idea together, I started working on a business plan and telling people a little bit about it, but it's always a risk and a hard thing to do. I found a template online and just started typing into it to put my ideas on paper and find people who could potentially help me with making that idea happen. 

Can you share more about what classroom expert has to offer and the future of your business? 

Classroom Expert offers an engaging way to teach students through technology with the power of video conferencing. We can bring any person into the classroom and tear down the traditional classroom walls that people think of in education. Students can hear from people who are knowledgeable about particular content areas. They can feel their passion for the content that the expert is teaching the students, and that has been such a really impactful part of Classroom Expert. We have a restorative justice class at Palmer where I teach, and we have an educator who wanted to bring a restorative justice expert into her classroom. I was able to find someone doing that work in Oakland, California and he was able to put together a panel of experts that he worked with. They spoke to kids about restorative justice and what that looks like in their community as well as how they were doing that. Students were able to see that it created an impact far beyond what they could imagine and see the real-world relevancy, which was cool. I heard about XI through someone in the community, Lisa Tessarowicz, who owns Epicentral coworking space and is such a big proponent for entrepreneurs. She told me about a couple of accelerators here in town, one of them being XI, and so I applied to the START Program. I was accepted and went through the program this past January through May and it was amazing. I was just awarded a SURVIVE AND THRIVE grant through Exponential Impact. With that, I'm hoping to grow the platform, market Classroom Expert, and find out what customers want. My goal is for students to have those experiences, and for educators to be able to use Classroom Expert as well. 

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during your entrepreneurial journey and how did you overcome them? Are there any specific lessons that you can share? 

I think one of the big challenges this past year was working full-time as an educator while still trying to grow my business which was really, really difficult. I'm grateful for XI and the knowledge that they provided me, but I was having to get a sub in my classroom to be in the XI program and that was really difficult to juggle. I also think that not having a business background and feeling like I don't belong in the tech world as an educator and as a woman has been really difficult as well. I think overcoming that is finding people who are in my corner, who are really knowledgeable and want to help me give me time, and provide expertise with their knowledge has been really amazing and helpful.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who are just starting their entrepreneurial journey? Are there any key lessons or principles that you'd like to share with our audience? 

In some ways, I feel like I'm still starting my entrepreneurial journey, but one of the pieces of advice is to start telling people about it. It holds you accountable for your dreams. As soon as you put it into the universe, it's out there and you have to follow up with it. For me, that was the wind in my sails of excitement. I remember telling my sister's mother-in-law of all people, a professor at American University, and seeing her excitement about Classroom Expert. She was like, “You could do this and you could do that”. People always say that step one is to put a business plan together. I think sometimes people roll their eyes about that, but I do think that gets you thinking and is something you have in your back pocket. Another thing is to find mentors to help you in your journey. Exponential Impact was amazing in providing me with a great mentor, Jeremy Sparks. He is the owner of Lyrics2Learn. He's a former educator himself, which is amazing. I could have searched for years for someone who had been a former educator and started their own tech company and Exponential Impact just had one in their back pocket! Those three things have been essential for me. When you're starting, tell people about it, write it down, and find people to be in your corner to help you in your journey who will find your strengths and weaknesses as you're going and walk down that path with you. 

Want to hear more? Listen to“The People Behind Innovation”onGoogle,Apple,Amazon, andSpotifystreaming services, or onAnchorwith no account needed to stream.