Integrating Tech and Supporting Fellow Teachers with Alexandra Brady | 18

This week’s inspiring teacherpreneur journey is with Alexandra from Tech About Math. Allie and I had a great convo that was full of laughter and honesty about her journey as a TPT seller and course creator. She believes strongly in building relationships and strong networks, so it was such a pleasure chatting with her this week.

Alexandra is a 4th-grade math teacher, dog momma, and tech lover! She helps upper elementary math teachers create paperless classroom systems and engage students in learning math conceptually with digital tools. She has a love for Google Apps and using Airtable to keep her small business organized and efficient!

When she's not teaching or running her business, Tech About Math, she is spending time snuggling on the couch with her pup Frannie Lou!

In this episode, we chat about…

• her journey as a TPT seller

• how she supports fellow teachers integrating tech into their classes

• the importance of having a community to turn to and get support from while building her business

• her upcoming new course that’s going to launch this summer

• how she markets her
  

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Thanks for listening to this week’s Inspiring Teacherpreneur Story! If you would like to share your story on the podcast head to www.marketscalegrow.com/journey to apply today. We would love for you to join us and can’t wait to hear able your journey as a teacher business owner.

Episode Transcript:

Intro: 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, so before we jump into the episode, I am super excited to share a brand new freebie with you. It's my targeting ideas for Facebook ads. If you've dabbled in Facebook ads or you've done them and you've tried them, and you're just looking for some fresh inspiration for your audiences, this freebie is for you. I share my top Facebook ad targeting groups for you so that you can have inspiration and find those people that are perfect for what you have to offer. From warm audiences to cool lookalike audiences, to cold interest-based audiences. I cover all three in this freebie. Head to marketscalegrow.com/audiences to grab your copy today.

Jenzaia: Hello, and welcome back to Market Scale Grow. Thank you so much for joining me. This is our inspiring story for the week and before we get started, I just want to quickly apologize. We've missed three weeks in a row for inspiring stories because it's the end of the year. Teachers have been crazy busy and I didn't want to bug people. So, I just continued to put out the Saturday strategy sessions, but I now have a good chunk of people lined up for interviews that I've either already done and just need to edit or are coming up. So there shouldn't be any more gaps. If you want to share your inspiring story with us, then had to marketscalegrow.com/journey and you can share your story with us as well.

Jenzaia: Today, I am talking with Allie from Tech About Math. She and I had a wonderful conversation and we laughed so much. Before we jump into the conversation, I'm just going to tell you a little bit about her. She is a fourth-grade math teacher, dog mama, and tech lover. Allie helps upper elementary math teachers create paperless classrooms and engage students in learning math conceptually with digital tools. She has a love for Google apps and using Airtable to keep her small business organized and efficient. When Allie's not teaching or running her business, she's spending time snuggling on the couch with her pup Frannie Lou. So without further ado, let's dive into this conversation.

Jenzaia: Hi Allie. Welcome to Market Scale Grow. How are you today?

Allie: I'm good. How are you?

Jenzaia: I'm good. I'm so excited to be talking to you again. We were just talking about the last time you were on my old podcast. So, welcome back.

Allie: Thank you for having me again.

Jenzaia: Of course. Do you want to start by telling people where you're from and you're still teaching? So what you're teaching and all those exciting details?

Allie: Sure. So, I'm from New York. I teach in Queens. I teach fourth-grade math. We're departmentalized and I love it so much. I've taught fifth grade the last years before that, and then I taught sixth and seventh grade before that. All just math. So I've been really strong in the math game the last couple of years.

Jenzaia: Do you want to give us a bit of information about your journey as a teacherpreneur? When did you start?

Allie: Sure. Oh my goodness, so I actually opened my TPT store in 2012 when I was student teaching. I was a student teacher and my cooperating teacher had shown me this website and I was like, "I need to make some money. So let me put some stuff on there that I'm making for student teaching." Totally did not do it the right way. I literally would get excited if I made a dollar. I would be like, oh my God, I have a dollar in my PayPal account that I never use, and that's how it was until about three years ago. So 2018 is when I started really putting more products up on TPT. So for six years, my store was basically just there and it changed. I was like, oh, this is going to be Math in 357. That was the old room number I was in. Then it was Math in 214 because I switched rooms. That was how original I was, right?

Jenzaia: You can't name it after the room you're in!

