600K from Digital Courses and Potty Training Infants | The Story of Andrea Olson

This Mom entrepreneur found a corner of the internet nobody else wanted — and built a real business there. In this episode, we break down how one mom turned a topic most people would never think of into a following, a brand, and an income (actually 3 income streams) and what it actually took to get people to trust her enough to pay for it.

We get into the early doubts, the pricing mistakes, how she found her first paying customers from a blog and an e-book, and the moment she realized she had something bigger than a side hustle.

If you've got an idea you're scared is "too weird" or "too niche" to build a business around — this one's for you.

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Find Andrea Olson

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Okay. Oh, so did we start recording already? Yeah, I did. Oh. Sorry, I'm right faster. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Okay. So hello. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Do you want to do our intro? Oh, um what is it? What are we supposed to say again? Hi everyone. Hi, I'm Faith. And I'm Jen. And this is the Fine I'll Do It podcast. Right?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

That's us. And we're back for another episode.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I'm excited. I get to do the listening.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

You get to listen. We finally made it through our intro episode. Hi, you know us now. Yes. So I guess I'll get right into it. In 2009, Andrea Olson and her partner were on food stamps when their first surprise baby arrived. Andrea Olson. Andrea Olson. Have you ever heard of her? I feel like I've heard the name. I think you might have. So 11 years later, she was making over 600,000 a year, working three to four hours a day from home with five children. And at the time, today's world, she has six children.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yes. Which is partly why I chose a story. Because if a mom can do it with six children, we can do it with two.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

The product that got her there, teaching parents how to potty train infants. Of course. Of course. Yes. Not regular three-year-old, two-year-olds, whenever you start potty training, babies. Oh. Teaching babies, potty training babies from birth. I've heard of this. Which I thought was I was mind-blown. I've never heard of this before.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Elimination communication. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So you have heard of her.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

I mean, I have, but I didn't realize that I didn't know the name behind that.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

So that is how she made and is making over $600,000 a year, working three to four hours a day.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Supporting a family of seven, six children.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Oh, okay. Is she single?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

She no, she's married. Okay. But she has married a few times throughout the story. So the husband he was doing his own thing. Yeah. Um, yeah. So it does the story doesn't really cover him because he changes.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

I feel you. Okay. I was just curious, like, because you said seven, and I was like, where's the partner? Is she a single parent of six children? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah. So I got all a lot of this information from she doesn't have a book, it's all podcasts that I got. So I was deep diving many, many podcasts on her, um, and just what I could find online. So we already did our intro. Um, this is fine, I'll do it. Where we do real case studies on moms who built businesses after kids without a trust fund, a rich husband, and most likely without an app. Um, so why this story passes the fitty test. Uh, she started in 2010 with one kid, no money, no audience. And her start was a blog and an ebook that she launched to 75 people. That's her beginning. So the reason this might resonate with moms is if you're a mom looking for a big idea or already working on your hustle, she never scaled her hours. Wow. She started at three to four hours a day. Actually, she said she started when it was just the blog and her ebook, it was about three hours a week.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

And then she never went over three to four hours a day to current day operations. My guess is that she's blessed with a few talents. Yes, and she knows when to delegate. Yes. So her story doesn't begin with her baby, it actually begins with her friend's baby peeing into a sink. So this is pre-her having a baby.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

She's at a friend's house, obviously in California, because we're all a little more in touch with the earth here. We little crunchy. Yeah. So her friend has a baby and she's bending the infant over the sink and it's peeing into the sink. And Andrea is mind-blown. She doesn't know what the heck is happening. Anyways, that woman was doing this elimination communication method, which they call EC. And I'm about to learn so much. This was this was so interesting to me. I could not get over it. I can't believe I didn't hear about it in my whole midwife journey. It is and home birth things.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Oh, you you you're not a midwife. No, okay, because that would be like you had a midwife.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

No, I had a midwife, but I feel like that's something that's in that realm of very non-traditional western.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

