How A Harvard PhD Quadrupled Her Revenue In 6 Months
Larissa Zhou is a career coach. Before starting her coaching business, she received her PhD from Harvard University where she studied food science as part of a NASA fellowship. Now she helps other scientists and engineers find fulfilling work.
Case Study
The Situation: A Scientist Turned Career Coach
Larissa has a career most people would envy.
Five years as a food scientist at Modernist Cuisine. A PhD from Harvard. A NASA fellowship funding her research on cooking in space.
When she reached out to me, she was one year into running a career coaching business helping scientists and engineers find fulfilling work.
The coaching came naturally. The business side didn’t.
“I could see that if I didn't lean into the business part… this whole thing would die a slow, quiet death.”
Looking back, she says:
“If I hadn't worked with Greg, I would no longer be doing career coaching because I would have hit my head against the wall so many times.”
Larissa knew she needed more clients, but she had a self-proclaimed “prejudice about sales and marketing.”
In academia, critical thinking is rewarded. In business, it can easily become a form of Creative Avoidance. As she put it:
“I was very good at talking myself out of taking action.”
Larissa could have joined a group program for less money. But she didn’t want more information. She wanted accountability.
So we decided to work together.
The Solution: Moving From Avoidance To Action
Early on, Larissa leaned heavily on my direction.
“Because I didn't know what to do, I just followed his advice and sort of ignored my reservations and did the thing.”
I gave her an assignment: Use your network to schedule 30 free coaching conversations.
She announced the challenge publicly and started booking calls. On many of them, she proposed paid coaching.
Then came the hard part:
“I can’t afford it.”
“Maybe in a few months.”
“Let me think about it.”
More conversations. More no’s. Each one evidence she could have used to justify quitting.
Instead, she kept going.
“He coached me and held me accountable to doing things and not just always talking about all the what-ifs of how things will not work out.”
Eventually, her hard work started paying off. She signed three clients in one week.
And that’s when something clicked.
“Only after taking action do I get to take stock and say, I wanna do more of that. Or, if I’m not going to do that, what else am I going to do?”
For a scientist, the reframe made sense: Action is an experiment.
The Results: Revenue, Clients, and Confidence
Six months later, she ran the numbers:
“By working with Greg… I quadrupled my average monthly income compared to the previous six months before I started working with him.”
She hit $10K in two separate months, a goal that once felt unattainable.
“I had $10K in monthly revenue, which is freaking amazing because I never thought that would be possible.”
But the most meaningful shift wasn’t financial. It was psychological.
“I feel really confident now… confident that I can figure out the next steps even if there is no set plan.”
In other words, Larissa no longer waits for perfect clarity before acting. She trusts herself to experiment.
Larissa’s advice?
“If you're ready to do a lot of the uncomfortable work… when it's not easy, you're like, this is when I'm growing, then Greg is great for you.”
If that’s you, apply for a Strategy Session.
