How Joey Korenman grew School of Motion from $5,000 a month to close to over $4 million a year ( in 4 ONLY years!)

CEO and founder of School of Motion – Joey Korenman

I’m excited to have my great friend and previous client for many years, Joey Korenman on the show.

Joey is the CEO and founder of School of Motion, an online school for motion designers with over 6,000 alumni across the globe. Joey was making $5,000 a month when we first started. He’s since grown to 7 figures in less than 4 years.
Episode Highlights:

• How Joey became ridiculously huge in his industry
• Pivotal pain points in achieving his goals
• How to find and hire the best people for your business (it’s one of the reasons his company grew so fast!)
• How to make decisions when you face the unknown
• Key distractions for business owners making less than 6 figures
• Becoming an expert in fear

Links:

The Four Hour Work Week with Tim Ferriss
SchoolofMotion.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I am Jaime Masters. And I am honored to have Joey Korenman on the show. He has an amazing site called School of Motion. He?s been a previous client of mine and a dear, dear friend for many, many years. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Joey:	Well, thank you for having me. This is really actually weird to be on the show because a few years ago, I was just listening to the show and daydreaming about being on the show. So, this is really cool for me and I want to thank you.

Jaime:	This is a momentous moment that nobody really knows unless we tell them. Joey has grown ridiculously huge. And I?m going to make you go through the entire thing of how fast you?ve grown if you?re open to it. But grown as a business owner, as a business, as and everything. It?s been so impressive. So, we get to dive in today and ask you all of the goods that way everybody knows. So, tell us your trajectory of when you started School of Motion and what sort of happened.

Joey:	Sure. So, School of Motion started technically about six years ago. I registered the URL, School of Motion. And the reason it?s called School of Motion is because I am a motion designer. So, for anyone listening who doesn?t know what that means, it?s basically when you take a graphic designer and an animator and you smoosh them together. So, anytime you turn on your TV and you see a logo flying around or you watch a football game and the score pops up with cool graphics that?s what a motion designer does. So, I was doing that. I was running a studio in Boston. And I was actually very unhappy with the way my life was turning out. 

On paper, it was perfect. I was running a studio. I had employees. I was making a lot of money. I had this beautiful family. We had two small children but I was in the rat race. And that?s when I discovered the internet world of passive income and all of these things. So, anyway, I registered the URL. For the first two years, I was just basically blogging and making video tutorials on how to do things in Adobe After Effects and Photo Shop and things like that. And I tried a couple of things to monetize it. It didn?t really work. And then, to make a long story short, I ended up blowing up my old life, leaving Massachusetts, moving to Florida to teach. 

And after one year of teaching, I realized I don?t like having a boss. So, I had to stop doing that. And I decided let me see if I could make School of Motion actually my full time job. And I had done a few things right. I had a mailing list and I had listened to your podcast and Pat?s and other ones. So, I had some vague idea of what to do. And then, that?s the time that I first met you and I reached out to find out about doing some coaching. And since then, it?s been almost four years, I think.

Jaime:	And I?m going to stop you. How big was your email list and stuff like that when ? you had done it for two years so you definitely had some ? 

Joey:	Right. 

Jaime:	How big was it, do you remember?

Joey:	I think when I started working with you, it might have been around 5,000 or 6,000.

Jaime:	So, it was like you?re doing amazing as far as numbers and stuff like that go but, people, I just want you to listen. Two years of him working not making a ton of cash just as a side note.

Joey:	Exactly, exactly.

Jaime:	It?s not an overnight success, people. I?m sorry. Go ahead.

Joey:	It definitely wasn?t, although I will say this. It was like slow and nothing was happening, nothing was happening. And then, right before I actually reached out to you, this was when I decided that I wanted to make School of Motion my full time job. And so, I thought I don?t have a product. So, I?m not going to make any money yet. And my audience back then wasn?t 5,000 or 6,000 people on an email list. It was much smaller. And I said I need to grow an audience. I?m going to do that first. Let?s market first. 

And so, I needed an idea to really quickly grow an audience. And so, I stole an idea from another one of your clients, John Lee Dumas. 

Jaime:	Stealing is great.

Joey:	I?m sure everyone listening knows who he is. But his podcast, Entrepreneur On Fire, the unique thing about it was that it was daily. It was the quantity. It was also very good. But he did it every day, which was crazy back when he started doing that. And I said what if I just took that idea and I made a video tutorial every day? And so, I did this thing where for 30 days in a row, I did video tutorials every single day, which no one had done. And it literally just like that?s a good idea. Let me apply that to School of Motion. And all of a sudden, I started getting press. I was getting interviewed by industry blogs. 

