Meet the Teacherpreneurs of Pinterest

Public-school teachers are experiencing some of the worst wage stagnation of any profession. According to data from the Department of Education, teachers earn less on average than they did in 1990.

Some teachers are turning to Pinterest to earn extra side cash. We call them "teacherpreneurs" and in some cases, they've become so profitable (six-figure incomes!) that they've quit their day jobs.

In fact, searches on lesson plans are trending up (59%¹) across the board on Pinterest, for Spanish, English, art, library, toddler curriculums, or daycare.

Teachers have been part of the Pinterest community since the very beginning, and in addition to lesson plans, they often look for classroom activities and decoration ideas. Pinterest is a central place for teachers to find creative ideas quickly and easily. It also connects them to inspire and support each other, often with collaborative group boards where they save Pins and find ideas others from the group have saved.

Here’s a glimpse at some of the teachers who have found success on Pinterest:

April Smith | Yuma, Arizona

Because of the traffic Pinterest brings to her website Performing in Education, April Smith was able to quit her day job as a teacher to run her business selling online lesson plans full time. In just a few years, it grew to a six-figure business, reaching teachers all across the United States and Canada. April specializes in creating unique project-based learning curriculums that she shares on her Pinterest account to drive traffic back to her blog. She also uses Promoted Pins to extend the reach of her content so more teachers could see it across the platform.

“I thought this would be a side thing to pay off my student loans, but I blinked, and all of a sudden I had this business growing like crazy. I can’t believe it. This is my third year not going back to work. I feel like I am making more of a difference making this than teaching to 35 children a year. I now reach 40,000 to 50,000 teachers every month. I want to make learning more interesting for kids.”

Jen Regan | Buffalo, New York

Jen Regan started selling online lesson plans full time after the birth of her fourth child. She creates educational materials that range from a quick after school activity to a whole year curriculum. With the help of Pinterest, she was able to drive enough traffic to her website, Two Little Birds, to sustain regular sales. She eventually resigned from her teaching job in August 2017 after a 13-year career in the education system. “I’m getting close to make more money with my lesson plans than I was making as a teacher. It has been such a blessing for my family because I can work when my kids are asleep. My work schedule is flexible. I could not have imagined running a small business from home with little kids. I am an accidental business owner!”

“I don’t think that I would have any eyes on my blog if it was not for Pinterest. I am a teacher and I know nothing about business, but I know that as a teacher, I use Pinterest like it’s Google. Rather than typing into Google, teachers turn to Pinterest. It’s their search engine and where they find what they need.”

Julie Bochese | Ponte Vedra, Florida

Julie Bochese lives with her husband, two young children and two dogs in Ponte Vedra, Florida. She taught elementary school for eight years. When she was pregnant with her first child, she quit her teaching job to dedicate herself full time to creating engaging and practical resources for teachers. She now makes four times the salary she was making as an elementary school teacher. “It all started with Pinterest in the spring of 2017, I was hearing a lot of success stories about teachers on Pinterest and I started regularly pinning. I started to experiment with Promoted Pins and I had a huge success with them. By the summer, I think I had over 95 Promoted Pins running and they were all driving traffic to my store Common Core Kingdom and making a large profit. That really helped. It helped me to be discovered by other teachers and to get traction.”

“As a teacher in Florida, you don’t make much money. Having to pay for full time daycare, most of my income would go to that. I never thought I would become an entrepreneur. I remember the first time I made a sale, I was at lunch with my husband and yelled. I could pay for my sandwich with that sale! It seemed surreal. It was such a small start.”

“The average salary for public school teachers in 2016–17 was $58,950 according to the National Center for Education Statistics ”

We’d love to hear how Pinterest has helped you grow your business, no matter what you do or where you are.

Share it with us!