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Inspiring learning, one massive global
treasure hunt at a time.
Sponsor Proposal
2017
What is Brain Chase?
Brain Chase stages world-wide treasure hunts for participants of all ages with the goal of helping participants
advance academically, acquire 21st Century skills, and improve their lives. As participants complete weekly
tasks, they unlock clues to the location of a real-life buried treasure. The first participant to complete all
weekly tasks and pin-point the treasure’s location wins a trip to dig up the prize. In our student Chases, par-
ticipants also win a $10,000 scholarship.
Who Participates in Brain Chase?
82% OF OUR CUSTOMERS ARE MOMS
• 42% between ages 35-44; 19% between ages 25-34 & 45-54.
• Moms spend over $2.3 trillion every year, or $15,000—$20,000
on each child.
• Women make 85% of the household purchasing decisions.
• Moms purchase Brain Chase not only for themselves, but for
other family members, friends, their children’s friends and
teammates, and many others.
• In 2016, moms spent an average of 3 hours online every day.
• 78% of moms use Facebook, our primary marketing platform,
more than any other form of social media.
BRAIN CHASE DEEPLY ENGAGES THESE MOMS AND THEIR CHILDREN
• 6,000 students have participated in Brain Chase programs—all with the close supervision and involve-
ment of parents and teachers.
• During the summer, parents and students spend an average of 5.6 hours each week using Brain Chase.
This equates to nearly 40 hours during the summer months.
• During spring and fall programs, students spend an average of 3.1 hours each week using Brain Chase, or
nearly 25 hours over the course of the program.
• Program time is spent not only completing electives, but also searching for clues, solving puzzles, and
strategizing about the global treasure hunts.
• Participating students fall between the ages of 6-16.
• We have weekly contact with over 100,000 moms, teachers & educators through our email list.
“Thank you for Brain Chase. It is quickly becoming a highlight of our kid’s childhood. This is truly education
done right.” - Kellie S., Mom
Take an Expedition with Brain Chase
Contact us at [email protected] to get started.
“I LOVE BRAIN CHASE!!! I get to participate in a real-life adventure just like Nancy Drew.” - Participant
Student and Parent Testimonials
“The whole world loves it.”
“My kids love it. Can’t get enough of it. Your nefarious plan to trick kids into doing school work over the sum-
mer is working to perfection!”
“We really enjoyed it and it gave us a reason to spend time together over the summer and break the bore-
dom.
“[T]he program is going to challenge the way we think about education.”
“Brain Chase has been a wonderful company to work with! The technology that Brain Chase uses is phenome-
nal and the animation and story lines are captivating.”
Marketing Strategies
• Primary form of marketing is through social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
As needed, we boost posts and run ads on Facebook and Instagram.
• We regularly email over 100,000 past & current participants, prospective participants and educators
across the country with as high as an 80% open rate.
• We regularly host “Library Chases” and other small
contests that give anyone anywhere the chance to
solve a riddle and win $1000 cash. These hunts gen-
erate strong local interest and great media coverage.
• Brain Chase has been featured in many regional and
national publications, including the Huffington Post,
Inc.com, Fast Company, and the New York Times.
• Each season, we create flyers and postcards that are
sent to previous participants & schools to promote
the upcoming chase.
• We post a “Riddle of the Week” on our website to
drive traffic and gather contact information.
• Brain Chase often attends educational conventions where we have the opportunity to meet with educa-
tors face-to-face.
• We are listed as vendor on Amazon, Groupon, Educents, and many others.
• In the future, we plan to expand into senior independent living communities. Our program is unlike any
currently available to that demographic and can have life-long benefits for them. We are in the early stag-
es of developing this plan, and have just started gathering contact information for local communities.
Our Mission
Inspire learning and enrich lives all over the world, one global treasure hunt at a time.
Step 2—Unlock Clues to a Real-life Buried Treasure
As students complete their electives each week, they automati-
cally unlock new animated webisodes chronicling the adventures
of Mae Merriweather and her team from the Grayson Academy of
Antiquities. Each semester, Mae and her friends are on the trail of
a new golden artifact—as well as clues to the disappearance of
famed adventurer Tate Grayson. But that’s not all—each animat-
ed webisode also contains dozens of clues to the actual location
of a real–life buried treasure.
How Brain Chase Works
Step 1—Complete Elective Challenges
At registration, participants select three electives, such as
Art, Coding, and Typing. These are the weekly challenges
they’ll complete during the program. Participants also
face one required “Bonus” challenge each week.
Step 3—Find the Treasure
A real golden treasure lies buried somewhere on
Earth. The first adventurer to find and decipher all
of the clues and determine the treasure’s location
receives a trip for two to dig it up! Participants in stu-
dent programs also receive a $10,000 scholarship.
