We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Elise Kwenin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Elise , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

I actually think I started my business right when I should’ve. I taught for 10 years in a public school setting and I had so much time to understand the several local school systems, understand how to create lessons and how to work with many different types of students and educators. All of these experiences shaped my vision for Advanced Care Academy and services I knew were needed in my area. I’m grateful to have had all of these experiences so that I can provide the best quality services to all my clients.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an educational consulting business. I provide private tutoring, math workshops for students, professional development for educators and consultation for parents and educators. Between our tutors on staff we tutor students from Pre-K to 12th grade. I also provide math intervention services for schools meaning supporting small groups of students in or outside of the classroom with foundational math skills.

As the owner I have a hand in all of the services we provide. My specialty is math! It is my favorite subject to teach because there are so many different ways to explain and teach the content. I love using escape rooms, puzzles, drawing visual models, and playing math games with dice, cards and dominoes.

I’m most proud of taking the leap of faith to leave my full time teaching job to start Advanced Care. Entrepreneurship is tough mentally because nothing is guaranteed, but in the moment that I accomplish great growth with a client, it is incredibly rewarding and makes me believe more and more in my abilities as an educator. Something that sets me apart is the breadth of our services. In a partnership with a school I could teach students, coach teachers and work with parents on how they can support their child’s learning at home.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I started as a 5th grade classroom teacher and moved into full-time entrepreneurship after my 10th year of teaching. During my 5th year of teaching, I began to tutor after school and on weekends through a large tutoring service. Most of my clients were at least 15 miles away and it was taking me the same amount of time driving to and from the session as the duration of the session itself, so I decided to leave the company. A year later after having more experiences of my own and connecting with so many families I decided to begin providing private tutoring within my circle of influence.

I did this for several years with a few families. After I had my daughter I decided to go full throttle ahead and make my side hustle of tutoring into my full time business. Together with my husband we created a business plan and thought through what services were needed in my community and what I could provide. We built a website and started advertising our services (private tutoring, coaching and consulting for schools). I also reached out to my local library to provide free math workshops in the community to show what we had to offer and meet new students and families.

Pretty soon my client base was growing and I was beginning to get inquiries from people I didn’t know who had been referred or found me online. Once I started working with those students, they shared that with people around them as well. During this time I also began consulting with schools and providing coaching for teachers and math intervention for students.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The strategy that has worked most effectively for me in growing clientele is being very active in the community in my field of expertise. I try to be part of as many education conferences, panels, and meet and greets as possible. There are so many professionals in your field that would love to know you are resource they can share with others when asked. By being active and present in the community I’ve also found other educators to come alongside me and provide tutoring services as contractors.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.advancedcareacademy.com
• Instagram: advancedcareacademy
• Facebook: Advanced Care Academy
• Linkedin: Elise Kwenin