1 | My Teacherpreneur Journey: TeachersPayTeachers

My teacherpreneur journey started back in 2012 when I decided that I wanted to start selling my resources on TPT.

In the beginning, TPT was a way for me to share my resources with the world in a very passive way. At first, I only made enough money to buy e-books… I definitely had the “post and coast” mentality. I posted my products and just let them coast.

Then in 2019, I was spiraling into a period of extreme depression and anxiety following the birth of our son. It was then that I decided I needed something for myself, so I started spending every waking moment I had for myself into my business. And it paid off… I went from an e-book here and there, to actually helping to pay our mortgage.

This is the full story of my journey as a TPT author.

Episode Transcript

Hey there, I'm Jenzaia and this is Market, Scale, Grow. A podcast created for ambitious teacherpreneurs looking to have a bigger impact on the world, achieve freedom, flexibility, and ultimately make more money with weekly strategy sessions and inspiring stories from fellow teachers just like you. My goal here is to help you create a customized marketing strategy so you can grow your teacher business beyond your wildest dreams. 

Okay, before we get started, I'm really excited because I created a free quiz just for you. You can head to marketscalegrow.com/quiz to find out if Facebook ads are right for you and your business. This two-minute quiz has a couple of questions that you can answer to find out if Facebook ads or something else is the next marketing strategy that you should be implementing in your business. So head to marketscalegrow.com/quiz to find out today.

Welcome! Welcome to this very first episode of Market, Scale, Grow. I'm your host, Jenzaia. And I am so excited that you're joining me. Today's episode is the first part of my teacherpreneur journey. We're going to be talking all about my experiences as a TeachersPayTeachers seller. 

Episode three will take off from where my business changed and evolved from that beginning on TeachersPayTeachers. So we'll get into that in episode three, but for today, let's rewind all the way back to March or February, February of 2013. I was living in Taiwan, teaching English and using TPT to help supplement the curriculum I was given. And I thought, “Hey, I'm also making stuff, so why not try selling it?” So I put the things I created up on TPT and just let it go and see what would happen. TPT in 2013 was a bit of a Wild Wild West.

Some of my products were Word documents, not locked, not protected, just a Word document. I didn't have covers. I didn't always have thumbnails or previews. Some of those products were pretty basic. Now I will say I was really good and I always credited font artists and clip artists, which when I went back to update my products, I was so surprised to find that out because I don't remember doing that, but I was also proud of 2013 Jenzaia that I had in fact, included those credits. And I also had some very bare-bones, basic Terms of Use, which is something that's really important to include in your products. So I was also proud of myself that most of my products had that included already. So 2013 to 2016, I was in this phase that I refer to now as "Post and Coast", as in I would post a product and then let it coast.

I didn't do very much marketing or any community building or anything like that. I would just put up what I made and see what would happen. And that was perfect for my life back then. I was able to pay for audiobooks with the money that I was making on TPT. And I even saved some of the money and ended up being able to purchase my bridesmaids’ dresses using that money. So it wasn't a ton of money by any means, but it kept me happy and I enjoyed doing it. 

Then in 2017, I was planning my wedding and my life had totally changed in 2016. I moved home to Canada back from Taiwan. That was really, really hard for me. I put on some weight and I felt like I was starting over with friendships because I moved to a city where I knew almost nobody and it was hard and I didn't do any work on my TeachersPayTeachers store.

By 2018, it was so obvious that my store was neglected. If you've ever come across a neglected store before that has no cover pages or old, not updated cover pages, then you know what I mean.  The descriptions and keywords that I had used were older and weren't doing the products justice. In 2018, my fifth year selling, I had my worst year ever. That was a hard pill to swallow when I did eventually start putting in the time and energy my store deserved. I went back and looked at the data to see that year five was my worst year. It was a kick to the stomach. 

In 2019 we had our son and he was born in March and I spiralled into a depression after having him. I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't know how to be a mom yet. I hadn't figured out how to meld the two together.  It was so challenging for me. I didn't do any work on my TeachersPayTeachers store from March until September of 2019. And it was just, it was just hard.  I'm just thinking about that time right now and how awful it was.

But through some conversations with friends who are also TeachersPayTeachers sellers and my husband, we came to the conclusion that it might be a good idea for me to totally revamp my store and put some time and energy into it again. So in the fall of 2019, I decided it was time to start taking TPT seriously. My son was about five months old at that point.  

I started by creating a spreadsheet where I listed all of the products that I had created. And then I went through every single one and noted down if they had a cover page if they had thumbnails, preview, how good the description was, did I have links in the description?

Then I actually went into each product and I looked at the quality of the product and decided, “Do I need to revamp this product? Or should I create lines of products?”  For example, I have these scoot grammar cards that do really well.  So I decided to build out that product line, even though I had shifted into a new niche, I now serve French Immersion, primary math teachers on TPT.  So English grammar scoot cards aren't really my niche, but it was a product that I created that way back at the beginning that had done really well and so I decided to build out that bundle. I started to slowly work through that checklist of creating new covers for everything, adding better descriptions and thumbnails and previews. It was a lot of work and it took me September, October and November of 2019.