Allie: That's literally what I did. I just kept changing it because I wasn't marketing. I didn't think that. I thought, TPT, you just go on and you throw up some stuff and you call it a day, like that was it. That was my mindset because I had no clue. Then I started really following a lot of other teacherpreneurs on Instagram. One of my best friends that I grew up with since we're six years old, she's a beauty blogger and that's her career. She's really good. I always would talk to her and be like, "oh, I really would love to share what I know about teaching that helps teachers, but I don't know how to start" and this and that. She's like, "you just gotta do it." She's like, "It's hard. I can't really tell you when to do it. You just gotta do it." I was like, "alright." Then I started following some blogs and I was like, you know what, I'm going to this. So I remember literally sitting in bed, it was after midnight and I just sat up and I was like, I need to buy a website. I grabbed my computer and just created Tech About Math, and then it was born. It was after midnight, almost half asleep, experience, and that is how I started. That was, I want to say, bought the website, oh my goodness, August 2019 is when I officially bought the website. Then I discovered THU, which is how I met you, and the rest is history. Now I've been marketing and scaling and growing just like this podcast.

Jenzaia: Nice! I have a very, very similar story. I called that phase of 2012 to, well, for me, it was 2013 until 2019, as my post and coast, because I would just post things and then let them go.

Allie: Yeah. I don't even think I had a cover on any of my products. I think I literally just posted it. No cover, barely had a description.

Jenzaia: I was so afraid when I went back in. In 2019, I was like, okay, you need to revamp your store. You need to like, everything. I was so afraid to go into my products because I had no idea what they looked like. I had no idea what was in there. I was so proud of myself because they didn't have terms of use, but I credited all of the fonts and I'd credited all of the clip artists. I was so proud of myself because I was certain that that stuff wasn't in there. Then I was like, wow, WOW, go me!

Allie: You're ahead of the game! Go that, go you! Yeah, I did not do that. I was like, Ooh, let me take these down real quick because now that I know, obviously I don't want to do a copyright infringement. No one wants to do that. Obviously, you want to give credit to where credit's due. So I had to go in and hide some stuff until I was able to edit it and then I couldn't even find the original files. I don't even know where the original product files are for half of them. So I was like, all right, well we just keep going from here and just leave those where they are at, which is not at the top of my feed.

Jenzaia: So none of my stuff had title pages either, though.

Allie: I think everyone starts somewhere, right? I think a lot of people, that's how they start on TPT. They're just like, oh, it's just extra money. It's fine. You don't have to go crazy with it, and then all of a sudden it's like, wow. Maybe if I did put a little bit more effort in, it would be more scalable because everyone likes visually appealing things, you know?

Jenzaia: It was mind-boggling to me. I don't feel like I did a lot of work, but it was. It was so much work, adding cover pages, adding the terms of use, updating all the descriptions, making sure they all had thumbnails and the previews. I had probably 50 products when I went in and did it. So it wasn't, looking back, it wasn't a lot of work. I feel like I should have done it sooner, but the impact was huge.

Allie: Oh, I'm sure.

Jenzaia: Yeah, because they were more searchable and buyer-friendly. I have a friend who just started TPT, like a year ago now. I told her, I was so jealous that she started off on the right foot.

Allie: Yeah.

Jenzaia: She had all this right information. She didn't have to stumble through all the like hard times. But at the same time, I don't know how you felt, but way back when I started, there was very little pressure. I feel like people starting today, there's a lot of pressure.

Allie: Oh definitely. A lot of people are like, oh, I have to make my teaching salary. It's like, okay, well that's a lot of pressure for the beginning. I was like that too. I still have this monstrous money goal. I'm not coming near it, but also I have to not say to myself, oh, just give up. You know, you just gotta keep going. Eventually, you'll get to where you got to go. You just got to put the work in. A big thing that I see all over Instagram is 'Don't compare your journey to someone else's highlight reel' because that just is no. It's not okay.

Jenzaia: The other quote that's really similar to that that I really like is 'Don't compare your Chapter 1 to somebody else's Chapter 20.'

Allie: Yes. That was it. Yeah, for sure.

Jenzaia: I like both of those because they're similar, but they have kind of a different viewpoint on the same idea of like, you're starting and either it's just the highlights of that person's life. Your highlights are probably going to look just as amazing and just as interesting. Then also, your beginning is not the same as somebody else's middle, and your middle won't be the same as your beginning, right?

