This article was written by Wendy Perkins and appeared in the spring 2006 issue of “Thunderbird” magazine.
The seed was planted in the winter of 1998, when Clay Cooper ’00 traveled to Antigua, a beautiful, historic city in Guatemala, to soak up some culture and learn Spanish at an immersion school. the experience opened his eyes and touched his heart.
“The tutors were living in poverty,” says Cooper, who graduated with his wife, Cindy. “They were very bright and well-educated, but there was little demand for their services. There just weren’t enough people going there to study year-round.”
Six years later, the Coopers would try to change the bleak existence of those tutors. Armed with a business plan developed at Thunderbird, the couple quit their jobs and in June 2004 started Speak Shop, which links tutors in Guatemala with students everywhere via videoconferencing and the Internet to learn Spanish in a one-on-one, face-to-face settings.
“We always wanted to start a business from scratch. This was a great opportunity to do that and help some people,” says Cooper.
Prospective students click onto the Web site, register, find a tutor and make a reservation. Students log on at the appointed time and are able to see, hear and exchange text with the tutor. Cost is $5 per hour, with a $9.99 monthly charge. Tutors, who work at a Guatemalan school, receive about $4 per hour, a far cry from the $1.50 an hour they received before Speak Shop was created.
For the Coopers, the business satisfies both their entrepreneurial appetites and social consciousness. The company recently won top honors in the Social and Environmental Technology Inventors Challenge, which estimated it will bring in a $57 million social return to the teachers in 10 years.
“I enjoy being able to have an impact in people’s lives on a daily basis,” says Cindy Cooper. “This really doesn’t feel like work — it’s engaging and inspiring all at the same time.”
Future plans call for the Spanish-language business to expand by finding tutors in other developing nations, including Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico.
