The Educator's Guide to Part-Time Entrepreneurship: A Collection of Thoughts
Today's episode explores the potential of part-time entrepreneurship for educators. This seems to be something many of you have been thinking about, but don't know where to begin. I'll share my thoughts around this topic, the importance of starting small, identifying a niche, and building a community. I'll share some real-life success stories and offer practical advice on diversifying income streams and avoiding common mistakes.
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Transcript
Luke Hobson (00:00.153)
Question for you, are you ready to take your instructional design skills to the next level? Come join us for the eighth cohort of Instructional Design Institute. In our Instructional Design Fundamentals course, you'll learn how to make learning experiences meaningful, relevant, and of course, interesting. We cover topics like Andragogy, backward design, learning strategies, UDL, generative AI—because of course, we have to talk about that nowadays—and evaluation methods.
You'll receive weekly feedback and can attend optional live sessions to join your fellow learning nerds. You'll also walk away knowing how to create a robust portfolio and get copies of my ebook. Go down below inside the show notes to apply for the next cohort that starts on Monday, October 13th. Can't wait to see you there. And now let's start the show.
And welcome on in to the nerdiest podcast that you're going to hear today. I'm Dr. Luke Hobson, Assistant Director of Instructional Design, instructor, author, blogger, and podcaster. And my purpose, my obsession, if you will, is to be able to help you learn more about designing learning experiences, how to teach them, how to design them, and overall, how to make your learning experiences meaningful, relevant, and interesting
for your audience. And of course, you can find all of the fabulous resources that I have for you over at DrLukeHobson.com. Today's episode is something I've been thinking about lately that I'm going to call The Educator's Guide to Part-Time Entrepreneurship. When people think of entrepreneurs, they think of millionaires or billionaires in some cases. They think about Bezos and Musk and Oprah and Zuckerberg. And even right now, if you were to search for entrepreneurship,
what pops up is information on how to quit your nine-to-five, gain financial freedom, become your own boss, make your own schedule, and blah, blah, blah. But is any of this realistic for most people? Of course not. It's certainly not for the average person out there. And for most of you listening to this show right now, you don't even want that. You're actually happy with your nine-to-five. You like what you do. You like being an instructional designer or an educator. But to be honest,
Luke Hobson (02:11.703)
Having an additional income stream could be helpful, especially in today's day and age. If you watch the news, kind of some not-so-great things are happening right now within the economy. So this is when I think about part-time entrepreneurship—that’s what comes to mind. Generating an additional two hundred to five hundred dollars a month can be life-changing. This means one less car payment. It means
one student loan payment, making a dent in your rent or your mortgage, or maybe even trying to pay for childcare, which is now basically a second mortgage in today's world—a conversation for another day. But wow, not great to see how much that costs nowadays. So for you, the instructional designer, the professor, the librarian, the teacher, the adjunct instructor, the assistant dean—what do you do? How do you get to this point of having something part-time?
And most importantly, what do you want to do? This could mean writing a book, selling a course, getting invited to conferences, leading workshops, taking on your first client, teaching your first online course, consulting, starting a membership, or something else entirely. You're looking for that side gig, hobby, or passion that's going to bring meaning—and ideally, it also brings additional income and opportunities.
And just last week, I had three conversations with educators who all shared a similar goal. Each of them wanted to create a new product or service but had no idea where to begin. So we talked about identifying your niche, finding your audience, building a community, expanding your brand, and selecting the right platform. What seems to be getting in the way is paralysis by analysis. And that is completely reasonable, as there are many, many resources out there for trying
to go down this entrepreneurship path, but they don't necessarily speak to educators. So this is where my wheels started turning to think—if I could go back in time and give myself advice, what would I say to someone who wanted to start this academic entrepreneurship part-time journey, if you will? And I think back to my approach, my philosophy around this—it’s to start small.
Luke Hobson (04:33.666)
And I know that idea is not very popular online because most of what I read tells you to hustle nonstop until you pass out or to immediately quit your job and chase your dreams. And, you know, none of that advice is really good or realistic. You can start small and build into a profitable hobby, something that’s a passion area that will keep on growing and developing for you over time. And the number one question that all of you have asked me over the years
is how do I manage all my projects? Do I have a clone? Do I sleep? Well, as a new dad, sleep is kind of a thing of the past. But the real answer is that I started small. I started with one idea, and the idea snowballed into everything else. So I began this journey by simply answering instructional design questions on Facebook groups. I was part of the Instructional Designers in Higher Education Facebook group, and I just kept on seeing all these questions pop up.
