We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shymika Stephenson-Davison. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shymika below.
Shymika, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
The vision of PreCollege Solutions started at a business conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in November 2014. While awaiting my shuttle from the airport to the conference hotel, I called my best friend. We discussed the conference, which focused on the lack of college readiness for high school students. I remember going on and on, she abruptly stopped me and said, “If I had a college-bound teen, I would pay you for those services.” In that moment of silence, I decided to start PreCollege Solutions. The conference ended. On the returning flight to Dallas, I created my vision, mission statement, and services. I felt unmeasurable excitement for the future impact of PreCollege Solutions. The future potential of this generation’s impact is what motivates me. With twelve years of college readiness experience as a Precollege Advisor, I have had no greater joy than assisting high school students in reaching their post-secondary education goals, either college, military, trade, or workforce. Yet my heart hurts for the inaccurate information about college readiness, lack of support system, and the thousands of high school students that fall through the cracks. My enthusiasm was short-lived as I returned home from the conference and sat on my dream of PreCollege Solutions until the summer of 2017. I continued working as a PreCollege Advisor for a nonprofit organization but left struck and did not agree with the organizational changes at the nonprofit. I filed the incorporation and DBA (doing business as) and on June 27, 2017, PreCollege Solutions was formed.
PreCollege Solutions is a college readiness consulting company, that serves as a guide and support system for families, youth-focused organizations, and tutoring companies during the College Admission Process. We provide services in college admission application advising, scholarship application assistance, career exploration, adulting workshops, college-ready workshops for parents, college admission application training for youth-focused organizations, and consultation for tutoring companies. Our mission is to assist in producing college graduates with a minimum amount of student debt. The decision to add the vision of minimizing student debt was very significant to me. I was able to maneuver through without obtaining student loan debt, but I fell into credit card debt. Due to my lack of financial literacy, it took me four years to pay them off after college. Therefore, PreCollege Solutions has a financial literacy track and several services/products surrounding scholarship application assistance.
Shymika, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
PreCollege Solutions is a College Readiness Consulting Company serving as a Guide and Support System for Families and Youth-Focused Organizations during the College Admission Process. Since the 1970’s the cost of attending post-secondary education has grown thirty-one times according to Yahoo Finance. Our mission is to assist in producing college graduates and/or skilled professionals with a minimum amount of student debt. We are not guiding students through the college admission process, but assisting them in not creating student debt through our scholarship assistance services, ways to fund your education workshops, one-on-one college planning, and other services. Believe it or not, student loan debt has created a big wealth gap over the last few decades. We want to be on the side of history that offers solutions. We believe the greatest investment you can give your child is education. We understand that college prep does not start the senior year of high school, but as early as elementary school. Therefore, we champion and promote Academic Excellence as we stand on our core values: Integrity, Accountable, Compassion, and Excellence.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
After cleaning up my personal debt in the early 2010s, I decided to not obtain any debt for as long as possible. This mindset carried on into my entrepreneurship journey. At the humble beginning of PreCollege Solutions, I paid out of pocket for all of the expenses. Until February 2019, I applied for a grant through a Dallas Based Tax Company for $500. Luckily, I received it. At the awards ceremony, I found out that I was the only qualified applicant because I had my incorporation and DBA paperwork. This taught me a valuable lesson- to always make sure my business’s paperwork is in order. This initial capital, prompted me to obtain a business grant which I used for a website and marketing. In September 2019, PreCollege Solutions acquired its first client.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
The best source of new clients for PreCollege Solutions has been word of mouth/referrals. Therefore, customer service is very important to us. We work to provide wrap-around services, which include one year of mentoring for past clients entering college.
Contact Info:
- Website: precollegesolutions.com
- Instagram: PreCollegeSolutions
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PreCollegesolutions
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/s-stephenson-davison
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC76X6srQTjgusljF8uQGILg
Image Credits
PreCollege Solutions LLC