Starting Your Own L&D Business with Jason Gorman
Thinking of entering the world of entrepreneurship? Maybe you want to start your own instructional design company, host more workshops, take on clients for the first time, or something similar. I hear from many of you asking, how exactly do you get started?
On today’s episode, we chat with Jason Gorman, Founder and CEO of Jackrabbit LX and Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor for Story As a Service.
In this episode, you’ll hear about the steps to start a business, common challenges, how to feel comfortable selling, who your first hire should be, how to find clients, how to think about pricing, and more.
Consider this one a crash course on business fundamentals for instructional designers!
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Transcript
Luke Hobson (00:00)
Jason, welcome to the podcast.
Jason Gorman (00:01)
Thank you, Luke, for having me.
Luke Hobson (00:03)
Of course, man, of course. I can't wait to dive on into everything. But before I get ahead of myself, would you mind introducing yourself to the audience? Tell us more about who you are and what is it that you do.
Jason Gorman (00:13)
Sure. So I am the founder and CEO of Jackrabbit Learning Experience. We've been around for coming up on eight years in July. Jackrabbit does consulting, design, and development in the e-learning space, mostly for adult learners and mostly for mission-driven kinds of organizations. I'm also a co-founder and strategic advisor at another company called Story as a Service. We're a communications strategy firm for mostly higher education and also learning professionals. ⁓
Those are some of the things that I do. Those are the two businesses that I'm involved in running, I guess.
Luke Hobson (00:49)
Awesome, awesome. Well, I'm so glad that you're on the show today because I've been thinking about this for the last couple of months of having someone actually come on the show just to talk more about different types of alternatives for those inside of a learning and development space. Because right now, as I'm sure you're aware too, is that the job market is really challenging. And whether that is because of ageism, AI, layoffs,
⁓ funding being cut from the administration from a higher education perspective, whatever it is, there is a lot going on right now. And then I saw your post that literally described all these things to say that, hey, right now it is really tough, but one path that you can take is going down this entrepreneurship path, which I was just like, yes, Jason, come on the show. Let's talk more about this. Cause it does not get as much attention as it should.
And thinking about all of that, in your opinion, what are you currently seeing? What has changed? Like, why are we currently talking about all of these types of negative things in our space right now?
Jason Gorman (01:50)
Well, there's a lot that's changed. And I would say there are a few things that are impacting everybody in our field. And then there are a few things that are impacting, unfortunately, folks, ⁓ even mid-career, right, and older folks in our field. So I'll start with things that are impacting everybody.
Instructional designers, which I know are most of your audience, maybe self-identifies as instructional designers. And just for context, that's my background. I trained as an instructional designer. I have a master's in instructional design from UMass Boston. I worked in higher ed for 10 years. I went on and did other things. But I have that background and I am a designer. So one of the things that I just know is true is that in down times, any downtime,
it will always impact our field. One of the things that businesses and organizations tend to cut back on is training and learning and development of content. It's just one of these levers that a CEO or CFO is going to pull early in the process of cutting back. And this is just an unfortunate reality of our business, of what we all do. There's nothing really that any of us can do about that.
⁓ other than try to diversify what we do, which is sort of point of our conversation here, but ⁓ that is just almost a law of physics that I think we are all working against and that is true right now. The market is not favorable for lots of organizations and for lots of different reasons and that is going to impact us sometimes first. The other thing that
You know, here we are three seconds into our conversation, right? AI. So we haven't talked about it yet. We've got to talk about it. AI is the other thing, right? And I think, look, there are hiring freezes across organizations. There is a general sense or just outright directives that people need to be doing more with less using AI. And I think that is just going to make it hard for jobs to open up.
Because I think until a business feels satisfied, or an organization feels satisfied that its current people are doing everything they can without hiring more people, they're not going to hire more people. And so that just puts an additional kind of freezing effect on instructional design jobs. ⁓ And then there is the ageism bit. And look, I don't think this is new, but I can tell you that I...
I see it all the time. I see it with my friends, colleagues, people that I know are incredibly talented and great communicators. And they're just having a harder time ⁓ finding work than they should. And I think it's a combination of the things that I mentioned before. And I think it is also a bias towards...
towards people who are earlier in their career for whatever that reason is. And I don't get the psychology of that. It's never made sense to me at any point in my life why you wouldn't hire an older, more experienced person. But I have to say it's a thing that is happening.
Luke Hobson (05:03)
Absolutely. You I definitely touch upon the AI part there because of course, as you said, AI, it's all we talk about. But in this type of sense, I keep on reading about these different types of stories around everything with AI and the fact that companies have been essentially saying not like blaming, but to the point of saying that, well, because of AI, we can now reduce staff and whatnot for things.
But then you go and you actually speak with some of the employees at these organizations, or you go and you read their stories on Reddit, because they will share about what happened after the layoffs. And it's almost like AI has essentially become the fact that they're like, ⁓ we have way too many people. We overstaffed. We're going to blame it on AI. And then they get rid of a number of folks. So it's always tough to be able to say, well, is it actually AI? Or is it because of the fact that your organization had a type of a ⁓
I went in a different direction and they didn't mean to hire so many folks and now they have too much on staff and they're realizing, hey, we can just point the finger at AI.
Jason Gorman (06:04)
It definitely could be that. mean, that feels reasonable to me. I think when I think about the effects of AI to me, there are maybe primary, just direct effects of, okay, this thing can do a thing that maybe people could have done before. I actually think the bigger issue is more of a secondary effect.
which is the business doesn't yet understand how AI will change things and what it should be doing. And as long as that uncertainty is there, it will impact job creation and hiring. So it's less about what it actually does and more about the fact that we don't really know yet what it does.