That probably tripled my email list in about six weeks. And that?s when I reached out to you. So, it was slow, slow, slow but then, it was fast. It was like a hockey stick. 

Jaime:	Because you actually put your intention to do hey, I?m actually going to do something with this. 

Joey:	Exactly, yeah. And that made all of the difference, honestly. I had just left my full time job teaching. I had three months off where I was still getting a pay check from the school. And I said my advantage right now over everyone else trying to do this is that this is my full time job for three months so I?m going to go all in. And it worked. 

Jaime:	Thank goodness. Of course, it worked. You?re a go getter. You would have made it work. That?s the other thing. You would have made it work. It?s the pain that you go through, right? 

Joey:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Not that there isn?t pain because there?s always pain. So, give me the rest of the trajectory because that was four-ish years ago.

Joey:	Yeah. So, once I had the audience, I wanted to figure out how I could actually turn the site into a business so that it could be self-sustaining and continue. And so, that?s when I reached out to you. And the idea that I had was to make an online class that people would take. And the problem was I did the math. And online classes in my niche at that time, they were all $8.00 a month or $50.00, maybe $100.00 and the economics of that didn?t work. So, I needed to figure out how to charge much more. And I figured out maybe I?ll charge $250.00 or something like that. I think one of the first things you told me to do was double that. Just charge more than that. 

Anyway, I came up with this crazy, elaborate format for the class I wanted to run. I ended up with you prodding me. I presold it over a webinar. And on that first webinar, I sold out 20 spots I think in like 2 minutes or something like that. It was really, really fast. And then, my email inbox was full of people begging me to open up more spots, which I did. And those sold out in less than a minute. And so, that was my first $10,000.00 of revenue. It took a combined total of two minutes of a cart being open to actually get that. And that?s when I realized this is going to work. I?m on to something. Since then, there?s been a lot of pain and stumbles and things in between that. 

But now we actually just hired our tenth full time employee. I?m actually prepping right now for the keynote that I?m giving at my staff retreat, which is in a few days. And so, I have all of this data in my head. We have alumni in over 100 countries. We have close to 6,200 alumni who have gone through classes. We?re kind of like the big dog of education in the motion design niche. And it all started with a webinar four years ago and a lot of luck and hard work and scary moments and calls with Jaime also. Yeah, so it?s been a crazy ride. Again, just to reiterate, it?s very surreal to be talking about it at this end of the camera.

Jaime:	Okay. And this is what I absolutely adore, especially because I know the pieces of your journey, which is fantastic because what I don?t think people understand is how you are the college. You?re the college for people now. The whole industry was changing and you sort of hopped on that trend so people can actually learn way better let alone the gosh darn, I forgot that $8.00 was a big deal. I remember talking about pricing. But now, how much do you charge? And let?s talk about your team and stuff like that. And I want to dive in a lot deeper. 

Joey:	Sure. So, I?m glad you brought up the fact that we are the college now. And I used to be a little insecure about saying that but I?ve actually gotten really confident now. And I think, frankly, I want to even do more to put this out there that college, in general, but really specifically private art school, is completely broken. It makes not a lot of sense to spend the kind of money that they?re charging when you have options like School of Motion but there are other ones, too. I?m a big Seth Godin fan and he says this all of the time now. He?s like, ?What?s the point of school?? 

And if you break it down, college used to be the only way to achieve those goals. It?s not anymore and we?re on the front lines of that. So, yeah, our products range depending on the length of the class and other factors from $600.00 or $700.00 up to $1,000.00. Our classes last for eight to twelve weeks. And it?s not like a typical class like an online class where you pay the money and then, you get a bunch of videos to watch and good luck. Or maybe if you spend a little more money, it?s drip fed where you get a little bit each day so it feels a little bit more real time. 

We do it that way, but we also have staff. So, we have teaching assistants who are not full time. They?re part time. But I think there are over 30 of them now. And every single student who signs up for one of our classes gets assigned a teaching assistant. And we?ve built a custom platform that we run our classes on where students get homework. They upload their homework. They?re getting literally draw overs over their animations and comments right on that frame of the video. We have private Facebook groups for every single session of every class. So, students are meeting each other. 

