He Pulls Kids Up by Their Re-Bootstraps
“I’ve never worked harder in my life,” says Don Liebson, owner of a franchise of Futurekids, the world’s largest provider of computer education for children.
Liebson’s typical day starts as early as 3 a.m., when he does administrative work until his own three children wake up. After taking one of his kids to preschool, he makes marketing presentations to school leaders in the morning and spends the afternoon at his Manhattan Beach storefront business, teaching youngsters how to use computers. By 6 p.m., he is greeting parents and discussing their children’s progress.
Spending a significant part of his day hanging out with 3-year-olds was the furthest thing from Liebson’s mind when he moved to Los Angeles eight years ago. A Chicago-based executive in the energy industry, Liebson relocated here after his marriage to an L.A. lawyer. Encouraged by his new wife to go into business for himself, he started a database company that became so successful, he says, publisher and information service provider McGraw-Hill “showed up with a wheelbarrow full of cash and asked me to please go away.”
Wanting something that would put both his computer expertise and his educational background to good use, Liebson bought into Futurekids.
“It’s a nice business,” Liebson says, whose franchise is the largest in the country. “The employees are happy, the kids are ecstatic, the parents love what we do.”
What Liebson does is offer children a comprehensive introduction to the world of computers through the classes he and his staff conduct at Futurekids and the computer labs they set up in schools. “We provide hardware, software, teachers--everything right down to the glue sticks,” he says. “But we don’t sell the product and then leave. We keep coming back to make sure that everything is working right. We are constantly redefining the product to keep pace with advances in technology.”
The currency of the hardware and the educational quality of the software is what Bill Smith, the principal at Westchester Lutheran School, likes best about the Futurekids program. “We’ve had computers in our school for some time,” he says, “but our hardware was outdated and our games-type software was not as focused as we would like. Now we have up-to-date instructors, the most current hardware and software that introduces our students to the broadest possible spectrum of computer use.”
The prevalence of games-type software is what Liebson likes least about his new industry.
“Long before my involvement with Futurekids,” he says, “I was terribly troubled, as a parent and as a taxpayer, by the amount of money and effort being thrown away on games-based school technology programs--millions of dollars being allocated to programs that don’t work or which are dubious at best. After all, you don’t spend $50,000 or $60,000 to play games. That’s not what computing is all about. Having fun while learning is necessary, but there must be scope and sequence, there must be a plan. And that’s what Futurekids offers.”
Kate Dunn is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.
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Bio: Don Liebson
Current career: Owner of Futurekids of Greater Los Angeles and instructor in the MBA program at the University of Phoenix
Previous career: Corporate planner and financial analyst, first with Ford Motor Co. and later with Atlantic Richfield
Education: Bachelor’s and MBA from Syracuse University; executive MBA, master of arts, and doctorate course requirements (with dissertation pending) from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management Center of the Claremont Graduate School