Allie: Actually, my quote that I have right above me right now is, 'My journey is unique to me' because that is something that I struggled with. Imposter syndrome is so real. It's like, well, I'm not as good as this person on Instagram, and I'm not as good as that person. But it's so important to just be like, no. You're doing what you gotta do. You're helping your people. I have three people on Instagram that I know, followers, I know I can message and be like, "Hey, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think?" And they'll be like, "oh my God. Yeah. That's a great idea." Or, "how about we do this instead? How about you do that?" Those three people are my people. Even if it's just three of them for now, I mean I have a lot more followers on Instagram, but those three people I know I can connect with and message and DM about ideas and I'm helping them, you know? So even if it's just those three, pick three people and...

Jenzaia: I have goosebumps from that. Yeah. I love it. Amazing. How has your journey through this kind of changed over the years? Like your mindset? Or what you're doing with it? What have the changes been?

Allie: Yeah, so, well, I had pretty big changes. So I started as TPT only. That's all I did, was I created scaffolds for upper elementary math and I created digital activities for them and things like that. Tech About Math, right? But then I started realizing that I can do more. TPT is great. I do love TPT. I love creating resources. I love writing curriculum, but I can also help teachers learn technology. Things that I know how to do, I was taking for granted. People need help learning how to do things that I would find simple with technology. So I started creating online courses for teachers. I do have a little surprise coming out in July, something new launching. So just keep a lookout for that. But yeah, so I realized after joining THU with Alyssa, that there's more to the teacherpreneur journey than TPT.

Jenzaia: That was a huge mindset shift for me as well.

Allie: Yes. Yeah. I know I can offer more for people, so I'm going to do it. I'm going to help people to be more efficient with technology. That's my jam.

Jenzaia: I think that the last year has really shown weak spots in that. People who feel, including me, feel very tech proficient, I'm just not. I'm not as tech-proficient as I thought I was. I have things that I'm super comfortable in. I know Google sheets inside out kind of thing. But when you start throwing other programs like Jamboard at me, and this and that, and I can't even, right? I start to get lost in all of it. So there definitely is a use for a course like that, that can help teachers kind of figure it out and get oriented in this world that's just becoming more and more digital. I think even as it goes back to quote-unquote normal or pre-pandemic, I think we're still going to be more digital than we ever were before because of getting thrust into it.

Allie: I 100% agree. I remember when the pandemic first hit, I was the only person in my entire school using Google classroom. I started at my school three years ago. This is my third year there at this school. I went to my principal and I said, "look, I really love technology. Is it possible for me to create Google classroom for my kids? Just my students." I was like, "I just want to try it for center time so I can differentiate the assignments that I'm giving the kids, this and that." He was like, "absolutely go for it." So I was the 'super admin'. They call it 'super admin' when you set up the Google classroom, and then you have access to literally everything because I'm the one that set it up. So I remember, it was three days before the school closed. My principal called me into his office and I was like, oh no. You know when the principal calls you in and your stomach drops. You're like, what did I do? And you think of everything. Well, I didn't do anything, except setting up Google classroom for myself. Because then he was like, "can you set up the whole school on Google classroom?" He was like, "you got 48 hours." I was like, "Oh, okay, sure." He's like, "I got you a sub for the next two days. Just sit in the library and do what you gotta do." And I'm like, "okay." So I set up the whole school on Google classroom. I got everyone going. I got the teachers going. Sure enough, schools ended up closing three days later and teachers still had to go in. So schools closed that Monday, no one had school. Then teachers had to go in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for training on technology. Then remote teaching started that following Monday. So that's how the pandemic was for us here in New York. So for those three days, my principal was kind of like, "you want to just give the PD on how to use it?" I was like, "okay." It was very informal. I literally sat at the front of the desk at the front of the library. We had six teachers at a time come in because we obviously couldn't congregate together. So I sat there with my computer. I was like, "and this is how you go onto Google classroom. This is Google slides. If you teach writing, this is Google docs. If you teach reading, here's this and here's that." I feel, I'm honestly proud of all the teachers I work with because they handled it like champs. They were able to really, I'm sure every teacher that has taught through this pandemic has, really just jumped in. I think, like you said, the tools that the teachers have learned for this pandemic, the technology, you can't not teach without it. I mean, you can't teach without it now at this point. I don't know if I said that right. Does that make sense? You need to take these tools and now find a way to incorporate them into the brick and mortar school, because guess what? They're still skills that the kids are going to need.