So I started to answer a ton of them because I knew the answers. And over time, I gathered all of these thoughts and responses into one place—and that became the blog. The blog then served as a script, which then became the podcast. People started listening to the podcast, and that led to speaking invitations at conferences and universities. One of those talks happened to be What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming an Instructional Designer.
That presentation went so well that even though it was very late at night by the time everything ended, I knew I had to record it and share it on YouTube. And as soon as I did, that video took off. That gave me the idea of—wow, this is getting a lot of attention, maybe I should make this into a book. So the book did well. The book gained more traction,
combined with my presence online—constantly sharing things on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and everywhere else. That led to opportunities to teach at Eduflow Academy (shout out to all of you who remember Eduflow Academy). Eventually, that led to launching Instructional Design Institute. Everything that I have done started with just a small step of helping people out online. And now this is almost eight years later.
Luke Hobson (06:52.856)
Wow. When I started to share all this stuff. So almost eight years later, what I’m now finding that really excites me is seeing all of you who are taking your first steps in trying to build out your brand and do something more in this part-time entrepreneurship space—really making an impact for people. I love to see all of you grow, develop, and become the people you can be in the future.
I think about a couple of examples that come to mind. One of them is my friend Dr. Nicole Latois. She is an amazing example of this, where she was one of my students in Instructional Design Institute, and her course project was on making online content accessible for all. Her passion is teaching others about accessibility. It's her background, her education, what she did for many years—focusing on equitable learning design. As I was reviewing
her project and giving her feedback, I was thinking the whole time—this is an amazing course, it has a ton of potential. For those who want to learn about accessibility (which many of us do), why not spin this up into your own course? So I pitched her the idea of making her course a part of the catalog over at Instructional Design Institute.
That way, I don’t want to teach all these courses. I want to someday have a catalog of courses taught by other brilliant educators alongside me. I asked her if she wanted to be the first to join me on this endeavor. She launched her first cohort, and of course, it did amazing as I knew it would. I kept seeing people who took her course share their certificates online, tag her on LinkedIn, and rave about how fantastic the content was and how amazing she was as an instructor.
It was all there. You could tell from the potential—it all made sense to take this step. I also think about Dr. Guiswende, who just came on the show in the last episode, two weeks ago, where he identified a gap in the literature about project management for instructional designers. And what's kind of shocking is that we all practice project management daily, yet it doesn't get much attention.
Luke Hobson (09:11.792)
Oftentimes we have no training or education on it. I know he literally has his PhD in our field, and he said project management never came up once. It's like, yeah, that’s kind of odd. So after looking at the current books and resources about project management for instructional designers, he concluded he’s going to write a book for us about project management tactics. He sent it over to me—I thought it was great—and I asked him to come on the show to talk about it.
I already knew that the episode resonated with you—his style of teaching and approach—because that podcast episode is already one of the most downloaded I’ve ever had, and it came out two weeks ago. Clearly something was there. We saw this earlier when I shared his book on LinkedIn and it garnered 50,000 impressions in no time, which was bonkers.
Once again, another academic with a ton of potential to grow this as much as he wants—right place, right time, right market. And it’s awesome because both Nicole and Guiswende are following their passions. They love being academics and educators, but at the same time, they’re wearing their business hats and seeing where these opportunities can take them. And here’s the thing, folks:
you can do this too. So if this is what you’ve been thinking about—trying to do something else—I’m with you. I’m thinking about these same opportunities. Currently, what I’m wondering is how I can do more to help you get there. How do I help you cross that finish line or go where you want to go? To be honest, I don’t know the format yet. Maybe it’s live
webinars. Maybe it’s coaching calls I flip into podcast episodes. Maybe it’s a YouTube series or a course. I don’t know. But I find it so fun and rewarding to see you build your own brands and follow this path. I want to do more to help you land opportunities. And if this is something you want to do for your own career growth, then yeah, I’d love to find a way.
Luke Hobson (11:37.678)
To help you out the best I can. I’ll share one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received. Maybe you’re on the fence about this—maybe you’ve never thought about it before. The whole time you’re like, I’m listening to this episode, I don’t know if it’s for me, but I’m curious where he’s going. Well, one piece of advice I received was that you should always have multiple income streams—you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket.
You’ve heard that before because it’s risky. Betting everything on one path can be scary. Yet when it comes to our work, we all follow this mindset of sticking to one road. But what happens if something blindsides you? Let’s say you strongly identify with your job—your work is your identity. Then layoffs happen, or you have a new boss who’s a micromanager tyrant, and now you can’t stand being there.
