Coach Jay’s Chess Academy: The Fastest, Easiest Way to Learn Chess
Created by Coach Jay
The fastest, easiest, MOST FUN way to learn chess! From the coach who's taught over 35,000 kids to play chess in the past 23+ years.
You're never too young (or old!) to begin to reap the lifelong benefits that only chess can bring!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Important Stretch Goal, Production and Ship Date Update
over 6 years ago
– Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 01:36:53 PM
Hello backers!
It's been a whirlwind over the past couple months and I wanted to give you an update on the Coach Jay's Chess Academy packages you've all preordered. We've been trying hard to avoid this update, but we've received a few updates from our contractors and now know that a delay is unavoidable, so we wanted to let you know ASAP.
Because of this delay, we've held off on locking down the preorder upgrades on Backerkit.com. If you need to make any changes because of the following news, please head to Backerkit and make those changes by Wednesday!
Stretch Goal Update
Because of your generous support, we hit our first stretch goal which meant that we could afford to add a significant amount of content to the curriculum. This means MANY more lessons and puzzles. Because we're able to print more copies, it means the cost per page has come down significantly, so the books we're polishing up will now have roughly 50% more content!
This means we've added some fun famous games from throughout the history of chess, all with important lessons for every chess player, and a new Skill Challenge level to the end of each Puzzle Book. This is really exciting because Coach Jay thinks this will help to take many of the concepts of chess covered in our current curriculum and tie it all together at the end of each level.
Finally, we've had to make some updates to our sticker designs to accommodate these content changes. It seemed silly to add all this content and NOT have stickers for kids to put in their Chess Passports when they completed the new content.
Production Delay
Unfortunately, because of this, we realized that we needed to rearrange some of the pages and commission some additional art (both illustrations to accommodate the new content AND art for new stickers). We've roughly doubled the number of illustrations in our lesson books because of your generous support, but they're all hand drawn. In our experience, many of the kids learn as much from the illustrations as they do from the art, so having this additional art will help kids grasp the concepts of chess greatly.
In addition, these changes have required us to change the physical dimensions of the book (the puzzle books will now be on slightly larger paper) and update everything from our Table of Contents to our book covers, which has required us to hire a layout expert to take our existing documents and put them into InDesign in order to prepare them for the printers.
At each one of the above steps, we've run into delays:
The art is taking longer than anticipated -- we have two artists who are working tirelessly during this holiday season to try to meet some very tough deadlines!
It took awhile for us to find a layout expert with chess experience -- we've found one now, though, and having someone who understands chess has helped tremendously
The layout is somewhat dependent upon having the art completed, but the layouts have been prepared for when the art is complete
Because of our delayed schedule, we've missed a crucial window to get our books printed in December
Expected Ship Date - January 2018
We're still working to get these printed and shipped as soon as possible and the new target ship date is this coming January. We do promise you this: the result of an extra month of work will result in a higher quality, more educational, better looking and more fun final product!
We cannot apologize enough for this delay! It has always been our intention to get these out in a timely fashion and have them available for Christmas. We do believe that you will appreciate the improvements and changes we've made, but also know that this is likely disappointing news for some of you.
We're Here for You!
Finally, I want to thank some of you who've corresponded with us during these delays and encouraged us to take the time to make the best possible product. From day one, Coach Jay's mission has been to "empower youth to grow through chess" and we both think this is the best way to accomplish that mission. We're proud of what we're making and our students and parents who've gotten to get there hands on the new content have LOVED IT!
Of course, we know this will be disappoint to some of you, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have concerns. You have my commitment that I will do anything to make things right if this negatively affects you. You can email us directly at [email protected] and we will work with you to make things right!
Thank you again for your support and belief is this project. We can't wait to get Coach Jay's Chess Academy in your hands!
CHECK you later!
Kyle and Coach Jay
IMPORTANT UPDATE: What's Next!
over 6 years ago
– Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 06:02:04 PM
So, it's been a week since our Kickstarter campaign successfully funded. THANK YOU SO MUCH! This is an important update to all backers, so please take the time to read it... it will probably answer a few of the questions you may have!