Jenzaia: I think it just made it that much more obvious how important these skills are. I think we were almost ignoring it before because if you think about it, our worlds are just more and more digital. We were kind of doing a disservice to our students by not teaching it and not allowing it. But my school board is a Google school board. So every kid from kindergarten has a Google account that follows them all the way through, which made our job. Nobody had to do what you can do. We already had it all ready to go.

Allie: I get it. No, I don't know. It's so strange because, in New York City, it's one big school system, but at the same time, each school had its own individual Google things. But now they're trying to get everyone on the same Google. It's so complicated. I'm just like, I understand it, but trying to explain it to someone who doesn't understand technology, it's something that's just a need-to-know basis. Setting it up is something that I hope no one has to do. I would text the tech guy from my old school and be like, "Hey, I need your help. I'm doing this. What do I do?" Thankfully, I left my old school on good terms so he was able to walk me through stuff, which was awesome.

Jenzaia: Yeah, we have, because it's for our whole board, so I want to say 50 plus schools, elementary and high school. Right? So we have a tech department that handles all of this stuff and we have a tech guy that comes to our school a couple of times a month, and we're just like, "can you help us with whatever?" He's like, "sure," doing his thing. For all you people listening and can't see me, I'm doing crazy keyboard hands right now. He just does his thing and takes care of all that. So I can't imagine as a classroom teacher, having, I mean, you said you got the sub, but still having to do all of that without being a tech, like an IT person, right?

Allie: Yeah. It was definitely an experience, but I knew I loved technology. I know I love helping teachers learn technology. That's a really big reason why I'm going, I'm actually going for my EDD in Curriculum Design Education with a concentration in Learning Design with Technology. So I love that stuff, helping teachers with tech, helping students learn. There are so many things that we take for granted that we know how to do that a student doesn't know how to do. Writing an email. I can't tell you how many emails I got where the entire body was in the subject line. I cannot tell you. Kids need to learn that, okay, the subject is just a quick little title and then you type in the body. They don't know these things because they never learned them. So it's so important, I think, to go over these little things that we know how to do, with the kids.

Jenzaia: Yeah. I totally agree. We are so off, in a good way, in the best way. We're getting so off track of your teacherpreneur journey. I'm loving it though. It's very interconnected though, because obviously these experiences you've had in your school and all this tech has clearly influenced your journey as an entrepreneur as well.

Allie: Yeah, definitely because I do love helping people learn the technology. I enjoy finding ways to use technology that's not common. I use Google forms. People think, oh, Google forms, that's for my tests. That's how I give tests and quizzes to my kids. Well, you can also track your parent contact on Google forms. Create a form and just resubmit it every time you contact a parent and guess what? You have a nice, neat spreadsheet with all the times you've contacted every kid in your class. There are so many other ways to use technology besides what it's typically used for. That's something I enjoy showing people.

Jenzaia: I started using Google forms for my mark book. I had it set up so that I could type in the name of the assignment and then the mark.

Allie: Oh, that's a good idea. That's awesome. Yeah.

Jenzaia: It didn't organize it as well as I would've liked it, but it was really easy for me to enter the information and then be able to pull it up and have it all in one spot.

Allie: Yeah. That definitely is a great way to use it as well.

Jenzaia: So with your business, what are some of the, looking back, the major moments? Either super positive milestones or big challenges that you've gone through?

Allie: Well, I'll start positive. So the positive milestones were last year when I created my first course, I really enjoyed creating it. I have a YouTube channel with my business, that I had actually posted and ghosted, I guess you can say. I created it when the pandemic started and then I just stopped. But now I'm finding that YouTube is really where my niche lends itself well to because it's tech, screen-sharing and recording a screen recording and uploading that on YouTube and how to do certain things. So like I had this epiphany a couple of weeks ago where I was like, you know, I was gonna start a podcast, but I think I'm just going to pivot and do go back to YouTube because I hit 500 subscribers and I didn't even do anything for it. I didn't even market my YouTube channel, nothing. People, when you're looking for something, how to do something with technology, you go to YouTube to watch a video on how to do it, you know? That was a pretty big milestone because I was like, you know what, I'm going to go back to that. So, I have that. I don't know. I feel like a huge thing also was joining THU, just having a community to go to for everything. I've met some of my best friends in this group and that I speak to on a daily basis.