Luke Hobson (06:53)
It is the black box that keeps on giving and we keep on trying to figure it out each day. How are you currently giving advice to those who actually want to become instructional designers today, who have now just heard about it, they want to be able to still pursue this? And for many people, they've actually heard about instructional design now for a couple of years, and they're still trying to be able to put together their portfolios, they're applying around for everything and they're...
Jason Gorman (06:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (07:17)
They're going through the motions and now of course they see things like this with the job market and they're like, ugh, so the competition's harder than ever. What are you currently giving advice for those folks who are trying to get into these jobs right now?
Jason Gorman (07:29)
Yeah, I think it's changed a bit in terms of what you really need to do to stand out. ⁓ I really think that right now there's a real premium on demonstrating things like communication skills, ⁓ being able to be clear in what you need or what is working and what isn't working, navigating difficult conversations, solving problems, being adaptable.
I think all of those things are, you know, some of it's communication, some of it is just being a learner in your job. But I think, I don't, I think if you don't have those things, if you can't communicate those things in a hiring process, I think that's a real issue because a few years ago it was okay. If you were very technical and you really just wanted to put your head down and do that work, there were plenty of jobs out there for you. And that was a very reasonable
way to think about your career. And I think because of the things that we talked about before, ⁓ and because of the ways that I think we're thinking about what the future might be for us, I think the need for us to be really good communicators and connectors, which I think a lot of us have always been. And I think this is a really common tool in the toolkit of a designer. But I think...
We have to think about it as a primary thing not a supporting thing in in our work, right? Our ability to draw connections between things is is actually the most critical skill right as opposed to we can make the thing but also then secondarily we can talk about it's almost flipped now ⁓ I know that you have talked a lot about the how necessary portfolios are I Couldn't agree more. I think people must have portfolios
And I think more than just being able to have a portfolio, the portfolio has to tell a story about communication and problem solving and how you do the work and why. And when the subject matter expert disappeared for two and a half weeks and your timeline was shot, what you did and how you navigated that. So the portfolio has to show a ⁓ thing, but it also needs to be a vehicle for you to.
talk about your role in making that thing and the other people you worked with and all the things that happened in that process. you know, that five years ago, I think we were talking about portfolios 10 years ago, not really sure we were talking about portfolios, but now it feels like we have to have those. And then the last thing is you just, know, AI now, it's just table stakes, you need to know how to use these technologies a year and a half ago.
I wouldn't have said that now. It is an absolute must have.
Luke Hobson (10:22)
The more you were just talking, the more I was realizing about how I have not seen as many e-learning developer jobs lately.
where a couple of years ago, that's all it was, where if you want to be the tools person, no problem, go into this e-learning curriculum development mode. And they had a lot of those different types of roles that existed where the heart and the soul was on like, ⁓ rise and storyline and using all the other different types of, beyond and all those other different tools. And now I'm thinking about it I'm like, I'm not seeing that. Now it's a specifically learning design, ⁓ learning experience, instructional design, and those different types of roles.
that encompassed inside of it. And as you were saying, you're now focusing more on the communication skills, the human skills, the project management skills are a must for portfolios too for showing that. Like that is crucial now for everything.
Jason Gorman (11:09)
Yeah.
Yes,
definitely. And there are other things like you still need to understand learning science and how to apply it into your work. mean, all of those things are still true. ⁓ But we're just in a world where we have to find what are the human and this is going to go directly to our entrepreneurship conversation.
Luke Hobson (11:22)
Of course.
Jason Gorman (11:36)
the most important thing we all need to do in whatever market we're operating in, right, as employees or as entrepreneurs, is we have to be able to differentiate ourselves from other people who do similar things. And now, in addition to differentiating ourselves from other people, we have to differentiate ourselves from the technology because the technology is capable of things. And so one those things is the communication and being good with people and being a connector. You know, that is a critical differentiation point for us.
Luke Hobson (12:06)
Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about entrepreneurship. Let's dive on into that because this is something that does not get as much attention as it should. And it still has always kind of surprised me when I hear from some folks that the entrepreneurship pathway and whether that's B2B, B2C, ⁓
be to G for business to government, whatever you want to be able to do, or if you want to do freelance or whatever you want to be able to do from thinking about yourself now as an entrepreneur. What I have heard from a lot of folks over the years was that like, that's the fall black plant. That's the backup plan is that like, if it all pans, ⁓ I'll just go and do that. And I was like,
Jason Gorman (12:27)
Yeah. Yeah.
Luke Hobson (12:42)
Hey, that's not how this works. It's not as easy as you think it is. At the same time, it's not unreachable by any means, but there's a lot of thought to say that you want to do something as an individual and start something on your own as opposed to just, I work for this organization. Here's my nine to five. And we're, we're kind of done. Why do you think there is a misunderstanding in the field around what actually goes into being an entrepreneur in the L and D space?
Jason Gorman (12:44)
Yeah.
It's always a leap of faith. I mean if you're gonna go out on your own I think part of the challenge is that you just have to say I I know 10 % of what I'm gonna have to do in this business really well. I'm very very good at that 10 % and then the other 90 % I'm gonna have to learn on the job and I think it's really hard to appreciate
that 90 % and no, initially that's not true. I will say when you first go on your own and you're doing the work, you're probably going to be good at 80 % or 90 % of the stuff. But if you grow and you build an organization, that just becomes less and less true over time. And I think the reality is that
⁓ People want to go and do the thing that they want to do and then there are all of these other things that you're just unaware of that you need, that nobody tells you you need. There's no trigger to go out and buy insurance for your company or form an LLC or set up your HR function. You have to figure that out in the moment and that's a challenge.
