Alpha Schools Strategy Discussion with Mackenzie Price - May 20, 2025

Overview

Gary Sheng and Mackenzie Price discussed Alpha School expansion strategies, enrollment challenges, a planned June 14th parent event in Austin, marketing issues, and potential faith-based educational initiatives. The conversation revealed significant challenges with Alpha's current marketing efforts and provided insights into effective parent engagement strategies.

Key Topics

June 14th Parent Event

Gary outlined plans for a block party-style event aimed at increasing parent engagement:

Gary: "We're thinking about walking off some streets and literally doing a little block party."

Gary: "Impact metric of the event that we're trying to do in June 14 is we want every parent to be talking about Alpha... We want to encourage people to bring their parent friend groups to come to the same block party thing that will also have tours."

Faith-Based Education Opportunities

The conversation revealed potential for faith-based schools within the Alpha ecosystem:

Gary: "It makes sense for me to sync with you about that just because like do we want to be involved in faith-based schools?"

Mackenzie: "I love the idea. We wouldn't do it as an Alpha."

Gary: "But it would be like a whole other brand, right? Or it could be literally Whitestone Academy powered by Tomorrowland, right?"

Mackenzie: "It's exactly that. I've had some people in Dallas and people in Dripping Springs who are like, we want to do a faith-based school, but then they never really develop it."

Gary mentioned his connection with Whitestone Church led by pastor Tauren Wells, with Mackenzie confirming she had heard about their interest in educational initiatives through Julie Jumonville.

Enrollment Challenges in New Markets

Mackenzie provided extensive insights about the difficulties of launching new Alpha locations:

Mackenzie: "Everything comes down. Everybody wants to go to one of these schools, but they want to go when there's 50 people. They don't want to be the first."

Mackenzie: "We had a location, but the reason we came in is because the people who own that building wanted me to come, but no one else knew who I was. So we didn't have the critical mass."

Mackenzie: "Santa Barbara, we had the worst of both worlds, which is we had one guy who was obsessed with getting us there, so nobody else knew anything about who we were. And we didn't have a location."

She explained the challenges with different cities:

Mackenzie: "In other cities like Tampa, Palm Beach, Houston, we had critical mass of people who had an interest, but we didn't have the real estate. And so then that scares parents off. If you say we're coming, but we're not sure we're going to be yet, it literally detracts."

Mackenzie: "So now we're not announcing new cities until we can say this is the location."

Mackenzie highlighted the need for both proper demographics and community momentum:

Mackenzie: "You also have to have the good demographics of the city. So, like, Phoenix can afford an Alpha. There's a huge population of people interested in Alpha."

Mackenzie: "I've heard this in New York from Tasha and Ben, there's people who are like, we're really interested, but we need to wait a year and watch how it goes."

Marketing and Leadership Issues

Both expressed significant concerns about Alpha's marketing:

Gary: "I'm not a fan of Jason."

Mackenzie: "Oh, he's the worst."

Mackenzie: "Proto was a consultant firm that was doing marketing messaging, and they've just been terrible. And they hired Jason."

Mackenzie shared specific frustrations with marketing execution:

Mackenzie: "I have been, for a year, one year, I'm asking to get Google Maps to update Alpha Miami. Like, if you look up Alpha School of Miami, you get a church, and you get an Alpha Charter School, you get nothing else."

Mackenzie: "I bet you anything that GT school doesn't show up on Google Maps. I bet you none of our schools are showing up on any of the Google Maps."

Gary described unhelpful interactions with Jason:

Gary: "I noticed the obvious, that we have no content about Alpha High, except coming from Al or Flo... And I said, hey, like, one of my friends, who literally handled the social media for Jennifer Lopez... he's down to help for a very fair price."

Gary: "And he was like, oh, we've got to handle it... he was being very combative because he was like, I'm not gonna let you replace mine."

Website and Digital Presence Issues

Both identified significant issues with Alpha's online presence:

Mackenzie: "We need to rebuild that high school website. It's terrible."

Gary: "If you're excited, if you watch one of your videos, go to alpha.schools. There's no way right now for me to... If you get excited about one of your videos, and let's say I'm a super high network individual that wants to call... first of all, there's no number to call."

Gary: "I think that should do a better job of not being an overwhelming list of a bunch of links. The default thing that I think you should be optimizing for is, OK, someone's inspired. There should be a very clear, unambiguous next step."

Networking and Resource Sharing

Gary offered his network to help support Alpha initiatives:

Gary: "I have the best people. I have everyone that, you know, we need. And it's just like, I'm not trying to be, like, overly even aggressive about, like, hey, take my whole friend group. But it's like, I only hang out, I only spend time with people that are, like, the greatest at what they do."

Gary: "I want to create the GOAT school. Literally call it the GOAT school, have Michael Phelps involved, have Tom Brady involved... And these are all people in my network, actually."

Alpha New York Support

Gary mentioned his recent meeting with Ben Gordon-Sniffen in New York:

Gary: "After DC, I swung up to New York, and we had such a great conversation about how he wants my support in filling seats in New York City. I have a pretty great network of high net worth individuals in New York. He told me to find a celebrity parent as well as a high net worth parent, and I have that in my network."

Organizational Leadership Dynamics

Mackenzie provided context about the leadership structure in New York:

Mackenzie: "Tasha and we are supposed to be, you know, the difference in that school is we moved him there. We haven't moved anyone else to San Pablo. We haven't moved anyone to any of the other cities. We moved him [Ben]... he's a great guy. He's probably not a great closer or a great marketing officer."

Gary: "He doesn't need to be either."

Mackenzie: "He doesn't need to be, because he's a good guy. But Tasha should be there."

Existing Agency Model Issues

Mackenzie explained challenges with the current agency approach to marketing:

Mackenzie: "Joe has always liked the idea of an agency for everything that is not education, and experts, and like fixing it. He said, we know how to do social media, and we know how to get, basically, we will fill a high school, and we will fill a national college."

Gary: "But this year, they got zero."

Mackenzie: "They got zero. And the funniest thing was, they I like the guys. There were four of them. Now there's two of them. They split up. The best two left."

Next Steps

The conversation concluded with scheduling a follow-up meeting:

• Friday, May 22nd at 9:00 AM at Joe's Coffee downtown

Key Insights

1. Critical Mass Requirement: Alpha's expansion success depends on having both adequate physical locations and a critical mass of interested families simultaneously.

2. Marketing Dysfunction: Significant frustrations exist with current marketing leadership and approach, with basic issues like Google Maps listings remaining unresolved after a year.

3. Parent Psychology: Parents are reluctant to be first-movers, preferring to join established communities rather than pioneering new schools.

4. Faith-Based Opportunities: Interest exists in developing faith-based schools under a separate brand but powered by Alpha's educational model.

5. Digital Experience Gaps: Alpha's website fails to effectively convert interested visitors into actual tours or applications.

6. Resource Alignment: Gary's network and approach may better align with Alpha's needs than the current marketing agency structure.

7. Leadership Dynamics: There appears to be disagreement between Joe Liemandt's vision for agency-based marketing and the actual results being achieved.