Jenzaia: Yeah. THU is awesome. I'll make sure it's linked in the, I'm pointing down too, I don't need to point. I'll make sure it's in the show notes. So for anyone who's curious about THU and Alyssa, that's how we met.

Allie: That's how we met, too. You meet so many awesome people. I definitely think joining, I was up in the air about joining, and joining definitely helped me to realize, oh, this is what I need for my business. But having a community, just having people to go to, I think that was a huge. I don't know if that's a milestone, but it's definitely a positive impact on my business.

Jenzaia: Any challenges?

Allie: Challenges? Time. I don't know how you do it. You're a mom and a teacher and an entrepreneur. I'm just, well, I'm a dog mom. So I have my dog Frannie, who you can probably hear her in the background right now, and I'm a teacher and I'm an entrepreneur and now I'm starting grad school. So I'm thinking myself, when am I going to have time for my business? So I decided to not teach summer school this summer just so that I can really focus on it while I'm focusing on grad school and really make moves so that I can set it on semi autopilot during the school year. I have a feeling that things are going to be changing this school year, but I'm not 100% sure, but I have a feeling. So if things do change, I need to be ready for it. I guess that's the teacher planner in me, right? I want to make sure I am two steps ahead. So yeah, that's been really the biggest thing is time and motivation because sometimes I just don't feel like doing anything. I have a couple of podcasts that I go to for motivation that I really enjoy listening to. I listen to that and I'm like, okay, I can do this. I write the three things I want to get done. Then if I want to do more than that, I do more than that. So that is definitely the biggest challenge I would say in my journey so far.

Jenzaia: The time one. So I'm not in the classroom this year. I'm off on my maternity leave, which obviously takes that pressure of being a classroom teacher off. But the time one is huge and since I've pivoted my business into the Facebook ads and I have clients that I'm serving, it's not just me putting my TPT business and my products on the back burner of like, oh, I don't need to update that or I don't need to do a new one. It's actual clients and their work and things that need to get done. So I totally feel that pressure of the time and it can be really stressful at times because you don't want to let other people down.

Allie: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So that's it. I know money milestones, I haven't really hit anything crazy in terms of TPT or my courses. I'm hoping this July to hit one. So we'll see, but I know July's a tough month because some people are getting ready to go back to school at the beginning of August. Some people are totally on vacation mode and not even thinking about school. So obviously it's going to be, we'll find out.

Jenzaia: This is a newer thing though, right? It'll be your first launch of this new thing in July?

Allie: Something new coming out.

Jenzaia: So that's exciting though. That's good though, almost like a test launch and then do another launch in the fall.

Allie: Yes, so I'm actually speaking at a tech conference and I'm going to do a secret launch for the people that watch those videos. Then I'm going to, the week after, officially launch.

Jenzaia: Oh nice.

Allie: So yeah, I'm really excited about it. So we'll see. I have a launch buddy. We meet once a week and we check in with each other. So highly, as I said, the community piece is really important. I'm in a mastermind that you actually set me up with, my mastermind. So one of the girls in my mastermind is also launching the same week as me. So we decided to become launch buddies and we meet once a week and we just check in with each other and we have a master launch checklist that we're going through together and we're going to launch.

Jenzaia: Amazing. I love that. Just to fill people in through THU, we set up mastermind groups and I was, I guess the mastermind behind the masterminds of organizing all of it. So if that's something that interests you, this is totally turning into a THU promo episode.

Allie: Alyssa's going to love it. We gotta get little snippets in here and have her just talk in them.

Jenzaia: That would be so funny. I would love it. So yet another push for like, join THU! It's great!

Allie: Or just find your people, you know, find your people, but THU is our people.

Jenzaia: So kind of in the same vein, how do you market your business?

Allie: Okay. So right now I am on Instagram, I have my website with my blog on it, and I have a YouTube channel. I used to do four blog posts a month, but then I realized that's so unrealistic for me to keep doing in terms of the time. So I was like, you know what? I can still have a successful business and not post all the time, right? So I pivoted that. So now I do one blog post, one YouTube video a month. So that's the long-form content that I market with SEO and Pinterest and all that stuff. I have Instagram, I have my email list. I have...

