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Listening to a Bored 17-Year-Old Transformed Me and My Business During the Pandemic
I learned more from bored, antsy, innovative teenagers during the pandemic than I have in my entire entrepreneurial career
I run digital companies in the edtech, information product, consulting, and e-learning spaces, and I have for years. When Covid became an official pandemic — and things like virtual schooling and remote work became ubiquitous across the country — my initial plan was to maintain the status quo.
Last March, I donned a “this too shall pass” attitude, as I’m guessing many of us did. I thought perhaps I might see a slight bump in sales for certain businesses, simply because people were home and conceivably had more time to view my companies’ ads and partake in the digital products we sell.
But I also thought of the flip side: As the economy tanked and unemployment skyrocketed, perhaps our sales would plummet, too. Discretionary income was getting a lot harder to come by, and it would be pretty biased of me to believe any of my companies’ products should take precedence over essential consumer staples like food, toiletries, and household items.
One thing (I thought) I knew, for sure: Now was not the time to shake up our years-honed…