Emily Levy has entertained a lot of options in her 20s. She was accepted into Brown University’s medical school, chose instead to pursue a career in finance, then stopped for a self-examination.
Today, a sharp turn toward teaching has returned her to finance – as a new business owner. Levy, 27, owns EBL Coaching, a New York City-based company that offers specialized tutoring for children.
She came naturally to the entrepreneur/educator’s life: When Levy was a child, her mother started a Florida-based company to help kids with special needs. Her mother’s daughter says she never thought about following the same path until working full-time in investment banking and money management. Something didn’t feel right.
Goal 1: Take Risks (Carefully)
Levy decided to tutor a few kids at night. By 2002, she was running a full schedule of students that had grown to late afternoons and weekends. Necessity was the mother of her intention. She decided to take the plunge.
“It was very scary to leave my day job,” says Levy, who returned to college for an education degree. “The fear of leaving comes from the financial instability.” But by the time the young banker did quit her day job, she’d already built a healthy client base for a new business.
Only three months after startup, Levy needed to hire other tutors. She trained them very deliberately in her methods and set them to work. EBL Coaching now fields 75 tutors for some 300 students.
Copyright 2009 StartupNation, LLC
Click here to read more from StartupNation