This Mom of 4 Turned Her Side Hustle Into a Multimillion-dollar Education Company

Ever since Lisa Collum was a little girl, she’s wanted to be a teacher. “Everyone tells me that I was teaching stuffed animals in my bedroom from the time I was about 5 years old,” she notes. “Teaching was always part of my heart and something that I wanted to do.”

While studying for tests in high school, she says she would “in some way, shape, or form” teach herself. It’s no wonder she pursued a career in education right after college.

As a public school teacher, Collum worked at a low-performing school. “I was told that the kids were below grade level; they weren’t gonna do that well; it was gonna be a struggle,” she says. “And I took that as my mission to prove everyone wrong, because I’m just a big believer that all kids can learn. They may learn differently, but if we really teach them in the way that they learn best, I think that all kids can be successful.”

Collum was inspired to come up with a way to teach writing so that all of her students could pass the state writing test—and they did. “That was unheard of,” she recalls.

The experience helped her realize that she had developed a curriculum other teachers and students could use, and she decided to launch her business Top Score Writing.

Before then, Collum never thought about exploring entrepreneurship. “Starting a business was totally something that just happened,” she says. “I used to think that being an entrepreneur was something that you had to have a degree for and had to have a lot of money and all this experience. But when the opportunity came about, it was my chance to be able to share what I was doing in the classroom with hundreds and thousands of teachers.”

When she first launched Top Score Writing, she and her husband were on a strict budget. “We didn’t have a lot of money to invest in starting a business,” she notes. “It was really important to me that I didn’t just quit my full-time job because I had kids, I had bills. I wanted to make sure I was doing this in a way that wasn’t gonna have a huge impact financially on my family.”

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So, Collum continued to work for four years full-time as a teacher as she developed her business in the evenings and on weekends.

All the while, her four kids—Ray-Ray, Brandon, Bryson, and Jazlyn—have been a part of the process.

“I do that on purpose. I want them to see the process,” she explains. “I want them to understand the balance of working hard and having fun. I want them to understand that sometimes Mommy has to work all day long because we need to purchase something or because we have bills or because we’re going on a vacation.”

After launching her business and hitting over a million dollars in revenue, Collum was ready to quit her full-time job. Soon after, she opened a local nonprofit private school that serves grades 6 through 12. “We have about 50 to 60 students with about four to five classrooms, and it’s important to me that we keep it small, because I say that every student comes with a story, and I don’t want anyone to forget that story,” she says. “We have lots of individualized instruction, small group learning, project-based learning.”

Today, Collum feels truly grateful that she’s able to run two businesses that not only fulfill her passion for education but that support all students’ success. But her long-term goal? To have her curriculum and resources in every school around the country. Here are a few of Collum’s best tips for parents who are interested in entrepreneurship.

Ditch the Idea That Everything Has To Look a Certain Way

Collum acknowledges that hopeful entrepreneurs often worry that they have to have “the perfect office, team, everything.” But you can run your business out of the back of your house—and it can end up being a million-dollar company.

“I did that for a very long time in an office that had no air conditioning, and I live in Florida,” she says, emphasizing the fact that the most important thing isn’t what your business looks like but what it is providing others.

Take Advantage of Free Marketing

Don’t underestimate the power of getting the word out for free, says Collum. Not only can you share info about your business on social media, but you can ask others to share and you can ask for testimonials. “Share what those current customers are saying about your products,” she adds.

Let Go of Guilt

Collum says that working hard has truly helped model entrepreneurship for her kids. Now her eldest knows that hard work pays off and he knows what it takes to run a business, she explains. “He sees that I built it slowly and now have this nationwide company,” she notes.

Although she often asked herself if she was doing the right thing as a mom, pouring her time and energy into work, watching her has made her son “a better individual” and taught him “something that he’ll use the rest of his life.”