Purple Hippo Web Studio: Helping Teachable Owners Thrive Online

How it all started…

Purple Hippo didn’t start right away, I mean I worked for many months as a developer before I decided upon the name and registered Purple Hippo Web Studio with the Irish Government.

But I get ahead of myself. I used to work at Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind World of Warcraft, and I was a Service Level Coordinator for the European Customer Support team. I was responsible for … well, that’s not important. What was important is I often worked nights, actually I worked nights alot. During the nights sometimes nothing would happen and it was during these times that I started to upskill myself in web development. I already knew a good bit about HTML and CSS and a little PHP, but it was coding experience from the days of rendering everything with tables and inline styles. I wanted to learn more about the modern web development stack.

I enrolled in Free Code Camp and started to learn JavaScript. I also started to learn more about modern HTML5 and CSS3 and built a few WordPress websites for friends and family. I was hooked. I loved the creativity and the problem-solving that came with web development. I loved the fact that I could build something that could be seen by anyone in the world. I loved the fact that I could build something that could help someone.

I also came across Fedora usefedora.com which is now called Teachable (yes, this link still redirects to Teachable) and I decided to dip my toe into the world of online courses. I built a course on how to build a WordPress website and never made a single cent. But during that time I ended up on the official Teachable Facebook page (now defunct) and I saw a post from a guy who was looking for someone to help him with his Teachable school. It was something simple, like changing the color of the title or centering the text. I replied to the post and we got talking. I helped him with his school and that lead to another question needing an answer then another.

I became the go-to guy for Teachable Questions

I became the go-to guy (@TheTeachableGuy new YouTube channel) for questions about layout and customizing Teachable. I became so good that Teachable invited me to become one of their onboarding ambassadors. I would jump on a call with their business plan customers and show them around the platform. I wasn’t allowed to ‘sell them’ my services, but if they asked what I did, I could then tell them. I got a few clients that way.

I also started selling Teachable services on Fiverr, but I quickly realized that I was undervaluing myself and my time. Fiverr took 25% of everything I made and although it was a great platform for getting started, I needed to establish myself as a brand and not just a commodity.

I was still working at Blizzard during this time, but I asked if I could take 6-months leave of absence to see if I could make a go of it. They said yes and I started Purple Hippo Web Studio. I registered the business with the Irish Government and I continued to build a name for myself in the Teachable community. The name Purple Hippo came from my two kids, Aethyn and Joshua. Their first words were Purple and Hippo. I thought it was a fun name and it stuck.

6-months later, I left Blizzard after 9 years and 11 months (unfortunately, I left right before getting the 10-year service award) and I started Purple Hippo Web Studio full-time. I’ve never looked back. I was able to take time-off to be with my kids, I could look after my dogs at home (I had two dalmatians, Edgar and Bella, but they both passed away in 2021), and I get to work with some amazing people.

This brings us to today…

Fast-forward to today, and I’ve been in business for over 8-years with many happy customers, primarily helping them with their online schools, creating Teachable landing pages, and building Teachable themes.

I built a SaaS (Software as a Service) product called Witness which integrates with Teachable’s App Hub and allows you to record the sales from your Teachable school and present them as ‘pop-up’ toasts to generate social proof and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Check out this blog post on how to use Witness with Teachable.

So, that’s how Purple Hippo Web Studio started. I hope you enjoyed the story. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on BlueSky, Facebook or LinkedIn.

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