We recently connected with Anna Yelaun and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Anna, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

While I was working in finance juggling multiple clients from various industries, I realized how important a well-rounded background in education really is. As quoted by Carl Friedrich Gauss, “Math is known as the queen of the sciences” and everything revolves around it. I also always loved to compete. These two aspects influenced my initiative to get involved in olympiad mathematics and start an academy that would teach kids to excel in this sphere.

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?

First and foremost, my goal is to inspire my students to be interested in an education. It’s to create an exciting learning environment around subjects that are normally tedious and difficult. My academy organizes and creates live functions that feel like a holiday for my client’s kids, where they are learning new things every day. While the center of my Academy is focused on Academic and Olympiad Math, we offer a variety of classes in Chess, Robotics, Science, Art, Spanish, English for newcomers in the US, Vocal lessons, Master and Speaker series class from skilled professionals in the field and always growing with new subjects on a daily basis. My students who participate in international mathematics competitions achieve recognition placing in the top 20 on a global level. Those who work hard reap the benefits of being rewarded. In our Academy, we host Parents Nights out but it isn’t just a “parents night out, ” it is a celebration of the kid’s achievements using a new theme every time. They occur 1-2 times a month on Fridays from 5-10 pm in the evenings.
We also collaborate and plan outside activities with an ice skating arena, a horseback riding company, snapology, a petting zoo and other fun and engaging events.
We also participate in charity events hosted by Rockbridge Church. We teach our kids not to only take, but to provide and give as well.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Before my move to America, I was in a completely different industry. I worked more than 14 years in the finance industry as a senior accountant. After moving here, I realized I couldn’t find the same success in this field and I don’t have 14 more years to get the same position in a new country to which I’m still transitioning to. I then thought about what I might be capable of and what brought me the most joy and provided for with the resources that I had available to me. As a result, I opened the Academy.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

The capital that I placed into my business was not money, it was my time. I was fortunate enough to have the time and opportunity to open my business during the start of the pandemic, and this helped me achieve a creative way to limit my overhead costs by doing things in a remote way (ie Zoom). The first year that the Academy became functional, we created video conferencing classes for students around the US. My experience taught me how to have the business pay for itself in the very first month.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @aracademy.us
• Facebook: ARAcademy (@aracademy.us)

Image Credits
Photo Credit by Olexiy Kryvych