And it kind of feels like summer camp a little bit. There are some other things we do. And we?ve also built this huge alumni community now and we do meet ups and things like that. So, we really are replicating almost all of what a traditional art school does at a price point that is one percent of what it costs. 

Jaime:	Exactly. It?s insane. You are the disruptor, right? I so appreciate that. And I?m sure when you first got into it, it was like oh, I just want to help people. But to see what you?ve created is insane. I was chatting with my son who wants to be a graphic designer and video editor and I was like, ?I?m going to have you take Joey?s stuff.? We don?t need college, by the way. I don?t agree with it. And I started off in art school, and I was going to pay $30,000.00 a year to make barely $50,000.00 a year. And so, the model, as you said, is completely broken. Thank goodness we have people like you. 

And what I?ve seen that you?ve created so well because, no offense, but most people on the online space are told you make videos online. Everybody is going to love you. Then, you?re a thought leader. Then, you produce digital courses. And it?s about the digital course and that?s about it. And what you did instead was you created a staff so you don?t have to be the face. 

Joey:	Right.

Jaime:	So, can you tell us what that actually looked like and how you can trust those people? Because it?s a hard thing to scale like that for most people, especially when they like being the face. Like no, everybody comes to me.
Joey:	Right. That?s one of my biggest struggles, to be honest because I still love the fact that ? like I?m a human being and I respond to dopamine the same as everyone else. So, when I put out a video and I get a bunch of thumbs up or likes or retweets or whatever that feels good. And because I?ve done so much of this, I?ve gotten pretty good at that. And so, there?s this double-edged sword where I?m trying to scale School of Motion, and I really want other people to be making content and stuff like that. 

But currently, I?m really good at it and it?s hard to find people that have this weird talent of like being comfortable talking to themselves in a room with no one watching and playing to the camera while using an app while explaining and stuff like that. So, what we?ve done is, first of all, I got very, very lucky with my first few hires that I hired absolute killers. And so, one of the first hires that we made was my marketing manager. And he is also good at making videos. So, he started making them. So, then it was me and him. All of our classes are made by other people. So, this is the biggest way that we scaled.

Jaime:	That?s huge.

Joey:	Yeah, so I made the first one. And initially, because part of our class is you get homework and the student uploads it and then, someone who knows has to critique it and give you good notes on it and feedback. And then, there are questions like technical questions. How do I do this? And someone needs to know the app and explain it. So, at first that we, me and that was my assistant Amy who was my first hire. And then, the second time we ran the class, we had like double the number of students sign up. And so, I realized this is going to be my full time job just critiquing unless I figure out how to scale this. 

So, this is another thing I stole, frankly. I looked at what grad schools do. I went to Boston University and Eli Weasell was a professor there. If you take an Eli Weasell class, he?s not reading your paper and red penning it, right? His teaching assistant is. So, we had our teaching assistants. Basically, the best students from the class. 

Jaime:	The best students so tell me more about that because people are like oh, great, where the heck am I going to find the right people that understand my method and stuff like that. So, how did you actually hire them?

Joey:	Sure. So, initially, we always hire teaching assistants. They had to take the class and we would just keep our eye open like they?re doing really, really good. And they?re engaged in conversation. And they?re helping other students. We encourage students to help each other. It cuts down on our work load, obviously, but it?s also just like a great community building thing. And I really believe that if you want to be a good artist, you also need to be good at critiquing it. It develops your critical eye. 

Jaime:	Oh, that?s smooth, too, though. That?s perfect.

Joey:	Right. I spun it, right. Isn?t that clever?

Jaime:	That was good.

Joey:	Yeah. So, we hired out of the very first beta session, which had 40 students in it, we hired 2 of them to be teaching assistants. One of them is still a teaching assistant. His name is Greg. He?s been with me for four years now. And I?ve never met him in person, which is crazy. 

Jaime:	Really?

Joey:	Yeah. He?s a motion designer at Asana. He?s killing it now. So, and then, we just kept doing that. Eventually, we started building classes, which were very advanced. As our students got more advanced, they were asking for more stuff. And then, we kind of got a reputation in the industry and really high level artists have started coming to us and saying I want to make a class. And so, to find teaching assistants for that, we actually had to develop a training program. 

And we do things a lot differently now. It?s a much more robust kind of process that I can get into if you want to. I know you?d be into it because our COO, Elena, who you  have met, she?s devised this incredible scalable thing where we actually have a TA training class that they take. And that?s all automated and stuff like that. So, it?s kind of developed. It was initially just students but now, it?s students and industry professionals that they want to be teaching assistants. 