And there are also other things like managing your finances differently. If you don't have a paycheck, it's a regular paycheck coming in every week. That is a very different mindset. It's not impossible, but there are psychological challenges that come with these things too. ⁓ So some people, I mean, for me, I will just say transitioning from a job to being a business owner, I've always felt that this is easier than having a job. ⁓
just for me personally. Some people try it and it's not for them and they go and that's fine. I think figuring out what is right for you is really, really important. It's not a one size fits all, it's very much about personality. ⁓ So I wouldn't say that there are universal misconceptions or universal stumbling blocks. I think a lot of it has to do with the individual and the kind of work they're choosing to do.
Luke Hobson (15:31)
When you were starting Jackrabbit, did you start it while you were working at a university or anything else, or did you make like this type of clean cut to say, this is my decision, I'm going all in, goodbye, nine to five, and I'm gonna start where my entrepreneur had full time.
Jason Gorman (15:48)
Yeah, I had been at an organization leading the learning experience design function. And then I left there to go to kind of start up. And while I was there, I realized that I wanted to do my own thing. And I started on the side figuring out what that could be. And then I was laid off along with everybody else in my company. The whole company just the whole thing just went away. And
I was kind of pushed into it. But thankfully, I had thought about it a little bit. And I did have a couple of people that I had been talking to who I knew needed work. And so instead of directing them to other people in my network, I just said, hey, guess what? I'm available. So I got very lucky in some ways at the beginning because I had existing connections that just made it work out for me. But it was a combination of planning, but then also somebody making me do it almost by.
by just letting me go.
Luke Hobson (16:49)
I mean, that's usually how from reading them from different types of entrepreneurs, that's usually it is that you get pushed out of a nest and say, good luck, you now you are forced to now do this where it's kind of weird because for my world, I still do everything full time for MIT.
teach the University of Miami and everything else. But I've always had this type of this like scratch that the normal full time job can't itch where it's like, no, I want to write this book. No, I want to do these workshops. I don't want to be able to teach this, you know, and that was something else. I was like, can I figure out how to do this outside of a normal nine to five? Or if I do this work nights and weekends all the time with this crush me, does it actually fulfill something? And it did. And it actually gave me this whole new sense of purpose that my normal roles while I love them, it
Jason Gorman (17:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Luke Hobson (17:35)
just didn't really fully click for me, whereas for now it's just like, that is the passion is trying to be able to do things like this with the podcast and with all the other things of not want to connect with my learning nerds. Like this is fun. I want to try to be able to do this more. And of course, to get compensated at the same time, to keep on doing it, to make sure I'm not just grinding myself into dust with all the jobs that I do. But it's always interesting to hear about how some people go full time, how they try to dabble part time or like what they do for things.
Jason Gorman (18:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, and actually, this is a really, I think this is a really important point. If somebody is listening to this and they're really thinking about making that kind of leap, I think you have a natural advantage as a designer. So as a designer, there are some things that you can just directly translate to the process of going out on your own. I think what you can do is think about it as initially as a prototype. So instead of just making that transition like...
Ending one chapter in your life and turning the page and no, just designed the thing that you would want to do. Just identify what is the work that you'd want to do on your own. Find somebody who needs that work and go do it. And you don't have to, it doesn't have to be full time. It doesn't have to be a lot of hours. But I think to go through the motions of reaching out to somebody, seeing if they need work, securing the deal, figuring out what that contract looks like. Do you need a contract? I don't know. How much are you charging?
Right, going through the work of scoping a project, tracking that project's process, reporting on a weekly basis in a different way than you might with your employer, completing a project, having those check-ins, right? All of those things, go through those motions, right? That's a prototype. Think about those things as a prototype ⁓ and learn. And I think the important lesson here is that jumping in, sometimes it is, you know, ⁓ a benefit to get pushed out of the nest.
But sometimes it's a benefit to go and try it and see what it's like. And because you're going to learn a lot after your first time through. And it is obviously the safest thing. If you have a full-time job, do it on the side, build it on the side. It's very doable. so those would be some things that I would really advise people to do now. If you're really thinking about it, if you really think that maybe someday you'll do it, go and try it. Go and try it.
Luke Hobson (19:59)
I'm glad you said that because whenever you listen to like an entrepreneur podcast and you're like trying to get a sense of what exactly should I do from some of them? They're like quit your job today. Start your new thing. And I'm like, no, no, don't quit your job today. So some of that advice out there from the more influencer crowd of this is a bit different. Hence, obviously our world is much more tight knit and it's certainly a lot different. So trying to be able to give folks some actual real advice on what to do. I'm glad you're here. We'll talk about that.
Jason Gorman (20:08)
Mm.
Luke Hobson (20:28)
thinking back to seven, eight years ago when you did start up Jack rabbit learning experience, what were the hardest realities that you weren't prepared for that you tried to have to figure out how to be able to do.