And I know Sarah Beth did it. No. Um cat's friend. Anyway. Okay, okay. Um, yeah, I'm kind of glad that we keep things cold because I'm very surprised.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, isn't this this is and I keep I've been trying to tell Colin about this method. Meanwhile, I've already bought her little toilet. That's what I've had Ozzy on. I don't know if you saw my Instagram story yesterday. I was just like, yes, King. Yes. So that is I've already started EC with Ozzy. He's 15 months, and I'll go ahead and drop the link. Oh, yeah, I'll drop the link. And the book in the podcast. Okay, so I'm gonna get into the whole theory of that. Um, but a little background on Andrea. So she had a hard time keeping a job. She said she got very bored, she's very efficient with work, and the whole, like you said at another time, the whole nine to five thing was just super boring for her. She's efficient at work. So while she's at work, she reads the four-hour work week prior to doing any of these things. The book. Four-hour work, the four-hour work week by Tim Ferris, which I've read. Amazing. It's so good. I think every business owner should read it. So many hacks on how to keep your hours to a minimum. Anyway, so she's already done that groundwork while she's employed free children. So her and her partner were on food stamps at the time of her first child. Her partner was in between jobs. They have no money, yeah. Food stamps, and the baby, they were not planning on the baby. It was a surprise. So her partner was listening to a passive income podcast, and he's trying to start his own business, and she's overhearing this podcast that he's listening to, and she starts taking notes, and she says, This sounds very interesting. I think I could do this.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

And so she actually launches the thing. Poor husband didn't quite get his, you know, what together, but she did. And now we're studying her story. So we talked about where she'd heard about the EC before having babies. Um, and that was something she said she'd always loved children, but like the whole idea of changing diapers is just kind of nasty, and you do it for years, and so she as soon as she heard about EC, she said, that's that is what I'm gonna do when I have kids someday. That's what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

After she saw her friends' baby pee in the sink.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

After she saw her friends, yep.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

She said, Okay, career.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

She's like, I'm gonna save that for when, yeah, for when I have children. So she does a bunch of research. She researched the EC history, and so that it's based on that we are mammals and that the our instinct is not to soil ourselves or caregivers or our environment. That's mammal instinct. Yeah. If you had a puppy or train a dog, you know, like you crate train them first because they don't want to pee in their crate, do that, they don't want to mess up their environment. And so the thought is that when we put them in diapers from day one, we train that instinct out of ourselves, and so we're trained to pee and poop on ourselves for a couple years, and then we're like, hey, just kidding, I want you to use the toilet. And we all know how hard potty training can be. We there, I've seen yes, yeah, every kid is different, and some of them pick it up and it's fine, but some of them I just told Enzo you could pee outside, and he was like that's fun. Deal. Yeah, so maybe for boys it'll be a little different.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Should we turn that light on?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Yeah, it's a good one. PC is the natural potty training, and they still use diapers, they just use it as a tool and not as the potty. So they'll yeah, so she says when you're out and about, you're running errands, you obviously have a diaper on the kid. But at home, you're observing them and you're you're learning their cues. So I didn't realize this, but apparently from day one, infants will give you cues when they need to use the bathroom. Like they'll actually fuss every time before they need to pee or poop. And when they're that young, you I don't know, you I I just was like, it's just a baby, it's just crying. I'm not really figuring out what the difference between the cries or what do they say?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

There's like six things that can't be wrong. They're you got a wet diaper, a pee-p diaper, they're tired, they're hungry, teething, burp. Yeah, maybe there's one more. Their clothes are wet or something.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah, but they're yeah, they're they would babies are supposed to be like they don't have a reason to complain unless there's something wrong.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

There's not a lot going on in there. There's not a lot going on.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So I love this because it encourages baby bonding and moms to be learning the cues of the baby. And I don't know how you were when you first had Enzo, but when I had Indy, I was so overwhelmed. It was a wreck. It was it was just a it's a lot to absorb. And my mother-in-law, my mother-in-law came over a few weeks after Indy was born, and Indy starts crying. She's like, Oh, what does that mean? And I was like looking at her like, what do you I have no idea? Like your guess is your guess is as good as mine. I don't know. Like, I just fed her, so she's probably, I don't know. She's not hungry. Yeah. Um, but I wasn't at all thinking about learning her cycles. Like, oh, after she eats, she does this, right? Then she does that. So now I know she's probably gonna need to use the bathroom. So I I love this method because it teaches mom to be a little bit more aware of the kid and something specific to look for. Because for me, I know that arc I'm like if you're just telling me to observe the kid, I'm gonna be like, okay, she's still there. It's cool. Yeah, it's cute. What am I looking for? So I like the direction. I need the direction. Yeah, so she used Andrea used this method successfully for her first kid. Loved it. The kids out of diapers by walking.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Okay. It's like 16 months. It's crazy. Yeah. Depending on when your kid was.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Some are a little slower than others, um, Ozzy. Spec. So let's talk about her first launch. So she's in her mid to upper 20s. She never tells us her age. So we're guessing around her age. She's mid to upper 20s. Be a boomer. So in 2010, she launches her blog. She writes the ebook while she's nursing. Um, while the kids zero to one, she's working on the ebook. She works, she says three hours a week early on, mostly on the blog. And then she launched the ebook to a list of 75 people. So I'm guessing this is her contact list, but or people she knows.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah, people who have signed up for the blog.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Exactly. People who have her who have shown interest in her blog. Thank you for the 10 people who have shown interest. Yes, thank you to the city following. So she launches to 75 people, and in the first year of her ebook and launching, she makes 45,000. Which I'm like, that's pretty good. In 2006, you said no, 2012. Oh wow, 2012. Not that far around. But still, not too far.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

