Alex Hodara - Founder & CEO of Rocket Club

Alex with his nephews Jack & Liam, who are both Series A Certified Rocket Club Members in the Rocket Club Hall of Fame

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year NJ Winner & National Finalist

About Alex and the Creation of Rocket Club

As a child, Alex loved sports, especially baseball. His dad saw this passion as an opportunity to teach him advanced math at a very early age by involving him in fantasy baseball. During this time, Alex learned to use statistics and analytics to project the future success of major leaguers. By his early teenage years, he was using his math skills to compete and win against adults in the world of fantasy baseball, where statistical analysis was key.

At 14, Alex started his first business, using money earned from fantasy sports to import custom merchandise from abroad and resell it in America. In college, he founded what CNBC coined “the first student-run real estate brokerage in America.” Alex specialized in analyzing and optimizing the financial performance of student housing properties, selling over 20 cash-flowing multifamily properties to investors before graduation.

With the commissions earned from these sales and funds raised from investors, Alex developed over 200 rental units in Boston, some of which were purchased by the city of Boston to be used as high-quality subsidized housing.

With the proceeds from this sale, Alex founded Rocket Club, the club he wished he had as a kid. His goal is to inspire members to find their passion for math and STEM at an early age, just as his dad did for him through baseball statistics.

below is a post our founder Alex Hodara wrote on his instagram after he was announced as a winner of the 2021 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award:

“When I was 14 years-old, I started to have persistent panic attacks that made me feel like I was unable to catch my breath, sometimes for days at a time. I kept this extremely secretive, even from my closest friends, because I was very embarrassed by it. I missed dozens of days of school that year to go to doctors who thought it might be asthma, allergies, or a lung condition. The issue with panic attacks is that when you dwell on it, the anxiety just gets more intense. I needed a distraction when the panic set in. 

It wasn’t until I started my own business during that year that I was able to pull myself out of the spiral. Becoming an entrepreneur at 14 made me feel confident and special; it gave me an outlet to channel my creativity, while helping me to stop obsessing about trying to take my next deep breath. 

Our team at Rocket Club gets the opportunity to help hundreds of children, who may be dealing with their own secret struggles and insecurities, to feel confident and special everyday. It means the world to us when a parent reaches out to tell us about how Rocket Club has helped their child through a difficult time, or has helped spark a confidence in them that they didn’t know existed. When we get those notes, it reminds us why we work so hard to create this experience and community. 

I will work my entire life building Rocket Club to be the club that I wished I had when I was 14 years-old.”

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