Jaime:	That?s amazing. Okay, there are so many things to unpack in here. So, one thing I want to talk about Elena and the COO side of things also. But before we get into that, one of the things you said was Greg was with one of your very first betas. And I remember and I just have to highlight this because if anybody has listened to the show for a very long period of time, you came on my master mind when you had just first made that $10,000.00 and you were like, ?What do I do now?? Make another course, right. And so, we had Pat Flynn and all of the guys in my master mind and we recorded it. 

And it went live on this show so we?ll have to link to it. I?ll make a note to make sure that we do it. 

Joey:	I remember that yeah.

Jaime:	This is so many years ago. And Pat was saying the same thing. No, just sell the crap out of the one course that you already made. And that was that one course that was the main piece. And so, to have people see the trajectory of how far ? four years is not a long period of time to become a robust business, have your own proprietary software, a COO, teaching assistants. Just so everybody is clear, Joey moves very, very fast, even though sometimes you don?t feel like you move fast enough, right?

Joey:	Right.

Jaime:	As every entrepreneur feels that way.

Joey:	Correct. 

Jaime:	So, let?s talk about Elena and the COO because as soon as it starts growing, you?re always the guy to be looked at, right. So, how were the growing pains and how did you sort of move Elena into that position because she?s amazing? 

Joey:	She is, yeah. I tell her that all of the time. So, the way we got Elena was there were just for probably the first nine months of actually selling courses and stuff, I think there were only two of us. There was me and there was Amy. And Amy was my first hire. She?s still with me and she?s been moving steadily up the chain. And we?ve sort of figured out exactly what her domain of genius is. And she?s crushing it. At the time, neither of us had any clue what we were doing. And we got to the point where we wanted to make more courses. Now, our courses take, on average, nine months to make. They?re very labor intensive. 

I think on average, they have 30 to 40 hours of video. Just outlining them takes a couple of months. So, we needed someone who could help us do that while keeping everything else running. And so, we reached out and I come from the video production world. So, in that world, it?s called a producer. So, that?s what I thought I needed. And I ended up basically coming down to two candidates. And one of them was a true video producer. And the other one was a product manager from a start up called T Spring, which is actually one of the unicorn startups. 

It got up to a billion dollar valuation. And so, she had started at T Spring when they were very small and saw them grow to like 500 employees. And she didn?t know a lot about animation and all of that but her skill set was kind of uniquely perfect for what we needed. So, we hired her. And four years later ?

Jaime:	I?m going to stop you because a lot of people are sitting there going which ? and everybody should know my advice. You don?t hire anybody until you have two candidates that you really, really like. How do you make that decision, just to go back? Because you?re whole company ? Elena is amazing. And no offense, maybe that other guy would have sucked and the trajectory would have been different because people make a big difference. How did you decide?

Joey:	So, it was a really difficult decision also because Elena wanted more money than the other candidate, too. It basically came down to I realized that ? I like almost every single entrepreneur have Superman syndrome that I have to crush with all of my might. And so, the other candidate I actually knew personally. And I knew that she was brilliant and amazing. But I also knew what her skill set was. And it was something I understood. Elena?s skill set I didn?t understand. And I realized that if the company is going to grow, I have to hire people who know things I don?t. And this would be almost like training wheels for that. 

And if it works, then this is going to let the company grow because she?ll be able to do things I just physically can?t do. And it turns out that?s exactly what happened. And she?s responsible for a lot of the growth of School of Motion, especially our ability to handle the amount of students that we handle like our last session had 1,200 students in it all going through a drip fed sequence. And we have customer support and chat bots. It?s crazy all on a custom platform with TAs and we?re hiring and payroll has to go out. I can?t do that. That?s not what I?m good at at all. 

So, it was just kind of that realization that I have to become okay with having people that I?m paying that know things I don?t know and just trusting. It?s almost like walking on a tightrope. And it?s like if Elena left tomorrow, I wouldn?t be able to do her job so I?d have to find someone to do it. And so, but that?s how businesses work. That?s how companies grow. And you have to learn to be okay with that. So, that was kind of the realization I had. And luckily, I feel like I have little bursts of courage at key moments. 

Most of the time, I?m terrified. But then, every once in a while it would be like no, let?s do it. And it?s at those moments that I?ll make a good decision. 

