SOTM — Bilingual Bebe: Online Preschool in French

Bizee’s Spotlight of the Month (SOTM) series shares real-life success stories from actual Bizee clients who used Bizee’s business formation services to make their companies “official” as legal business entities.

This month we’re featuring Bilingual Bebe, an online bilingual preschool that teaches children how to speak French with a flexible schedule, curated daily activities, weekly enrichment classes and support from early childhood experts.

Here’s more about Bilingual Bebe and how they formed a business with Bizee.

Bilingual Bebe: A New Way to Teach French During Early Childhood

Many Americans might want to learn a foreign language but struggle to make it happen as busy adults. What if you could learn a second language in the most natural way possible — by learning it at the same time as your native language? This is the premise of Bilingual Bebe, an online bilingual preschool for young children. Early childhood brain research suggests that the early years are an ideal time for learning languages. People are already learning one native language during these early years, so why not learn one more?

Children from ages 3–6 learn French from a dedicated early childhood educator and connect online through live virtual circle time. They have their own dedicated teacher and meet with the same group of friends every day, with sessions limited to eight kids per class.

In addition to these daily online meet-ups, parents receive daily activities in the form of video content delivered via the company’s online platform and a monthly package of material to do these activities at home. Students and parents also have access to their dedicated teacher online at any time and can attend weekly enrichment classes such as yoga or music in French.

Inspired By the Wonders of Early Childhood

Bilingual Bebe was founded by Anissa Bouderraoui, a long-time finance and accounting executive. Despite her successful corporate career, Anissa had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and she found inspiration right at home by becoming a parent and witnessing the amazing brainpower of young children.

“We offer an online bilingual education designed for early brain development,” said Anissa. “Ever since I became a parent, I was eager to learn more about early childhood development and how to take advantage of these fascinating and critical early developing years where children absorb everything, learn easily and grow so fast. Eighty-five percent of a child’s brain is built during these early years and it is the best time to introduce a new language! They’ll speak this second language the native way and bilingualism has so many positive effects on intellectual growth while enhancing children’s cognitive development.”

Entrepreneurship: Powered By Passion

Anissa Bouderraoui had a successful career in finance and accounting, and her business acumen and analytical skills have definitely been helpful to her work as an entrepreneur. But founding Bilingual Bebe was more of a passion project, inspired by the love of helping children learn.

“I have always wanted to become a business owner, and over the past 15 years, I have been managing other people’s businesses, working as a head of finance and accounting for multiple companies,” Anissa said. “Today, I’m happy not only to be a business owner but to do something I am passionate about.”

Asked what she’s learned from her experience as a business owner, Anissa said, “You work hard, even harder than what you would do as an employee, but you’re more driven, you do it with passion and every little success is so much more rewarding.”

Starting a new business tends to involve some financial risks. Many people might hesitate to start a new business if they can stay at a good job with a steady paycheck. But Anissa believes that sometimes in life, you just have to go with your intuition.

“One of the biggest challenges as a business owner is putting yourself out there, taking the financial risks with no certainty that you will succeed,” Anissa said. “I’m in finance and accounting, so I love to be able to measure risks and control as much as I can. But sometimes in a business venture, there’s nothing you can really control. You just have to go for it, trust your gut and believe in your project.”

Working with Bizee: Ease of Service

Anissa found Bizee online and decided to use Bizee’s business formation services to form an LLC. She found Bizee to be an easy, convenient partner to help take some big items off her to-do list so she could focus on running the business.

“When you start a business, there’s just so much you need to learn about, so much you need to accomplish, and I needed to find a quick and easy way to create the right legal entity for my venture so that I could focus on what mattered most,” Anissa said. “Everything is taken care of so you don’t have to worry about the administrative side of things, and a multitude of services are available in the same platform, which makes it easy.”

Anissa has big plans for the future growth of Bilingual Bebe. In the next year, she intends to build an expanding, thriving preschool that will be a force for disruptive innovation in online education and bilingual instruction for early childhood learners.

“I see our online preschool thriving,” Anissa said. “We have a lot of expansion ideas and our team of teachers is amazing. Having the right people with you, the right team, is the most important thing to succeed and this is even more important for a school. The quality of a school is to a large extent dependent on the quality of its teachers, and this is what makes a difference between an average school and an extraordinary one. We all want what’s best for our children.”

Follow Bilingual Bebe on Facebook, Instagram (@bilingual_bebe) and Twitter (@bilingual_bebe) to get the latest updates (in English and in French). “Bonne chance” (“good luck”) to this innovative online preschool.