The Online Language Business Building Chronicles
I’ve always had little shame or fear around putting my hand up and just asking. Even if what I’m saying sounds excruciatingly embarassing.
But, awkward as it is, asking questions has gotten me pretty far in life.
Liz, I just don’t get it. This socioloinguistics module doesn’t make any sense. So you’re saying men talk like this because they’re men, women talk like this because they’re women? I’m sorry it can’t be as simple as that.
Liz was the head of linguistics at my university. I had a niggling doubt about the sociloinguistics module we were doing. She told me I had just asked the most insighful question she had ever heard.
I wasn’t trying to be smart-sounding — I just wanted an answer to the question that had been plaguing me.
Anyway, about a month ago at the Language Influencer Summit, I was sitting listening to presentations from successful language business builders. Yes, there are people in the language learning niche having lots of success online.
Lydia Machova of Language Mentoring had just given a talk on The Mindset Behind a Successful Expert Business.
I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. But I put up my hand anyway, like I always do. I needed the mic to come to me so I could ask my question.
Lydia started her business around the same time as me, springtime 2016. She now has a TED Talk that has been viewed over 3 million times, and a thriving business with a team. She’s younger than me and she’s Slovakian and has won various business awards in her country. I was feeling simultaneously inspired and crushed.
“Lydia, it turns out that we started our businesses around the same time. And here I am three years later with no TED talk, no team and most of my time spent sitting around crying in my pyjamas”
To be honest, I’m not bothered about the TED talk and the team. What I’m interested in is the personality behind the people who build these empire styles businesses. So I asked her: is there something in you? as I choked back the tears that were coming up for me.
She graciously told the story of the time she worked on her website till 4am and then put nail polish remover on her eye instead of make-up remover. For a split second, I felt like I had my shit together. I mean, I’ve never put acetone on my eyes in the wee hours of the morning.
Stories like Lydia’s makes online success look linear. She came up with a concept called “language mentoring”, tested it extensively of course— it had many iterations before it got to its present form — and now runs a business helping people learn a language by themselves. So even if the form has changed, the concept has not.
I have also been working on one concept for 3 years. Tweaking, fiddling, testing. But nothing has stuck. I launch something, it works for a bit. Then it stops working.
This is the less glamourous side of online business buidling that you don’t get to hear so much about. And yes, of course products and services come and go. But somewhere in the story, you kiss the frog who turns into the prince and you get married and live happily ever after. Right?
So while I’m still kissing frogs and trying to find my prince in the online world-i.e the product/service combo that leads to a small but sustainable business with a roster of repeat happy clients and recurring income-I want to chronicle my ups and downs to pay it forward a little.
Bertrand Millet, another presenter at the summit, gave a talk on monetization strategies. The one that caught my eye is to sell “how to fail”.
I’ve got three years of multiple failures under my belt. So my plan is to write the advice that I would have wanted my 3-year ago self to know.
I was so clueless it’s almost comical.
So see you back here for posts on how not to fail or fail with grace, elegance and style in:
=> the early stages
=> product/service creation
=> sucky stuckiness
=> stuff not selling
=> information overwhelm
And much, much more!