Personal finance teacher Dana Miranda's very first target audience wasn't a right fit. When she decided to make this move, she saw her audience expand. |

If Dana Miranda shifted her target audience to provide educational resources and education training to educators and non-profits, she found an increase in satisfaction and harmony her company.

Within the time Dana Miranda worked as a personal finance journalist, she noticed the growing trend. "Most of the financial content that is available there, most of the advice and education, is taken from a single point of view, which is usually white, male, heteronormative, and from a middle-class background."

"I have a middle-class family background" Dana shares. "I'm a queer woman. It was clear to me that there was a deficiency of knowledge and awareness of the nuanced nature of these diverse experience that people share with money."

Instead of re-creating the same information that everyone else was sharing, Dana decided to change the story.

In the present, Dana Miranda is a personal finance educator and the founder of Healthy Rich , a platform for affordable, cost-free financial education. The following is the way Dana developed her own online venture and made sure that her mission was seen by as many people as she could, even if that meant taking a different route.

Just because a monetization strategy is popular, doesn't mean that it's the best choice for your company.

Healthy Rich started as an extra-curricular activity which Dana operated while she was a writer for a company that was freelance.

"I created Healthy Rich as a project to tell different personal finance experiences. It was just a blog but there wasn't any money flowing in. I was unsure of what the process of monetizing would be, but I knew that in the end, I'd like to grow it into a business."

"I decided not to earn money by advertising or affiliates," Dana explains. "That's really common in the personal finance space however I was not happy with the way I was seeing it in the websites that I'd been working for. In order to ensure that we were providing value for the end consumer, I wanted to take ads out of the factor."

Dana enjoyed the curriculum she developed. Also, she enjoyed speaking to her students, hearing feedback, and answering questions. But something felt off about selling her products to customers.

"I was a bit naive about the whole launch. I resented the whole selling method of convincing people that they are suffering from a problem and that I can help. None did it feel right to me." Dana remembers.

Offering products only to specific audience members was not the way forward This was a huge issue. Even though this was Healthy Rich's strategy for monetization she wanted her followers to be able to access the details at no cost. It was important for her to earn money but didn't want that money coming from the pockets of those she was trying to help.

When creating products for your intended market, it feels unnatural You can try changing your target market

To gain a wider perspective, Dana had conversations with educators and community organizers. Through these conversations, she realized that there was an enormous demand for a financial education for individuals -and she could be the right person to help provide it.

"The need for personal finance education is increasing," Dana explains.

"There are a lot of states with mandates to must take an individual finance course before you graduate from high school but most of those do not have funding and they don't provide an educational path specifically designed that can lead to an instructor in personal finance. Educators coming into the space usually are instructed that they must teach a financial class and don't feel prepared to do it."

Similar issues were encountered by non-profit workers and the people who work with vulnerable populations.

"People employed by a non-profit organization may assist people in a different part of their lives, however, it's inextricably linked to financial matters. They're fielding questions about people's finances that they don't feel comfortable in. I want to help people to understand the subject so that they are able to answer those questions confidently."

Dana recognized that she was able to bypass selling products to end users and instead provide instructors and trainers to a much wider reach. Her message could reach greater numbers of people, her organization could earn money, and she could feel good about her impact.

"I like to give content to the people that need it, for free whenever I can. Helping community-based organizations and schools is a way for me to offer this education available to the individuals who require it since individuals are participating in those classes and programs for free," she shares.

"This opened up a new market for my company since I was able to enable instructors and facilitators. I am able to work with both groups without advertising classes for each user."

When Dana began to develop her brand new program for educators , it clicked.

"My initial course launch was a good experiment. I'm happy that I absorbed what I did, but I'm also glad I was able to learn quickly and moved onto the next section."

" gives me the flexibility to create what I want. I love it that way."

You have no limit to your ideas neither should your tech be either.

To find potential clients, connect on LinkedIn via shared work

"People like to talk about the work they're doing. Keep track of the companies you'd like to collaborate with and see the things they're working on," Dana notes.

"It's extremely helpful to me to understand the market I'd like to work with. That's educators and nonprofit organizations. I'm a resident of Wisconsin, so I'm starting locally with organizations in the local community. I can reach out as a fellow community member and say, 'I care about the work that you're doing in my community. Let's talk about how we can collaborate.'"

Reimagining the audience she wants to reach and the products they need, Dana transformed Healthy Rich into more than a blog about tips for personal finances. It's a chance to transform the conversation in our society around money.

"The manner in which we discuss about finances is an issue and I'd like to do it differently. I want to provide education with resources needed by educators and ensure that it's being taught with the most inclusive and broad perspective, rather than traditional spending and paying down debt I've been seeing."

In shifting her audience away from individuals to teachers as well as non-profit employees, Dana stayed true to her ideals and came up with a better way to share her wisdom with the people needing it the most.

Discover new paths and beware of the temptation of comparing your travels to other people's

Dana reminds creators that "there's there isn't a perfect formula for what this career looks like. The only way to find out is to try and find out what works best for you."

A key part of finding your unique route is to not compare you to others who have created. Instead, Dana recommends looking to your past to discover how much you've grown.

"Everyone has been at some stage wanting to be at the next level. The most helpful thing for me is to think about me in the past five or ten years," she says.

"When I first started freelance I envisioned becoming a writer. I took on a few blog posts and freelance jobs in the first few years, I made only a small amount. When I am frustrated by what I'm doing in my business, I look back on my career and think about what I've accomplished."

"I had the opportunity to obtain the full-time position as a employee writer" the writer reveals. "In the past couple of years, I earned 6 figures from freelance writing. In the present, I'm transitioning to an entirely new stage where rather than my earnings primarily being from writing freelance, I want it to come directly from my business .

"It's challenging to work out the best way to achieve this and yet if you'd said twelve years ago my future position in, I wouldn't imagine that this would ever occur. I'd be awestruck."

In the conclusion of the day choosing to follow your creativity is an enormous win and you've probably come farther than you thought.

"I think that pursuing this kind of dream is something to be celebrated no matter the phase you're at."