2024
Reading Culture Trailblazers
At the start of Read Across America month, nearly 500 schools receive Beanstack's inaugural Reading Culture Trailblazer badges. These schools also receive $150 gift cards to celebrate reading at their school. The Reading Culture Trailblazer award is granted to schools that gain over 75% of their students logging their reading and achieving reading milestones through Beanstack.
2023
Lexile Insights for Teachers
We know that actionable data and insights to support student free-choice reading are absolutely necessary. Lexile Insights for Teachers is the first of many steps to empower teachers by allowing them to quickly identify patterns and trends in their students’ reading habits.
Five Billion Minutes
We pass the five billion mark: collectively, Beanstack readers have logged over five billion minutes of reading. That's over 9,500 years of reading!
Classroom Library Connector
We collaborate with school partners in Florida to build tools that empower educators to keep books on classroom shelves. For schools outside of Florida, we launch a set of classroom library tools that save teachers time and strengthen collaboration between librarians and teachers, and motivate students to reader more.
2022
Original Content
We begin publishing challenges with original content that can be read directly in Beanstack. The original content challenges include high-interest, nonfiction “Short Stacks” stories with accompanying lesson plans and educator guides.
Reading Validation Challenges and Reading Integrity
We launch a new challenge type that asks students short and simple reading verification questions with fill-in-the-blank answers. This feature bolsters our suite of reading integrity features like reading log limits, book reviews, and short answer activities.
CODiE Finalist for Best Gamification in Learning
We are nominated as a 2022 SIIA CODiE Award finalist for Best Gamification in Learning. CODiE finalists represent the best products, services, and people in the education and business technology industries.
2021
Reading List Challenges
We design and launch a new form of reading challenge based on logging reading for specific titles, content, and book lists.
Content Integration for Winter Reading Challenge
We partner with Lerner Publishing Group for the 2022 Winter Reading Challenge on the theme Read for a Better World, featuring Lerner titles available through Beanstack.
Reading Fundraisers
In the fall of 2021, we launch a new reading fundraiser tool to help schools raise funds in the post-pandemic world and roll the feature out to public libraries the following year.
First National Sponsored Summer Reading Challenge
We partner with Thorndike Press and Mark Cuban to help schools beat the summer and COVID slides with Level Up, our first national summer reading challenge.
Gamification Features
We launch several features designed to engage and inspire readers to meet their reading goals, including streaks, achievements, friends, and leaderboards.
75,000 Summer Badge Books Sold
Our first Summer Badge Book—sold wholesale to library partners and designed to work seamlessly with summer reading programs—quickly sells out all 75,000 available copies.
2020
First Corporate Customer
BH Management becomes the first corporation in the U.S. to launch a new version of the Beanstack mobile app focused specifically on advancing employee wellbeing and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.
Beanstack Black Voices Microgrants
We create and award microgrants to bold projects that uplift Black voices. Funds go to our library partners seeking to establish or enhance local programs that advance social justice and equity.
COVID-19 Presents an Opportunity to Help
The COVID-19 crisis leads us to introduce free reading challenges to prevent learning loss through our Beanbright platform. At the same time, an unprecedented number of library systems turn to Beanstack to help move their reading challenges online.
Company Emerges as Reading Challenge Leader
A Library Journal report shows Beanstack is the platform of choice for more than 50% of libraries using software to facilitate their summer reading challenges. Our company grows to more than 20 team members, primarily former classroom teachers, former librarians, and engineers.
2019
Connecting Public Libraries and School Districts
In Broward County, Florida, and Frederick County, Maryland, we introduce our tandem connections feature. This allows students to connect their school and library accounts and gives administrators more participation and data.
Improved Features for Engagement and Reporting
In 2019, we grow to serve over 20 school districts and 600 public library systems. While improving the mobile app, we introduce “Insights” to help librarians and educators better visualize data.
New Products for Schools and Families
We launch Badge Books, combined sticker books and reading logs, to complement the summer reading challenge. We also build an Alexa skill with support from the Amazon Alexa Fund.
2018
#WinterRead With Mark Cuban and Other Investors
Mark Cuban sponsors our first-ever #WinterRead national winter reading challenge. He also invests again, joining Kapor Capital, AlphaLab Gear, the AT&T Aspire Accelerator, RevUp Capital, the Center for Innovative Technology, and EAI Technologies.
School District Growth
More than 10 school districts license Beanstack, including the sixth biggest district in the country, Broward County Public Schools in Florida.
Beanstack Tracker Mobile App
We launch the first version of our Beanstack mobile app to expand access.
2017
Public Library Growth With Reading Challenge Innovation
We increase Beanstack's usefulness to libraries and expand our reading challenges' customization options by offering multiple log types. We reach $1 million in annual revenue.
First School District Partner
Menasha Joint School District in Wisconsin launches Beanstack to facilitate the school year “Get in the Game” reading challenge. To support seamless single sign-on and rostering, we roll out Clever and ClassLink integration for schools and districts.
2016
First Summer Reading Report
In our drive to become the best solution for facilitating reading challenges, we publish our first annual summer reading report to synthesize and share data insights about Beanstack usage.
Book Subscription Service Ends
As more libraries sign on, we sunset the original subscription box service for consumers. The recommendation engine is repurposed and incorporated into the Beanstack product offered to libraries.
Summer Reading Catches On
Almost 100 more libraries license Beanstack, primarily as a platform to run their summer reading challenges. We introduce the concept of concurrent reading challenges to help run multiple reading challenges for different age groups at once.
2015
Montgomery County Public Libraries Uses Beanstack for Summer Reading
Our fourth client, Montgomery County Public Libraries in Maryland, rolls out Beanstack for its summer reading challenge and sees use skyrocket, with family registration as a key innovation.
Sacramento Public Library Launches Beanstack
After months of development and testing, Sacramento Public Library launches Beanstack, a revamped product to send personalized children's book recommendations to families.
2014
First Public Library System Client
At the Annual Library Association conference, Jordan and Felix talk to libraries about how our proprietary children’s book recommendation product can help them engage families. Sacramento Public Library becomes our first client.
Zoobean Debuts on “Shark Tank”
On April 18, 2014, co-founders Jordan and Felix appear on “Shark Tank” and gain a $250,000 investment from entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban for their initial product idea, a subscription box service for curated children’s book selections.