The Mask of Tomoe Gozen. This valuable artifact
was used by the ancient samurai warrior, Tomoe Gozen,
who was known for her beauty, combat skills, and in-
dominable spirit.
The Sunstone of Cortes. Once a prized
tool, this golden sunstone was used by the Spanish
conquistador, Cortes, and holds the key to yet an-
other treasure.
The Treasures
Brain Chase treasures are the custom-machined, mechanical devices plated with pure gold. Each has a secret
compartment hiding the key to a treasure chest that contains a $10,000 scholarship.
The Globe of Magellan. Originally used
by the Portuguese explorer, Magellan, to circum-
navigate the earth, the globe is skillfully con-
structed of precious metals, with golden conti-
nents.
Previous Brain Chase Winners
Summer 2014 - Grayson & Jack Engler, our first-
ever winners, travel to Llivia, Spain, to unearth the
Globe of Magellan.
Spring 2016 - Briggs Dommert and family dig
up the Globe of Magellan in Folsom, LA, just out-
side of New Orleans.
Summer 2015 - Ashton Detwiler and his mom celebrate
their discovery of the Sunstone of Cortes in Fuji City, Japan.
Summer 2016 - Abby Hurst adventures to
Akser, Norway, and claims our newest treasure,
the Mask of Tomoe Gozen.
A Year-Round Adventure
Brain Chase started out as a summer learning program, but it has evolved into much more.
The Spring Afterschool Chase
• Begins: Mid-February
• Duration: 8 weeks
• Eligible Participants: Ages 6-16
• Electives Available: Math, reading, coding, typing, art, book club,
cooking, yoga, fitness, service, engineering, language, creative
writing
• Time Commitment: About 90 min per week
The Summer Chase
• Begins: Third week in June
• Duration: 5 weeks
• Eligible Participants: Ages 6-16
• Electives Available: Math, reading, coding, typing, art, book
club, cooking, yoga, fitness, service, engineering, language,
creative writing
• Time Commitment: About 4 hours per week
• Beginning 2017: We will add a Texas-only chase.
The Fall Afterschool Chase
• Begins: Early October
• Duration: 8 weeks
• Eligible Participants: Ages 6-16
• Electives Available: Math, reading, coding, typing, art, book
club, cooking, yoga, fitness, service, engineering, language,
creative writing
• Time Commitment: About 90 min per week
The New Year’s Resolution Challenge
• Begins: First Monday in January
• Duration: 5 weeks
• Eligible Participants: Anyone living in the contiguous U.S., open to all
ages
• Electives Available: Math, reading, coding, book club, cooking, fitness,
service, language, family relationships, finances, home organization
• Time Commitment: About 90 min per week
The Brain Chase Electives
With over a dozen electives to choose from, Brain Chase participants can customize their adventure to fit
their personal needs.
Google Books Reading - Students can choose from over 26,000 digital titles in Google
Books, automatically tracking reading time through custom Brain Chase integrations. They
can also choose to read off-line and track their time manually.
Typing Club Typing - Whether students are new to typing or typing pros, Typing Club drills and
games can take them to the next level.
Mobile Serve Service Challenge - New in 2017! Brain Chase is thrilled to have teamed up with
MobileServe to guide students through a series of charitable challenges.
Brain Chase Fitness - We’ve enlisted the assistance of a real American Ninja Warrior,
David Yarter of Power Park Fitness in San Antonio, to guide our students through challenging
and fun weekly exercise programs.
Code Combat Coding - Our most popular elective! We’ve partnered with Code Combat to teach
kids important skills using a fun, gamified interface.
Brain Chase Math Challenge - We’ve programed our software to synch with Khan Academy, a world
-wide math curriculum leader. Math points are immediately reported to us as they are earned.
YogaMeDo Yoga - The experts at YogaMeDo guide students through a series of weekly exercises
to help tone the spirit and body, as well as the mind.
Thorpe Studio Art - Artist extraordinaire James Thorpe leads crafty master classes
each week in this hands-on, and often very messy, elective.
Brain Chase Book Club - Our most “social” elective! First, choose a book for us to send you. Then fol-
low along and discuss in our weekly discussion forum. You’ll also receive feedback from real teachers.
Edible Education Cooking - Virginia-based Edible Education teaches our students how to
make delicious, healthy meals, and provides them with important safety tips along the way.
Leo Labs Engineering - Ms. Brooklyn from the Leo in Salt Lake City leads students
through weekly hands-on science and engineering tasks. You might get your hands dirty!
Creative Writing - It’s like a writing master-class. Learn a new skill or technique each week, then try it
out with a few writing prompts. Credential teachers review each submission and provide personalized feed-
back and tips.
