Founder Spotlight

We share our members’ achievements; the challenges they overcame, and the advice they want women entrepreneurs everywhere to know.

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Meet Wiz Kid Learning Founder and CEO Kyla Bolden. “When I graduated preschool, we all had to say what we wanted to be when we grew up and I said I wanted to be a boss,”. That spirit remained with her, motivating Bolden to learn to code and build her own websites as a child in her bedroom growing up in Bermuda.

Later on, as a student at Tufts University, Bolden helped start an organization called the Tufts Business Opportunity Council, which helped women and minorities find jobs in corporate America. The experience helped her realize the students who were finding internships and jobs most easily were the ones with computer science backgrounds. “I had taught myself how to code and develop websites, so I knew these skills could be learned by kids. It gave me the idea to create a program in which kids can pursue these skills and their passions from a young age.”

Read on for our Founder Spotlight interview Wiz Kid Learning Founder Kyla Bolden

Your company started as an in-person coding camp but you now offer a variety of programs online. What drove that change?

It was important for me to take the business online because it just wasn’t scalable doing it in person. The programs were going really well, but I wanted to impact more students. I didn’t want students to not be able to come to our program because they couldn’t get a ride. I didn’t want to not be able to employ in structure because of where they’re located.We started that process about two-and-a-half or three years ago. Now we work with over 20 cities, we have many partners, and students from over 30 countries, in cities, suburbs and rural areas. We also recently posted a seed round and raised a little over $1 million. 

What were some of the tactical decisions you made as you transitioned your programs from in-person to online?

When we were in person, we were focused on creating a really awesome learning environment for kids. We played music, we played games, and we would do a lot to make it a welcoming, inspired and happy space so I really wanted to make sure that that amazing experience was translated online. We wanted to be able to give kids autonomy over what they're learning as well as give their parents insights into what they're doing so one of the decisions we made early on is to build our own learning platform with an integrated video interface that we also built. That allowed us to own the learner's entire journey and keep adapting to feedback from our parents. We've seen it pay off because rather than have our curriculum be crafted around the technical solution, we crafted a technical solution around our curriculum—and the curriculum is the most important part of what we do.

What do you hope the students get out of your programs?

I want to create a community of like-minded learners who are able to work with each other, grow with each other and be able to pursue their passions in a comfortable and uplifting environment. I don't want any kid to miss out on key technical skills because they aren’t offered at their school or they don't have the money to learn them. That’s one of the reasons why Wiz Kid has both a consumer model and a partnership model. My goal is to continue to find partners and expand so that no matter where you are, you’re able to take quality classes that teach you the skills you need for the future. 

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced as a business and as a founder? 

When you're building a tech company it's hard to not have funding at first—especially as a business run by a woman of colour, we are really underfunded. So we bootstrapped a lot until we got to this point where we've just recently raised a million dollars. That was definitely a challenge in the beginning but it helped in a way because we had to refine our business model and with that people came organically.

How do diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility factor into your business outlook?

Diversity is definitely in the DNA of what we do. When I started building my company it was a no-brainer to make it accessible and inclusive—as a black woman that was always going to be something that was considered from the beginning. We've also always tried to make sure that our instructors reflect the students and reflect what we want the tech world and leadership to look like. So we make sure we have a focus on having people of colour, especially women, to make sure that all the kids that we teach see themselves in our instructors, and understand that diversity has its place within tech.

What advice would you give to other women in our network?

The whole journey of being an entrepreneur is a little bit nonlinear—it takes a lot of iteration and time. I think it takes more trial and error than most people expect. It's important to just put in the work and then eventually you'll see the fruits of your labour. You also need to make as many connections as possible—if you connect with enough people, if you contact enough potential customers or potential investors, if you do it enough, one of them will stick. You have to consistently do that outreach because that will really help you. 

Thank you, Kyla! And thanks to Torys LLP, for sponsoring CWN Diverse Women Entrepreneur Initiave.

If you’d like to share your journey with the CWN community, please contact Armita at amaroufi@cwnsv.com