Small Business Saturday

Happy Small Business Saturday!

I wanted to take a moment to talk about my business thus far in celebration of Small Business Saturday. 

Note: Some of these links contain affiliate links and if you decide to purchase the products, I will earn a portion of the sale as an affiliate of these products.

I started my business in June of 2021. I didn’t have any formal business training, although I did want to double major in Spanish and business in college, but the college I attended didn’t let me do that. I ended up getting a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and then went to get my AMS Lower Elementary Montessori Teaching Certification. I started working in a Montessori school in 2018 because I was a Montessori child and my family has always been very involved in Montessori schools. I wanted something for myself, so I started my own LLC. It took a few years to muster up the courage to start my own online business. I looked for months and months about “making money online” and all of that. I found out there are so many legal things that go into making a business and while I could have picked to be a sole proprietorship, I decided to do an LLC so that it is a legitimate business entity. I started getting things started at the beginning of 2021 and I launched my business in June of 2021. 

I found out I really enjoyed designing the website for my business. (I have changed it many times since the beginning). I use Squarespace to host my website. It is a lot of fun to be able to customize the pages. 

I focused a lot on the Spanish side of things first. I did a lot of Spanish tutoring online (which I still do!) and I made some digital Spanish products. At first, I made these things called “Online Spanish Puzzles” and they are all on my website and they are puzzles in Spanish and you figure out the code to the next web page. I had a lot of fun creating these things. I now do the tutoring and I have course called Spanish to Travel to Spain.

Since I didn’t know a lot about business, I took part in two online business programs. There are so many out there, and to be completely honest, they all have the same information and just sell business things to hopeful new to online business owners. One I joined lasted for a year and half and it was specific for Online Language Tutors. I will not mention that program here because I could have found that information anywhere and it wasn’t very helpful to my business journey in the end. Although I got to do an Instagram Live with the creator of that program, so that was a pretty cool opportunity.

The second business program I am in is actually worth it because through that I get lifetime access to Teachery, a course platform. That is a coaching program called WAIM (Wandering Aimfully) and that has so much useful info and monthly coaching and notion templates and courses that I get included forever. 

A tip I will give is that if you do join a business coaching or mentorship program, make sure the creators of these have had actual businesses before doing business coaching. So many “business coaches” have their first business be “helping other businesses run their business”, and that doesn’t make any sense. Both business programs I joined, the owners had other businesses for YEARS before helping others do the same.

Teachery is the main reason I joined, so instead of paying another monthly or yearly amount of money for my business, I just got it free, included with the business program. They are actually doing a lifetime price just for Teachery! It is my favorite tool I use in my business! Not only it is a course platform, but it is completely customizable and so amazing. I mostly use it as a hub for digital downloads. For example, I have a free hub with 300+ people in it and my paid for products, like my Lower Elementary Scope and Sequence and maps, I have a hub for that so all the downloadables are in one place when people buy it! 

Here are some examples of my Teachery hubs/courses:

I love getting to design the layout and the backgrounds of each course! It is so much fun to be creative with it! Here is a video of me designing a new hub on Teachery:

Not only do I have Spanish products in my business, my main job is being a Lower Elementary Montessori teacher! I have been in a Montessori environment as either a student, volunteer, or teacher every year of my life, so I definitely have lots of knowledge and experience in Montessori. That is why I have chosen to create classroom materials and teacher tools in order to help other Montessori teachers. That is the part of the business I have been working on the most this last year. 

Sometimes the business side of things like the sales tax and other components are really frustrating to understand, but that is why the definition of entrepreneur includes “risk taker” in it. Everything in business is a risk: not knowing if people will buy your products (which is why I like creating Montessori and Spanish products because I use them in my own classroom and life, so if no one else buys them, I make them anyway for myself)! Putting money into your business is also a risk, but I have managed to keep my costs relatively low every year and have made more then I have spent, so that is great, but hopefully I will allow myself to take more risks in the future, which will hopefully pay off. Also, speaking of keeping costs low, when I first started my business, I thought I had to pay for all the products, like email marketing, design tools, and other things. I am here to tell you that the free versions of things work just as well, if not better for my purposes, than the more expensive things. For example, my first year I paid Squarespace to do the email marketing, but now I use Kit (perviously ConvertKit) to send my emails for completely free (since I don’t have 10,000 email subcribers yet). It works super well! For design, I paid for Indesign through Adobe (which is way too expensive) and then found Canva, which works way better for my design skill set. I made many “money mistakes” my first year of business, but now I only spend money for things on my business that are absolutely necessary. Also, I am not an accountant, but almost any expense in your business in a tax write off, so basically the money you spend, helps with taxes. Since I have made a business I have been using an accountant to file my taxes, which is way easier than trying to do it myself, as I had done when I didn’t have a business, so that helped me realize “it was way easier to pay an expert to do things than to give yourself a headache trying to do it yourself.” All that being said, 99.9% of the time having a business is a lot of fun!

My mix of Spanish and Montessori really are two great hobbies in my life, and I know you aren’t supposed to consider a business a hobby, but it gives me something to do in my free time that also makes me passive money, so that is a great hobby! (Although my main hobby is exercising!) 

Anyway, I am very lucky to be able to share my knowledge of Spanish and Montessori with others, all over the world! 

Happy Small Business Saturday! I am so happy and proud of myself and other entrepreneurs for taking a leap of courage to help others!