Hartford Business Journal

November 5, 2018

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www.HartfordBusiness.com • November 5, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 13 Quality Construction + Butler Manufacturing = Repeat Customers www.borghesibuilding.com © 2011 BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. All rights reserved. Butler Manufacturing™ is a division of BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. 2155 East Main Street • Torrington, Connecticut 06790 Napoli Retail, Southington, CT | 2016 | 7,300 sq. ft. Napoli Foods Corporate Offices & Refrigerated/Freezer Warehouse/Distribution Center, Cheshire, CT | 2008 | 215,000 sq. ft. Contact us at 860-482-7613 or visit us on the web. MEMBER FDIC EQUAL HOUSING LENDER Find your [ local lenders who get it done] place. liberty-bank.com $4,150,000 Mortgage financing for a warehouse and distribution center in Enfield, CT $1,000,000 Revolving Line of Credit for a seller and installer of industrial equipment in Berlin, CT $800,000 / $300,000 Mortgage and Revolving Line of Credit for a law firm in New Haven, CT $2,200,000 Mortgage financing for multiple apartment buildings in Hartford, CT skill level of their students, Hansel said, but they're not held to teaching certain concepts within certain timeframes. And, of course, they aren't regu- lated by state or federal education departments. "Kids have their own personalities; some kids want to make a game, some kids want to make a website, other kids want to do this and that," Lynn said. The Laissez-faire approach toward franchisees also extends to things like pricing (diff erent markets are given diff erent ranges; in Farmington monthly rates range from $129 to $299), and interior décor (franchises are simply required to use theCoder- School's logo and colors). That facilitates the kind of indi- vidualized experi- ence theCoder- School is shooting for, Lynn said. But it also makes it imperative that the corporate ex- ecutives can trust franchise owners, and their choices in hiring so-called "coding coaches," especially given the liability work- ing with children. "If there's anything that's going to bring down this busi- ness, it's going to be something like that, something happens with a kid," Lynn said. There are required background checks for all owners and coaches, coupled with rules against things like texting students, or giving them rides home. No signifi cant problems have come to Lynn's attention so far, he said. "But people are people, so our job is to do what we can to train all these folks, and make sure that we prevent anything negative from happening to any of the kids," he said. A Google search Vaishali Shah said she has com- plete confi dence in the seven coaches working at the Farmington school. All either have or are pursuing computer- science degrees, or work as web developers. Colleges, including UConn and Manchester Community College, have served as coach recruiting pools, said Vaishali, a trained radiation therapist who taught the subject at MCC before leaving to open the Farmington school. Chirayu is a project manager at ESPN. The couple came across theCod- erSchool largely by chance. They al- ways wanted to start a business, and their young son — now four — in- spired them to look into after-school enrichment programs. Chirayu eventually stumbled on theCoderSchool through a simple Google search. Intrigued, the Shahs started talk- ing to Lynn, attended an open house at a Long Island branch, and eventu- ally went to California to visit several branches there. "We saw the excitement of the kids, the parents, and we met the owners, and then we met the CEO, and that's when it really started to feel like, 'OK, this is probably something that we can do,' " Vaishali said. There were other indicators, too. Compared with other children's after-school edu- cation franchises they researched, theCoderSchool's upfront costs weren't as high. The all-in cost esti- mate for opening one school is about $100,000, Vaishali said. When Chirayu did the math, theCoderSchool was likely to make them profi table faster than other franchises he researched. There was also limited competition. Shortly after opening theCoder- School in Farmington, the Shahs re- ceived multiple emails from parents in far-fl ung towns expressing inter- est in the school, Vaishali said. "We've had parents from other towns, further, Glastonbury, Man- chester, South Windsor, we've had parents from other towns ask us, 'can you open up a coder school near us?,' " she said. "We would love to open up more, it's all just going to depend on how this one does." Coding coach Jacob Quirk (left) works with a student at theCoderSchool. (Below) A coder tree depicts various coding languages.

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