P.E. Teacher Livestreams Lessons to 50,000 Students

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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How does a high school PE teacher go from adapting to lockdown life, putting together virtual lesson plans for her remote learning students, to teaching 50,000 or more students worldwide live on YouTube, all while building a six-figure business in less than a year? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host, and that is the pitch for today's episode. Pretty simple, how does a high school teacher with, I don't know, 100 students or however many, go to teaching 50,000 or more students worldwide and not just becoming a YouTube celebrity, but then turning that fame into a sustainable monthly membership business? Pretty cool, right?

This is exactly the kind of story that I love to hear about and then share with you because it then often inspires other people out there to do something similar or kind of ignites an idea or encourages them to move forward. That's always my hope, as I say, inspiration is good, inspiration with action is better, so enjoy this inspiring story and consider how can you take action on an idea of your own? The story's coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]

On a Friday afternoon in March, 2020, high school fitness teacher Larissa Maloney sat in a faculty meeting, hearing how the school might go virtual as COVID-19 swept across the country. Later that night, she received an email announcing that everyone would be doing just that, going entirely virtual starting on Monday, so they would need to figure some things out and fast.

Fortunately, as a teacher and mom, Larissa was used to thinking on her feet. She sat at her kitchen table and wrote up a plan. On Mondays, the kids would run a mile, on Tuesdays, they'd do arms and abs and so on, but upon reflection, she crumpled up the plan. Because it sounded boring, and she knew if it sounded boring to her, it would be all the more boring to her students. So she came up with a new idea, streaming workout videos on YouTube, Monday through Friday at 9 a.m.

When Larissa shared these workouts with other teachers in her community, she started getting requests for other kids to join as well. She also posted on a forum specifically for PE teachers. And when Monday morning came around and she pressed play, she started her warmup for 15 kids. Not a bad start, she thought. When she finished that warmup, however, she looked at the screen and saw the number was climbing.

This was live on YouTube and before long, hundreds and eventually thousands of students logged on to workout with her at that first Monday. How did this happen? Well, it was partly because of those referrals, the forums, but also the magic algorithm of YouTube had discovered her. Larissa continued online workouts every weekday. At the end of the week, even her own kids would join in for a fun, active dance party.

As the weeks and then months of lockdown rolled on, she received emails from kids and teachers asking for shout outs, asking her to give shout outs to them in their school. So she has done this for classrooms all the way in Poland, South Africa, Australia, Thailand, and reached over 50,000 families in those first few months. And by the summer of 2020, Larissa was getting email testimonials from parents saying that these videos had been the glue to keeping their families together since the pandemic started. And that inspired her to grow Active Kids 2.0 into a business. With kids around the world stuck at home, there was clearly a need for this type of content.

The livestream workouts were initially free, but at the start of the 2020-2021 school year, she created paid memberships and then streamed the workouts directly to her website for clients. She has a huge library of on-demand workouts she adds to every couple of months. Active Kids 2.0 offers monthly memberships for $40, an annual membership for $400, and a school membership for $500. There was also a three-month online summer camp, that was three active videos a week, for $100. Larissa still offers some free classes on YouTube, and that's helped her attract new customers.

In fact, she hasn't done any paid advertising at all, but her income continues to grow. How much money are we talking about? Well, she is now projecting net income of $100,000 for 2021. And here's a big lesson learned. Originally, Larissa thought going through the school districts would be the best and most efficient way to partner with schools, which makes sense, right?

However, she discovered there was so much red tape that it just wasn't worth it. After going straight to the teachers instead, her growth took off. Teachers and students are the best ambassadors. Active Kids 2.0 has changed everything for Larissa and her family. It even gave her the financial stability to quit her teaching job.

She knew it was time to leave her job in May 2021 about a year after starting because she felt secure in the business and also believed it could grow with more attention from her. She had also just had baby number three, so now she can work from home and care for her new little one. Even as schools reopen in the future, the need for physical activity will continue, and Larissa has built a loyal following. She plans to keep on creating new content that helps kids stay active. [Music]

Amazing story, so fun.

Congratulations to Larissa. I always love hearing how teachers in particular can be so resourceful starting all kinds of projects and finding ways to adapt in the midst of challenging times. A couple things I wanted to mention here. This part about Larissa still offers some free classes on YouTube, and that's helped her to attract new customers. I think that is key to the whole success of the project, in fact, so I would be very wary of stepping away from YouTube in a situation like this.

I think it's very wise to build out that membership site and of course create the sustainable revenue, but ultimately the business is going to continue to generate new inquiry, interest, and hopefully potentially members because of people seeing these classes on YouTube. So I think when you are favored by the YouTube algorithm, it's a hard thing to kind of manufacture. It just happens sometimes. You wanna take advantage of that as much as possible. Also, here's a fun fact.

I learned this while working on the episode. After graduating college and before teaching full-time, Larissa was a professional beach volleyball player and also an actress. So no doubt these skills have helped her in her new role, both in terms of fitness and also performing on camera. So when you're trying to figure out what your idea is, be sure to look at all your skills and consider how they might work together. Great case study, great example.

Thank you again, Larissa, and listeners. I mentioned this earlier. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to Active Kids 2.0 and anything else I mentioned in the episode will be at sidehustleschool.com/1711. That is one, seven, one, one.

If you've got a comment or question for the show, you can just leave that there as well, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you'll come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the "Onward Project."