 Hey everyone, I'm Scott Shagiyoka, GoDaddy's entrepreneur in residence and I'm here calling from my home in San Francisco following the shelter-in-place orders. And I've been talking to small business owners about how they've taken their work online, but what about entrepreneurs who teach classes? How have they made the transition? For today's virtual roundtable, I'm talking to instructors who teach cooking, fitness, and language classes. And I'm learning more about how they've managed to transition from the in-person classroom to the online one. So wonderful to be in conversation with the three of you. I cannot wait to learn more about who you are and what you do, and I thought we could start there. All right, cool. My name is Zachary Sass. I'm an executive chef. I live in Nashville, Tennessee. After COVID-19 crisis happened, I was laid off from my restaurant job. So after I got laid off, I had to come up with an idea to provide for my family. So I came up with chefzacksass.com, which is a virtual online cooking class. So my name is Maria. I am originally from Argentina, and right now, well, I moved 34 years ago, and we offer Spanish classes for kids ages one to 10. So because of the coronavirus, we had to switch and pivot 180 degrees and started teaching online from a Friday to a Monday, having all the systems in place and the content on the website. And so from that came offering new services. And then what about for you? Do you go by liver, Olivia? Olivia. My background's in food, Zach. I went to culinary school, worked with celebrity chefs for eight years, and then stopped or left that part of my life to start a fitness concept called Box and Flow, which is a boutique hybrid studio boxing yoga mix. And I just opened my second studio flagship, 3,000 square feet, three weeks before shutdown. And I closed my studios both, and I laid off my 30 employees and I moved to my parents' house in Miami Beach, Florida, and I've been here for two months and have taught like over 60 classes dancing in a leotard from their living room. So launched a whole digital platform like you to sort of keep a community alive, particularly because, you know, I need to at some point reopen and, yeah, create some sort of conversation for all of this. I think that's so great. I think for each of you, you know, whether it's in food or language or fitness, like you all are doing something that's so needed, people are craving connection, people are craving this desire to get into their body, to find nourishment to learn. And so I love that you all are finding ways to do this digitally. You know, what are you seeing as a benefit for taking your work online? It has proven that my messaging and my product is well beyond the four walls space of a New York City studio. 50-50 split of my client is New York City and global, which is wild. So now in reframing my business, you know, I'm going to invest further in the digital platform, which I wasn't really focused on prior. So I think it's the reach is so much farther. I think that going virtually is going to stay. This quarantine has changed the way forever. We're reaching kids who are in Japan, for example, out of state as well. It's like, wow, we reach more people. It's like, it was an amazing feeling. Like, this goes beyond what I thought is beyond my dream, you know? This is something that I can practice now forever. It's not something that just ends once COVID-19 is gone, you know? So this is something I want to pursue. The great thing about this is that if I do a dinner with somebody in Canada and somebody in California and then somebody in Texas, I can fit almost three calls in the one day. You know, I've done a class in Mumbai, India. A guy saw me on the internet and he said that he wanted to learn. So we made pizza and hamburgers, easy stuff that may be something that somebody wouldn't do in a whole different country, you know? And I was able to share that experience with them. Do you have any advice for entrepreneurs who are looking to transition their businesses to the online world? I think that it's really good to just start, just start and then things are going to be improving your systems, improving the way you teach. And of course, we as entrepreneurs, we want to do the best we can and offer the best. And I will say, don't stress out, just start. Continue being yourself because I think if anything as an entrepreneur from day one that has held me back, it has been the perfectionism, the want and the need to to not start because I didn't know that I was doing it right. And I've realized like through this two months of teaching, you can feel the connection and the energy if you're open to it, you know? Because as teachers, we're giving all of ourselves in person or on screen. And if you continue to give all of you, you're going to get some reciprocation return because people feel that energy, they feel that connection. And it actually is quite possible through a screen. If you're, you have a great idea, run with it, broadcast it, you know, use all the free social media platforms you can, you know? I'm no website designer either. I went to Godaddy.com to use their website platform builder. And it was really simple, you know? I was nervous at first, but at the same time, just apply what you, you're the drive that you have to create your business and stick to it. And you can do great. What has been struggling or challenging about this journey? We don't know what, what to expect going forward. And then restaurants or fitness studios, whatever it is, any public place, really, it has to operate at half capacity. You can't continue your business that way. You can't quadruple business. So you have to sort of get innovative on how to make up those costs and hope that there's either government regulation or some leniency from your landlord, so that everything can balance out. And who knows how long that will take and what that even looks like. I also don't think that you can shut off this idea of true, of reality that is looming. There are real costs. There are, there is real impact. And we don't also know in a restaurant, in a fitness studio, in a school, what the public is going to be comfortable with re-entering into. Being able to adapt and try to focus the same energy that I apply to my day-to-day regimen into my business and trying to focus all that positive energy during these times and share that with people has probably been the struggle, probably the biggest struggle, you know, like it's tough. First couple of weeks without a job, no money in the bank. You know, I've been living paycheck to paycheck in the restaurant business for years, you know, and having to figure out what to do next to be able to provide for my family and then still being able to cook. My passion is cooking. My passion is to be in the kitchen. And I wanted to continue that during all this time and to be able to put myself in somebody else's kitchen without actually physically being there. It's been a very big struggle. It was a struggle to be alone, just feeling that you are alone, that you're disconnected with people. What are other people doing? I've been working many more hours behind the scenes to create a new way of teaching. It was very stressful because when you are teaching a class like all of us do, you've got to put the best behind the screen. It's like double the energy and double the show and then it's really exhausting for all of us who teach behind the scenes. So we had to learn new ways of communicating and establish a new way of teaching. What words or what message do you want to share with small businesses like yourself who are also going through this moment, who are also trying to figure out how to take their work online? I always live on warfare mode. Like I'm in it every day, guns blazing, but with a sense of calm because I believe in living to like flow through the fight. No matter when, where, how, what time, the experience, the environment, always finding ease through resistance within yourself, within your team, within your relationships, the work that you do, the food that you eat always. You want to find this place of calm regardless of the crazy, the chaos. Broadcast your message, like I said before, I use social media platforms to sell myself, share what I have and the talent that I have with other people. I've been able to create awesome dishes that people didn't even fathom that they had the ingredients for already inside their home, bring them into a different culture. It's not easy by any means. It's very difficult. There were times where I've had zero classes. There are times where I've had 10 classes. So it's definitely struggling, but keep your head on it and run with it. It's going to shine. I am a strong believer that if you're convinced that what you're offering is good, then you just go for it. Y'all are like amazing humans, just like beyond the work you're doing, just amazing humans. And I was so, I'm so happy to share this space with y'all. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Yeah, much love, y'all. Bye. So we're all facing difficult times right now and teaching and online learning has its own sets of challenges, but through this virtual roundtable, I hope you walk away with some insights and some inspiration that you can take into your own small business. And if you have questions, you can always leave them in the comments below and you can subscribe to the channel to stay up to date. And check out openwestand.org for inspiration and resources and advice for your small business. And until next time, I hope you stay safe and well and thanks so much for joining me.