Tien Chiu has never considered herself an artist. Raised by an astrophysicist and biochemist,  Tien graduated from Caltech with a degree in math and spent two decades as a project manager at Google, directing web development and aerospace projects. Her mind is analytical and detail-oriented, and she has always viewed her world through a scientists’ eyes.

Tien had a six-figure job, and all the comforts that working with Google provides, but she still was unhappy at work. The stress of being a high-profile project manager wore on her often, and one morning she woke up with a realization: she hated her job.

Art Through A Scientist’s Eye

Tien fell in love with weaving ten years ago, starting slowly by learning to knit and then spinning and weaving. As a hobbyist, she enjoyed doing projects for herself. She made her wedding dress as her first piece– and didn’t think it could become more than that.

Tien joined a handful of training courses and masterminds to learn how to start a new business and grow it. But weaving and cloth-making is an exceptionally niche activity, with concerns that it was a dying art form. Plus, she wasn’t a trained artist. Would she be taken seriously in the hand-weaving community? Could she teach others to do the same? How could she scale a business teaching hand-weaving as a solopreneur?

With more research, she discovered the world of online course creation and had an epiphany: she could create a course that would scale and bring this beautiful craft to the masses.

Determining A Course for her Course

Tien started with a different idea for her course based on her book about inspiring a creative process and honing a new craft. This first course was a failure.

Tien pivoted to a new topic based on a common problem among the hand-weaving community: making sense of color for projects. Her new course pulled together her analytical mind and love of her craft to create a rules-based perspective to grasp the underlying principles of color to help her students develop projects they are proud of. With this new topic, she hit the target.

Time To Launch

Tien set a goal of $20,000 for her first launch. While it may seem lofty, with her active email list and credibility in the space and the pricing for her initial course –two products worth $99 and $300 separately–she set a goal for the number she could sell. “I thought those numbers were achievable and cool.”

Even with minimal forethought for how she’d launch, she ended exceeding her goal by $5000. Although she hasn’t completely replaced her Google salary, she is happier and healthier, genuinely enjoying what she does. Since opening her enrollment, she has had 11,000 enrollments and has taught 8000 weavers to hone their craft and find new successes.

Most importantly to Tien, life has had less stress and more joy, especially when she knows what she’s doing brings happiness to others.