Today, we’d like to introduce you to Jay Veal.
Hi Jay, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
My original background was in the IT, tech, and financial spaces. I worked at Microsoft, Baylor Healthcare IT, Verizon, ATT, T-Mobile, Wells Fargo, and more. Around 2008, I got a word from God while I was in the healthcare IT space, and he said, “You need to be educated.”
I didn’t know what to do with that and decided that if the Lord spoke it, I needed to follow his word. So, I left the tech space and went into education. I enrolled in an Alternative Certification program and got picked up by my alma mater, Townview Science & Engineering Magnet HS. I graduated at #3 in my class and was a freshman at 12 while graduating at the tail end of 16.
I ended up teaching a unique class called Fast Track Mathematics, which taught Freshmen 3 years of pre-AP math in one year. So, I would teach them Geometry, Algebra 2, and Precalculus all in one year. In my first year in education there, all my students got 100% perfect scores on the state exam. So, I knew that I must now be in the right place aligned with my life’s mission – to educate people. I ended up teaching another 3.5 years in the classroom.
After that, I was promoted to Math Instructional Coach. So, I coached/taught teachers for 3 years on campus and district levels across DFW. I was a district-level admin over 7 schools in Desoto ISD and a Math Interventionist working with SPED students and students who needed help in math severely. In addition, I was an Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at a University for 4 years.
In the middle of all this, I started INC Tutoring (later renamed INC Education) in the middle of 2015. I noticed a gap between what students were not getting in the classroom for support and what they weren’t getting outside the classroom for support. I started in Cedar Hill, TX, and knocked door to door for a year before expanding. We provide a holistic solution of influence around the students, which makes it close to impossible to fail and not do well.
We incorporate a complimentary consultation, including different stakeholders in the process of learning (teachers, counselors, coaches, parents, tutors), mentor our students, and then provide backend support after the tutoring is complete. BIPOC community students are more than 3 years behind in Math and English content areas per the pandemic.
INC defines success in these key activities: tutoring, test prep, quality of tutoring services, building relationships, and impact. So far, we have a 95% success rate of students earning AS and BS in over 55 content areas company-wide for over 11,000 students now. The next stage looks like trying to take our current approach, model it, and scale it by transitioning the company to an ed-tech firm.
We are now an over $1.8M brand, the #1 AA-owned private education and tutoring brand in the country, and an 18-time award-winning brand. INC Education believes that true equity has to place students at an equal playing field when it comes to their academic journeys. Within INC Education, students can access high-quality tutoring services from people who look like them, walk like them, and talk like them, coupled with a 360-degree holistic circle of influence built around them.
We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Building an education company has not necessarily been a smooth road. Due to me already being in the education space made it easier to transition, however.
Being that I am one of the top black mathematicians in DFW, I felt that there were some things missing that students still need academically that I could work to solve.
One difficult thing in building an education/tutoring brand is ensuring you are hiring the right team that is on the same bus, going in the same direction, and having the same mission. It is one thing to hire people for your organization. But are they going to quit soon? Will they stick with things? Do they believe in the vision and mission of the company?
So, I would say that was the first challenge. Then, it was figuring out how I was going to span out operations and a solid pricing structure. With the help of my COO, I had to change the way we paid consultants from a percentage model to a standard rate model based on their experiences. That allowed our profit margin line to get steeper and keep us from flatlining.
The next challenge was to market well enough to grow at that time. I then ended up meeting, at the time, the Sr. Producer for the Tom Joyner Morning Show and Steve Harvey Show and discussed education with them. This allowed me to tutor their kids and get featured in Black Enterprise.
From there, I ended up being a contributing writer for BE on education and credit/financial literacy topics. Then, we ended up getting into more media, including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, TEDx, and Rolling Out (Atlanta). NBC, and more. So, media wasn’t an issue after a few years.
Now, we are looking to scale, and that is the current challenge. We have to innovate to come out stronger, faster, and better in our lane.
I appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We create educational experiences through holistic, prescriptive private tutoring supported by a 360-degree environment of success that closes opportunity gaps, achievement gaps, and belief gaps.
In addition, we provide educational services for primarily BIPOC families who need an educational brand that mentors students, includes different stakeholders in the community, provides high-quality tutoring, and cares about student success at the highest levels. We specialize in education and tutoring services holistically from Kindergarten to PhD level.
I am most proud of our team’s accomplishments over time and being able to assist over 11,000 students achieve academic excellence. In addition, I am proud to be in a place where these students can walk through the country and impact the world positively through the services we provide.
What sets us apart from others is how we build solid relationships with families in ways that no one else can, to the point where we have students that we build up from elementary and middle school through college graduation. Our support of students is unmatched, and so is the quickness of results.
In addition, I own The Jay Veal Brand, a consulting brand focused on business, credit, and education consulting.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I don’t think there has been a stroke of luck in building this business. I think we have been lucky to have certain clients that we have been able to come across.
However, we have put in very hard work to get to where we are and will continue to work hard to excel and scale to the next levels. We are nowhere near where we want to be and should be. So, we have a lot of work to do. We are blessed to have accomplished what we have so far, though.
In life, I consider myself to be lucky to be a father to a beautiful 3-year-old daughter, Gianna, who is my pride and joy. She keeps me on my toes, and as a first-time parent, it is a journey, let me tell you.
Pricing:
- Elementary Content $55-$60
- Middle School $65
- High School $70-75
- High School AP $80
- Collegiate $80-85
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.inceducationllc.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/thetoptutor
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/INCEducationLLC
- Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/inctutoring
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/INCEducationLLC
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5YsYoGtyw0wOuFNIwOqfJw
- Other: http://youtu.be/Q3TyVZfmNRY