Jaime:	That?s exactly ? let?s ?

Joey:	That was one of the best ones I made was hiring her.

Jaime:	-- let?s dive into that. And I know Elena. She probably has everything documented so if she ever does leave, you?ll at least have backups, which is a wonderful, amazing human that she is. 

Joey:	Productivity porn is what it is.

Jaime:	And that?s what I wanted to get into, too, because one of the things you wrote on here, it says your area of expertise and he goes, ?Becoming an expert in fear.? And it?s a joke but it?s not a joke. So one of the interesting things that I see you do really well is going into the unknown. So, everything in business is ? I love how often you said I didn?t know what I was doing. I thought it might work like this. I just tested this. And that?s sort of how business is. But when people come on the show, they all pretend like it was easy and they know what they?re doing. So, this is why this is amazing that we can pull this apart. 

How do you jump into the unknown? How do you make the decisions when you?re in that good state and you feel like you can leave? Because then, you have to deal with the shit that comes after, right.

Joey:	Right.

Jaime:	So, how do you sort of navigate that tightrope?

Joey:	That?s an excellent question. So, I?ve thought about this a lot actually because, since I kind of went on this entrepreneurial journey, my life has changed so much in every single way. And there?s a lot of people around me that noticed. And I want to help them kind of experience the same thing. And in the end, what?s worked for me is just doing stuff. There?s this great quote from Scott Adams, and I think it goes, ?If you want something, figure out the price, and then pay it.? And it?s kind of like profoundly like wow, right?

Jaime:	Yeah. That was really good.

Joey:	So, everyone gets to the step of figure out the price but then, they won?t pay it. And you ask why. And so what helped me a lot initially with this was Tim Ferriss?s book, The Four Hour Work Week. He?s got this thing in there called fear setting where he talks about basically doing a mental exercise of imagining the worst case scenario. What?s the worst thing that could happen if you try this thing if you try your business idea and it doesn?t work? We don?t live in 1910 where you had to take out a bank loan and put your house up as collateral and if the business doesn?t work, you?re homeless. 

You can get on Go Daddy.com and for $8.00 get a URL and get on Square Space and do the 30 day free trial and you have a business for almost zero dollars. So, there?s almost no risk other than your ego takes a hit. And you just have to get used to that. That?s just like doing reps. Let your ego take a few blows and you?ll get used to it. So, I think really just understanding that there is nothing that can happen to me that is so bad through business. It?s not like I?m fighting to the death here. If we launch a class and it doesn?t sell, we?ll lose some money. If I had done the webinar ? and you actually helped me kind of realize this, too. 

When we presold our first class before I even made the class, I took money from people and sold it to them based on the idea of the class. And I was scared to do that. And I think you said if four people buy it, refund their money and tell them, ?I?m sorry, not enough people bought it. I?m not going to make the class.? You?ll be embarrassed and then, you?ll move on with your life. That is literally the worst it could have gotten. And so, I think a lot of times, people are afraid of experiencing the ego blow of failure. I think social media also has a lot to do with that because you never see people posting failure selfies. 

Maybe that should be a thing, hash tag failure. So, that?s kind of been my philosophy and it?s really helped me.

Jaime:	Now I?m just thinking, I need to have all of the millionaires have ice cream in a corner all sad when they fail for their selfies.

Joey:	When you can?t sleep because someone said something really nasty about your product on Twitter, take a picture of yourself then and then, post that because that?s happened. I?ve lost sleep over bad reviews or customer support tickets that made me feel bad. We raise our prices and we get negative blow back from that. That stuff happens. But over the years, I?ve kind of developed a little bit of a callus to it, which has been really helpful and also having a team helps a lot because now, there are layers. There?s the front line. And then, by the time it gets to me, some of that pain has been absorbed. 

And so, that?s part of the secret, too, is having other people around you that are working on the same thing. It makes those scary things a lot less scary. 

Jaime:	And the protection, too. It is like a baby but I love how you said especially having to do with it?s not death. Unfortunately or fortunately, as entrepreneurs, we sometimes think that it is. But as you said, it?s mostly ego stuff. So, how do we know though? Because safety and security when it comes up to cash, especially people are pre-programmed as kids to have that kind of issue, how do we mitigate our ego to know that we are actually safe when we have some of these blows? How do you bounce back from that because it sounds like you?ve done it a lot?