Jason Gorman (20:41)
Yeah, I mean the hardest things... ⁓
for me personally, are the things that feel like red tape. There's just like a massive psychological weight to me of, I kind of name some of the things. What is business insurance and how do I get it? Or when I had to set up payroll or when I had to hire a bookkeeper. I didn't even know what a bookkeeper was. How is a bookkeeper different than accountant? I had no idea. I had to figure that out and then I had to figure out how to hire one of each.
and I had to figure out how they work together. I didn't know any of these things. And some of these things that I'm not passionate about are harder, are just much, much harder to do. And I think the kind of emotional tacks of really wanting to design and do something and make something and be creative and then hitting up against the sorting through insurance policies and choosing the right one is really hard.
I mean, think that there is, that's a real thing. Or if you're a person who is a little bit more introverted, a little bit ⁓ shy about sales or getting out there to do marketing, that might be the challenge. But I think everybody's gonna have something, right? Nobody's gonna be good at all the things. It's too many skill sets. There are reason why individual people do all these roles. But when you're starting, you're doing all the roles. And...
And so I think ⁓ those are the kinds of things that you don't know how you're going to react ⁓ when you go into it ⁓ that are major considerations that you might not be prepared for. Another thing that I would mention that's really more in the work is that
When somebody's hired you to do something for them, you are on the hook in a really different kind of way than when you're an employee. If something goes wrong, it's your fault. It doesn't matter if it was somebody else's fault. It's your fault, or it was partially somebody else's fault. You're going to be on the hook. You're going to be accountable. You're going to be responsible. You're going to need to fix it. You're going to need to understand what happened. You're going to need to own it. And that's different.
than being an employee, right? All the politics that all of us hate about working in a large organization, you don't have to deal with those. That's the benefit. The other side of that coin is, because of that organization's politics, it's easier for them to blame you if something doesn't go right. And so ⁓ there are a lot of ways to mitigate those things, but I think that's an important thing to be prepared for. It's a very different dynamic.
Luke Hobson (23:35)
So on the flip side of that, what were the positives of starting off on your own?
Jason Gorman (23:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, you know, honestly, a lot of the things that people think about typically as the positives were the positives. Having more control over my time, having a little bit more, a lot more freedom in what I chose to do, having full creative control as a designer. One of the things that I really, I had frustrations with in past jobs is, you know, I would be like leading the design function, and I would have tension with...
the head of user experience design or the head of project management. We just didn't see eye to eye on how things needed to progress. And one of the things that was just nice about doing my own thing is I could do it any way I wanted and there was nobody to push back on me. And so as long as it worked, that was fine. Those are great. The other thing that I didn't anticipate is that the creative control over what the business is.
what you do, how the business operates, how it's constructed. ⁓ I used to think that businesses were all fundamentally the same, and that's wrong. All businesses are really fundamentally different. Even if they do really similar things, the way they operate, the decisions they make, there is really no perfect playbook for whatever anybody wants to do. You have to go and make it up. You have to invent it. That's really cool.
If you're a creative person, like building something, to me, the most creative thing I've ever done is business building. And it's incredibly fun. So that, to me, is one of the greatest positives.
Luke Hobson (25:18)
when you can start and actually build out your own culture from scratch, that's gotta be awesome. You say, here's what it's gonna be like, and it's you.
Jason Gorman (25:22)
It's great. Exactly.
Yeah. Culture, processes. ⁓ Identity, purpose. Yeah, it's great.
Luke Hobson (25:32)
You sure you don't want to establish
some crazy hierarchy like higher ed? It's super fun. Gotta love it.
Jason Gorman (25:37)
⁓
Yeah, are some things that I really miss about higher ed and then there some things that I miss a little less.
Luke Hobson (25:47)
Yeah, I love the fact and I've told this before that's with my current title. I'm the assistant director of instructional design. And then you're like, so who's the director of instructional design? there is none. And it's because that's, it's just like, wait, why? it's like, no, it's like, you can only get promoted to such a level before the next promotion because of fun higher education rules. And you're like, but why? then
It's funny because my boss tried everything and they're like, nope, HR is like this, this, this. It's like, OK, so I'm going to assume that's not happening right now within your world. So you know.
Jason Gorman (26:25)
I mean,
I don't think so. I hope not. If that is happening, then I'm not aware of it. But no, it is not happening. And it's definitely not something I want.
Luke Hobson (26:30)
So,
so when someone says to you that they want to actually start this entrepreneurship journey, they have been thinking about it and they're ready to be able to do it. What is the first step that they should take?
Jason Gorman (26:45)
Okay.
The first step is to do something. ⁓ Entrepreneurship is about action. Without action, you can't succeed. So you need a plan. So I think it's really important to understand fundamentally what you want your life to be if you succeed. That is actually the most important question that should anchor everything else. Your own personal fulfillment and success is the most important thing because if you don't
If you are not serving that, you won't be happy and it's going to be very hard to be successful. So that's really important. You need to know that. ⁓ And then you need to understand what you want your business to be and what your service offerings are. Those things are all critical. Those things happen continuously ⁓ in this process. So because that's true, action is the most important thing to do first, right? So, and that could be...
Write down very quickly what it is you enjoy doing the most and what you think is valuable for people. Do it quickly. And then go to LinkedIn, to your list of contacts, identify 20 people that you can reach out to, and not sell them. You can just say, hey, I'm going to take a little time on the weekends or in the evenings and do a little work doing this kind of work. I just want to let you know. If you need that or you know anybody else who needs that.
Let me know. ⁓ That's really important action. So doing that is really critical. Or while you're doing that, you could also do something simple like write a one-pager about what you do. so if somebody says, OK, that's interesting. I want to show something to my boss, then you have something ready for them. That's another simple action that you can do. Other things that are more kind of marketing, network.
