throwing together a massive online business in 3 months
hair's been on fire for a while now but getting used to it
About six months ago, I was in the middle of a popular writing cohort, where hundreds of writers came together to “ship” (publish) an article every single day for 30 days.
Along the way, we learned about the digital marketing industry, networked with other writers, and forced ourselves to break through that invisible barrier of social anxiety that came with creating something unique and posting it for the internet to see.
The content and ideas of the cohort were pretty cool and I learned a lot, but there was something much deeper than the digital writing theories that held my attention — this online community that was built so damn well.
There were daily assignments, plenty of face-to-face classes, a super supportive network of similar-minded people, and even gamified elements like earning badges for completing certain tasks.
I remember taking a break in the middle of a virtual seminar with hundreds of other people, running over to Jihyun’s desk in the other room and excitedly telling her about the features of the cohort, then saying something that would pretty much change the course of our lives:
“I bet we could do something like this for Korean people who want to learn English.”
Turning Ideas Into, More Than Ideas
I don’t remember either of us actually committing to the idea of creating an online English Bootcamp.
It just started happening.
In the beginning, we had no grand vision for a thriving online business. Our thoughts were pretty much…let’s just see if there are people who want to study with us for three months online.
Jihyun started testing the waters with her already-flourishing YouTube and newsletter audiences. Even just the hint of it in a video here and there, and comments came flooding in about how excited some people were and how they needed something like this. People already began asking for specific dates and costs before the Bootcamp was nothing more than a joke of an idea.
We started playing around with numbers.
If we have this many people, we should charge this much.
But then we need to hire x amount of teachers. Can we afford that?
Don’t we need to hire x too?
I don’t think we can do that many people.
Back and forth we went until we happened upon that beautiful, round number: 100.
We would accept 100 adult students.
Once we had the number, things got real.
We needed a curriculum. We needed an original book and prerecorded video lessons to go with it. For that, we would need to hire a designer and a video editor.
We needed several SaaS applications, including video conferencing systems, scheduling apps, a ton of cloud storage, and a community platform. Most importantly, they all needed to integrate with each either seamlessly.
We needed to market the Bootcamp, send out surveys, and have students fill out applications to find the perfect candidates to join us on this intense 3-month journey.
We needed to hire a full-on staff. I needed multiple teachers I could trust to teach weekly 1-on-1 sessions with the students. We needed someone to design the textbook from front to back. We needed someone to put together tons of spreadsheets and organize all of the data coming in. We needed someone to edit and produce over 20 video lessons. “And we need someone to star in those video lessons,” Jihyun said, me unwittingly knowing she would force me in front of the camera.
But most of all, unbeknownst to me, we needed a monstrous force to push and motivate us — a rolling boulder to chase a desperate Indiana Jones through a cave, a bloodthirsty lion nipping at our heels to force us ahead.
“Okay, I just chose the dates,” Jihyun said one morning. “We’re starting January 8th.”
That was less than three months away.
I scoffed.
“Are you joking? We literally don’t have anything we need. No content. No systems. No staff. We have no fucking idea what we’re doing. We need way more time.”
“I already announced it publically,” she replied.
And that was that.
Legos
Actually, that wasn’t just that.
We fought about it several times. I thought it was absolute insanity. We needed to research. To plan. To perfect.
But I’ve worked with this girl long enough to know that she’s the type of person who needs a soul-crushing deadline to put her into work mode, so against my instincts, we went with her plan (not that I had a choice).
Jihyun immediately brought on her sister to help with administrative tasks and got to work marketing and coming up with a studying system for the students.
I got busy writing my third English textbook while looking into all of the software we needed to create an operational foundation for an online community. I thought it would be pretty straightforward.
Narrator: It was not straightforward.
As the weeks rolled on, piece by piece, like a Lego Millennium Falcon, our business started to take shape.
At first, everything we did was guided by fun little ideas.
What if we gave students their own personalized textbook at the end of the Bootcamp? What if we created study rooms where they can all study together virtually? Wouldn’t it be cute if the design looked like this?
Eventually, as January rolled ever closer, everything was guided by stress-induced, “oh fuck” decisions.
Oh my God… the scheduling platform doesn’t have x feature. Jesus Christ…the video platform doesn’t allow recording. Oh shit… we have to make this and this match up with these tax laws or else we’re going to have to pay x amount of taxes.
Thousands of “oh no’s” and “oh fuck’s” later, we had built a real, working system.
We had six staff members on our payroll. We had a hundred eager students waiting to join, with a hundred more sadly sitting on a waiting list.
