Creator Camp

How My Summer Camp Business Made $1.3M in 3 Months

June 28th, 2025

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About
Business

Kai Forman

Founder, Creator Camp

$100K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Creator Camp

creatorcamp.org

from Austin

started January 2021

$100,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

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Who are you and what business did you start?

Hi there! My name is Kai Forman! I'm one of the co-founders of Creator Camp, a summer camp that transforms how kids engage with technology by shifting them from consumers into creators.

Creator Camps primary customer is the suburban mom.

We are unique because recently we were even featured on Shark Tank Season 16 Episode 5! We are also young (25 year old) co-founders, in a very old school industry. We are approaching camps with a very technology first mindset which is not what our competitors are doing.

This summer we made 1.3 million dollars revenue for 3 months of camp.

My image

How do you come up with the idea for Creator Camp?

I worked for a afterschool coding education company in Australia and realised that students want to learn about creative media more than coding. Living in the U.S. for 10 years I knew that there was a much bigger summer camp market for this. The aha moment was when we sold out our first summer in Katy, Texas, and added extra camps to keep up with demand.

I used to be a YouTuber, and got up to 140,000 subscribers making illusion and mindtrick videos. This was cool, but very solo, and there was no interfacing with my audience. My co-founder Cazden, worked as a videographer for Tesla and Jacky worked for a design company. We all had creative backgrounds and all our skillsets melded well to be able to make Creator Camp what it is.

We validated our idea by just doing it. Who cared if it failed.

How did you launch Creator Camp and get initial traction?

We had no marketing budget our first year, so I absolutely bombarded every mom and community group on facebook to advertise the camp.

The first camps were a learning experience, it was like getting thrown in the deep end with no floaties. We had little to know teaching experience, but we had a passion for what we were teaching. The parents and kids loved the camps though! We had to add a few extra sessions to that first summer to accomodate demand. I wouldn't change a thing about that first summer.

i remember our first sale came in and we were so pumped, I was in australia teaching at my other job at the time and we all got on a call to rave about this one sale!

Over the past 5 years of running this, the most important lesson I have learned is that hiring the right people is ultra important. On one end of the spectrum, one absolute A player can make the company absolutely cook, while one person with a bad attitude cooks the company.

What was the growth strategy for Creator Camp and how did you scale?

To get more customers, we try to create amazing customer experiences in our existing base. One cool thing we do is give parents a "Friday challenge" in our newsletter. It doesn't directly advertise our camps, but our parents look forward to each Friday, and it indirectly creates a positive brand image for us. For our students, we have an in-camp economy, "superpowers" they can use during camp and ultra fun curriculums. lastly, staff are given an appreciation budget, and we compensate them really fairly. All these extra improvements contribute to a great experience for all.

Does it work? yes, and it's good for the soul. Nobody get's screwed.

What were the biggest lessons learned from building Creator Camp?

One mistake we made early on was we would step in too much whenever there was an issue. For example, if there was a wifi issue, instead of letting the instructors figure it out themselves, we would throw ourselves at it. It's a band aid fix because the staff don't end up learning, and they end up relying on us. Sometimes the best thing is to let the issues happen, and let them sort it out.

100% of the opportunities we have had (Shark Tank, getting featured on the Washington Post) were just because we had no fear reaching out, we said yes and we did our best. Who cares if something doesn't work, you learn from that too.

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