Jenzaia: Look at you, go, go, go, doing all the things!

Allie: Well, I'm trying, you know. You got to keep, you got to go somewhere. I find my Facebook group's been pretty active lately, so I'm proud of that. So techaboutmath.com/facebook. You can join, little plug there, subtle plug. I have Twitter, but don't find me on Twitter because I don't post anything to Twitter. If we're being honest here.

Jenzaia: I think I have a Twitter.

Allie: I made it so I can have the handle. That certainly makes sense of that one.

Jenzaia: I think I went to a conference and they were like, "everyone should have Twitter. You all should blah, blah, blah." I was like, okay, and then I never opened it ever again.

Allie: In my master's program, one of my professors was really big on making us get Twitter, and I'm like, oh, I guess.

Jenzaia: Interesting. Then I have to ask, how do you feel about Facebook ads?

Allie: I want to try them, but I'm scared. So I'm a hundred percent going to come to you at some point for it.

Jenzaia: What are you scared about?

Allie: Honestly, I'm not going to lie to you, I haven't even set up my pixel, whatever that means. Like to me, pixel, I think pixel art for Google sheets, like that's pixel, pixels.

Jenzaia: I get confused. I'm googling it and I was like, oh, pull up the wrong pixel, this isn't what I want.

Allie: Yeah. So, I mean, I definitely want to venture into Facebook ads, but I feel like my business is not ready yet, but I don't know when, what constitutes a business being ready. So what do you think? Is this the appropriate time for me to be like, "Hey. So, can I get some advice?"

Jenzaia: One of the biggest things that I always tell people is, do you know who you're serving? Do you know what you're offering people free and paid? What are your content pillars basically? Do you know your people- what they need, what their fears, their obstacles, their hopes and dreams are, what you're doing for them? Do you know all of those things? Then, do you have long-form content that you're putting out on a regular consistent basis? Are you emailing your people on a regular consistent basis? Because I think that getting to know your people and getting to know your business and having a clear message that you're putting out is so important before you start putting money behind it. Then having long-form content that will nurture people because you can bring all the leads into your business, you can pay for all the traffic, but if it's just a blank Instagram page and there's no anything for them to learn about you and get to know you, then it's basically wasting money. So you're doing all of that long-form content work. I think from what we've talked about right now, but then also before, you have a really good idea of what you offer. Then the question would be, do you know your people? Do you know them well enough that you could message really, really effectively to them?

Allie: Hmm.

Jenzaia: That would be my next question. And then before you put money behind any specific offer, does it work already organically? So if you wanted to promote a lead magnet, are there already people who are signing up for this lead magnet organically? You don't want to put money behind something that's just going to epic fail because it's horrible.

Allie: That 100% makes so much sense. Well, right now I'm kind of revamping my lead magnet. So I think I'm gonna hold off. However, come July, I will be coming for you, Jenzaia. I will be coming for help. I will be one your clients.

Jenzaia: I will be here.

Allie: What?

Jenzaia: I said I will be here.

Allie: Oh, I thought you said you won't be here. I was like, where are you going? Are you going on vacation? Take me with you?

Jenzaia: Right, exactly where I am right now. Yeah, so that's my advice.

Allie: Oh, good. Yeah. I definitely think, right now my courses, unfortunately, are not selling, but I'm also not marketing them. So I don't know. My lead magnets do well. What I'm having come out in July I think is going to do well. It's just a matter of getting out there. So after I launched one time, then I will probably go for that Facebook ads because I definitely want to dip my toes in there. You know, I want to like...

Jenzaia: I was having this conversation with somebody the other day. The best thing to do is to dip your toes in. Do a little bit, and then the next time you launch, do a little bit more and then do a little bit more each time and learn a little bit more about the process and the pieces. If you were to jump in and want to spend $10,000 on this ad and this ad and that ad and these retargeting ads and this, whatever, it would be too much, and it would all just crash down around you likely. But if you want to baby step your way into it, then you'll find success and you'll have more learning opportunities through it. So I don't, in many cases, don't recommend that you just dive head first, especially if you want to do it yourself. I think a lot of people like to start by doing it themselves and to learn a little bit about the platform and how it works before they hire out. So that way you understand what's happening. So, especially if you're going to be doing it by yourself, the baby steps are the best way to do it. Anything else you want to share to the world about your journey?

