So I've been talking to people and it looks like we'll need to lay down a fair amount of groundwork. There's accreditations and other things that are honestly not my strongest suit.
But there's still an opportunity here. ESL teaching is going to be our main income source, but that's not as difficult as it sounds. First, because the barriers to entry are pretty low in the first place. You need to speak English. Perhaps more importantly, you need to look like you can speak English. It really helps to be white in this industry.
Second, because the hybrid curriculum is going to be the opposite of cram school. We're talking four-hour workdays. We're talking classes where you do nothing but watch movies, or read stage plays, or browse on your phone while you wait for everyone to finish their essays, then just correct one essay, round-robin style. We'll give students the option to have eight-hour schooldays and conventional classes but the art-based approach is really the way to go if they want to improve their real-world language skills.
But if you're already supporting yourself with your art, you don't have to participate in any of the classes. Just enjoy being an artist-in-residence and take part in the extracurriculars.
We won't ever live in tents. They don't really stand up to typhoons. I can see us camping out in an abandoned mall or resort though, at least in the first few months. But there's a lot of places crying out for development and enough funding if you know where to look, so living standards won't ever go below that of a college student. Yes, we get Amazon deliveries. Yes, we will get business-grade Internet. Yes, we will have full-service household staff. They're inexpensive and I don't trust graphic novelists to do their own cleaning and cooking.