January came and it was time to launch.
Successful-ish
Now, we’re already a five weeks into our Bootcamp. Time flies.
Despite literally working 12+ hours every day of the week and the neverending stream of fires to put out — it’s been a wild success so far.
Our students, ranging from ages under 20 to over 50, have been working their asses off in our unique English-learning system and have been absolutely loving it. They study together on camera, make friends through our Discord (community platform), have one-on-one meetings with teachers and counselors every single week, and can literally see the progress they make learning English every step of the way.
Most of our students are adults that are learning English to make big changes in their lives — to move to new countries, to start new jobs, to expand their existing careers, and to build the confidence needed to go out into the world.
I love being able to give people the same opportunities I had when I first left my country, searching for a life that suited me best. Most native English-speakers take it for granted, but for those who’s first language is not English, it is an absolutely life-changing tool that can lead to so many opportunities across the world.
I’ve never been able to say I’ve done something as impactful as this, and it’s damn rewarding.
The other day, a few friends came over on one of our rare days off. We showed them a bit of what we were doing and they commented on how detailed, well-thought-out, and immersive our course was.
“How did you guys know all of this stuff would work together like this?”
Uh…we didn’t.
We just kept throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick, while running around with our heads cut off trying to put out fires.
We had (some of) a vision, and we just kept building on it, one piece at a time.
Lessons Learned
We’ve barely scratched the surface of this new journey, but we’ve learned a thousand lessons along the way already.
1. Action is so much more important than prep.
Jihyun’s initial gut reaction to just set a crazy-ass timeline and just get the product out there might have been the most beneficial thing we could have possibly done. Who knows how long we would have sat around, perfecting every stupid letter in the textbook, finding the best possible software to launch from (if we had followed my timeline)?
You really don’t learn much from the prepping and studying and research. It’s from being in the arena where you gain exponential amounts of knowledge and experience.
Jihyun and I are each playing about 8 different roles in a company, from accountant to marketer to teacher to manager to voice actor to editor to tech support to customer service to tax lawyer to CEO. We’ve gained more experience in the past month than a decade of research could have given us.
2. Don’t expect anything to be perfect.
And that’s an understatement. The difference between our vision and how things actually shaped out because of unforeseen factors is miles different, but it’s better to just get the show on the road and just adapt along the way.
There are all of these technical lessons and pieces of advice that we could give about the specifics of creating this online business, but truly the only useful advice for anyone else that might be thinking of building something is to just jump off the cliff and figure it out along the way.
3. Don’t wish for less time.
Although I might be one of the luckiest people in the world that I get to build this awesome community with my best friend and partner, it wasn’t all happy giggles and farting rainbows.
We run into incredibly stressful situations, big fights, and neverending days all the time. It can feel easy to get battered down after a while. I definitely found myself wishing that certain days would just be over so I could chill for five seconds.
As humans, I think a lot of us have this weird mental quirk where we always want to get to the end of something so that we can get to the next thing.
Finish work to get home and relax. Get this appointment out of the way so I can hang out with my friends. Fast forward to next summer when I get to travel to Italy. Quickly get through this job so I can find a better job or a better position or a better whatever.
Even good things that happen in our lives, we tend to fast forward through, if only to be comfortably in bed, scrolling mindlessly on our phones.
I think about time a lot nowadays, especially because our year in Melbourne, Australia, is already coming to an end. Our year-long visa is up in a month, and I have to leave this beautiful city I got to call my home for a year.
It’s insane to think about, actually wishing for less time to live and be happy and experience everything there is about this life, good and bad.
“Where did the time go?” is such a tragic question. Especially since we’re the ones who get to choose whether we value right now or not.
Ji and I decided not to fast-forward through anything anymore.
Even if we’re in the middle of nine hours of meetings or a series of the most frustrating problems in the world, our motto is “don’t wish for less time.”
I know for sure, for me at least, I’m going to miss these tough days.
I wrote this piece to document a little snapshot of these hectic days, because as much as I complain, man I love it.
So I’ll say it one more time, since I can’t think of a more clever closing sentence:
Don’t ever wish for less time.
Summarized well the lessons you've learned! - those are exactly what we've been through undoing the 26 years of memories and accumulations from Old Ranch to a new life style from the day (my big 60). We committed for a change without knowing our decision will be a perfect one. The undoing was difficult emotionally and physically, now we already miss the painful process. So proud of you and Jihyun!!! Love your main logo too.
Outstanding work! Proud of you both man! Looking forward to seeing you both back in Korea soon!