Case study: revenue and profit doubled and the team grown over a year at an online language school

This case study is anonymous; an audio review comes with it

Financial results

• revenue grew from EUR 12K to EUR 25K a month
• EBITDA (profit before tax) grew from EUR 6.4K to EUR 11K a month

Below — the situation at the start and the results, in the words of the founder of the online language school

What was the situation at the start?

What were the goals, apart from growing the school?

• Building the core of the team and freeing up the founder's capacity: delegating sales to an administrator (she had been doing all the sales herself), handing off trial lessons, and so on

Nobody sells better than me.

I ran the trial lessons myself. Teachers aren't salespeople — they have to be trained for it.

"I do everything myself." There were 3-4 people, more contractors than a team.

I didn't understand how to build work with a team. When we started working together, in October 2024, my assistant quit and deleted all the company's documents.

I felt like I was burning out all the time.

• Getting all the metrics into numbers (reports from salespeople, teachers, and so on)
• Setting the direction for the project's development

It wasn't clear where to go next or what to focus on. I was badly scattered.

It felt like we would burst if we doubled in size. I wasn't sure I wanted to grow the project; some of the prospects scared me.

There was a big ambition, too far off. It wasn't clear how to get there. A huge gap between the goal and "now"

• A calmer state of mind

A metaphor for how it felt: "like a hedgehog sitting in a puddle under a rain cloud, with no idea where to go"

I went to sleep anxious and woke up anxious

What were the results, apart from profit growth?

• The core of the team is in place: 10 people on the admin staff, including a salesperson and an administrator; teachers run the trial lessons.

Now we have a wonderful team: responsible, engaged, invested in what they do. The thought that someone might delete the documents doesn't even cross my mind.

• A management system is in place, and the project runs on numbers
• • regular meetings set up for every department
  • monthly planning for every area: plan vs actual
  • a single document tracking the trends of all the project's metrics
  • new metrics that were not measured before, so decisions can be made precisely
  • sales quality control is in place
  • task tracking introduced

We see everything; it's very convenient.

• A development direction for the project is set: long-term, medium-term and short-term

Everything became absolutely clear. It feels like we've built a metal bridge between "now" and the ambition.

• A different state of mind: calm and a bigger scale

I've become more emotionally stable and calmer. I've started sleeping more peacefully. Because there are clear numbers I can rely on, and a more stable team I can rely on.

A metaphor for how it feels: "a hedgehog with its team and friends, heading off somewhere together to pick mushrooms"

We're growing in scale. Becoming better known. A lot of people know us,
you can feel it.