Just go and meet people, meet a lot of people. And I, you know, at the end of the day, it is your network, it's the people that you know and who trust you ⁓ that are gonna be your biggest advocates, and that's really how you're gonna build your business initially. And then if you can build greater awareness of what you do ⁓ down the line, but that takes time, it takes time. But initially, it's really about getting to know people. And... ⁓
Developing trust because the things that we do For organizations very often there is a lot of risk ⁓ in the things that we make and For somebody to hire you to do that for them You can't be a rando, right? You've got you've got to be trusted
And so that's not something that somebody just goes to a website, clicks a button, and makes a purchase, but they have to know you. So that's important too. So networking. ⁓ And then keep learning. I think if you're gonna do this, ⁓ learning about what you do, but also learning about what bookkeeping is, learning about what you might need for insurance. I think just figuring out...
some of those things as you're trying to anticipate the things you might need and going and just finding the best book on the topic and reading it ⁓ is also good thing to do. But action first.
Luke Hobson (30:23)
I love everything you said. I did many of the things that just outlined too and trying to do that. Not full time, obviously, but from a part-time perspective, I had a really old whiteboard and I have a purple magic marker that I use for everything where I was just like, I'm going to map out what the heck does this thing look like? Because at the beginning was this like podcast? Question mark. YouTube? Maybe. Book? It's like, and then finally it was like, well, what if I
Jason Gorman (30:27)
Hahaha
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (30:51)
map this out like what does this actually look like because for me because I have all these degrees I have a ton of student debt so like how do I make this go away and it was just like if I can try to be able to get an extra $500 a month that's amazing that literally takes care of two payments so how do I make that happen and I started to be able to map things out to say if I get a sponsor for the podcast
Jason Gorman (30:54)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Luke Hobson (31:15)
that will take care of this. If I sell so many books, if I get invited to do so many talks and that was all and I still have the whiteboard in my office over there and at this point in time it's warped, it looks terrible and my wife was like, why do you still have this? And I was like, this was my baby, this is the thing of like, here's what I wanna do, like so I'm never gonna get rid of this but that was my first step and exactly as you described, which I figured out. Now, and the networking piece too, I can't state that enough.
Jason Gorman (31:20)
Mm.
Yeah.
I love that. I love it. It's great.
Luke Hobson (31:43)
of trying to be able to knock down doors and talk to people and just to hear and listen what they have to say. And that's the biggest thing that my father right now, he has written a million books at time, but two are published and he's trying to be able to write more. And we've been talking back and forth about like, how do you sell a book? Because when you, cause when you think about it from the traditional way, it's like, you have a publisher.
Jason Gorman (32:04)
Hmm.
Luke Hobson (32:08)
and they sign you, they give you an advancement, and then you try to be able to distribute that, and then you get to go and have the fun things where you go and you get to do talks and seminars and yada, yada, yada. But if you're not a big name and you're doing it yourself and there is no publisher, it's like, well, how do you sell books? And it is.
Jason Gorman (32:21)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (32:26)
That networking piece is building up your brand and it's really trying to find communities of who would actually read the book in groups and getting on podcasts and trying to do more of saying that like I am an author. This is now my brand. And for him, who is now retired and he's just like, like I'm willing to do all of this, but I've never done it before. Like, yeah, why would you? But this entrepreneurship journey is, it's weird. It's quirky. Like you wouldn't think it's, it's very messy. Nothing's, nothing's a straight line.
Jason Gorman (32:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very messy. Yeah.
Luke Hobson (32:56)
It's like one thing leads to another leads to another. And you're like, oh,
Jason Gorman (32:56)
No. Yeah.
Luke Hobson (32:59)
OK, I guess I kind of figured this out. But then you get a curveball and you're like, oh, maybe I could do this, too. And it's so odd.
Jason Gorman (33:06)
Yeah, and I don't know, my experience of it is that eight years in, I feel like I've had like six very distinct different versions of Jackrabbit. And that is really normal. You figure it out, you feel like, all right, this is the thing we're doing, we're cooking, let's go. And then six months later you say, that used to be true.
Luke Hobson (33:33)
Yeah.
Jason Gorman (33:35)
It's not
true anymore. Now we have to figure out what are we now and how are we still going to show up and do the best possible work for people who really need something. And that's part of the deal, right? When you work for somebody, somebody else figures out what the need is, and then you get asked to do it. And one of the hardest, in my experience, parts of being an entrepreneur is staying keyed in to what the need is so you can change what you do.
to serve that need, right? That's really, really critical. This idea of product-market fit. How are you fitting? How is your service or product or whatever it is that you have, how does it fit with a real big, as big as possible need in the world?
Luke Hobson (34:23)
So when you were trying to think of that type of need for what people were looking for or haven't yet identified that you could actually help them out with your solution for everything, what was your path for trying to find the right audience? Were you thinking of institutions? Were you thinking of individuals? I mentioned B2G moments ago. What path did you take to figure out who your audience was and how to best serve them?
Jason Gorman (34:47)
I mean, I've done this in a lot of different ways. So having a higher ed background, my initial thought was, well, my clients will be higher ed clients. And I have had lots of great higher ed clients over the years. ⁓ But it's been maybe a quarter of the business. And I couldn't have anticipated that. One of the things, for instance, that I didn't know about higher ed, especially if you're doing larger projects, the sales cycles are really, really long.
