Archive for the ‘Start-up Culture’ Category

Recently, I reread Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow. It’s about transforming your business by being remarkable. There’s a lot of talk about what it means to be remarkable. Of course I read the book thinking about our product, DreamBox Learning K-2 Math. But more and more, I thought about my job at DreamBox as being the truly remarkable. Before DreamBox, I taught in elementary schools for 9 years. I loved the classroom. Even with all the frustrations, low pay and school politics, I loved teaching, and I wasn’t looking to leave the classroom. Then came the call from a former parent. He founded a start-up company and needed a teacher. Was I interested?

Voting for Seattle's Best Startup ends on April 28! That means you have only one day to cast your ballot for DreamBox Learning. Here are three reasons to vote for DreamBox.

We're proud to announce this is our 100th blog post. Let's hear it for us! DreamBox Learning started with ... dreams. We envisioned a world where every student enjoys an individually-tailored, world class learning experience. Then created an online math learning game that's both highly effective at teaching math, and it's fun. We strive to reach kids, enrich minds, and inspire a life-long love of mathematics. It has been a wonderful coaster ride as a Seattle startup and we couldn't be more proud of our achievements.

Every day now driving home and listening to the news, I try, like everyone else I imagine, to wrap my head around the kinds of numbers they’re throwing around. The scale of the numbers is incomprehensible. How meaningful is the difference between a billion and a trillion dollars? The best mental illustration I’ve heard recently—and many have repeated it—is that if you spent a million dollars every day from the day Jesus was born, you still wouldn’t have spent a trillion dollars.

There is nothing like the excitement of launching a new product after years of work. I enjoyed the privilege of joining the celebration lunch with the DreamBox team.

I’ve been in the software biz for 22 years or so, not counting high school and university. (If you want to add that, call it 28 years!) Of the companies I’ve worked for, this is the most balanced, professional, and most oriented towards shipping product. I love the way we have combined software, creative, teaching, marketing, and [...]

I love creating software. A software product, unlike say, building a book case, is never completely done. As TV’s Detective Monk would say, that is “a blessing, and a curse.” A blessing, because you can fix the things that are not quite perfect. A curse, because you can fix the things that are not quite perfect.

All of us at DreamBox Learning sincerely wish all of you a happy holiday season and the very best in the new year!

One of our favorite things to do as we prepare to release a new beta is to invite parents and their child(ren) to come to our offices for early usability testing; mostly because it gives us a chance to observe and interact on many levels.

Dear DreamBox Co-owners, We stand ready to ship our 4th Beta in less than a year. An astonishing milestone, yet no heads swell among you. Instead, and with the same brute, elegant, and humble spirit that got you here, you turn your attention once again to shipping, learning, fixing, testing, planning, cutting, building, testing, and shipping anew.

It’s almost Fall and pumpkin season is coming alive. I’ve seen signs for corn mazes, harvest festivals, and of course, Halloween candy out in the shelves at the store. I love this time of year! One thing I love to do in my classroom is explore the anatomy of pumpkins with my students. Even though [...]

True, I've worked for six start-ups in the last ten years. I love working with start-ups; they have a special energy about them that I haven't found in other business environments -- especially as an accountant.

I was raised in a house with teachers (my mom is a retired high school teacher, and my dad taught at the community college on the side), so I already was a fan of their work. But I’m here to tell you that teachers make great entrepreneurs too.