Rosetta Stone Foreign Language - Whether it’s Spanish, Swahili, Chinese or German,
we’ve partnered with Rosetta Stone to bring students their choice of over 31 different foreign
languages.
Program Stats
In four seasons, we’ve had more than six thousand participants around the world. Here’s what our 2016
summer participants accomplished while everyone else was playing summer video games:
• Read for a combined 6,092 hours;
• Completed 1,562 creative writing journals (the equivalent of over 8 novels!);
• Earned 74.2 million Khan energy points;
• Typed for 2,240 hours;
• Completed 1,630 art projects;
• Built 3,019 engineering marvels;
• Cooked 1,800 delicious dishes;
• Logged 600 hours of yoga;
• Studied foreign languages for 1,650 hours;
• Composed 400 book club sub-missions.
Some of Our Press
FAQs
What is Brain Chase? At its heart, Brain Chase is a learning program disguised as a massive global
treasure hunt. As participants of all ages conquer weekly challenges, they receive clues to a real-life buried
treasure.
Who is Brain Chase for? Brain Chase has two types of programs. We offer Summer, Fall after-
school, and Spring afterschool programs for students ages 6-16. As of January 2017, we also offer a New
Year’s Resolution Challenge, which is open to all ages. We also hold various mini-treasure hunts throughout
the year.
What types of challenges do Brain Chase participants complete? Participants select
three “electives” to focus on throughout the program. These electives range from math and reading to cook-
ing, art, and engineering. In the New Year’s Challenge, we offer electives such as fitness, relationship im-
provement, service, and home organization. Every participant is also given a required challenge to complete
each week, along with riddles to decipher, clues to locate and codes to crack, all of which lead them to the
location of the buried treasure.
What does the Brain Chase winner receive? The first person to complete all of their weekly
challenges and pin-point the treasure’s location wins a trip to dig up the treasure! In addition, the winners of
our student programs win a $10,000 scholarship.
Where have Brain Chase winners traveled? So far, we’ve taken our winners to Spain, Japan,
New Orleans, Norway & Boston. Our January winner will travel to Vanuatu in the South Pacific this summer.
Meet our Founders
Heather Staker has been a co-conspirator with Allan for years, not only by agreeing to marry him, but also in business.
In addition to being a co-founder of Brain Chase, Heather is the founder of Ready to Blend, a research initiative focused on helping educators and families use blended learning to improve the academic achievement and holistic well-being of K-12 children. She is the author of Blended: Using Disruptive Inno-vation to Improve Schools (San Francisco: Wiley, 2015), along with many other publications.
Prior to these roles, Heather served as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, completed a term as the student member of the California State Board of Education during Governor Pete Wilson’s administration, taught U.S. history as a teaching fel-low at Harvard College, founded and ran a co-op pre-school, and marketed Oil of Olay for Proctor & Gam-ble.
She holds a BA magna cum laude in government from Harvard University and an MBA with distinction from the Harvard Business School.
Allan Staker has gladly ditched his desk job on several occasions, most recently to bring Brain Chase to life.
Allan began his career in the entertainment indus-try, directing and producing dozens of short films. In 2001 he founded Liquid Media, a boutique adver-tising agency where he designed print campaigns and directed broadcast Superbowl commercials.
In 2003 Staker founded a consumer electronics company where he created the Yoostar Entertain-ment System, a gaming console that received inter-national acclaim.
Allan later managed product marketing for the Sa-fari web browser at Apple. He then went on to serve as the Director of Business Transformation at Hawaiian Airlines in Honolulu and later directed pricing strategy for Dell Computers.
Staker graduated magna cum laude with University Honors at Brigham Young University in Film Di-recting and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Try a Riddle Right Now
Brain Chase uses all types of riddles, puzzles, codes, & ciphers to challenge our participants. Can you decipher
this one? The answer is on the next page.
Shift this cipher to the left. Perfect symmetry is your clue.
The same number brings you luck, if seeing the East is what you do.
EPIBQATQNMJCBWVMOZIVLILDMVBCZM
Contact Us
General Contact Information:
Website: BrainChase.com
Email: [email protected]
Specific Questions? We’d love to hear from you:
Allan Staker, CEO: [email protected]
Bethany Paul, Business Operations Manager: [email protected]
Jamie Peterson, Product Marketing Manager: [email protected]
Riddle Solution
This is a two-step riddle:
1. Determine the number that has perfect symmetry and is considered lucky in the East (East is capitalized to
help you understand we are referring to the far East, as in China). The answer: 8.
2. The poem also tells you to use that number to shift the letters in the cipher to the left. So, E becomes W, P
becomes H, and so on until you have the following message:
What is life but one grand adventure?