So, ⁓ you know, if you're freelancing and there's an immediate need, that's different. You just get plugged in and you're, you're, you're, the ground running. But if it's like, we need to create this master's, you know, program, you know, you're not going to close that. You're not going to have the first conversation and then, you know, have a statement of work two weeks later. That's a five, six, nine month process sometimes. And because of things like that, it meant that we,
naturally found other kinds of work to do. mean, the reality is when you go out on your own initially, it's just opportunistic. You're just taking the things that are coming in. And then eventually, if you're able to get stable, you are able to then choose more of the work that you want to do. So one of the things that we've done is we made the decision that we care about and are excited about clean energy technology.
clean energy organizations. And there's a huge demand and need to train people to do clean energy jobs. There's just a massive shortfall ⁓ in Massachusetts and across the country. So we very, very deliberately went out and just started networking. We started meeting people. We had conversations. We listened. We went to conferences and
just little by little, we we built a community for ourselves and we made good friendships and we met interesting people and we found where the opportunities were, but it took time and it took a lot of consistent effort. So there are kind of a couple ways that can happen. One, it can be very deliberate, but that may take time if you don't already have a big footprint and people don't know you who do that thing. But the other is you probably have a natural home and that's probably the place to start. So start in your natural home, but...
And if you want to change it, may take time. again, there's no rule book here. There's no one way that this happens.
Luke Hobson (37:21)
love that you mentioned about how eventually you were selective for everything because I know that when I was first trying to be able to build out my brand, I said yes to everything to the point that it crushed me. I did way too much. was like, sure, I'll do this and I'll do this. And eventually there was like one point at a time where I was like, what am I doing? Like I am literally where I actually to take time off of work at one point because I was so overwhelmed that I like, I literally can't do everything I'm trying to do. And it took
Jason Gorman (37:24)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Luke Hobson (37:50)
You know, a lot of time to be able to then finally say, as you were saying, let's be more selective here, Luke, like you got to be smarter about what you say yes to and then learning how to say no was a process too. That was, to me, that was harder to be able to be like, no person who wants to hand me money for a fun project. yeah, like if I take this, like I'm going to drown and I physically can't, but then saying, Hey, here's my friend. She's amazing. Like I, you know,
Jason Gorman (38:06)
Yeah
Yes.
Luke Hobson (38:17)
please feel free to contact her. Here's her email, her phone number, like talk to this person instead. And I did a lot of that over the years, which helped me to figure out which ones were right, which ones were not the best fit for me for times.
Jason Gorman (38:23)
Yeah.
I,
I, I, that's so important. you know, I, I heard somebody say once that, ⁓ was that entrepreneurs don't starve, they drown. Like it just, if you're a person who, who likes doing things, then you're, you, you want to, you want to say yes, because you want to do interesting things. And then there becomes this tension as you go, when you start very often, all the things that you do are totally bespoke. Like I'm just going to do.
Luke Hobson (38:39)
Yeah.
Jason Gorman (38:56)
the exact thing and the exact way that this person wants it done. But as you grow and do more things, you realize that there are real taxes ⁓ on you ⁓ if you are doing custom things every time. That's why organizations package offerings. It's because they want to make things repeatable for themselves. And so then there's just this really these interesting dynamics that pop up in this process. So like for you, you don't do
Like you're not gonna go and do some completely different kind of, don't know, can't think of one right now, but like you have specific things that you do. You are an author, you're a podcaster, you go and deliver talks to groups of people, right? And you are not reinventing talks every time, I hope. Hopefully you have a set of slides that you can modify. No, of course, of course. So I think this is the point, is that, ⁓
Luke Hobson (39:46)
time for that. Nope.
Jason Gorman (39:55)
The beginning is very messy. At a certain point, it becomes more important to systematize things and organize them and make them repeatable. When that happens, there's no, again, there's no trigger point where it's like, today's the day where I systematize everything. It happens over time and it's a
Luke Hobson (40:14)
So one thing I'd love your opinion on because I struggled with this when I was first doing everything was pricing and trying to figure out what do I charge? And I mean for everything like for the book, it was originally 29.99 because I was searching other books on Amazon and I was like, okay, maybe it's 30 bucks. So then over time I was like, all right, I think 20 bucks sounds more practical for things. Same thing when it came to delivering.
Jason Gorman (40:27)
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Luke Hobson (40:40)
workshops where at first it was just someone said like, here's what we offer. I was like, all right, I guess that works. And then over time I was just like, actually I'm putting in like four hours to prepare for this. The $200 does not make sense for me to accept this. And then same thing, if I'm traveling, then it's like, then now I have to figure out travel reimbursement and, everything of a sort like that. And I did a lot of ⁓ experimentation to figure out, Hey, if you want me to come and do this thing.
Jason Gorman (40:41)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Luke Hobson (41:09)
and then I would say a big number and I'm like, I don't know what they're gonna say. And then they say, that's a little bit too much. How about 500 instead? I'm like, ⁓ okay, that's fair, great, sure. And that's kind of how I eventually figured out my own pricing for different products and services and whatnot. How did you figure it out? Did you use a, did you do the same of experimentation? you have like a formula? How did you figure out pricing for Jack Rabbit?
Jason Gorman (41:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I would say the easiest thing to do when you're getting started is to understand, you know, what is, how much money do you, what is the money you need to live on? That's your baseline. You never want to make less than that. You generally want to make more than that because you're to have lots of cycles in what you do. You're have busy months and less busy months. It's very normal. So you need to understand your own baseline. What is your baseline? So an easy thing, like let's say your baseline is, let's choose a number.
