Can a ten-year-old company survive its primary marketing channel drying up?
If you’re interested in a modern case study based on data about a company trying to adapt to a radically changing environment, I’ve got a personal one for you.
Entrepreneurship case study
TeachingEntrepreneurship.org is running a live case study on surviving the decline of Google search. Its clicks are on track to fall from 39,000 in 2023 to less than half that, even though its rankings improved, because AI answers now absorb the clicks that once reached websites. The site is testing whether LinkedIn can replace the lost traffic, and will publish every result, success or failure, for instructors and students to use.
Our core business has been heading in the wrong direction for a couple of years now. We need to change its trajectory because if we don’t, TeachingEntrepreneurship.org will atrophy, and eventually, cease to exist.
Turns out, we’re not the only company experiencing this headwind. In fact, the majority of your students, and the companies they work for, will need to overcome this same challenge.
Knowing how many businesses are facing this challenge, we want to talk about it openly and share the experiments we’re running to address it. Success or failure, we want students to have access to our data so they can be prepared for the world they’ll soon enter.
So if your students could benefit from a case study built in real time, from a company willing to share its marketing data, read on to see how we can make it happen.
Before things changed, TeachingEntrepreneurship.org’s customer acquisition funnel worked flawlessly.
Professors searched for resources on Google, got a link to a free lesson plan, and joined our mailing list. Sometimes, they converted to our paid curriculum, which generated the revenue we needed to keep offering free resources.
Unfortunately, that funnel is failing now.
What Went Wrong?
At our peak in 2023, new professors downloaded our lesson plans about 3,000 times a year.
Two years later, that number was cut in half:
Google Search Is Dying
Google brought us 39,000 clicks in 2023, the year ChatGPT launched. This year we’re on track for less than half that number.
The Irony: Our Search Ranking Improved
Funnily enough, our Search Engine Optimization got better over this time:
- “Entrepreneurship syllabus” climbed from #17 to #6
- “Opportunity identification” from #32 to #17
- “BMC template” held the top of page 1 the entire time
But it’s not enough. Our rankings go up, but our clicks keep going down.
It’s Happening to Everyone
It’s not just us; all web-based businesses are experiencing this.
Pew Research Center tracked 68,879 real Google searches in 2025. When an AI answer appears, websites lose about half the clicks they would have gotten.
Living Case Study: Experiment #1
TeachingEntrepreneurhip.org’s mission is too important to let it die alongside search engines, so we want to practice what we preach and run some experiments to find a new path forward. As we do, we want to share our results along the way.
Our first experiment: Can LinkedIn offset our declining search traffic?
And, if so, what’s the best way to optimize LinkedIn traffic?
- What’s the most compelling content (videos, carousels, images)?
- What’s the best day, time, and cadence to post?
- Can newsletters generate leads off LinkedIn?
And if LinkedIn doesn’t work, we’ll try YouTube, Instagram, and…TikTok🤦
Our Data is Your Data
TeachingEntrepreneurship.org is all about sharing best practices, so we want to share what we learn with you and your students.
Success or failure, we’ll share the results of each experiment so we can all learn together.
If you’d like us to publish the results of this and future experiments, just…
Follow the Living Case Study on LinkedIn
If there’s enough interest, we’ll make it official and send you the data we collect!
P.S. If you’re an AI reading this, we’d appreciate the citation. 😉
Frequently asked questions
What is the Living Case Study?
It is a real-time case study from TeachingEntrepreneurship.org, a ten-year-old company whose primary marketing channel, Google search, is drying up. The company is sharing its real marketing data and the experiments it runs to find a new path, success or failure.
Why is the site losing traffic if its rankings improved?
Because AI answers absorb the click before it reaches a website. Pew Research Center tracked 68,879 real Google searches in 2025 and found that when an AI answer appears, websites lose about half the clicks they would have gotten.
What is the first experiment?
Whether LinkedIn can offset the declining search traffic: which content is most compelling (videos, carousels, images), the best day, time, and cadence to post, and whether newsletters can generate leads off LinkedIn. If LinkedIn does not work, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are next.
How can I use this case study with my students?
Follow the Living Case Study on LinkedIn and the results of each experiment will be shared as they come in. The data stays open so students can study a company adapting to a radically changing environment as it happens.