The next 7 days... Kickstarter Finishes Collecting Funds
Most of you will have already been charged by Kickstarter for your pledges. There are a few backers whose payments failed, probably due to a chard change, and Kickstarter will try to collect those payments in the next week. If you are one of the few affected backers, I urge you to update your payment info ASAP since after next week, Kickstarter will cancel your order. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do after that point!
Next week - Backerkit Surveys
After Kickstarter's 14 day window, we will receive the funds from Kickstarter and begin to prepare Coach Jay's Chess Academy for printing and shipping. At the same time, we will send out surveys from Backerkit. These are IMPORTANT, since that is where you will confirm your shipping address. I encourage you to review and confirm this promptly--otherwise, we will follow up to make sure that everything is correct. With a few hundred backers, this would take quite some time, so I hope you'll help us out and complete the survey within a day or two of receiving them!
Add-Ons - Want to Upgrade your Purchase or get an Additional Copy for a Second (or Third or More) Child?
We've gotten a few emails from people asking if they could upgrade their pledge and we've got you covered! If you signed up for a White and Yellow Belt pack, but have now decided to go all in with the full White through Black Belt, you will be able to with the Backerkit surveys next week.
Also, over the course of the campaign, we got MANY requests from people wanting to get an additional copy for a second or third child. If you are one of those who asked about that, the Backerkit survey is where you can add additional copies at a discounted price.
NOTE: If you pledged as an Early Bird, the Early Bird discounts will apply to these upgrades as well!
Estimated Ship Date
We're aiming to ship these out within the first two weeks of December. We are as excited to send these to you as you are to receive them! We will keep you posted on our progress, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to send us a message, email us or shoot us a message on Facebook!
Thank you again for all of your support! We truly appreciate it!
Kyle (and Coach Jay)
We did it! Thank you to all 267 backers who helped us raise $26,414 to help bring the joy and benefits of chess to hundreds of kids!
over 6 years ago
– Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 02:27:27 PM
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED THIS KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN SUCCEED BEYOND OUR WILDEST DREAMS!
It has been mindblowing to see the support this project has received. My life's mission has to "empower youth to grow through chess" and knowing that hundreds of kids I've never met will soon begin to reap the lifelong benefits of chess is incredibly exciting, fulfilling AND humbling!
If you missed out, don't worry! We will soon have more copies of Coach Jay's Chess Academy available! (After we get copies to our backers of course!)
In a few days, this link will take you to our preorder store for our NEXT batch of Coach Jay's Chess Academy:
We will be shipping in December, but in the meantime, check out my free e-book, How to Teach Your Kid Chess!
In the meantime, if you head over to TeachYourKidChess.com, you can download a free copy of my book How to Teach Your Kid Chess. Hopefully that will help you get started before the next batch of Coach Jay's Chess Academy is available!
Again, thank you all SO much for your support. You rock! We're excited for the next chapter in our journey and hope it ends up being even HALF as fun as this campaign was!
CHECK you later!
Coach Jay and Kyle
A look inside the Coach Jay's Chess Academy Lesson and Exercise books
over 6 years ago
– Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 08:22:31 PM
Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you all know about a Kickstarter Live video we did where we looked inside the Lesson and Exercise books.
FINAL DAYS! Can you spend 60 seconds and really help us out?
over 6 years ago
– Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 06:54:13 PM
I can't believe it... this is the final weekend to preorder Coach Jay's Chess Academy. I have had such a blast getting to know so many of you guys and very excited to get this great chess course in your (and your kids') hands!
We're almost to our first stretch goal--help share Coach Jay's Chess Academy so we can hit that goal and include a BUNCH of extra lessons and exercises!
I've been asked a few times about "stretch goals" by parents and what that means. I was a little confused by the term too when we began exploring Kickstarter. In short, printing runs are largely dependent upon quantity... so the more people preorder, the lower the cost to print the materials due to bulk pricing. THAT means that we can add pages to every book with additional fun lessons and exercises.
I'm real excited about this, since I had to go through a painful process when trimming Coach Jay's Chess Academy down to something that we could afford to print without losing a ton of money!
SO, if you help share Coach Jay's Chess Academy and we hit our first stretch goal, you will get more great chess instruction for free! It's really a win/win!
Thank you all so much for your support. I never imagined so many people would be excited about teaching their kids to play chess. I've seen how much chess can change lives and made it my life's mission to help grow the game amongst kids and their parents, so this support means more than you can ever imagine!