$50,000 a year. I don't, I don't know. That's very low. I know let's say it's a hundred thousand dollars. I just want to find a round number. Let's say it's a hundred thousand dollars. So a hundred thousand dollars, by the way, that has to be, that would have to be a hundred thousand dollars. That's your salary. Those are, that will include the taxes, right? You're paying you think like you will have to think about these things. It's your insurance.
Luke Hobson (42:06)
Yeah, slow. Sure.
Jason Gorman (42:27)
Like personal health insurance. It's your business insurance. It's whatever other expenses you whatever that number is you need to know that number That's really critical because you have to determine early What is your baseline hourly rate to get to that number? So really simple way to think about it So if you're working in a full-time job and you're working 40 hours a week and that is that is very reliable 40 hours your rate is about so if you're making $100,000
40 hours a week, your rate is $50. It's about $50 an hour. And so you take the number of your salary, you cut it in half, and then you knock off what? Three, four decimal points, right? So that's your hourly rate-ish. So if it's $200,000, then it's $100 an hour, right? But when you're working on your own, you're not going to be working 40 hours a week, billable. You're not going to be billable at that rate.
So I would say the safest thing to do is double that rate. So if you need $100,000, the minimum you really want to charge is $100 an hour. Now there are major exceptions to this, right? If you are not going out and finding your own work, you'll get less. You're going to get closer to the 50. And that's because somebody else is taking on the overhead of finding that work.
But if you are going and finding all your own work, you have to pay yourself. You have to find a way to compensate yourself for that time. So anyway, that is just a good rule of thumb. It's gonna be somewhere between that 50 and 100 is right. And then as you get into more demand, or if your skills are more specialized, you can ask for more and more money. If you're in demand, then...
then you can literally say to clients, I'm in demand. There are two other people who need my time at this time. I need to be able to charge a premium. And that is when your fees are able to go up. So that's just the hourly picture. I'm just going to add on a quick caveat. There are a lot of people that do not feel like hourly is the right way to charge. So you might charge
Luke Hobson (44:39)
Hmm?
Jason Gorman (44:51)
Value put sort of a value pricing way. I'm gonna make a thing I'm gonna charge this set amount of money for that thing That's another way to do it, but you need to be able to understand that you're gonna make money in that situation ⁓ You can charge a day rate instead of an hourly rate. There are lots of ways to do it But I think if you work out that hourly rate bit first ⁓ That is the most that is the most important ⁓ first step
Luke Hobson (45:17)
Do you have a preference for which way that you bill?
Jason Gorman (45:22)
⁓ Yeah, so my preference is hourly and the reason that that's true is because ⁓ Anybody who's done this work You know that you do not have all of the details about what the project is gonna be like when you are in the middle of the project So if somebody says this is no big deal It's just like I've got these 25 slides and I just want to make them this other thing and then you get in the project You're like, wait a minute
But actually they have three friends that they want to film to be a part of this or these are the slides, but they want to change all of the graphics that are in the slides or they actually need a lot more guidance than I originally imagined. You just cannot figure those things out before you start. And so if you give a fixed price, then you're locked in and you just have to do the work. If you're hourly...
then you can communicate early and say, yes, I can do that. I can do this additional graphic design. I think it's going to be another 10 hours. And if you're OK with me doing those 10 hours, that's great. I'll just do them. ⁓ But if not, then I won't. But then it's their choice, opposed to you just having to fill the contract. There are reasons not to go that way also. ⁓ But that is my preference, I will say, for my business.
One of the weird things about AI is that every day it changes the amount of time it takes to do something. And so this is something that we have to reconcile with to now, which is ⁓ how do we get the most value out of our expertise for using these tools when the amount of time to do something goes down? And if I'm not getting paid to learn the tool, but that's actually now becoming a bigger part of my job, I have to think about how to factor that in.
Luke Hobson (47:16)
So I also prefer doing hourly and the reason why I know it's pros and cons to every method, but I got to experience before of just here is the contract. It's going to probably take you 30 hours and I was like, okay. And then sure enough, it took me way over that and I was like, well, now I'm locked in for 30 hours. And I told them and they were kind and like, oh, we'll figure something out. And I was like, all right, great. But I know, but that's not the norm. And that was just someone being
Jason Gorman (47:28)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (47:46)
being gracious and acknowledging that what they thought was a 30 hour project was more like 50. And that's when I was like, I don't think I'm doing this ever again. I'm just gonna do hourly.
Jason Gorman (47:53)
Yeah.
If you choose to do that, what you have to do is scope it really carefully. And so I think one of the mistakes that people tend to make out of the gate is not really, it's hard to know what the scope of project is. So what you need to do is really nail it down in your agreement. And then you have to have your assumptions. I'm assuming that all of these things are true about this. And then if any of those things go wrong,
then you can have a change order conversation. So if you've agreed to that 30 hours, but it turns out that it's 50, then you can go back and say, look, we're actually going outside of our scope. Our assumptions, like we had an assumption that this wasn't going to be true, but now it is, so we need to talk about changing.
Luke Hobson (48:37)
Yeah, absolutely. So to pivot for a bit. Well, it's still along the lines of entrepreneurship and whatnot. But I recall your LinkedIn post from a couple of weeks back. You mentioned you were going to be doing small confidential ask me anything sessions to help people through the decisions for everything of just trying to go down this road. Have you done these yet? I actually don't know that you have. How are they going?