Joey:	Yeah. It?s trickier when you have a business like mine where it was built initially on me, on my personality and my face and me on video. Then, the blows are a lot more personal. If someone posts on ? we?re on You Tube and we?re getting a pretty big following there. And people will say really mean stuff like you look like Voldemort. Just weird, nasty stuff that you bring out the trolls. So, how do you not ? I think that you just have to find some way of achieving perspective on it. One thing I love is reading Ramit Sethi?s philosophy on this. I think he used to have a website where when people would troll him, he would screen cap it and put it up on this website so he could collect them. 

Also, I think what?s really helped me personally and I think most business probably have some version of this is for every negative comment I see, I have 10 emails personally to me saying I took your class and my boss came over and said, ?What the hell happened to you? Your work is so much better.? Or I put out a book a couple of years ago about how to freelance. And I get comments all of the time. I get private tweets and emails of people saying, ?I read your book. I did what it said. I quit my job. I?m making twice what I did last year.? 

That kind of stuff makes me realize that well if someone else reads my book and says he?s greedy or something like that or he?s doing this for the wrong reasons, I know I?m not. And I also know I?ve helped 10 people for that 1 person who I didn?t help. It?s the law of large numbers. If you?re doing anything on the internet, you?re going to help 1,000 people or 10,000 people and a few people are going to think you?re the devil. And that?s okay. And also, one other thing, too, because I bet a lot of your audience will be in this position, too, having a family really put things in perspective, too, because at the end of the day, I go home and my kids are happy to see me. 

And really, everything that I do is for the family anyway. Why work this hard to build this if it?s just for me? That doesn?t make any sense to me. And so, having them around when someone says something nasty about School of Motion or about me, which is not that common but it has happened, I?ve actually had an article written about me before, but then I go home and I have friends and family and a life outside of this that really kind of makes me realize it?s just words on the internet. It?s not real.

Jaime:	This brings up a story. My son just started You Tubing and he got his first negative comment. And so, I told him one of the negative comments that I remember, I was on Yahoo?s home page, and somebody said she looks like she?s from Maine. And I took that as that was like the worst. 

Joey:	The worst, that?s mean.

Jaime:	I know. So, I told him that. And my son goes, ?That?s not very mean, mom. I don?t know why you cared that much about it.? And I was like it crushed me. And the comment that they said was something silly to him and he was like, ?I?m okay. It?s not a big deal.? And I?m like how are my kids so much better than I am? But I met your children. What?s amazing about being a business owner is that we can help embody and teach them what we?ve learned through painful experience that hopefully, we can make it a little bit easier on their part. Do your kids have any interest in what you do at all or no?

Joey:	They do. So, my oldest is 8. And so, she?s starting to get really interested in that. And she loves You Tube. I can see her sometimes in a room practicing being an influencer and stuff. My little 6 year old has made a couple of You Tube videos on her private channel where she walks around like, ?So, today we?re going to be doing this,? like doing a little house tour. So, they love it. But to talk about what you just brought up, to me, the No. 1 thing I can teach my kids is resiliency. We home school. We have a lot of very radical beliefs about education, obviously, that trickles into School of Motion. 

The No. 1 thing I want them to be able to do is to get knocked down and then, get back up. And so, I actually encourage them to try things that they?re not good at all of the time. And then, when they fail, I applaud it. I?m like yes, you got that one out of the way. That?s awesome. And I?m hoping that in the future because I really think that the way my business works is like my father in his generation, this type of thing didn?t exist. And now, everybody can be their own business and everyone can have a School of Motion if they want to. But you have to be willing to be beaten up. That?s the price of entry to doing this. 

It doesn?t matter if you?re making software plug ins or if you?re selling e-books or if you?re selling classes or if you?re an Amazon seller. You?re going to get negative reviews. That?s just the way the internet works now and you have to learn how to deal with that.

Jaime:	I so appreciate you saying that because unfortunately, the behind the scenes, this happens to everyone. I work with so many clients and there?s always crap going on no matter how big of a business. Sometimes, it?s even worse when there are bigger consequences potentially. And we don?t talk about that. We don?t talk about you feeling crappy about Twitter stuff and then, coming back up and teaching your kids to do the same thing. So, I so appreciate you being so honest, even on your sheets. It?s like fear, I?m really good at the fear crap. That?s grea.t but that?s the point. It is what it is and that?s how you?ve been able to grow so much. 

What do you want in the future? I?m just curious because I?m a coach. But what are you looking for in the future? 

