Surviving off of maxed-out credit cards and four enrollments, newly formed startup Oddball Academy struggles to stay afloat.
The academy opened in August of this year and were relying on between 11 to 12,000 dollars from an investor.
“We were already 50% into the start up process, developed the LLC and bank account and all of those, getting the space buying equipment, the workstations,” said academy creator Liza Odom.
She said when the investor backed out, they relied on one thing.
“We just had faith that, you know, another investor would come up or, you know, we would be able to get more enrollments at this point,” added Odom.
Odom formerly taught special education in Putnam City.
She said her inspiration to start Oddball stemmed from her experience with her students in school but also from her son.
Odom said he came home one day and gave her a couple of pieces of trash and said, “Let’s make a robot.”
She said he wanted to do it again the next day but make it more complex.
Being an educator, Odom said she wanted to find a way to teach vocabulary, academic understanding of gears, simple machines and electronics. She said she also wanted to incorporate teaching fine motor skills.
Odom said she also wanted to create a way for children to learn by meeting them where they are developmentally and challenging them.
Carly Viviany has her two boys at the academy.
Viviany said she feels by attending a seed is being planted getting her boys ready for the future.
“Like the first class they were met where they are developmentally. But Liza wasn’t afraid to use, like, big words with them and using, like, the terminology of, like, engineering and like they’re working on mechanisms and machines right now,” said Viviani.
Odom said many kids are not prepared by the time they get to their Freshman year in college.
Odom added, “40% of students that start college by year two will drop out of a stem major.”
These are skills Odom said will help set them up for the evolving workforce in the next 25 years.
