Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Younis.
Hi Sam, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
When I graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in theater back in 2002, I imagined myself building a career on the stage or in film in both New York and Los Angeles. In the early years of my career, I performed in numerous New York theater and regional productions and on Broadway. After moving to LA in 2006, I landed some roles on shows like 24 and NCIS: Los Angeles. Whether in New York or LA, I used to cobble together a living through income from acting work combined with pay from odd jobs that gave me the flexibility to audition.
But the inconsistent income and capricious nature of the entertainment business took its toll on me after my first child was born in 2008, so I started seeking out permanent job opportunities outside of acting. I thought I had the people skills and the hustle needed to succeed in sales. Yet, in the midst of the Great Recession, employers were not eager to hire anybody– especially not actors in their mid-30s with piecemeal resumes. I failed to get a single interview. I had ambition, skills, and education from great universities, but no direction and no prospects. I started to realize that small business ownership might be the best path forward for me, but I had no idea where to start.
Lost but determined, I took stock of all the part-time jobs I used to do as an actor. My favorite of all of these gigs by far was tutoring kids. Then one night, the most significant Google search of my entire life led me to Mathnasium, a multi-national math tutoring and learning center franchise headquartered in Los Angeles. Upon researching the brand, I kept reading about how kids seemed to genuinely enjoy attending. Incredulous of these claims, I introduced myself to a local owner in LA and asked to visit his center. While there, I witnessed the phenomenon for myself– kids gleefully entering the center, working hard on their math, playing fun games, and audibly asking their parents when they could return. I was sort of shocked, honestly.
I learned that the secret sauce here is the customization of the program to each student, the close personalized attention, and the emphasis on confidence-building and fun. The program does not rely on rote memorization or excessive homework and drills. Instead, it focuses on helping students gain number sense and problem-solving skills through the Mathnasium Method, which employs a combination of visual, tactile and auditory teaching approaches that appeal to all different kinds of learners.
After seeing a Mathnasium at work, I could not wait to get my own location started! After 10 months of training and pounding the pavement, I got a location opened in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles in 2012. The business grew quickly, but a couple years into the process my wife and I were feeling a pull to leave Los Angeles to be closer to relatives in Atlanta as we raised young kids. I knew the franchise model allowed me to open a center anywhere in the country where a territory might be available for purchase.
In 2014, I sold my Los Angeles location, moved to Decatur, and opened a new Mathnasium location in my new and vibrant, kid-centric neighborhood. The Decatur location grew even more rapidly than my previous LA center. Feeling confident about the future, I jumped on the opportunity to buy an existing Mathnasium in Dunwoody in 2016. In November of 2019, I added a third location in Morningside. The pandemic dealt our business some financial hardships, and ultimately led to me selling one of my 3 locations– the Dunwoody center– in 2023. However, the pandemic also further established the necessity of the work we do with kids who need math support. Kids can reap benefits from Mathnasium whether they are behind in math or excelling in school and seeking further enrichment.
This month we expect to have our third Mathnasium location open in Grant Park at the Larkin Shopping Center on Memorial!
Over the past decade, we have been fortunate to develop a team of math enthusiasts who love helping kids master math. It has been such a joy to see the positive impact that Mathnasium has on the schools and communities that I love. I didn’t necessarily set out to expand my business to three locations in 2025, but the Grant Park opportunity just made sense. All three centers—Decatur, Morningside, and now Grant Park—fit together geographically like puzzle pieces. I am grateful that Mathnasium allows me to have the opportunity to build a meaningful business while also offering me the flexibility to be present for my kids as they grow up in Decatur. In recent years, I have had the opportunity to get a foot in the door of the entertainment business once again here in Atlanta and even landed roles in Disney’s Wandavision and National Geographic’s Genius. In some ways it feels like everything has come full circle, but now acting is the side-hustle in my life while helping kids in math plays the starring role.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Going into early 2020, I had just expanded to 3 centers and made the difficult financial decision to offer full-time salaries to directors at each location. While I knew this would potentially affect the business’s profitability, I knew that it would also incentivize my key employees to put in their best effort as we scaled up. Then the pandemic hit. We lost over 60% of our monthly revenue overnight. We shut down our centers and scrambled to migrate what was left of our business onto a virtual platform riddled with technical glitches. What’s more, I was advised not to lay off any employees if I wanted to qualify for the Payroll Protection Program funds. I ended up taking out a huge loan just to keep us afloat before the PPP money came through, as our landlords generally still required us to pay rent (there was only a modest amount of rent forgiveness) even though we were closed in the physical locations for 6 months. In early 2021, I was worried that I’d need to shut down my newest center- Morningside. For some reason, we decided to muscle through it using the PPP funds we recieved. I am so glad that we did so because now my Morningside Center under new leadership has reached new heights. Ultimately, I chose to sell the Dunwoody location so that I could focus on operations closer to home. Two years after selling Dunwoody, the Grant Park opportunity came up!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
(I am adapting something I already wrote in question #1)
Upon researching Mathnasium before becoming a franchisee with the company, I kept reading about how kids seemed to genuinely enjoy attending. Incredulous of these claims, I introduced myself to a local owner and asked to visit his center. While there, I witnessed the phenomenon for myself– kids gleefully entering the center, working hard on their math, playing fun games, and audibly asking their parents when they could return. I was sort of shocked, honestly.
I learned that the secret sauce here is the customization of the program to each student, the close personalized attention, and the emphasis on confidence-building and fun. The program does not rely on rote memorization or excessive homework and drills. Instead, it focuses on helping students gain number sense and problem-solving skills through the Mathnasium Method, which employs a combination of visual, tactile and auditory teaching approaches that appeal to all different kinds of learners.
After seeing a Mathnasium at work, I could not wait to get my own location started!
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
(I said all of this earlier in the essay — sorry, I didn’t realize that these questions were coming!)
I hold an MFA in Acting from Columbia and spent nearly 15 years pursuing acting before becoming a Mathnasium owner. While most people find the work of being and actor incongruous with my current work, I find that there is a fair amount of overlap between the skills needed to succeed in the arts and the skills needed to be a small business owner. Both pursuits require a healthy appetite for risk, a larger vision, a high degree of comfort with uncertainty, and a driving mission to keep motivation high during difficult times. Both pursuits require relationship-buidling skills and will inevitably lead you into situations where you have to step outside your comfort zone and foster meaningful connections with people with whom you may not naturally gibe. Both pursuits require outside-the-box problem-solving skills, and the ability to pivot when a given approach is no longer working. I never earned an MBA but I learned what it means to fall down, get rejected, fail, and get back up. If that’s not a training ground for being a business owner, I don’t know what is!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mathnasium.com/grantpark
Image Credits:
Sam Younis
