Emily Starr’s road to entrepreneurship began with a simple question from her school principal. “Tell me how you use technology in your classroom.” After thinking about it, Emily realized she wasn’t using technology, and decided to do something about it.

Emily was a fourth grade teacher at Ekstrand Elementary School in DeWitt, Iowa. In the wake of ‘No Child Left Behind’ and high stakes testing, her school began implementing school-wide reading and math focus lessons. These short 10-15 minute daily mini-lessons focus on specific reading and math skills regularly taught in her fourth grade classroom and assessed on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

Emily started talking to other teachers and realized that they weren’t using technology, either. Looking around her school for technology that she could use, Emily found one math software CD that could be used, but no reading skills software. She turned to the Internet and found a game and a visual to support one of her lessons, but nothing else. She realized she hadn’t been using technology to support her curriculum because software CDs are expensive and become obsolete quickly, the technology wasn’t readily available, and she didn’t have the time to do extensive searches to find it.

Out of her frustration came the idea that developed into StarrMatica Learning Systems, an online resource for grade 3-6 students, teachers and parents.

Emily knew what she wanted her system to look like, but she had no idea how to turn an idea into a business, so she turned to the Eastern Iowa Small Business Development Center for help. She enrolled in “Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs”, an eight hour course offered by the SBDC that covers a broad range of entrepreneurial, financing and planning topics. After completing the course, Emily began weekly sessions with the center’s director, Ann Hutchinson, to implement her plan.

“I don’t think I’ve ever counseled an entrepreneur who was so driven to succeed,” said Ann. “The fact that Emily is a great teacher has made her a great student. She knows where she wants to go and she is determined to succeed.” In addition to her individual counseling sessions, the SBDC coordinated focus groups for Emily and helped her put together an advisory board.

Emily took a one year sabbatical from teaching to allow her the time to complete her online lessons, formulate her business and market the product. The StarrMatica web site contains entertaining, animated reading and math lessons to support virtually every concept taught in 3-6 grade reading and math curriculums. Each StarrMatica lesson contains a teaching, practice and assessment module and the entire system has 64 reading and math modules. In addition, a teacher resource section is available, with comprehensive lists of the best resources available to support each specific lesson topic.

StarrMatica is sold to schools on an annual per-student subscription, allowing lessons to be accessed from any computer with Internet access. This allows students to access the lessons in the classroom, in the library, or at home. Each lesson is designed to be an interactive, educational experience for students as well as a unique teaching tool and resource for teachers and parents. All lessons are tied to state and national standards.

Emily continues to meet with the SBDC and gives the SBDC credit for where she is today. As she said at a recent presentation to the center’s Advisory Board, “I wouldn’t be standing here today if it weren’t for the SBDC.”