Jason Gorman (48:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah,
I did one. was it was a single session and a good number of people showed up and it was really interesting. Everybody was in very different places. Some people had full time jobs and were just kind of curious. Some people had been had been unemployed for a little while and just really weren't sure ⁓ what was going to happen next and what they should do. And they were just trying to unpack their their options. ⁓
The common theme is that people were really all interested in how to think about their value and how to communicate their value. I was a little surprised by that. I actually was anticipating like a lot of technical questions about setting up LLCs and stuff, but people came in with much more thoughtful questions about ⁓ where do I fit? How do I demonstrate that fit? How ⁓ do I think about matching myself in the right opportunities? So those were a lot of the...
That was a lot of conversation. ⁓ What I will say, though, is that people did not ask enough questions about sales and marketing. mean, look, you don't have a business if you can't sell. I mean, I just have to say that. If you can't sell, don't do it, because you just have to be able. And that doesn't mean being a used car salesman. It just means being able to be articulate about ⁓ what you do and why it matters and how you can help people and being honest and clear about those things. Sales is about
just communicating value. That's it.
Luke Hobson (50:28)
it is a different type of a beast to be able to put together a pitch deck and to be able to actually do that if you've never done it before where the first time you're doing it you're like oh yeah okay I can figure it out but it is definitely different so the art of selling in a way that especially for educators who are listening to this because I know for you and I who have both worked in an education when you think about sales you're like you know no no no that's bad and you're like
Jason Gorman (50:38)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Luke Hobson (50:53)
But no way, hold on. It can be a good thing. You are, you're now doing your own journey of learning design. Like this is a necessary part of the job. Unless if you have someone who does this for you, but I'm assuming you don't. So you got to know about sales marketing and follow ups and everything like that. Yeah.
Jason Gorman (50:58)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
yes, all those things are important, like here's the like a really so because I get I get the aversion to sales Here's a really simple thing though. If you really believe and care about what you do That's all you need like you don't want to sell somebody something they don't need or that you don't care about You want to sell the things you're passionate about that you think matter and make a difference in the world? That is when you are at your best selling is when you're being
You're making an honest pitch to do something that you think will make a difference, right? That's what sales is. ⁓ And then it's the follow-ups and the figuring out how to have the next conversation and answer questions in the right kinds of ways, sure. But at base, being passionate about the thing is the most important part.
Luke Hobson (51:59)
We're not selling protection plans or some other crazy insurance or something. It's like, no, no, no. We're trying to solve this type of problem for them. Here's the creative solution. Let's get results. It's not, you know, it's nothing murky like that. ⁓ what did take me a bit to also get comfortable with too, and it's being transparent is the amount of communication that it took to get some things done where you acknowledge like, Hey, I emailed this person on Monday. Still nothing back.
Jason Gorman (52:01)
No. Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Luke Hobson (52:28)
Should I wait a couple more days? And this is like, no, be relentless and constantly reach out email phone text. Obviously not to the point of of bothering them, but it, you know, and if finally you get the response back of like, sorry, got buried in my inbox was traveling, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, yeah, that's, that's how it happens. But you still want it to be top of mind for things. It kind of reminds me about if I have a student who forgets to do their homework or they have something come up and I like, I can tell that they're gone.
Jason Gorman (52:29)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (52:57)
where I keep on reaching out like what's wrong what's going on. Are you OK. Like it kind of reminded me of that like yeah it's just feels the same or just like always checking in. That's the point of annoyance but like you keep on doing it kind of thing.
Jason Gorman (52:57)
Yeah.
It's uncomfortable, it can be uncomfortable, ⁓ but I would say one way to make it less uncomfortable is that in that outreach, continue to find ways to be helpful. Hey look, I know in our conversation you mentioned that you needed this or you had this thing that you were trying to work on. I have thought about that a little bit. These are some thoughts on it. ⁓ Would love to talk about that element if that's really weighing on you. You know, I think...
Again, every time that you can show up and give specific value in any kind of sales situation is just the winning thing to do. It's also the right thing to do. It's just a good thing to do, right? If you're just a person who likes other people and cares about their work, help people for free. Like that's a really nice, you know, there's a limit because then you can get taken advantage of. But I think in a sales conversation, be generous with your knowledge and your advice.
And I think that is also really helpful in this because then they want to talk to you again.
Luke Hobson (54:08)
Yes. And then they'll refer you. We're like, hey, you were phenomenal. Our project talked to so and so about the next project, which I have. That's been a huge part of this journey for me is word of mouth. Doing a great job on one leads to another and at least to another. And that's happened for some time for years that carries over. And you're like, wow, that actually really works. Great. Just do a good job, Luke. Understand follow through. Yeah, it makes sense.
Jason Gorman (54:10)
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Luke Hobson (54:34)
⁓ Jason, I know I've already taken up a lot of your time. Where can folks go to learn more about you, about Jack Rabbit, learning experience, everything else? Where can folks find you?
Jason Gorman (54:44)
Yep. So it's just jackrabbitlx.com is the website. So you can learn about Jack Rabbit there. There's a link to my podcast up in the main menu and a blog as well. So if you want to hear that, you can find that there. The other company is Story as a Service, and that's story.as. You can find me on LinkedIn. Just search me. there much more than I should be. I spend way too much time on LinkedIn.
Those are the main places to find me.
Luke Hobson (55:16)
Awesome. Well, Jason, thanks so much for being here and for having this conversation and for being transparent with everything because it's not talked about enough when we take things behind the scenes to say like, Hey, here's how things actually work. Let's talk about that. So I really appreciate you being here and sharing everything.
Jason Gorman (55:31)
Grateful for the opportunity. Thanks for having me.
