My STEM Workshops Make $60K/Year [Update]
This is a follow up story for VSTEAM Education. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hi everyone, I’m Vidura and I am the Founder of VSTEAM Education (the name of my business was derived from Vidura, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths). I hope my story will help to give you some motivation and inspiration and that I can share what I have learned through my experiences.
During my career, I have gained various life experiences ranging from dancing to engineering. One of Vidura’s great passions was street-dance. My first part time job in my late teens was as a Retail Assistant but it didn't work out. I then went on to work as a Kiosk Assistant at football clubs and a Bartender at the Royal Albert Hall and Sadler's Wells Theatre. The various roles I covered helped to introduce me and cross paths with a variety of people.
I knew I wanted an active life rather than an office job but leaving a good salary to earning minimal was not easy. I subsequently took on a role in children's entertainment and also some supply teaching roles.
I felt a real passion towards advancing Society in using Science & Technology in the hope of building an abundant sustainable world for everyone and from this my company VSTEAM Education was born.
Today, I run a start-up education Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) service for schools. I also work as a professional speaker (covering events such as the Imperial College and London School of Economics graduation speech, University of Groningen).
My business runs various STEM School Workshops across the UK. My other interest is in coding and I built the www.vsteamedu.com website from scratch. This takes away a lot of the admin work required by schools.
Another venture has been my recent launch of a new platform for providers to list their school workshops and trips. Teachers can currently explore over 100 diverse ranges of curriculum-based, inspiring workshops in schools provided by various workshop providers. We plan to expand this directory service to include more services in the future.
Our flagship products are Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics STEAM workshops. Our customers are mainly Primary, Secondary schools and we also deliver events to other educational providers.
In summary our services are:
- STEM Workshops (including Dance and Coding Workshops)
- STEM After-School Clubs
- Speaker services for schools/universities (e.g. mental health, STEM etc.)
- Other STEM Events including school residentials
- Online Directory for Advertising for School services such as workshops and trips
We are currently hitting $42k and with the pre-confirmed STEM Clubs for next year are projecting a $60k turnover.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
A huge milestone has been the completion of the platform I have designed for the School Services Directory for advertising for external School providers. Currently advertisers can promote school workshops and trips using our Directory.
Another factor for growth is the STEM Afterschool Clubs which have really taken off in the last year with many of the schools inviting us back for the next terms. First Education have also confirmed events for 2024/2025.
We have added some additional workshops e.g. These include:
Our updated website is now ranking on top of Google for many search queries related to school services such as workshops and trips and driving more traffic daily.
Tools we depend on and recommend:
- Google Cloud Services for hosting our management platform and the public website - We love Node.js
- Postmark - Awesome and simple for all mailing and marketing tasks - highly recommended!
- Screaming frog SEO spider
- Google analytics
- Google PageSpeed
- Neil Patel’s material for SEO
- MoneyManager Ex - Free money manager tool for tracking finances
- HMRC Free Payroll
Below are some example marketing emails we distributed that worked well.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
Our biggest challenge has been staff who are dedicated and experienced in the field of education.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
We found that the income can greatly fluctuate during the academic year from our STEM workshops and events. This is part of the reason we expanded to include an online revenue via advertising and directory service to provide stability. The STEM clubs have also assisted in this to provide regular income.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
We want to solidify our current services to build a well-established business with several sources of educational stream. We want to be recognized as a top educational provider.
Where can we go to learn more?
- Website (our STEM Workshops)
- School Workshops (Directory Service)
- School Trips (Directory Service)
- Speaker Services
