![]() Lloyd and Bookey had about four weeks after their Shark Tank episode aired to prepare for ALA, and in that short span, they made a business pivot, developing a platform they called Beanstack. We knew nothing about that conference, but it was clear that with so many people expecting us to be there, maybe we should go.” “They started asking us just by chance, would they see us at the American Library Association conference, which that year was in Las Vegas. “From the beginning, the people who were charged with helping us pick the books to send the families and using the combination of technology and human curators were all librarians,” Lloyd says. But with all the traffic that came to the site, nobody bought that consumer product, and that was a clear sign to us that it was probably not going to work.” Zoobean’s next step was driven by librarians. “He’s been excellent and has been with us over the years. “When we went on Shark Tank just a month into the company, we got a $250,000 investment from Mark Cuban,” Lloyd says. That exposure caught the eye of a producer for ABC’s reality show Shark Tank. Zoobean got off the ground when it won a competition run by startup accelerator NewME and was subsequently featured on NewME’s social media accounts. The initial concept for the business was a consumer-facing book delivery service with curated children’s books and suggested apps based on a family and child’s background and interests. “We often called him Cashew and then Cashew Bean,” Lloyd says, which became Zoobean. In 2014, Beanstack-the flagship product of reading-centric startup Zoobean-joined the fray and has been on the rise ever since.Įxperienced educators based in Washington, D.C., husband-and-wife team Felix Brandon Lloyd and Jordan Lloyd Bookey cofounded Zoobean in 2013, giving the company a moniker inspired by a nickname they used for their young son, Cassius. ![]() Some libraries created their own digital tracking tools, while ed tech companies developed programs that libraries could license. But since the early aughts, many librarians have sought a more streamlined-computerized-method for their record keeping. ![]() Traditionally, summer reading was tracked via paper logs kept by kids and their parents or caregivers. But setting the parameters and requirements, and tracking kids’ participation and progress along the way, presents its own challenges for librarians. The most familiar elements of summer reading programs are reading challenges that give participants rewards for meeting certain goals. ![]() And ed tech platform Beanstack is leading the way in helping librarians make their summer programs fun and engaging, as well as making them effective generators of important reading data. Though the goal of preventing a dip in children’s reading activity and skills over the summer months remains the same today, some aspects of summer reading programs look quite different in the digital age. Not quite-but they are the product of another century, first taking root in the 1890s as a way to keep school-age children reading and using public libraries during their summer breaks. These programs are such a staple that it may feel like they have been around forever. Preparations for summer reading programs are already well underway at libraries across the country. ![]()
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