In mid-October, we found out we were pregnant with baby number two, our daughter, who was born in May of 2020, so we found out we're pregnant with her and that was obviously really exciting. We always wanted our kids close together, not quite that close, but that's a different story. So we were really excited to have baby number two on the way, but during my pregnancy, it was hard to work emotionally and physically.  I was exhausted with a baby still. He was only six months old and pregnant, so it was exhausting.

And so again, TPT went on the back burner for a couple of months until I got out of that horrible first trimester and started to feel more like myself again. I started to create again, and I signed up for Misty Miller's accountability group, and that was amazing. It was the kick in the butt that I totally needed having these lists of things to do every week. It was just exactly what I needed.

And so I'll link her accountability group in the show notes below, because if you're looking for just a checklist of things to do every week, that's going to help your store grow and improve then I highly highly recommend it, and that's not an affiliate or anything. I just am a raving fan of Missy Miller's. So if you're listening, I love you anyway, that was such a great move for my business. 

Then the pandemic hit. 

That’s when I started to create Boom Cards for my own students because we obviously got shifted to virtual and I needed something for them. So I started creating Boom Cards and similarly to what I did back in 2013, when I first started, I just put the Boom Cards up for sale because I didn't know what else to do. They started selling really well and I love making Boom Cards. Now the platform can be very finicky and frustrating at times, but there's something about Boom Cards that I just really enjoy making them.  I also know my students love playing them. 

So I dove into creating units of Boom Cards for grade one math, and they're all in French. That’s really what took me until my pregnancy until I gave birth in May. I really focused on that. And then I took a few weeks off, probably I want to say like four to six weeks off after giving birth. And then something had kind of shifted. I still was making the Boom Cards, but I'd started hearing more and more about course creation. So, I started to explore that option a bit more and I'll really get into course creation in episode three. But this is where my TPT store kind of started to get placed back on the back burner.

Not like I had in previous years where I was completely neglecting it. I still am taking care of my TeachersPayTeachers store as we speak now, but I decided that it was time for a new iteration of my business. While I'm not going to get into that iteration right now, I do want to say that it's one of the best things about TeachersPayTeachers is that my maternity leave, I was able to take that time off in 2017 and when I was really struggling with moving home and planning my wedding and everything, I was able to take the time off and every time that I've needed to take time off TPT still continues to run in the background. It is not passive income 100%, but you could have passive income moments. But as I experienced in 2018, if you let it be passive for too long, then the store goes stale.

It's a great option for being able to take summers off or a maternity leave or living a little bit more of a flexible life. And that's one of the things I love about TeachersPayTeachers. I have seen my income go from being able to purchase audiobooks that I wanted to read every month to buying my bridesmaids their dresses, to being able to purchase groceries using that money. And now I cover a portion of our mortgage with it. So that's, it's just been an amazing growth over time.

Now, as you’ll learn throughout the rest of these episodes. When I have interview episodes, I have three rapid-fire questions at the end. The first one is what is your favourite social media? So for me in this iteration, the TPT iteration of my business, the social media that I use the most was Pinterest.

Now it's not my favourite social media. It will never be my favourite. I've never really understood the algorithm and how to pin properly and how to make pins look pretty, but especially from like 2019, the end of it, and the beginning of 2020, I did my best to pin products and to start taking product images. And I've played around a little bit with product videos. I always try to pin my product covers to Pinterest. And so while it's not my favourite, I would say that Pinterest has been my most used social media for my TPT journey. 

Question number two is what is your favourite tool or software and unquestionably my favourite software to use for my TPT store is PowerPoint. I started off, like I said, using Word documents, but I very quickly migrated to PowerPoint just because of the flexibility and ability to place things where you want them and use layers... it's just so useful.

So if you're not currently using PowerPoint and you think that maybe you should, I highly suggest you give it a try. It's a great tool, a great software. I do a lot of my graphic designing in Canva now. So all my social media, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook posts are now done in Canva, but I still can't imagine myself creating resources in Canva, particularly because they don't have a table function. And I always like being able to use a table to align things up nicely. And yeah, so for now, PowerPoint is still the winner, but maybe one day Canva will take over.

The last question is, what advice do you have for somebody who's just getting started and anyone who is starting on the TPT journey, I say, get started, stop questioning and just go take those first baby steps and know that it's going to be hard and you're not going to be sure, but just keep taking baby steps forward and, and just do it because you will learn so much about yourself in this journey. And it's gonna be amazing. And yeah, just get started today and stop waiting for the quote, unquote right moment. It will never come.

So that is the end of my TeachersPayTeachers journey story for you. I hope that there are moments that you can relate to, or maybe your journey was completely different…I don't know… if you enjoy the episode, screenshot it and share it on Instagram. Don't forget to tag me, I'm @heyitsjenzaia.

Thank you for listening to this week's inspiring story. If you'd like to share your story with us, then head to marketscalegrow.com/journey and complete the quick application form. Then head to our community at marketscalegrow.com/community. So you can join our group of inspiring teacherpreneurs who are working on growing and scaling their businesses too!

See you soon!!