For much of his life, Jacques Hopkins pursued a traditional career path: Go to college, graduate, get a job, get married and retire at 65.
But after reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss during his senior year at LSU, Hopkins considered a new approach to life and work, Business Report details in its latest Entrepreneur feature.
Still, he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and began working a job he lined up while in school, despite his desire to become an online entrepreneur.
“I was just looking for something small that would be able to support me and my future family,” he says of his aspiration to be a small business owner.
For six years, Hopkins spent evenings and weekends trying to create his own business. He tried blogging. He tried creating physical products like a standing desk. He even tried developing a smartphone app.
Those ventures, however, ended up costing him precious time and money, with little reward. One evening after work, before grinding away on his side venture, he sat down at the piano to unwind, as he’d done countless times before. Then it dawned on him: “This is the thing my business should be centered on.” In 2013, Piano in 21 Days was born. Three years later he quit his engineering job and became a full-time online piano teacher.
Read the full Entrepreneur feature. Send your comments to editor@businessreport.com.
