Want to Bootstrap Your Business? Don’t Repeat My Mistakes

My Desire For Control Almost Ruined Everything

Yesterday, I finally launched the first product of my almost 2-year-old creative education startup, Path Unbound.

As recent as a month or so ago, I was thinking of giving up and moving on to something else.

While I am relieved that it is finally going somewhere, there are so many lessons I learned in the past year that I wish I had known earlier.

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

The Curse Of “Do It All”

A while ago, I started to teach design as a way to improve my public speaking skills. That’s when I had the idea to start my own design school.

Being embedded deep into the creative education scene, I collected a lot of first-hand raw data to inform my own business strategies.

1. I Asked My Students Why They Chose The School

At every school I am or was a mentor/instructor at, I always ask my students why they chose the school.

The responses I got were overwhelmingly focused on two channels: 1) Word of mouth 2) Google SEO (search engine optimization).

I didn’t hear a single student saying they had seen a social media ad and signed up, which convinced me not to focus too much on paid social in…