Things are moving

Hey,

Alright….

So I’m going to aim to make this email readable in less than 1 minute.

Wish me luck.

(I’ve already used 4.35 seconds)

School’s in

So the School of Entrepreneuring is becoming realer by the day.

We’re now on the hunt for ~50,000 sq ft with the goal of launching 1-2 schools in NJ for the 2026-27 school year. We’ve narrowed in on the communities we like and so I’m spending 1 day per week doing site visits and the like.

Fingers crossed we’ll have more news on this soon.

After NJ, we think Florida and Texas are probably next.

There is lots of work to do, of course, but as I’ve talked to parents and students and dug into the research on learning and adolescent development and also as I work to become a Montessori teacher myself, my conviction in the need for a new way to educate adolescents (6th to 12th) has become even stronger.

The Formidable ones

In the fall of 2024, we (my friend Raj and I) launched a non-profit called the Formidable Fellowship that gives $1000 grants to middle and high school entrepreneurs.

It’s no strings attached.

What we call inspiration capital.

Well, we just unveiled the first class of Formidable grantees - 23 in total.

And they are amazing.

They’re building companies in a bunch of areas ranging from book publishing to AI coaching apps to car detailing to a horse treat subscription box.

Yup - we got horse treats.

And they’re all generating revenue, i.e. we didn’t fund powerpoint presentations.

For example, Lincoln’s business, Sunshine Exteriors did $60k in revenue last year.

And he’s still in high school!

We also launched a conversation series with these grantees called Future Titans with the hope of shining a light on these amazing young entrepreneurs and also inspiring other young people to start building.

Please check out the conversation with Lincoln. His entrepreneurial acumen is far ahead of most adults as you’ll see. And also subscribe to the Future Titans channel on YouTube. I believe “Smash that subscribe button’ is what YT’ers would say.

Chief Builder needed

Back to the school.

We’re also about to kick off a search for a head of school.

While we’ve not started the formal search, here is a draft job spec for the Head of School role in case you know anyone who’d be a great fit.

(Note: we’ve just referred to the school as XYZ Academy for the time-being)

Please share this liberally.

This is a very special role and will require a very special person.

Given our ambitions with the Schools, the person who takes on this role will change the lives of tens of thousands of students and their families.

I don’t think I kept to my goal of 1 minute as I’m clocking in at 1 min 34 seconds. I’m sorry.

If you have any ideas, just respond to this email as it comes right to me.

Thanks for reading.

Love,

Anand

P.S. I’ve been writing more as well. Two recent essays include Why schools fail teenagers which looks at adolescent development and how traditional schools are hopelessly missing the mark given the natural patterns we observe in adolescents.

The other one which caused some angst among folks was about why we should stop forcing kids read Shakespeare.