Admired these guys. Obviously chucked a lot of time, money and blood, sweat and tears into the business. Ending seems like it was somewhat abrupt and has left a few customers with a bitter taste in the mouth.
According to what I’ve seen, business has been suspended on a temporary basis.
Asking as a fellow foreign entrepreneur in Taipei.
Weren’t they somewhere in Beitou? google maps says Xin Yi.
EDIT:
Their FB page is still up, however their website says:
Weren’t they also in Dazhi?
They seemed a little annoying to me in their advertising. “All of our teachers graduated from top universities” or something like that. Rule number one in teaching: someone who is an expert in doing something in their field rarely makes a good teacher. What did they do to know how to make good programming for the kids?
if you use the wayback machine you’ll find an update from september saying they’ll be back summer 2023
Tianmu - Daan - Dazhi - Hsinchu
plus a bunch of co-ops with other schools
plus an online business selling STEM kits
plus positive reviews from billionaire founders of Youtube
I guess you’ve never been in education in TW? First thing parents consider is, does teacher look good, second thing is 師資 (read: “top university”)
regardless, there was no one even close to what they were doing. actually, they were too cheap and too high quality for Taiwan. they def burnt through a lot of investor cash very quickly. COVID def didn’t help either. probably a combination of things that sank the ship. shame really.
It is a shame, they seem to have given it a good go.
I’ve pretty much only worked in education in Taiwan. Parents care far more about the look of the teacher than their credentials. I know Asians who were born and raised in the US who graduated from Ivy League schools that were passed over for white people who May or may not have gone to college at all. And skyrock is/was an after school program. It looked like a lot of fun, but the bragging about teacher qualifications got an eye roll from me. Just run an awesome program and get kids excited about learning in a way that other cram schools dont. No need to be elitist about it.
Hmmm what’s the problem with showing off some degrees on the top of the teachers looks?
I think the marketing videos they did, plus their website, did a great job of giving the impression it was an awesome program. But it’s still not enough.
Talking up teacher credentials is crucial when your market is basically parents who graduated from Ivy League universities. Both you and I know Taiwan pay isn’t even close to what Ivy League grads expect. So to actually get Ivy League grads does make any school in Taiwan exceptional.
I worked with Skyrock for about a year. I left ~ 6 months before they shuttered. It was a hard knock few years with COVID-- because the government didn’t technically lock down the city, they didn’t have access to subsidies, but their hands were also tied because this ‘soft lockdown’ meant that no one could come to class.
We had planned to launch a super fun, awesome STEAM camp before the COVID breakout-- everyone was super excited, and there was a LOT of really hard work poured into this from the teachers as well as staff and marketing team. It was literally a month before lockdown when we had successfully sold out a lot of slots for each age group and camp program, and everything changed. We pivoted to an online camp experience and struggled through COVID. The founders did everything they could to keep paying the quality teachers they recruited from great universities (we had someone teaching the kids science who had worked with the Hadron collider!) for as long as they could, until they had to let them go.
Currently, the remaining founder is battling some bitter, angry parents who were not able to get their refunds back. Sure, it’s not fair. But what’s also not fair is this assumption that they were out to fool parents and to crush kid’s dreams. Quite the opposite-- they were so proud and excited about their mission, and strived every day to bring inspiration and agency and excitement to kids in Taiwan. They saw promise in the future generations of Taiwan, who were raised in a robust manufacturing/OEM economy, to change the world. They took a chance and tried to bring project based learning to these kids. The teachers they worked with also felt inspired by the opportunity to make a lasting difference in kids’ lives.
Are there lessons to be learned? Of course. I just hope these angry, bitter parents can find some compassion to forgive and also remember how hard COVID was for some businesses, and that despite the desire to fulfill their refunds, and give the kids the summer camp experiences they were promised, reality had other plans. Skyrock had/ still has the best of intentions and a worthy vision of a future generation of Taiwanese leaders, inventors, and revolutionaries.
Yeah been told similar from people
Although hopeing was a STEM camp and not as STEAMY as you put it
These guys will be back. Watch this space.
STEAMY camp sounds more interesting. Rated 18 plus only.
Can Skyrock reach out to TSMC, big electronics corps and their investors ?
I guess STEAM is STEM plus the arts:
As a parent (and just found out from my wife that we have unrefunded deposits from Skyrock) and entrepreneur, good to hear the founders and team had good intentions, but the parent side of me still want the refund or camp! Hope they come back soon so we can use those deposits 
