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August 18, 2023 • 17 mins
This episode of CEOs You Should Know features Julia Rivard Dexter, Co-Founder & CEO of Shoelace Learning.

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(00:00):
Yeah. I grew up in northernOntario, North Bay. My origin story
is so connected to the company becauseI really struggled in school. In grade
four, I was in the dumbclass. The teachers called it the dumb
class. It was the three foursplit, the only girl in the class,
and it was because I struggled withreading. I had a speech impediment,

(00:20):
and I think as a kid,I just really wanted to be seen,
and that became a bit of atheme in my life. I stopped
being interested in school at that pointand I started focusing on sports, and
so I started training really hard asa swimmer, and my coaches saw some
potential in me, which gave methis huge motivation to keep pushing hard.

(00:40):
So I swam until I was aboutsixteen and was in a pretty horrible skiing
accident which took me out of swimming. And discovered the sport of knuw kayak
later on in life, and Ibecame an Olympian in two thousand at the
Sydney Olympics. After retiring from sports, I wanted to do something else at
the on the world stage, somethingelse globally successful, and started my business

(01:06):
career from scratch and over the yearsbuilt technology companies, which led me to
the one that I'm in now.So I got inspired to get involved in
education technology specifically because I saw myson go through the same challenges at school
that I had had when he wasin grade four us the same time,
same challenges, and I really wantedto use my experience to help other kids

(01:30):
like my son master reading and dowell in school and just be seen.
And so that's what led us towhere we are today. Well, thank
you for sharing all that, andwe are here to talk about CHULACE,
and I'm very excited to talk toyou. I've got a daughter who's twenty
one, but I think any parentthat's listening to our conversation right now that
has children is going to be veryexcited about what you and your team do.
So before we get into the weedson CHULACE, why don't we talk

(01:52):
about what the mission statement is.We have a big mission. Ultimately,
we want to help future generations oflearners broaden their thinking so they can tackle
some of the world's big challenges.And the way we believe we're going to
do that is to improve literacy,comprehension, and critical thinking. And so
what we do in our games.It's a game based learning platform. But

(02:15):
what we do is we help kidsmaster their reading skills, their comprehension skills,
and then build the muscles for criticalthinking. All right, let's do
this. Let's get a little bitmore into the weeds. If somebody has
been introduced to Shoelace for the firsttime, who do you work with and
what exactly do you do. Wefocus on teachers because teachers have access to

(02:36):
kids in grades three to eight,So we're focused on delivering for kids in
grades three to eight. And teacherssign up to the program, they use
it in their classroom. And whathappens is kids play mobile games, mobile
games like the ones they would playat home on your phone, on your
iPad, and as they're playing mobilegames, content pops up that they have
to read and then they have toanswer questions about that content to go back

(02:59):
to the game. It's almost likeif you're playing a mobile game and an
AD pops up. Instead of anAD, it's learning content, and it's
learning a content that your teacher wantsto see if you can master. So
it's basically delivering assignments through mobile games. Parents use it as well at home.
A lot of kids want to playat home, which is great because
it encourages them to read while they'replaying games. You know, we're using

(03:20):
that screen time for good, butthat's the experience. The kids play the
game, they do the learning,and then teachers get diagnostic reports and skills
reports to show how the kids aredoing over time. So I like that
there's a lot of connection in thatwith parents and children, and you're connecting
a lot of dots there to allthe work that's been done and just not

(03:42):
giving somebody screen time. I didwant to circle back on something. We
have a lot of CEOs and alot of future CEOs and entrepreneurs that listen
to this series, and I'd loveto know the origin idea because you touched
on it a little bit early on, but maybe we could go more into
it because you obviously saw a holein the industry. You used your own
experiences, but as an entrepreneur startinga business, as we know it is

(04:03):
not easy. Now you've grown thisinto a worldwide company that we'll talk about
this a second, because it's justamazing about how far shoelaced a stretch,
But can you talk about that epiphany, that idea about what you did,
and you started with it. Ithought, you saw a hole in the
industry. I'm going to act onthis leap of faith, start a business.
Here we go, tell us thatstory. Sure, I think that

(04:26):
the really important piece of that partof the story is that so my son
had a problem. It was aproblem that I saw. It was a
problem I thought I could tackle withmy background and technology. But what I
did, and what led to ourearly success, was I put myself in
the classroom. I really wanted tounderstand what is the teacher experience, what
is the learner experience? And itwas very different than what I thought.

