We recently connected with Marissa Hess and have shared our conversation below.

Marissa, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

Education is in the middle of a massive transformation in America. Even before the pandemic, a growing number of Americans were becoming disillusioned with a public school system that spent greater and greater amounts of tax dollars while producing subpar results. While the traditional education system worked adequately for a narrow set of learners, it often failed those who were gifted, struggled with learning disabilities, or simply didn’t thrive with long amounts of hours in a desk with little time outside. When the pandemic arrived and closed schools around the country, the calls for better options grew significantly louder. In some places, this has led to greater charter school options. In a growing number of states, this has led to the creation of school choice scholarships that allow parents to take the tax dollars allotted to education their child(ren) and utilize whatever type of education best meets their child(ren)’s needs. This has led to an explosion of new educational models in the form of new private schools, micro schools, co-ops, tutoring centers, and more. The next decade will almost certainly see new models created, some models expand, some models fail, and new regulations formed. Although there will undoubtedly be positives and negatives, I feel confident that this wave of educational innovation will provide far more children with an education that best fits their particular needs and abilities, and that in time this will benefit students, their families, communities, and eventually our nation as a whole.

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 a teacher by trade with a background in special education. I taught in public, private and Montessori schools and saw how different approaches to education met different student’s needs. When we had children and they approached school age, I began to realize that there simply wasn’t an option available to us that both fit our family well and met the varied academic needs of our three kids. This led me to start the Urban Cottage. Over the years the Urban Cottage grew and evolved as more families joined and we added additional staff. Today we are a multidisciplinary team of educational professionals that offers a fully individualized, curated education to children from pre-K through middle school. Our full range of educational testing, therapies, tutoring and support offers families the ability to get exactly the support their child needs in any or all subject areas while maximizing the time they have to spend with their family, travel, pursue extracurricular activities, or simply enjoy free play.

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

The Urban Cottage was started with six children meeting in our small mother-in-law house in our back yard. In the first few years we added several more children, but for the most part we had to turn away requests from families that wanted to join. I lacked both the space and the additional staff I would need to keep growing. We finally decided to move to a larger commercial space and grow the Cottage…in February of 2020. Within weeks of signing a lease, Covid hit and the world shut down. With schools shut down and the future uncertain, families suddenly found themselves desperate to find a safe and reliable educational option for their children. The Cottage became just such a place. We had to adapt our model, find new staff, navigate safety and health procedures, and reassure anxious parents, but in the end we grew and were able to provide a comfortable space for more than 50 children to be educated during one of the most challenging seasons of recent memory.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

We have never had a traditional marketing strategy. Because our major expansion happened in concert with the pandemic, growth happened for us very organically. Since then, some of our “covid families” have returned to traditional education, while we have seen many more families come. With very few exceptions, our new families almost always find us through word of mouth. Unlike choosing a restaurant for dinner or a new pair of running shoes, choosing an education for one’s children is a decision with extremely high stakes. Almost nothing is more important to a parent than the wellbeing of their child. As such, decisions such as this aren’t made based on a Facebook Ad or a Google review. Parents come to us because they have relationships with families who are part of the Cottage and from those families they have seen and heard how our program has impacted these children’s lives. We are big believers that taking great care of your current clients is by far the best way to find new ones.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.urbancottage.us/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urbancottageeducational/