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

Jade, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I had been teaching online for over a decade and earning enough income to pay my bills, travel, and have a whole lot of leisure time. However, I knew I could expand and scale. The only way to do that was to create my business. I could no longer be a “solopreneur” doing all the tasks by myself. The demand for my online courses were increasing, and I couldn’t fulfill all the class requests. I had also created a schedule that allowed me the leisure time I always wanted. In order to meet my client’s needs and still enjoy the life I was creating, I had to hire staff. I went from being the only teacher to having an online school – Teacher Jade’s Writing Academy. It was a risk because the families I served were committed to taking classes from me. I had to hire the best teachers that I felt would provide the same quality instruction I did. The secondary risk was losing my loyal clients. The third risk was turning my side hustle into a business. My area of expertise was in education and instruction. I didn’t know anything about owning a legal business and in order to grow, I had to change my mindset of having a side hustle to that of a CEO.

When I finally made up my mind to expand, I had to hire teachers. Luckily, I was able to find two amazing teachers that were willing to ride with me as I figured everything out. It didn’t take much convincing for families to trust that their children would still be taking classes with individuals that had the same passion I had and brought the same level of energy into the virtual classroom. They loved my new teachers, left them glowing reviews, and asked if they could continue taking classes with them. The was the first hurdle I had to tackle. The second part was my own personal challenges in changing my role. I was no longer the teacher, I was the admin, HR, and marketer. Having a firm client base was great and having word of mouth referrals was what kept my classes full. However, with teachers on board, I had to learn how to market my business to bring in new clients and ensure that working for me was beneficial to the teachers I hired.

I enrolled in multiple courses to learn more about marketing and management. The best program I enrolled in was actually free and I learned valuable information about how to maintain a business. While that experience was great, I ventured to find additional resources to assist with marketing and branding. Unfortunately, not all the programs I joined were helpful. In my first year, I lost thousands of dollars investing in branding and marketing companies and paying for mentorship and coaches. It became a case of trial-and-error. Every time I interviewed a new candidate to help with a marketing campaign, so I went back to services that were offered for free. I learned as much as I could, so I wouldn’t have to rely on hiring someone to create content or run ads. In the future, I would love to hire the person or company that can help my school grow. There are still risks I am willing to take, but I have learned how to better vet for those positions. Hiring my teachers came easy because I knew exactly what I was looking for in a n educator.

All these experiences were about learning and growing. When I first decided to hire teachers, I started with two. Since that first year, I have hired five more teachers and plan on hiring at least 3-5 more before winter. I took a risk on expanding and those teachers took a risk working with me because I told them I was learning as I was going/growing.

As my Academy began to grow, I decided to take on another task. I started teaching people how to develop and teach online profitable courses. I was always being asked about how I did it, so I started off offering an eBook, which then lead to consultation, which eventually lead to me creating a self-paced online course that included all the information and resources I used over the last decade. This new venture came with its own challenges. But, it shows me that when I see a problem, I like to find a solution. If there is a risk, I am down for the challenge.

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 started teaching online as a side hustle. In 2008, I was teaching on two platforms. By 2010, I had enough independent clients to start working for myself. At the time, I still saw it as a side hustle, and I wouldn’t leave the classroom completely until 2016. By 2020, I started to hire teachers to offer classes on my website and through my organization, Teacher Jade’s Writing Academy. My Academy is a virtual school that offers writing courses to youth ages 8-18. Originally, I served homeschooling families, but that has expanded to families that have children in traditional public schools and hybrid schools. In addition to offering both live and prerecorded classes to youth, I also teach adults how to develop online profitable classes. My work in advocating for homeschooling and teachers earning more income has led to features in Business Insider, CNBC+Acorn, Forbes, Side Hustle Nation, Ebony Podcast, and many more publications and podcasts. It is amazing that the work I am doing gets recognition because I was just trying to turn myside hustle into a livable income, and I did.

