This story was originally published by neweconomicsforwomen.org.
Lisa Henschol is the director of Hyperion Academics, a Kindergarten through 8th grade full curriculum, educational platform. Hyperion engages students with cognitive learning and gamification strategies. The teaching construct that Hyperion Academics utilizes around their platform aids in relieving overcrowded classrooms, especially in special education classes. Hyperion Academics is WCAG compliant. It was created to serve an inclusive and diverse population, including high functioning students on the autism spectrum. They are currently developing a Spanish language version of the site that will be available at the end of 2023.
Taking classes and workshops through NEW Women’s Business Center really helped to center my business around who we wanted to serve and the effect that we wanted to have in the educational space.
Lisa has attended about 83 classes with the NEW-WBC with an impressive 145 hours total of training received. She allocated her time joining their workshops such as the Cottage, Finance and a great deal of General Business courses. She also received the California Dream Fund Grant of $5,000 through the help of the NEW-WBC staff.
We used the funds for payroll and to develop a construct by which schools would be able to use our platform to address serious staffing shortages, particularly in special ed.
Learning to be an entrepreneur
NEW-WBC has provided Lisa with more than 7 hours of client consultation. These sessions covered assisting with loans and grants, financial projections, and follow ups.
Lisa is a single mother and a former educator who advocates for homeschooling. For her, opening a business that serves the community she supports puts her on top of the game. As a bonus, she is able to focus on her target market as an entrepreneur. She invests her time attending NEW-WBC’s training courses and continuously educating herself about the business aspect of her company.
According to Lisa, she thought she would only focus on the homeschooling community. As she gradually took more training courses through the NEW-WBC, it challenged her and her staff to make their mission statement clearer. She created a sound business and marketing plan in return, broadening the population she is serving. She stated, “It is so wonderful to be able to take such a variety of classes through NEW WBC. It’s great to be able to ask someone who is an expert a question or retake a class for a review or just take a workshop on a subject that you’re interested in. I always get a lot out of attending them”.