Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ekaterina Evdokimova. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Ekaterina thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Since childhood I have had 2 greatest passions: languages and literature. But it has never been a part of my job. When I moved to the USA 6 years ago, I wanted to pursue a new career, but it was hard to figure out what exactly to do. The idea of creating a Russian language classes studio for bilingual kids came to my mind because I wanted to keep the family language for my son. I was looking for suitable Russian classes but couldn’t find what I desired. And I decided to do it myself. Later on, I also started teaching Russian for different groups of students, and English and French as well.

Myself I speak 3 languages fluently: Russian, English, and French. I am also learning Arabic, Spanish, and Turkish. I am sure that knowing languages is really beneficial because of multiple reasons: it helps to expand the horizons and the level of consciousness, to be more open-minded and understanding towards people of different cultures, to improve your brain work, to develop patience and perseverance. Moreover, it is an irreplaceable skill for travelling that allows you to feel comfortable in a country you visit and get the friendliest attitude from the locals.

So, seeing and experiencing all these advantages made me want to share my passion for languages with my audience (my students and in social media). For me my mission is it’s not only teaching to implement some knowledge but reveling the personal strengths in every student through speaking in different languages about variety of topics according to my students’ lifestyle, background, interests, and goals.

Speaking about my other passion – literature – I am using it in my classes too. I perfectly can pick a proper book for my students. But recently I went further. I wrote my first book. It is called “Letters from the Universe: A Therapy of Self-love and Self-appreciation” and is available on Amazon in 2 formats: hard cover and electronic. It is a spiritual read about various aspects of life that all people face. This book brings up such topics as self-love, trusting the process of life, not giving up, and following the dreams. It helps to build the confidence, to conquer the fears, and to appreciate life with gratitude.

I can talk about literature and languages for hours, but I tried to be as short as possible here. Thank you.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ekaterina Evdokimova. I have been living my whole life in Russia. I moved to the US only 6 years ago. In an attempt of finding proper Russian classes for my son, I got an idea to start my own tutoring business. Now I am teaching not only Russian but English and French as well.
The funny thing is that in a month after I opened my studio COVID started, and we all were in lockdown. That’s how I discovered about online meeting platforms such as Zoom. One day I made a post in a Russian speaking group on Facebook, that I want to organize online donation-based Russian classes for kids who were sitting home bored. Surprisingly, a lot of parents reached out and I formed multiple groups for kids of different ages.
It was such a challenge to teach (I had no experience before), to use an online format I was unfamiliar with, to work with kids I have never seen and met physically. But I was just trying my best and it was so much fun for both of us: for me and for kids. I am really proud of myself for pushing myself out of the comfort zone and for having a courage to give this venture a shot. That is how I gained my first loyal clients.
When I physically was able to be present in my office, I decided to make it a place where parents could leave their kids while they were doing online schools and to get themselves busy with their works.
So theoretically “my kids” were in an online school but practically they were surrounded by the other kids and were into variety of fun activities I created for them to occupy their free time. Of course, all safety protocols were followed by me. And no one ever complained. Parents and kids were very grateful. And everybody still holds sweet memories of my studio, despite the complexity of the situation at that time.
Also, to be able to pay my rent I was supposed to be pretty creative. In addition to teaching, I was organizing kids’ birthdays, theme parties, escape rooms, movie nights, educational events and more.
But I ended up going to my students’ places because it was more convenient for them. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of my office, it was still too expensive, and I spent all the money to pay rent. It didn’t make sense anymore. I am still working as a teacher online and offline. Also I wrote my first book and have some other creative ideas to realize.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think, on the other section I shared about the challenges I faced when I have just started my business. But shortly i can describe them as the following: 1. COVID started right after I opened my business
2. I started to teach online without having any experience
3. I worked with kids I have never met physically (for kids it’s really crucial to know a teacher in person, but it was impossible for some time because of the lockdown)
4. Without any previous experience I figured out how to organize various fun activities for kids, theme parties, projects and so on.
5. I’ve been doing all this alone for the whole time.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

In fact, I tried different channels for attracting customers. I won a grant from Facebook – $1000 for targeted advertising. I tried different strategies on Facebook and Instagram but I barely attracted a couple of new clients and just got exhausted. But Because of trying targeted advertising I needed my Instagram to look good, so I hired a designer, who helped me with the visual content on my page. I wrote a lot of articles, i was posting 3 times a week and I was making stories with useful content about languages and motivation every day. Even now I am proud of how much work I have done.

Moreover, I posted in different groups on Facebook for Russian speaking audience and that’s how I met majority of my loyal clients (the story about how I organized online groups during COVID was in the other section).
But in a realty the best source of new clients are my current clients (the world of mouth) who recommends me to their friends, because I have a good reputation and I am in business for 4 years already.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @ekaterinaevd @2belingual
• Amazon: https://a.co/d/9RGHYQX

Image Credits
Ekaterina Evdokimova, Yulia Burova