While I am extremely proud of the work I do with youth and helping them become confident writers, I am even more proud about helping people move from their idea of what education has to look like. I have helped families that want to start homeschooling. I have helped teachers develop online classes, so they don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. I have helped small business owners pivot and become virtual. With the changing landscape of the world, we have to be prepared. At times, I struggle with knowing everyone doesn’t have access to quality education, but I knew I was limited in what I could do inside of a classroom. So, even though I mentioned all those proud moments, the one thing that I truly take pride in is giving back. My Academy offers over $1200 in scholarships each year and plan on adding microgrants to help families that are on the have not side of the digital divide.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I never intended on becoming an entrepreneur. None of my five-year goals ever included being a businessowner. It just kind of happened, in the beginning. I had only lived in Georgia for a year. I was working as a paraprofessional for Atlanta Public Schools while I was awaiting my licenses to transfer. I was also teaching after school art classes at a local historical museum, tutoring online for two platforms, and juggling private students. I was always working, always tired, and never had enough money (I owned two homes adn was renting at the time, I should have been financially secure).

One day, my daughter came home from school, frustrated. She asked if she could be homeschooled. My response was, ‘no.’ Then she said something that completely changed everything. It was the ‘ah-ha’ moment. After I told her ‘no’ I explained that I had to go to work to pay bills.

She said, “You already make money teaching online.”

That was all I needed to hear. It was in that moment that my mindset shifted. I started thinking about all these different possibilities as it related to what I thought my life had to look like. That was her last year in school and our first year worldschooling. We spent a year traveling abroad adn I started putting together a strategy to create a business that would allow me to homeschool my daughter. At the time, my vision was just to work with homeschooling families. Then I started getting requests from non-homeschooling families to teach their children too. My growth came from word of mouth.

When I decided to offer classes on an online platform, the growth of my classes nearly tripled. Within my first year, I was earning over $10000/month and I was only teaching 10-15 hours/week. The COVID closes schools down and my income doubled, but so did the requests for my classes. This was when I decided to hire teachers and create Teacher Jade’s Writing Academy. Having teachers allowed me to expand the class offerings as I only had three courses that served middle school aged students. I know have over 50 different courses and serve upper elementary to high school aged students.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

With the success of my classes, there was also a lot of publicity. I was featured in articles; I was asked to speak at conferences and on podcasts. It all seemed like an amazing story. Everyone wanted to hear the story about the “single mom that makes $10k/month teaching online.” But, there have been some downsides. While there was a huge influx of families taking classes online, eventually this led to virtual burnout. Parents were tired of placing their children in front of screens and children were tired of being in front of screens too. My enrollments took a big dip. I went from having full classes, to sometimes having to cancel or reschedule due to low enrollment. It was disheartening and discouraging. At one point, I thought I would have to go back to teaching the classes myself. I was only bringing in enough to pay my teachers, but I didn’t have any profit.

Instead of teaching classes, I started offering more prerecorded classes to supplement my income and I actually added more classes. Providing a variety of classes helped. Instead of families purchasing multi-week classes, I added subscription-based classes which allowed them to come and go as needed and with the uncertainly of each day, it helped maintain enrollments. They felt comfortable paying for classes when they knew they didn’t have to commit to a whole course, they could sign up weekly.

I didn’t want to fire my teachers just because I needed a hire profit margin. This was when I had to pivot too. I was already being asked to provide consultations to organizations and being contacted by individuals to help them with their online teaching journey, so I created a course for them. This allowed me, as an individual, to earn an income that didn’t interfere with my teacher’s income. I wouldn’t have lost my business; I would have lost my teachers and had to return to teaching all the classes again, by myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.TeacherJade.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacher_jade; https://www.instagram.com/teacherjadeswritingacademy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeacherJadeW; https://www.facebook.com/TeacherJadeW/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jade-weatherington-m-ed-67b37563