What I would do differently if I launched a microschool tomorrow.
I have launched two schools. Both are still open. Both took longer, cost more, and ran hotter in the first ninety days than I planned for. If I were starting a third microschool tomorrow, here is the short list of what I would do differently.
I would name the school last, not first.
The first time, I spent weeks on the name. It felt like the biggest decision. It was not. The biggest decisions were the tuition target, the calendar, and the parent I said no to in July. I would name the school in week eight, after the concept and the target family were on paper.
I would price for enrollment ramp, not for a full room.
Both times, my first budget assumed a full first-year cohort. Both times, the room filled slower than the pro forma said it would. Now I model three scenarios — twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four — and I plan operations against the middle one. If the top scenario hits, everything is upside. If the bottom hits, the school still opens.
I would write the parent handbook before the website.
The website is the shiny part. The handbook is the school. When the handbook is written first, the website almost writes itself, because you already know what the school actually promises. When the website is written first, the handbook becomes a scramble in August — usually by the founder, at 11 p.m., in a coffee shop.
I would define the founder's week in writing.
The unglamorous part of the first year is that the founder does everything — admissions, insurance, hiring, family communication, curriculum, the physical plant. Without a written weekly rhythm, all of it happens reactively, which means the parent-facing work suffers. I would put the founder's week on paper before day one, and I would defend it.
I would use AI to accelerate the work, not to replace the judgment.
AI accelerates the work under expert human judgment. Second time around, I used it to draft admissions letters, compare state ESA rules, and pressure-test the enrollment math. It saved weeks. What it did not do — and should not do — is decide which family belongs in the school, or how to talk to a parent whose child is struggling. Those calls are still the founder's.
If you are a founder mid-launch, this is the kind of thinking the weekly blog keeps returning to — the small choices that decide whether a school makes it to year two. Subscribe below and I'll send one short piece a week, direct from the workshop.