(04:46):
I wanted to build a technology thatwould help kids be strong readers. It
was as simple as that. Butwhen I was in the classroom, what
I was seeing was it teachers werejust managing behavior. Most of the time.
They were really struggling to teach,and it was because kids were checking
out of their education. They weren'tinterested in their learning. They weren't interested
in you know PDFs that had beenprinted out that they had to answer questions

(05:08):
on. And no wonder, thesekids are being delivered the most exceptional you
know content outside of the classroom,and their bar is high for they're what
they're experiencing. So immediately I gotinterested in how we could use games to
motivate kids to want to drive theirown learning. But I don't think I
would have got there, definitely notas quickly had I not seen the real

(05:30):
problem that teachers were facing in theclassroom. And and I really advise anyone
who's looking at tackling a problem toreally get into that problem. You know
firsthand, understand it, and that'sit's just critical to being able to come
up with the right solution. Soyou started the company it looks like maybe
about nine years ago now, andI'm wondering if you knew you'd be where

(05:50):
you are today, because you needto share this with people starting this business
in Canada. Now, I knowyou're probably in North America, but you
work in a lot of country.Reason that makes sense because you're online,
so everybody has access to it.But tell us a little about the growth
about it. Everybody wants to havea sustainable business, but you also and
under a decade, have grown thisbusiness too. Yeah, we have over

(06:14):
six million users in over one hundredand sixty countries. Now, I started
wanting to help one kid, butI always had this vision and passion to
scale. I wanted to be ableto scale this at the global level,
and that impacted how we how wedesigned our business models. So since scale
was important to me, we decidedaccessibility was critical, and so we built

(06:36):
this to be a freemium product soanyone could use it and then they could
upgrade to a paid subscription when theysaw the value. And that allowed us
to really witness this huge amount ofgrowth really really quickly. And I think
something we've always looked for as ateam is this idea of market pull.
You know, not trying to pushyour product to the market, but where

(06:59):
are you seeing people are picking itup and wanting to use it without you
even telling them about it, withoutyou even kind of you having to train
them on it, and really leaninginto those parts of the product to really
guide your roadmap. Yeah, themarket poll is critical and something we're always
looking for as we grow the company. If I could ask, because once
again you're very entrepreneurial, the growthis extraordinary. A lot of people are

(07:23):
going to say, how on earthdid Julia get in that many countries and
that short amount of time? Sowhat did you do to market the company?
And hook onto this great idea thatyou have in Cheelace, it was
referrals. It's about the market pollit's about building something that's working for your
users and working exceptionally well, sowell that they want to share it.

(07:45):
We happen to be in education,and teachers loved, you know, teaching,
They love sharing things that are working. So we are in a market
that has exceptional opportunity in terms ofreferral. But that's absolutely how we got
there. In the first several yearswe spend a time on advertising or marketing,
it was all referral. As weget more sophisticated, we get more
sophisticated about our channels to market.But at the beginning, it was really

(08:09):
just one person telling another Julia,I know you have a great team with
you, but I'm also curious aboutdoing research, working with teachers and whether
it's psychologists, literacy people, youknow, book writers, whatever it is,
because there has to be all thesedifferent tentacles that connect back to you
about the latest thing, what todo, getting the feedback, making sure
the execution is there. Can youtell us about all the different kind of

(08:31):
education that you and your team doand who you work with to get to
where you are now with HULAS.Yeah, that's always been so important and
from day one was something that wereally focused on. You know, as
an athlete, the only way youget to be as good as you are
is by building a team around youof people who were world class, and
we did the same thing with thiscompany. From day one. We found

