Alpha Schools Family Fair Planning Meeting

Date: May 22, 2025 Participants: Gary Sheng, Ron Roberts, Beef Jones, Brooke Emerson, Nakia Booth

Summary

This meeting focused on planning an upcoming family-oriented event/fair for Alpha Schools in Austin. The team discussed event scheduling, marketing strategy, partnership development, and the overall approach to attracting both general parents and those specifically interested in educational alternatives. Key decisions included moving forward with either June 14th or 21st as potential dates (pending confirmation with McKenzie Price), developing a "white label" approach that could be scaled to other locations, and leveraging strategic partnerships across various sectors to drive attendance.

Key Topics & Decisions

Event Timing

• Initial timing concerns: Brooke raised concerns about the original date (June 14th) falling on Juneteenth weekend
• Date options narrowed: Group focused on either June 14th or 21st, with final decision pending McKenzie Price's availability
• Long-term vision: Brooke suggested developing a scalable event concept that could be trademarked and replicated across cities

Marketing Strategy

• Bifurcated messaging approach:
  • Child-focused messaging for general parent audience ("something fun for your kids")
  • Education-focused messaging for parents actively concerned about educational options
• McKenzie Price's platform: Team plans to leverage McKenzie's distribution channels (nearly 1M followers, email list) as primary traffic driver
  • Plans to investigate her audience demographics and engagement metrics during breakfast meeting
  • Will explore automated response systems for social media engagement
• White-label branding: Discussion about creating a generically-named event (e.g., "Austin Family Fair") powered by Alpha but not explicitly branded as such

Partner Engagement Strategy

• "Seven mountains" approach: Organizing partners around key sectors/domains of influence
  • Identified potential partners like Sneaker Politics (culture), Tyron Wells (faith/books)
  • Each team member to contribute partner suggestions at next meeting
• Dual-role partners: Leveraging partners both for their audience reach and for programming content
• Parent evangelists: Focus on featuring recent Alpha School converts as authentic testimonials
  • Gary mentioned potential parent partners: Tahir Dilla (food entrepreneur), IBM Watson co-creator
• Lead generation mechanisms: Exploring contest/giveaway opportunities with partners to collect contact information

Logistics & Implementation

• Venue: Confirmed event will be held inside Alpha School
• Food options: Discussed potential food truck placement along the sidewalk, partnering with local food entrepreneurs who are potential Alpha parents
• Content curation: Focus on developing compelling programming with partners and influencers to drive attendance
• RSVP capture: Immediate priority to create RSVP link once date is confirmed

Project Management

• Timeline: Working on 3-4 week implementation timeline
• Meeting cadence: Established bi-weekly calls (two per week) for planning
• Next steps:
  1. Confirm date with McKenzie Price at breakfast meeting
  2. Create master list of potential partners across sectors
  3. Develop messaging templates for different audience segments
  4. Create RSVP mechanism

Notable Quotes

On Marketing Strategy

• Brooke Emerson: "We have to get very strategic on the messaging... it's a bifurcated strategy. If I'm a mom and I don't give a shit about the future of education... you're targeting my children because you're telling me, hey, I have something really fun for you to do on a Saturday afternoon."
• Brooke Emerson: "The much hotter leads are going to be the people who are in flux and or concerned about education and that's going to be a much more tailored contextualized message."
• Gary Sheng: "Get a peek inside the future of education, have some fun with family and kids."

On Partnership Approach

• Brooke Emerson: "Sneaker Politics gives us is not just reach, but credibility and trust. They have the trust of the community."
• Ron Roberts: "I'm telling you, I want to say it's a brand. It's a brand. It's a brand play. As much as possible."
• Gary Sheng: "The best evangelists are the people that literally already converted just recently."
• Beef Jones: "You should have some real estate within there... So you can cover the seven mountains... in a tech expression and also like a political expression."

On Strategic Event Design

• Brooke Emerson: "If we're going to create our own CurlFest, for lack of a better example, we want to be able to own that because... if we do it right and we do it enough times, monetize it by selling in brand partners that also play in the education space but are non-competitive."
• Ron Roberts: "This is going to be your top of funnel play to get the best parents. And because now once we open more locations, why not just keep doing the same playbook, right? In every city."
• Gary Sheng: "If it feels like, hey, we'll work harder and do better if it's like its own joint venture with Alpha, like that we have equity splits on, like he's [Joe] going to be like, sure, makes sense."

On Implementation Challenges

• Gary Sheng: "McKenzie and Joe are like the funnels completely fucked. And so they know this, they're on candidly, they're on the record for this and many, many, many times. And they're like, I'm glad you're here."
• Beef Jones: "I liked him [Tim], but even Tim needs a proper tools... He doesn't know shit about being a parent."
• Nakia Booth: "We have to sprint."

Action Items

1. Meeting with McKenzie Price (Gary/Ron) - Confirm date availability, explore audience metrics, discuss distribution support
2. Partner list development (All) - Each team member to identify potential partners across "seven mountains" sectors
3. Messaging template creation (Gary) - Develop initial messaging overview and different approaches for audience segments
4. Group chat creation (Gary) - Establish iMessage group for ongoing coordination
5. Follow-up meeting (All) - Scheduled for tomorrow (May 23) at 10:00 AM Central