Featured Founder: Prepmedians

At Founder’s CPA, we are privileged to work with a wide spectrum of highly impressive clients. Welcome to our first generation of Featured Founder, where we are highlighting a diverse set of “Founders” who may not fit the stereotypical “Founder” mold set by Silicon Valley, but they all bring a unique solution to their respective markets.

In this week’s Featured Founder, we will be showcasing Prepmedians, a firm which teaches ACT and SAT test prep through creative and entertaining ways.

If you are interested in having your company featured, please reach out to mariam@founderscpa.com to get started.

Q) What does your company do?

Prepmedians teaches SAT and ACT test prep through sketch comedy, parody, music, and rap on an individual learning platform at prepmedians.com.

Q) What is your mission?

Our mission is to break down income and engagement barriers so that all students can access the better college benefits they deserve.

Q) What inspired you to start the company? What is your “why”?

I worked as a tutor tutoring students for over 5000 hours in the SAT and ACT as well as a professional actor. I found that by bringing my entertainment background to teaching students, they became engaged with their education and realized they were more capable than they ever knew they were before. Indeed, a majority of my students, regardless of where they started, were able to attain 95th+ percentile scores on the English section and multiple students earned perfect scores on the test. More importantly, they were laughing while learning. Indeed, we realized through the process that students across the socioeconomic spectrum need a service like Prepmedians that’s founded upon one principle: All students deserve to laugh and learn. We want all students to have a chance to succeed on the SAT and ACT, which are important keys to unlocking the door to better college benefits such as a four year degree over a two year degree, better education, and higher scholarship money. We need to democratize access.

Q) What differentiates your company from your competitors?

Prepmedians is the only entertainment-focused test prep company on the market. We teach with Broadway singer-actors and professional sketch comedians in high quality production. Thus far, we have been getting extremely positive feedback from our users that our material is entertaining and educational!

Q) What are some challenges your consumers are facing right now and how does your company help?

The test prep market is very crowded, so it can be difficult for students and families to know which services to use, especially those with limited budgets. Because our curriculum is unique and founded in psychology, education, and years of test prep, we offer a service that is unlike all the others. Specifically, our content engages the amygdala, which is the brain’s emotional center, in aiding the hippo-campus, the brain’s memory center, in enhancing awareness, motivation, retention, and learning. So many families see these tests as monsters, but we want students to recognize that they are bigger than these tests in a way that allows them to enjoy their learning and feel equipped to crush it on test day.

Q) What’s your favorite part about being an entrepreneur?

I had a student who used our program recently who spoke to me on the phone and told me that before all she had access to was Khan Academy and some Kaplan books and other resources that did not help her. She said she finally felt that she understood how to use the grammar concepts she learned from our videos and she found them entertaining to the point that she wanted to watch all the videos. She left the SAT a couple weekends ago finally feeling like her Writing score went up. To hear that sense of pride in her intellectual capabilities reawakened was unlike any other feeling. And to know that we have already 100+ other users like her in just a month since launching is really exciting. We want to change education, and to be a part of that wave beginning is definitely my favorite part of being an entrepreneur.