Entering Transition

The next phase of birthing Behere is here!

There is this part in labor where you feel like you simply cannot go forward, the discomfort is too much, it’s too hard, and all the strategies you used to transcend the pressure up to this point are failing you. You cry out for someone to rescue you from this phase, but it’s all on you. It’s a lonely short moment followed by an empowering moment.

After a long day of hard discussions with my business and life partner, I was sitting on the couch processing everything and the word “Transition,” came to mind. I shouted “TRANSITION Matt! We’re in transition.”

It was this perspective that might have saved our bacon today, depersonalizing all the misspoken exchanges (mainly on my part), helping us see our situation from that 30,000 foot view.

I have often equated the birthing of Behere to that of birthing a baby. In our startup journey, we’re in the transition stage of labor. It feels too hard to complete at times, but there’s no turning back.

I’m currently yelling at the birth staff (a.k.a my husband) to please deliver me from this stage and fast!

The truth is, I am a very independent and stubborn woman who can do a lot of things on her own. I don’t often yield to my husband, much to his dismay. But the truth also is, I could not have launched Behere without him and his tremendous vision and brand / web master abilities.

I have demanded a lot of his time to develop this business, and that has come at a financial cost to our families livelihood.

Kai, just like his daddy. Free-thinking artist.

We’re at the critical juncture of reaching capacity in our classes and needing to figure out how to scale the business. We’re pursuing capital to help us scale successfully and train new teachers and improve our amenities at our first location.

I wish we set up Behere to operate 100% just on customer revenue, but there are always start up & material costs that require investment to get going and stay afloat. We launched on a prayer and a dream, so far we’ve been blessed.

I wish I knew how we could homeschool, run a home, and a business, and have other jobs, but we haven't figured it out. Open to ideas! So we lean deeper into the vision of Behere, to make it something that can drive value for more families and for ours. I get tired of talking about money, but soon it will be a non-issue so we can focus on the right things and start making Behere the best enrichment solution for families looking for new ways to work and learn.

Getting our Color on after learning about the Indian celebration of spring, Holi.

It can be hard to join forces with your partner and find a unified brand voice when you’re both quite different. He’s “too freedom warrior,” and I am “too much of a people-pleaser.” He has more edge, I don’t have enough. It’s ok to be different, but when you share a brand voice, we struggle to separate our individual identities to define and agree on our shared brand identity. So if you see Matthew’s emails and think “Yeaaaa buddy, right on!👊” or maybe “oh, he’s too much” - I am your raging moderate here to balance things out and keep things lukewarm, all the time. ✌️🙄Kosher queen.

All this to be said, he’s still my favorite business partner, an amazing husband, father and my favorite person to hang with. I miss him when he’s not home, and I also cherish our time apart. It’s weird. It’s hard.

So here we are, in transition, we’ve got a wait list of customers wanting to join our classes this spring and an even fuller demand for fall. We even have requests to form a micro-school and add more workshops during the week. There’s a lot to think about and develop. I guess we’re doing something right.

We’re not satisfied being a “mom and pop” enrichment drop off. We could stop at our Tu/Th offerings and never grow and it would still be beautiful. But then we’d only impact about 30 children, and there are way more families in need of the beauty we can provide.

The desire on our heart is to grow, not out of greed (we’re far from greedy and live with VERY little) but because we’re convicted in our purpose.

Through the launch of our Beta/MVP (minimum viable product), our brand positioning and opportunity has become clear. We’re not just a drop off “outdoor school,” we’re building a marketplace to pair land hosts, educators and families with these outdoor enrichment learning solutions.

Think of us like the “Airbnb” of drop-off enrichment. We’re proving the model now, and we know there’s got to be hundreds or thousands of other land owners, alternative educators, & families seeking a platform that can help connect all the dots. Anyone who deemed us a competitor, will be thinking of us a platform partner really soon.

We have a teacher epidemic. If you didn’t hear, teachers are leaving the school system in droves.

The biggest need is to find and equip more educators for the future of work. How do we find more educators who are willing to deprogram and reprogram their brains from an institutional way of teaching and start over with a whole-child, gentle, nature inspired approach? We know they’re out there, and looking for an escape and so we’re preparing a solution by developing a training academy to develop the next wave of educators and enrichment guides. F

For once in our entrepreneurial journey, Matt(hew) hasall the skills we need to develop this without having to hire any backend developer. He’s pretty talented. In our past, we’ve ideated apps and technology solutions that were dependent on another tech talent to come along and help us actualize the vision, but now we are the right and complete founding team to do it! Founder Fit Family! 🤘

I cannot do it alone, I must do it with him, he’s the wizard behind the curtain while I take all the glory out on the field. I just hope I can afford to keep him on the job. 😅

Here’s what’s next for Behere:

1. Finish our spring sessions strong prioritizing our first 24, inaugural students and families. They are our number one focus and I pray for wisdom every day on how to best serve these families. Without them, we’d be nothing. I am forever grateful to these humans.

2. Launch our Summer Life Skills Workshop Day Camps. We need camp counselors! Send me your teens. The planning and development of every new camp or workshop takes dozens of hours to write the program, recruit, interview, staff, market the class and do all the admin, then help run it. Phew!

3. Design, Develop and Launch a Behere Guide Training Academy

4. Design, Develop and Launch a Behere Enrichment Marketplace to find more Land & chapter hosts. (i.e. like the Airbnb of outdoor enrichment locations).

   1. The Moorpark/ Conejo Valley chapter proves this model works. Even 1/4 acre of off-grid / raw land can work).

5. Secure $22k more in capital so we can continue building the future of education at Behere, and not die or get divorced trying (J.K., kinda) 😬.

   The funds are allocated for these purposes and more:

   1. Better amenities at Conejo Valley location (ex: some landscaping, parent parking solution, waiting space for parents)

      1. with $75k we could build an entire co-working/adult space as originally envisioned.

   2. Design, Develop and launch our Guide Training Academy in the summer, so we can expand our staff-force and offer more workshops at our HQ spot and adjacent locations.

   Any amount helps. No contribution is too little. Investments of $500+ will receive a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) document from us — offering you a place on our company cap table.

We’re inspired by this outdoor coworking space in SF, the future of Behere will include a parent “being” space. We used to call the parent area - a “Co-working space” but really, do it’s a “Do-whatever-the-heck-you-want-space” while you don’t have your kids. Read, write, pay bills, zone out.

To the families who already invested, we are SO thankful to you.

To everyone else, will you join us in building the future of education and the future of work?

Thank you!

Much love to you all.

-Brooke Lawler

Co-Founder of www.behere.re

Brooke is a wife, mother, homeschooler, entrepreneur, and former corporate-advertising professional who helped dozens of brands find their unique voice and positioning. She worked with titans like Disney, Softbank Robotics, Sony Pictures, Apple and many telecom/ tech brands, but her absolute favorite work was (and is) helping small businesses and startups get going because they’re the most passionate and soulfully connected to the work. As owner and cofounder of Behere, Brooke understands this soulful connection even more and brings this passion for entrepreneurship to the program infusing elements of independent thinking, leadership and soft skills of entrepreneurship into the workshops provided.