(08:52):
people who were building games for educationthat we're best of class researchers and literacy
best of class, teachers, bestof class, and now we're looking at
people who are understanding how to builddata models best of class, you know,
understanding the importance of diversity and inclusionand cultural responsivity, best of class.
And it's always about pulling those individualsin and getting them to contribute to

(09:16):
how we're building. So our companyis mainly engineers, engineers and product people.
We have a growth team and thenwe're always bringing in experts and consultants
to help inform us on projects thatare important to us at the time.
And I find that way of growingis always successful. You're a small company,

(09:37):
we're only twenty, but we alwaysbring in people who help us be
bigger and better by bringing their expertise. Julie, I also like to ask
our leaders and CEOs about the coolthings that are happening with a company.
Maybe sharing a good story, becauseI'm sure you have handsfuls of that,
especially maybe some of the countries whereaccess isn't as great as we have the

(09:58):
luxury here in North America. Let'sput a pin in a great story just
for a second. I'll let youthink about that. But I want to
ask you about challenges because I know, as an entrepreneur and as a co
founder and CEO of a company thatis doing very well right now, there
are still challenges out there. Whatare they currently? I'd say the biggest
challenge as an innovation company is theability to continue to invest in innovation,

(10:22):
I think especially when markets are challenging, right So we're in the in a
phase of challenging markets kind of acrossthe board of education. Technology is no
different, and continuing to invest inin innovation is so critical to a company
like ours. But it feels scary, right It feels scary at times because

(10:43):
you're also thinking about operational efficiency tomake sure you can you get as far
as you can. So I'd saythat's the biggest challenge right now is how
do we look at our different sourcesof income, whether it be revenue or
grants, or ways that we cankeep investing in innovation, you know,
pushing the needle in terms of tryingto be a best in class technology for

(11:03):
education, because there's so much roomto push and I don't want to get
stale. I don't want to getstatic. I want to make sure we're
always pushing. So i'd say thatthat would be one of the bigger challenges.
And I want everybody that's listening that'sa future entrepreneur. There's a good
lesson in there is that don't staypat on anything because it's easy to get
you know, lazy about things andtake for granted that everything's okay. You

(11:26):
always want to grow, and Ithink that's what Julie is talking about.
So Julie, that's a great lifelesson for everybody that's running a company out
there, to don't stand pat andkeep on growing, get out of your
comfort zone and grow the company moreand more and more. With that said,
I wanted to ask you, andI know it's not fair to ask
about maybe one great story, butI would like you to share maybe something
that there's either heartwarming or you saidto the team you know, we knocked

(11:48):
it out of the park that dayfor either that family, that school,
that city of something that was reallyspecial. Can you share maybe a story
or two with us, Sure,I've got two that comes to mind.
The first one was a teacher whocalled me a couple of years ago and
she was in tears, and shetold me that she had had a student

(12:09):
who was autistic, non responsive,non verbal, and our products built for
all kids, So it's built forkids who are high performers, but it's
also built for kids who are reallystruggling, and she hadn't been able to
get this student to respond to herat all. And she was crying because
that day she had opened up thegame and put it in front of the
student, and the student was ableto not only respond to the game and

(12:31):
answer questions, but they were answeringthem correctly, so she knew that the
learning had actually gotten through. Itmakes me almost emotional thing for it because
it was such a special moment.The other one that I I'd love to
highlight is it was kind of itwas a transformational piece and it was a
challenge. We got an email froma from a parent whose child was playing

(12:54):
the game and the question basically saidsomebody. It implied that somebody who used
a double negative I ain't no issomebody who's ill educated. And she had
a real problem with that because becausefrankly, it's not true. And so
she went on social media and itbecame almost a viral tweet, tweet,
you know, don't use this program, and it made us really reflect why

(13:18):
did that even get in there?Why had Because we build every piece of
our content, we review every pieceof our content, we didn't understand how
that got there, and we learnedby digging into it, it's actually a
piece of content that's used in theUS curriculum right now. And that made
us really kind of really question,is this what's right just to align just