Allie: I don't have anything else to share, but I just want to say, if you're just starting your journey, just go, just do it. There's really, what's the worst that can happen? There's really nothing. When I started creating my courses, I was like, what's the worst that can happen? No one will buy them? Guess what? That is what happened? You know what, I just kept going. I was like, you know what? Maybe I didn't name the course the right thing. Or maybe it didn't have what my people wanted, you know? You just keep going. You can't let the fear of it failing stop you. That's probably a famous quote, but I don't know. I've just thought of it.

Jenzaia: It's true though. Just the fear is so debilitating at times and really working through it is so important to have a successful business. It's so normal. You all have that fear. So if you are sitting there and feeling like you're the only one who's terrified of failing, just know you're not the only one.

Allie: Another thing, sorry. I have a lot of advice, very wisdom-ess today. So another thing is, don't look, I mean, don't not look at other people in your niche, but don't follow people in your niche who are gonna make you feel bad about yourself. That's huge. Also, find a hobby that has nothing to do with your business so that when you need a brain break, you can do it. I play Animal Crossing like a child and I'm sitting here on my Switch and it just keeps my mind off things, you know? You gotta just separate some things because if you make your life, your business your life, then you're going to burn out. There's not even a chance, it's just going to happen. You need to just rest and schedule rest. I literally write in my planner when I can take a nap, so there's that.

Jenzaia: I have a nap after lunch almost every day now.

Allie: I am jealous.

Jenzaia: Yeah. I'm going to miss that in the fall...

Allie: I was going to say, when you go back to school, that's not how it's going to be.

Jenzaia: "Okay guys. I know recess is done, but it's my nap time." You already answered one of my rapid fire questions, advice for someone else. So number two...

Allie: I'm sorry.

Jenzaia: No, it's perfect. Question number two. I'm going to just do them in reverse order. What's your favourite tool or software that you use in your business?

Allie: Airtable.

Jenzaia: Oh yeah. You're like the Airtable genius.

Allie: Airtable is my jam. I actually have an Airtable master to do list lead magnet that you can grab at techaboutmath.com/airtablemaster.

Jenzaia: You've done a couple of presentations about it, haven't you?

Allie: Oh yeah. I did. I spoke at a conference for it and I did, in the THU vault, is an Airtable thing. But yeah, I love Airtable.

Jenzaia: Last question. Favourite social media?

Allie: Favourite social media. Okay. I held off on Tik-Tok for the longest time and I just got to take talk like three weeks ago and I had to put a time limit on my phone. So I guess as a consumer, it's Tik-Tok. As a business person, actually no, I really do love Pinterest too. I love it all. Okay, as a consumer, definitely Tik-Tok though because I love to laugh. As you can tell, I crack jokes. That's just me as a person

Jenzaia: Tik-Tok has their algorithm for the consumer. I don't know about it as a business, but my understanding is that their algorithm for the consumers is really good.

Allie: Yeah. They're pretty spot on. I laugh a lot when I watch Tik-Tok.

Jenzaia: They figure out what you want and are able to really get you those videos really quickly.

Allie: Yup. Definitely. For sure. I like Instagram for my business because I like being able to connect with stories and put the little poles up there because then I could really understand what my audience wants and needs. Sorry, I can't speak. Bad time to not speak, when I'm on a podcast.

Jenzaia: So, people are gonna want to find you.

Allie: You can definitely find me on Instagram. My handle is @techaboutmath, not teach about math. I get that a lot. Tech about math, like technology about math.

Jenzaia: I always thought it was a play on talk about math.

Allie: It kind of is, like, let's tech about math. You know? Like let's talk about math.

Jenzaia: Okay. That's what I thought. But when you just said that people related it to teach, I was like, oh, is it actually a play on teach?

Allie: People will say, "oh, I can't find you." And they type in teach about math. I'm like, but that's not it. It's tech about math. Anyway. @techaboutmath on Instagram and YouTube you can find me. It's techaboutmath.com/youtube because I don't have a vanity URL yet. What else am I on? Oh, I'm on Twitter again. Don't follow me there though, because I never post.

Jenzaia: Won't link Twitter. Don't worry.

Allie: Don't link Twitter. You can find me at my website, techaboutmath.com, and then you can subscribe and get on my email list where I send out some awesome things every week to your inbox.

Jenzaia: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining.

Allie: Thank you for having me.

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