We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dina Lu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dina below.

Dina, appreciate you joining us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

I started my YouTube channel in 2020 posting weekly long-form educational videos about how to start a calligraphy business (my audience at the time was calligraphers who wanted to start their first business).

For a year, I made videos helping calligraphers make money, but then I had a midlife crisis in my YouTube journey. I was growing really slow, I had about 1,000 subscribers, I wasn’t making any money with my YouTube channel, and I wasn’t really sure if it was worth continuing with it.

But after thinking about it for a really long time, I realized that what I actually wanted to do since I was in university was to become a blogger and share my various experiences with the world. And since I already have the YouTube channel, I thought, “Well, you know what, I think I can actually do that but just with YouTube instead of a blog.” So I pivoted my content and posted about all sorts of different things about growing a business and personal development.

It still grew very slowly until 2 years in, and 99 videos later, I finally had my big break. My video titled “My first month on Etsy results” Video skyrocketed my YouTube channel and I went from 4,000 to 10,000 subscribers within a month.

I started making significant money from YouTube and booked a one way ticket to Vietnam so I could finally live the digital nomad dream that I had for years. I explored multiple countries in Southeast Asia for 7 months and now I’m back home in Vancouver with 50,000 subscribers 11 months later.

What I learned from this experience was that it’s so important to stay consistent and keep believing in yourself. Who knew that my 99th YouTube video would be the one?

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?

I’m a 29-year old Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur, YouTube creator, calligrapher, and Etsy shop owner from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

In 2018, I started my first side business selling greeting cards and teaching calligraphy workshops. A year later, I quit my 9-5 government office job to see if I could make it as a creative business owner. Since then, I’ve never looked back!

As a calligrapher, I teach public and corporate calligraphy workshops around Metro Vancouver and offer calligraphy services for weddings, events, and parties.

As a digital entrepreneur, I run an educational Youtube channel in the business niche with 50,000 subscribers, coach creatives on how to start a profitable business, and sell digital products in my Etsy shop.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Since I was in university, I always knew I wanted to eventually become my own boss. I got a 9-5 office job right out of university, and after one year working there, I started to brainstorm ideas for my first side business. Around the same time, I discovered calligraphy randomly just through scrolling on Pinterest, and I thought, “Aha! I think I can start a calligraphy business and sell greeting cards.”

So the next day, I bought some calligraphy pens from the art store, and started teaching myself calligraphy with YouTube. Three months later, I designed some cards, promoted them to my friends, and made $500 in one month. I then started to teach calligraphy workshops. A year after learning calligraphy, I was willing to make a bet on myself: I quit my 9-5 job and gave myself one year to try to make a full-time income with my business.

Six months after quitting my job, the pandemic started and I had to pivot to teaching online workshops, and I also started a coaching business to help calligraphers start a business. To be very honest, it was tough. But I didn’t want to give up.

Since then, I’ve tried different kinds of online income streams like selling digital products on Etsy and growing a YouTube channel, and I’ve never looked back!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In the last 5 years of running my multiple businesses, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is about what success is. I used to think success was reaching $X amount in income, or having X amount of followers. And so I never ever felt successful. I always felt like I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t make it.

While working with a business coach three years ago, I learned to write out a new definition of success that wasn’t dependent on any metric, but rather, was something that I could try to do every single day. My new definition of success was “Success is learning and growing every single day.”

I learned to embrace success as a combination of habits, mindset, and how I feel about myself, rather than a moving goalpost.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dinacalligraphy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dinadlu/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinalu/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DinaLu

Image Credits
Victor Li