Then what? What’s your identity? If we focus on other opportunities, sure, it means more work, but it also lets you explore passion areas that build on your current skill set. To give you an example, my day job is great—I love what I do. But my real passions are this podcast, teaching my Ed.D. students, teaching students in Instructional Design Institute, doing research, and writing articles about best practices. I love having conversations with you about the field.
Luke Hobson (14:00.584)
That’s what I love to do. Nine-to-five is great—I love where I work, my team, and what I do—but teaching and creating are what I truly enjoy. And if you’re like, “Great, Luke, but I want to make a first step today. I don’t want to wait until you figure out your new format,” here are two things you can do immediately while I figure out how to help you with branding and part-time entrepreneurship.
First, identify your superpower and your niche.
What can you bring to the table, and what makes you unique? Many educators today focus on one topic and become known for it. I think about Dr. Tom Tobin and Dr. Katie Novak as UDL experts. I think about Dr. Jason Gulya and Dr. Lance Eaton for their insights on AI’s impact on higher education.
I think about Dr. Karl Kapp—microlearning expert, gamification expert. And the list goes on. You can find many people I’ve interviewed over the years who had a specialty in instructional design or teaching that made me say, “Come on the show. I want to learn more.” It’s rare for someone to be a specialist in everything. Narrowing
down your main topic is the first step—and you cannot skip this step. I beg you, please don’t skip this step. You need to test the waters and see if there’s a demand for your ideas. The worst mistake I see is when people create a product or service first, assume everyone will want it, and then… crickets. Nothing happens.
That’s the hard way. The easy way is to make real connections first. Share your ideas. Serve a community. Find what you love to do, and from
Luke Hobson (16:22.304)
doing these exercises, you’ll figure out what works best for your audience. A great book to read about this is Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. I’ll put a link in the show notes for you to find it on Amazon. To summarize: give away content for a long time to
build your brand and credibility. Make people want to come to you when they have a question. Over time, you’ll see what best serves them—and then create that offering.
As educators, marketing seems odd to us. It feels foreign. But don’t think of it that way. Instead, think of it as—if you don’t have an audience, what are you going to do? You want to contribute and build something. Just talking to yourself online isn’t the best use of time.
What I’ve seen many people do (and why I say don’t skip this step) is that they write a book first—but no one knows who they are. Then they spend countless hours trying to get people to read it. But they haven’t built those connections or that following. Without that, it’s going to hurt you in the long run.
Once again, not impossible, but you really need to understand your folks first. And of course, if we’re thinking about books no one reads—those are called dissertations. I’m kidding. Kind of.
If you remember that Friends episode where Ross discovers someone actually reading his dissertation and he’s shocked—that’s kind of how it feels. I can tell you how many people have read my dissertation on one hand. You don’t want that to happen if you write a book, start a YouTube channel, or join the conference circuit.
Luke Hobson (18:39.479)
You need people on your side first. Once again, this isn’t a recipe for overnight success or quick hacks. If that’s what you’re looking for, I’m not your guy. I don’t know how to do that. I know how to work hard, build connections, and make meaningful relationships so you know how you’re serving your audience.
That’s why, for all of you learning nerds out there, I try to figure out what will help you most—new newsletters, podcast guests, workshops on GenAI (surprise, surprise). Everyone’s asking, “How do you use GenAI to improve learning experiences, redesign them, use it as a thinking partner?”
So that’s where my content is going, because that’s what people want to know. I’m paying attention to what you share online and in our conversations. You should do that too—focus on your brand and serve your audience.
Those are at least two tips you can use today if you’re interested in part-time entrepreneurship.
So let me know what you think about this idea. Send me a message on LinkedIn, Facebook, or even a carrier pigeon. Write to me via email at luke@drlukehobson.com. Let me know what you think. I’ll brainstorm the best ways to help you with part-time opportunities, branding, and landing jobs in the future. I think I can help quite a few of you in this academic space—it’s unique in what we do.
I’ll put on my thinking hat and figure out how to serve the masses. And of course, if you want to learn more about designing meaningful, relevant, and interesting learning experiences, the next cohort for the Instructional Design Fundamentals course offered by Instructional Design Institute starts Monday, October 13th. Be sure to get your applications in. You’ll be hearing from me quickly if you apply to make sure we get things
Luke Hobson (21:00.789)
up and rolling for you. Other than that, folks, as always, reviews of the show are much appreciated. Be a friend and tell a friend about the podcast. That’s all I have for you today. Stay nerdy out there, and I’ll talk to you next time.