Joey:	So, as far as the business goes, it?s kind of shifted a little bit because I kind of went through a phase where we grew to ? it?s really interesting because I?ve talked to a lot of entrepreneurs. And there are these sort of inflection points that you hit. And I remember I think it was like the second coaching thing I did with you, I was trying to get School of Motion to $1 million in revenue for the year. And getting there was very difficult. And then, we got there and then, it was easy for a little bit. 

And now, this year just to give everyone an idea of scale, we?ll probably do at least $4 million depending on how the third and fourth quarter go because we?re releasing products. It may actually get closer to $5 million, which is crazy.

Jaime:	Congratulations.

Joey:	That?s another inflection point. And so, to get to where we were able to even sustain having nine products and a customer support team and things like that has been very difficult and scary because we just hired three people in two months. I had to fire my first employee last year. 

Jaime:	Yay! Yeah. 

Joey:	Not in a mean way but yay.

Jaime:	Not in a mean way, yeah. It takes a lot of guts and it takes a lot of fear to go through that.

Joey:	And just on a personal level, there were times where I was like, and I think I talked to you about it, it would be so nice if someone just came and just bought this thing and took this weight off of my shoulders. But then, we made it through. And I have to give Elena a lot of credit for that, too, because she really helped. And you helped set that structure up between her and I and how we work now. So, thank you, too. And so, now we?re kind of in a good spot again where that pressure has come off. And I am not as in the weeds as I used to be. I actually can be the visionary a little bit. 

And I?m looking around and I?m looking at how college is broken up and art school is completely broken. And we have this very unique way of teaching. And our platform is totally custom. And it?s actually kind of under the radar in terms of e-learning and e-tech and stuff like that. So, I want to apply this to other things. I think that anybody, any sort of creative field, can be taught online in a really awesome way through this method that we?ve kind of invented. So, we?re looking at other verticals to get into. So, we?re already actually expanding. Right now, our core kind of curriculum is based around 2D animation, which is kind of separate from 3D animation. 

So, we?re actually bringing on someone to lead the 3D side. And so, if everything goes according to plan, he should come on in about a month. And that?s going to expand us there. And then, video editing, which is actually where my career started, which has just exploded into this gigantic thing that every single company needs a video editor. That is the perfect thing to teach in this way we?re doing it. So, I want to now become ? I really want to feel like a CEO. I call myself the CEO. That?s what it says on Linked In. I still don?t quite feel like it.

Jaime:	That?s what it says on Linked In.

Joey:	But I want to help School of Motion expand to where we?re teaching all kinds of things. And my real goal is for somebody somewhere, and maybe this has already happened and they just haven?t told me, I want someone to look at the cost of going to RISD for four years and then, the cost of going to School of Motion for four years, and I want them to choose School of Motion not just because it?s cheaper but because it?s better in a lot of ways. And I think that that?s going to happen soon. So, on the company level, that?s what I want. I want people to think of us as a legitimate alternative to the traditional school. 

And on a personal level, I want to just continue to level up. That?s been the most fun thing about all of this for me is that I?m not the same person I was four years ago at all. Things that used to derail me, if something happened in my life and it would take me two weeks to get back on track, I can literally blink. I meditate, everything you talk about I do. And there?s a reason for it. It?s not just because I?m a Jaime fanboy. It?s also because I think that to be the leader of a company, you have to grow up and you have to learn to operate at a higher level than most people. And it?s painful and scary. But then, when you get there, it?s really nice, too. 

Jaime:	I remember talking about meditation to you guys and you?d all be like I don?t know. And when you hit $1 million, I sent you a meditation bench. Of course, it looks like not a meditation bench.

Joey:	I have it. It?s over there, yeah. I still have it. I use it. 

Jaime:	Like what the heck is this? But it changes the trajectory. The fact that you talk about something that derailed you for two weeks can be nothing now is insane growth in four years as a human being let alone a business owner. And I have to highlight to everybody listening. They?re like he?s running a $4 or $5 million company and doesn?t feel like a CEO. How interesting is that also, as a side note? So, you don?t even have to know that you?re a CEO. You can still grow just as ? 

Joey:	Right.

Jaime:	And sort of it highlights the fact that you?re always growing. There?s always going to be something more. You?re always going to need to feel better. It?s a never ending process but I love seeing this. And you take a vacation. You sent me a text because you said you took a three week vacation to Europe with your family also, right, because you?re so family centric.

