Note from Crystal: I asked Joy if she’d share her story with you all, because I thought it was great example of how you can creatively take your life lessons, mistakes, and experience and turn it into a product and/or online business. Starting a preschool might not be the right idea for you, but I’m guessing you have other life lessons and experience that you could turn into a marketable product.
Guest post from Joy of StartAPreschool.com
I can’t believe it’s been 5 years — 5 years! — since I started my preschool. Some days, I can’t remember a time I didn’t have my preschool. Other times, it seems like just yesterday that I was having my first day.
But really, I’m truly humbled any time I think of our little home preschool. Especially when I remember that just 5 years ago, I had no clue how to start a preschool. Seriously!
I was a single mom, newly divorced, with 3 kids. And I was just weeks away from being broke. I thought my only option was to go to work and put my kids in daycare, or start a daycare of my own. As you can imagine, I was a nervous wreck.
Finally, this idea came to me: “Why don’t you START a preschool instead?”
I couldn’t believe it. Was it really that obvious? All I had to do was the opposite of everything I disliked about the idea of starting my own daycare.
I wouldn’t have to change diapers. Instead, I’d only teach 3 to 5-year-olds. I wouldn’t work all day long. Instead, I’d only teach for a few hours each day. Best of all, I’d be able to teach and play with my kids… and I’d get paid to do it!
Starting My Own Preschool
But within several weeks I made a lot of mistakes. Wasted a lot of time. And spent a lot of money. Why, you ask?
Because I had no “manual” to follow. No “checklist” to mark off. No one to hold my hand and tell me what to do. I had to figure it all out myself. And I learned (a lot) about what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
And that’s when I committed that no other woman would have to struggle as much as I did trying to figure out how to start a preschool. So, I vowed that I would teach women how to start a preschool.
This quickly grew into my driving force and my mission in life. I wanted every woman to know about this great option!
So while I was busy running my own preschool at home, I launched my website and set to work writing down all my thoughts, tips, and processes. I asked myself over and over, “What did you need to know when you started your preschool?” and “What mistakes did you do that you’ll never do again?”
I found that writing down my thoughts took quite a long time (after all, editing is rough!) so I started creating training videos instead. I found it easier to just sit in front of a camera and talk for 30 minutes. Before I knew it, I had 10 hours of video coaching. Then, I watched the videos and wrote our business workbook, adding in anything I had forgotten in the videos.
After that, I asked myself, “What did I wish I had back then that would have made starting a preschool so much easier?” That’s when I created our curriculum, forms, licensing guidelines, marketing strategies, and website templates — because I knew those materials would save them so much heartache in the end.
Ultimately, I wanted to make sure that they had everything they needed to make sure their preschool was a big success.
Just like I learned what not to do as I started my preschool, I also learned what not to do when I started my online business. I learned that, more than anything, your family comes first. And I had to be careful not to let my online training business take over what precious family time I had left. There were days, weeks, and even some months when I had to “tone down” the amount of training I could provide, because I needed to devote more time to my family.
Though it’s been 5 years, every day I am just as thankful for the opportunity to stay home with my kids, teach preschool, and teach other women.
For the past 5 years, Joy Anderson has been on a mission to teach other women how to start their own preschools. As a single mother to 3 children, she discovered how she could start a preschool and also provide for her 3 children while only teaching a few hours each day. She currently owns two successful preschools and also helps women create a supplemental or full-time income through starting their own preschool businesses through her training materials at StartAPreschool.com
