The ‘why now’ for online education has never been stronger — Blue Studio founder Kelley O. Cambry
COVID-19 has forced us all to rethink our daily routines. We have had to change and adapt to a new form of work, of networking, and of connecting while social distancing to protect ourselves and others.
When the Bay Area shut down all its schools in mid-March as part of its shelter-in-place measures, many of us found ourselves having to homeschool our children. All of a sudden, parents were gathering online to share ideas around home activities that can be done with younger children, recommend online programs to help with their education, and ultimately becoming teachers to our own kids.
While some entrepreneurs find themselves in industries hit hard by this pandemic, others are thriving in spite of these uncertain times. As part of this series of interviews with entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley (that you can read on our Medium channel), I invited Kelley O. Cambry, co-founder and CEO of Blue Studios, a livestream and on-demand platform delivering STEM classes for kids.
Kelley is a third-generation entrepreneur who grew up in a production studio. She is a graduate of Howard University with a BBA in Marketing, and she started her career in financial services and digital marketing for several Fortune 500 companies. She also developed and taught streaming classes for General Assembly’s large enterprise accounts.
Kelley founded the Paige & Paxton System, an award-winning elementary STEM curriculum, sold to over 17 school systems around the country. Paige & Paxton’s methodology has been studied by the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
1. What does the current situation mean for you as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley?
The “why now” for Blue Studios has never been stronger. Everyone became a homeschooler overnight. We realized how valuable we’ve been for our subscribers. They’re watching more content than ever, and we’ve had to quickly figure out even more scalable ways of producing content to meet the increased demand.
2. How are you dealing with the situation on a personal level?
It’s been challenging because the world changed overnight. We have to ensure the safety of our team, our partners, and everyone around us. I am also thankful for the amazing people who are doing all they can to support everyone, whether you’re a healthcare professional or someone donating their time to ensure others are helped, despite challenging times. We’re are still planning to raise our Seed Round, because it’s been more apparent just how important what we do can be for families.
I also hope everyone realizes just how connected we are to each other and when we get through this we can all celebrate our shared humanity.
3. How does this situation change your perspectives? — for worse and for better
I always look at the glass half full! Technology can have such a profound effect on making the world a better place if we use it the right way. I hope we all focus on what can be accomplished if we all work together after we get on the other side of this.
4. What motivates you to keep going?
Our subscribers and the opportunity to democratize STEM education. It’s the most cost-prohibitive aspect of our educational system but provides kids with the most opportunity.
If we can find a way to put 10,000 hours of training in every kid’s hands and have it be as fun as watching their favorite television show with the best teacher that they’ve ever had, we can then fulfill our mission.
Another thing that motivates me is receiving emails and texts from our parents about how Blue Studios helps them free up a few hours each day so they can finally get some work done!
5. What are you currently doing to help?
We’re getting ready to change our model for the next 60 days to make our livestream classes free for all, and have our on-demand library be behind our subscription model, so we can continue to pay our amazing instructors. We feel that it’s the best of both worlds, given the challenges families are facing around the world.
We started asking ourselves internally what if everyday could feel like a hack-a-thon or make-a-thon? We’re looking at other ways to make our platform more social, where kids can watch and share projects with friends and family and get cool prizes for completing projects.
We also launched a free Parent’s Only channel to help parents navigate this new world. We keep talking to our customers to see what we can do to help even more, but we feel good about being able to contribute in our small way.
6. What are you hopeful about in the future?
What I’m hopeful for is that this challenging time enables more people to empathize with each other. The pandemic has put a spotlight on income inequality and health disparities.
I hope we all come out of this realizing that we are all connected and in this together, and create a better future as a result.
I’ll be sharing more founder responses over the coming days. If you are an early-stage entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and you want to share your story to inspire others, we would love to hear from you! Please feel free to reach out to me directly at fernanda@samsungnext.com
