Elizabeth Tweedale, founder and CEO of Cypher
Elizabeth Tweedale is the founder and CEO of EdTech startup Cypher, the coding school teaching kids from 5-14 years old how to code through creatively themed courses. Elizabeth founded Cypher in 2016 following her passion to get children to engage with tech from a young age. She’s a working mother, successfully published author, award winning entrepreneur and advocate for gender equality in education.
What were you doing before launching your business?
My husband and I launched our own business, GoSpace AI, where I was CTO. While a great experience, I did face many challenges that females in tech are also met with today. In an investment meeting, the boardroom refused to believe I was responsible for building the business’ technology as I was a woman and was refused investment.
I’ve always had an interest in tech. I worked within several leading architecture practices as a computational design specialist, working on Apple’s HQ in California along with other amazing buildings. Whilst in this role, I quickly realised that I progressed in my career because I had a good understanding of coding and that it is the foundation needed to be successful in all careers.
Getting involved in Tech is still a hot topic for women, what was the motivation for you?
I’m very much motivated by my experiences of not being acknowledged for being equal so I made it my mission to create Cypher to challenge the perception of coding.
The number of women in tech is increasing but it’s still really low with studies showing that it remains a male dominated profession. To make a real change, we have to start at the beginning and educate our children that tech is accessible to all. We’re making steps in the right direction - 50% of our workforce at Cypher is made up of working mothers and 84% are women.
How have you found your journey so far and what has been your greatest accomplishment?
Seeing our students develop their computational thinking and coding skills - children aged 5 to 14 - is the most rewarding part of the job. Knowing that we’re getting them future ready and equipping them with crucial skills makes it all worthwhile. We are also able to help our teachers. Since launch, we’ve trained over 70 teachers, upskilling them in both coding and teaching.
What has been the most challenging thing so far?
Running a business while looking after my children has been challenging, particularly over the last year with homeschooling. However, my children have always been a huge part of my career. I took part in interviews when my child was 5 days old and completed my masters and presented my dissertation with my 2 week old child over a decade ago! Including my children in my work has brought a degree of equilibrium to my professional life and I believe my career is stronger having built it around them.
You have created a business that is adaptable and progressive. What has that process been like for you?
Like many businesses, the pandemic forced us to pivot our model. Almost overnight, we switched to a completely online model, selling out all of our online courses within 48 hours. We changed our infrastructure, working closely with the tech team to accelerate our digitisation. As a result, over the past year, we have completed 20,000 hours of online teaching for over 2,500 students globally.
The digital transformation process has been eye opening. It has helped us to expand internationally, reaching children who we would not have been able to reach otherwise and has shown us that we can now run an effective hybrid education offering.
Who is your target audience?
Our target audience is two fold. Primarily, our target is parents. Essentially, they are concerned with their child’s education and development and it is important that we communicate clearly with parents how their child is progressing and what they’re learning, making it easy for parents to see a return on their investment.
Our students are of course the main focal point. I’m passionate about teaching children vital skills, encouraging curiosity and teaching them to communicate effectively. Ultimately, it’s their futures that we’re preparing them for and it’s paramount we make that process as enjoyable as possible along the way.
What advice would you give to fellow entrepreneurs stuck on mapping out a strong business model?
Don’t be afraid to start over. Each time you build on an idea, you are not starting from the beginning, but are building on what you have already created, so it will never be as hard as the first time. For example, when we were forced to pivot to an online model, it was a smooth process as we already had the necessary experience and learnings to apply to our new offering. And now, we are expanding our offering globally with a subscription offering - again feeling like we are starting over but building on the experiences of our previous successes and failures.
What plans do you have for business over the next two years?
We aspire to continue to grow and scale both across the UK and internationally. We have recently closed our Seed funding round of £422k in investment which will ensure we can effectively launch our subscription offering and expand further across the UK, into the US and globally.
With the launch of our subscription model, the aim of enabling more parents and children to be able to access Cypher education will come to fruition. The month-by-month instalment based model will lower the entry cost to Cypher and provide more accessibility to those who wouldn’t usually have access.
Overview of how your business works:
Cypher is a coding school teaching children core skills for the future including computation thinking, collaboration & the fundamentals of computer science skills through a proprietary creative curriculum. It turns the traditional coding process into relatable activities that children can engage with.
Cypher coding courses can be accessed both in-person and live-online. On location, we offer courses throughout school holidays, tailored to each child’s age and ability and the level of their coding journey. Our online coding camps are taught at home in daily, 90 minute interactive sessions taught live online throughout in small class sizes from 4-6 depending on age. Students learn to code using languages such as Scratch, JavaScript, Lua, Processing, Python and more depending on their age. Using creative themes such as conservation, extreme sports or art - we engage students with coding through this cross curricular education.
