Mathnasium: Why Math?

We’re Ruby and Benedict of Mathnasium of Fort Lee. It will be two years since we opened Mathnasium and four years into our adventure in entrepreneurship. We’ve created a keepsake photobook chronicling those years. It’s in our center for viewing. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did putting it together. The book is full of pictures and very few words. So we thought some background of our very early starting years will color the initial pages; the time before we got to know you!

Ruby started in the finance branch of AT&T, and I in the Bells Labs research branch. We’ve occasionally floated the idea of being independent, but never took the leap. Corporate America with its steady paycheck and medical insurance is just much simpler. Our second child came along during the AT&T breakup. Ruby took advantage of the severance package and became a full time stay at home mom. When our children entered the school system, Ruby eased herself back into the workforce, starting as an aid in the school to keep a motherly eye on our children. As our children grew up, the teaching bug bit her. Ruby went back to college and obtained her Masters in Public Administration and Education; and a teaching license. She was working long hours creating learning plans, performing tests and giving assignments. There was endless need for administrative reporting; and of course answering parents. After my work, I helped her with the complex administrative systems. It was exhausting.

In late 2012, I was searching for some math help for our second. Being tremendously busy, we did not have time and energy to face a recalcitrant teen -- that is why we understand it’s more efficient to turn to experts, like the math experts at Mathnasium! I had stumbled onto Mathnasium and the wonderful curriculum made sense! I resurrected the idea of starting our own business. Why not turn that effort and energy Ruby put into teaching to our own Mathnasium? Ruby was skeptical, but I did the research and convinced her. Meanwhile, we passed our first test by teaching our child -- who now helps in the summer teaching using the Mathnasium Method(TM)!

We invested in our Mathnasium but the entire process of finding the store and then waiting for it to be built took 2 years! For fun and giggles, [as of August 2016] Google street view still shows our store as a vacant lot.

We learned a lot in the intervening years. Not every lesson was cerebral. When it took too long to get the keys to the store, we lost our carpet installer and interior finisher. So upon receiving the keys, in one weekend working day and night, we carpeted the entire store ourself! Fortunately stick-on tiles turned out to be easy except for the edges. Since tiles don’t fit exactly at the edges, being mathematical, we calculated, double checked, and triple checked the best possible carpet tile positioning, to minimize the cuts and waste. We were so precise that we saved on whole boxes of carpeting. The carpet looked so good that we loathed the idea of stick-on baseboards. The next weekend, we bought real wooden baseboards and borrowed a miter saw. Again our first time but the baseboards look fantastic. We calculated, double checked, and triple checked, and made so few mistakes that we saved on material. What little that was left over became a picture frame around the electrical panel; thus converting an eyesore in the middle of the room into an attractive and functional magnet board! At Mathnasium, we try to instill the patience of strategic planning and checking because we know how fruitful it is.

Most of the furniture is sourced from Ikea. The beautiful sharp edges give that spiffy modern look. But as parents, the idea of kids running around and bumping into pointed cornered tables did not sit well with us. At considerable expense, we custom ordered tables from a restaurant supplier because we wanted safe rounded padded edges. We also custom sized the tables to maximize each student’s space while minimizing unusable space. We think they serve their job admirably -- being kid-friendly and kid-resilient, while keeping our small store spacious! Solving problems; and maximizing and minimizing systems are familiar mathematical themes.

We had to time our purchases to meet vendor deadlines and sales. The table tops arrived 8 months before the store was completed. Ikea furniture was purchased incrementally during specific sales. Fortunately, the landlord allowed us to store furniture in the store while it was being built -- because our home was full of Mathnasium supplies! Our book has a picture showing a relatively [to the space] small pile of boxes. Almost all the furniture in our store was expanded from that pile!

Once, there was an especially large Ikea sale that also included discounting the price of the Ikea meal off the furniture cost. As mathematicians, we know how to maximize savings! We estimated that if we had our entire family -- and grandma too -- for dinner, that we could effectively eat enough to cover the entire furniture cost! It was an amazing experience! Maximizing our food budget to cover the furniture was an effort. To call Ikea meals affordable is an understatement. We had the antithesis of a budget. We were forced to go upscale with the crawfish, pickled herrings and smoked salmon gravlax -- twice over. We triple splurged on dessert and drinks. Honestly, I really just prefer a simple dish of Swedish meatballs and mash.

Goal achieved, we waddled through the cavernous warehouse and with great effort located all the pre-budgeted items. We now know the thrill of the extreme couponers! But we made one enormous miscalculation. We were five adults total, oversized with food, and one tiny Prius. Wow, that is one amazingly car! Kudos to Toyota who engineered so much space inside a tiny frame -- engineering is like magic but achievable to all muggles through math! We now know how so many clowns can fit in a car. We stacked people on people, wrapped pillows around people, and layered furniture around the padded people-pillow stacks. I had barely enough room for steering. Mathematicians make mistakes too, but we know how to spot and fix them!

After training our staff and a soft opening, we threw open our doors to the public on October 18, 2014 for our first TriMathlon competition. This coming October will be our 2nd anniversary. Ruby does a masterful job of attracting and nurturing students. Our first few students are still with us! This June, I took the plunge to devote myself full time to Mathnasium. We enjoy it because our efforts are efficiently devoted to teaching your children.

Contact:
Ruby Yao and Benedict Zoe
www.mathnasium.com/fortlee
201-969-6284 (WOW-MATH)
fortlee@mathnasium.com
246 Main St. #A
Fort Lee, NJ 07024

Happily serving communities of Cliffside Park, Edgewater, Fort Lee, Leonia, and Palisades Park.