(13:39):
to very specifically aligned to curriculum,or do we want to be better?
And we decided we want to bebetter, So we pulled down all of
our content at that point and westarted rebuilding the content historical studies, social
studies, and we did it witha lens of what we call JEDI,
you know, justice, equity,diversity, and inclusion to make sure that

(14:00):
we're being culturally responsive. And it'sbeen a really interesting exercise. It's been
years now of building content that webelieve as bests of class that brings in
lots of different perspectives. And thatis so critical because if we're trying to
teach critical thinking, you need toteach kids that their perspective matters, right,

(14:20):
that's the mirror they can see themselves, but also others have perspectives that
matter too. Those are the windowsin other ways of thinking, and that's
something our kids are really missing thesedays, especially as we get technologies that
are reinforcing kind of the same messageover and over again. We need to
help them broaden their thinking. Andthat's what we're committed to, is really

(14:41):
making sure that kids are learning ina way that they're challenged to think of
other perspectives and to recognize their ownmatters. So that was the other story
that I think, you know,truly transformational and has guided us and our
vision you know for the future.Well, thank you for sharing both of
those. NFIMA say, that wasa very bold move, and I think
there is another life less and forall leaders out there and entrepreneurs and people

(15:03):
to run companies, is that integritywas online for the company and you saw
it fit to go down and changeup and get better, right, right.
It was an opportunity. You know, we kind of got kicked in
the stomach a little bit, butwe should have been and we could address
it and be better, and wedid, and I tell you it motivates
every single one of our team membersto know that we're building, right,

(15:24):
I bet it. Thanks for sharingall of that very cool stories. I
did want to ask you about thefuture, and it's very clear that you're
growing. You continue to not onlybe sustainable, but the growth is there.
What's the plan going down the roadfor Shoelace? What other things do
you have in mind that you wantto bring to the table. Well,
very simply, we'd like to attractten million new users in the next couple
of years. We're also building outour assignment library what I was just talking

(15:48):
about in terms of content that showsin many perspectives, and to do that,
we're working with communities to publish theirstories. So we're getting communities to
tell their stories and our curriculum teamis writing questions around those stories and that's
how we're helping broaden the context forlearners. So those are some big pieces
that we're focused on right now,but really the reach is very important.

(16:11):
To me, I want to makesure that we are growing and continuing to
grow and getting in the hands ofas many kids as we can support.
So you know, ten million newyearsers. So if anyone's listening and they
have kids in grades three to eight, it's a platform that can help them
and that they'll love so well you'retalking when you're talking to iHeart, so
people will be listening, Julie,And I'm very excited, and I think

(16:32):
you're going to get to that goalbecause it really is amazing what you have
and I just love what you andyour team are doing for everybody worldwide.
And as we put a bow inour conversation, I know it's probably hard
to just talk about one thing,but if there's maybe one or two takeaways
that you would like our listeners togo away when it comes to Shoelace,
what would it be That there isa great opportunity for kids to be engaging

(16:55):
on mobile devices in games and learningand strengthening their literacy, strengthening their ability
to comprehend and becoming strong critical thinkers. And it's not a nice to do,
it's a must do. It's somethingthat we need to do for our
future generations. And so yeah,I encourage everyone to check it out.
And I know that most of ourlisteners have already googled and saw exactly where

(17:18):
you are. But for the onesthat happen, maybe social media channels you
might be on, and of coursethe website what is that, Yeah,
Shoelace learning dot com outstanding. Well, listen, this has been a tree,
Julia. I love to talk topeople like you that come up with
a great idea but then execute itand it really takes a lot of intestinal
fortitude, hard work, taking aleap of faith and chance out there,

(17:40):
and you've grown into something just extraordinary. So it is our pleasure to talk
to you. Continue success, andthank you so much for joining us on
CEO. As you should know,we really appreciate your time. Thank you
so much.
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