Mark Van Wye loves to teach. Specifically, he likes to teach about teaching.
He once led a summer program for teens called School School that exposed the motivations of teachers, administrators and test makers to enable better performance.
Van Wye’s first job was teaching computer programming at an adult night school. He was 11 years old and the following year would start his first entrepreneurial venture: a two-way marketplace for schools to increase efficiency while reducing friction between students and teachers. For this endeavor he received an award from the Governor of Florida, usually reserved for superintendents and principals.
In high school, Van Wye divided his time between working in biomedical research labs and ghostwriting personal finance educational newsletters for Shearson-Lehman. He then received a grant from the Ford Foundation to conduct educational research with Easter Seals, using emerging technology. All this while studying neuroscience at Amherst College.
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After college, Van Wye worked in educational television, teaching classrooms and developing educational curricula for clients such as Microsoft, Disney and Nintendo.
Today, Van Wye has found tremendous success in his company, Zoom Room.
“I know it sounds a little meta, but we as franchisors teach franchisees how to teach their trainers, how to teach our customers, how to train their dogs,” says Van Wye.
How exactly did dogs get into the picture?
“The pivot of teaching children to dogs was surprisingly simple,” Van Wye said. “On the business side, there was an addressable market in the billions — an opportunity to own an entire category globally, one that had seen almost no innovation. But on the personal side, I think it was something else.”
It’s not uncommon for CEOs to talk about passion for what they do.
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“The most formative work I did for Zoom Room was developing curricula for millions of children through the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. I learned how to test and evaluate. I learned how to turn volunteers into skilled teachers. I learned that the most meaningful outcomes came from anything that led caregivers to spend more time with their children. And I learned that those children in disenfranchised communities who owned a family dog regularly outperformed their peers.”
Van Wye himself grew up with Snowy, a Standard Poodle.
“The reality is that not every child has loving parents, but having a dog provides people of any age — especially children — with the perfect melting pot to experience true unconditional love,” says Van Wye.
It’s no wonder Zoom Room’s staff uniform doesn’t even include his company’s name. It says, “Love. Unconditional.”
Zoom Room is unique. You cannot drop off your dog. You follow the lessons with your dog, but you are the student yourself.
“One time I was at this MTV Movie Awards and my Komondor, Clyde and I were called on stage and asked to describe Zoom Room. I hesitated a bit and said I was there from Zoom Room Dog Training, but, ‘We don’t train dogs. We train the people who love them.'”
And so the official motto of the Zoom Room was born.
One of Van Wye’s parallel goals for Zoom Room is to create a platform that celebrates teaching as a profession while also making dog training worthy of a serious career path.
Van Wye has leveraged decades of education knowledge to drive Zoom Room’s success. For example, working with differentiated learning became the franchise’s celebrated and lucrative Levels system, giving customers flexible schedules and the ability to progress at their own pace.
“Zoom Room is a dream come true for me because it revolves around my lifelong commitment to and belief in positive reinforcement. I even raised my son with this philosophy.” says Van Wye.
The successful results for Van Wye and Zoom Room are undeniable. The company entered 2020 with nine locations and today has 90 franchise agreements in 26 states. Van Wye even wrote the best-selling book on dog training, Puppy training in seven easy steps, as well as a puppy training book especially for kids. Zoom Room has more five-star reviews than any other dog trainer in the country, resulting in an NPS score of 90 for the company.
“I will not rest until Zoom Room is truly synonymous with dog training, not just here in the US, but worldwide,” says Van Wye.
Based on the model’s financial success and rapid trajectory, Zoom Room is the culmination of Van Wye’s lifelong love of learning and teaching.
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