Joey:	Yeah. That was actually a test that I gave myself last year because the company is growing very, very fast. And we have new staff and stuff like that. And this was, I think, right after Elena sort of officially took over as we called her the integrator for a while based on the rocket fuel book and stuff. And now, we just call her the COO. And she really is the COO. And I told her I have this goal, I want to leave for three weeks and not think about School of Motion and have it not catch fire. And she?s like, ?You could do that right now. Do you trust me?? And I?m like, ?I do. It?s not you, it?s me.? 

And she?s like, ?Just go.? And so, I did. And it was really funny because I left right at the beginning of our cart open period. So, for everyone listening, our cart is open four times a year. We run classes quarterly like a school. So, four times a year, that?s when we get our sales. And so, that?s a very important time period every quarter. And I was gone for that. And I get back and we had the highest sales we?d ever had. And I wasn?t there and I didn?t think about it and yeah, we went to four countries in Europe with my family. And we home school, which made this possible. My kids were learning how to say thank you in Czech and all of this stuff. 

And I sent you a text because honestly, contacting you really kind of kick started a lot of this. And it?s just been like you can draw a straight line from me emailing Jaime to where I am now. And maybe I would have still gotten here but it might have taken an extra year or two. So, that?s a lot of lost potential if you think about it.

Jaime:	Pain. Pain, no. Well, and I want to highlight because for you, everybody that goes if you grow that fast, you can?t actually enjoy family time. You have to only choose the startup crazy path and you just go fast and that?s what you do. And that?s now what you?ve done at all.

Joey:	That?s nonsense, actually. 

Jaime:	Yes, thank you. You put your family first the entire time. You came to Austin with your whole family. I got to meet everybody. It was amazing. You are the embodiment of the new age of the entrepreneurs, in my opinion, that you hustle, don?t get me wrong. I?m not saying you don?t. And you?re smart about it all. I thank you so much for coming on the show. I know we have to start wrapping up already because we?re going over but you?re the best. And what is one action listeners can take this week to help move them forwards towards their goal of $1 million?

Joey:	Sure. So, I thought about this because I knew you were going to ask it. And I have to say that one of the best things I ever did not just in my business but in my life was installing the Facebook newsfeed eradicator plug in on Chrome. Now, the reason I bring that up is because remember I brought up that Scott Adams quote like figure out the price and then, pay it. People are so good at procrastinating in a million different forms when something is scary. And Facebook, at least at the time for me, it was like the No. 1 procrastination thing I would do because it feels like you?re doing something like I?m being social. I?m looking at my friends and what they?re doing and I?m posting. 

I would basically eradicate all forms of social media from your life, except for business purposes. You should never post on Facebook personally or Twitter or Instagram until your business is making six figures because before that, it will simply be a distraction. And it will keep you from just doing the thing. So, the answer is what?s one thing you can do, do something. Don?t just sit there and think about doing it. Actually, do it. But Facebook newsfeed eradicator will probably help you do that a little bit easier.

Jaime:	Eliminate the distractions so you can actually get shit actually done. And the poster behind us, if it?s not a hell yes then, it?s a no. That has been a huge piece of what you?ve been doing, too. But I highlight, again, you take so much action even in the face of fear. And it?s really, really impressive to see. 

Joey:	Cool. Thank you, Jaime. Again, thank you for all of the help you?ve given me. You've really helped me grow as an entrepreneur and a person. And I love you as a person, too. We?re buddies now. And I?m just honored that you asked me to come on.

Jaime:	Yes. Tell me more about where ? everybody that?s listening that want to be motion designers now is like tell me where. Where do you actually sign up? Where do we find out more about all of your stuff?

Joey:	Sure. If you go to schoolofmotion.com, there is tons of information on there. And you can to through there to funnel to everywhere else. We have a podcast. I have a book on Amazon. We have a You Tube channel. We have Instagram and all of that stuff where we post tutorials and things like that. So, if you?re into design and you?re into animation, you can definitely go there and check it out.

Jaime:	Awesome. Thank you. It has been an honor. I so appreciate you, Joey. Have an amazing day. 

Joey:	Right on.

Tags: How to make good decisions, how to recruit employees effectively, how to set goals and achieve them, Joey Korenman, Key distractions for business owners, Millionaire entrepreneur, motivational speaker, pain points in achieving goals, podcast, School of Motion, Secret Millionaire, selecting the right candidate for the job, serial entrepreneur, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur

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