Today we’d like to introduce you to Evvan-Joi Croll.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Evvan-Joi. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am a Univerisity of Houston Biology graduate with a passion for Ecology. Within Ecology, I do field research on plants, animals, and their relationships with one another and their environments. After graduation, I immediately jumped into marine and saltmarsh research on a remote island off the coast of Georgia. Sapelo Island has no grocery store, sparse wifi, and the most beautiful landscape you’ve ever seen. Immediately after, I drove cross-country to a remote part of Chinle, Arizona for research in the mountains. On this job, I lived in a tent for three months, rarely had cell signal and hiked miles up mountains, daily. In Arizona, we worked ten days on and four days off. During each of these off periods, because I had access to wifi, I submitted as many job applications as I could. In my single highest weekend, I submitted 24 applications. After two months of applying, I arrived back in Houston, Texas without a job and decided that it was the perfect time to pursue an idea I’d long had, The STEM Babysitting Company.
As a Biology major and babysitter of six years, my entertainment for children was always oriented toward STEM subjects. My love for science began with an explosion in my 7th-grade science class, so I know how one exciting instance of learning can forge new paths in a young mind. The STEM Babysitting Company creates projects and experiments that introduce children to STEM in a fun, stimulating way. We hope to spark an interest in and love of a field that is a compass for the future.
Has it been a smooth road?
The single best path to living your dream life is looking inward. My entire journey has been this: listen to my intuition, take a step, ask what’s next, listen, step and repeat. Because of this, it has been a relatively smooth road. The struggle, though, with building a business from scratch is that every system or process has to be added/implemented by you. The good news is that there are a wealth of resources at our disposal. I recommend The 6-Week Startup by Rhonda Abrams. It’s an amazing step-by-step guide to building a business. I also recommend The Small Business Development Center located in downtown Houston. They host a ton of inexpensive business classes including which entity to form, how to file taxes, small business marketing, best hiring practices and much more!
We’d love to hear more about The STEM Babysitting Company.
My career track has two paths that I plan to travel simultaneously: business owner and field researcher. In Ecology and many other STEM fields, PhDs create and gather funding for the research projects and technicians do the manual work of obtaining the data. In Ecology, that means the techs are outside, in the elements, touching and measuring organisms and the non-living things in their environments. This is the work I love though it doesn’t pay well enough to obtain financial freedom. I plan to run the business remotely for about 1/3 of the year while I do field research during that time.
The STEM Babysitting Company occupies a novel intersection of education and private, in-home childcare. Our proprietary curriculum is based on the learning and developmental milestones of each age group. We present STEM to kids wrapped an exciting playtime experience!
Do you recommend any apps, books or podcasts that have been helpful to you?
My favorite podcasts are The Courtney Sanders Show, The Tony Robbins Podcast and The Dave Ramsey Show. My favorite books are Think and Grow Rich, You are a Bada** at Making Money and Fast Food Genocide.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stembabysitting.com
- Phone: (832) 583-7836
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stembabysitting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stembabysitting
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