$45,000 for her first year. Oh, a year. That's still good.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

It's great.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

That's most people's salary.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

And she hired her ver first VA four months after launching. So she was only making, so she's making $500 a month. Again, like not life-changing, but when you got when you're on food stamps, that actually kind of is life-changing.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

That's that's lunch.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah. So she hired a Philippine-based virtual assistant.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Big fan.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

As soon as she could. Big fan. I know.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

That is are your virtual assistants Filipinos?

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yes, they are.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Oh, we have so much in common.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

It's uh I think it's a huge hack. And once you start, once you become aware of this hack, you notice how all businesses are doing that. I'm like you can hire help enjoy with like before anyone else can.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

I will say that this is males who are not taking my advice. I'm sure a mom would take that advice if they needed it there.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

As I should. So she's paying her VA assistant $5 an hour, which is still crazy like typical wages. We pay, we started at like, I think $6 an hour, and we have some assistants that are $8 an hour.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

But we should tell them that this that is a livable wage in the Philippines.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

That is a livable wage. That's actually an excellent way. That's like they can take flights. We're not ripping people off here. That is actually like the going salary for work.

unknown 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

And they work on your schedule. Yes. Yes, our Philippine, our uh our VA works night shift there and works daytime friends.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

And they're they're so kind.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

And actually excellent at their job. I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening in the US, but worth working. Take notes. Yes, take notes. That's all I need to say. So she's getting help for five hours a week. So that's how she is able to spend so few hours in her business always, because she immediately hires help.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

And she has her VA assistant doing basic research, customer service, and pre-searching topics for Andrea so that when she logs in and wants to do her three or four hours of work, she knows exactly what she's writing about on her blog.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Because her VA has teed everything up for her.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

And that's a lesson in delegation right now.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

That yes, I was taking so many notes on this. Excellent. Someone else do the research, me show up and do what I'm good at. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just the ebook for the first five years, which is kind of a long time just to be an ebook.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

But she Yeah, not even published.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah. Thank you. No hard copies. No, it's just the ebook. Wow. And she said that that was a really good thing for her business, just have a singular focus. She talks about other people launching a ton of products or being really spread out. And she said, if you can't, if you don't have the focus to really pour into that one thing, yeah, then it won't be excellent.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

And you can always do like version 2.0, version 3.0, which you see a lot. Yeah, true. And this type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

So I'm gonna go over the growth ladder. So she started with the ebook, which turned into a course. The book was the how and the course was the what, and they cross-promoted each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Wait, so the book how told you more in detail how and how the blog was the what?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

The course.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

The course.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Okay. And so they they cross-promoted each other. Yeah. Um, and then that led that led into her second business that she launched, which is called Tiny Undies. Because she had all these parents that were successfully training their potty training their babies, so they're out of diapers, way before there are underwear the size for these sweet little bum-bums. So now she she makes a product, tiny underwear. Write that down.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Tiny tiny undies. Tiny undies. Because I want we're gonna potty train our children.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Right. I I already started. Like I love this idea. I love it. Um, and so she found she actually founded this company in Thailand, produced some underwear over there, and brought it back. She doesn't live there, she was just visiting there, visiting. Doing research. I guess during research. So she brought back 50 pair as like a test and completely sold out immediately and saw the demand expand. Wow. Yes. Yes, to her her audience that she'd already been teaching people how to get kids out of undies. So cool. Or not undies, out of diapers. So now we're gonna talk about business number three that she launches. It started off as Mama Works, but is now Mama Preneur on her website. Okay. And she's teaching moms to build income moms how to build home businesses. Okay. So she's coaching.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

She's coaching moms how to do what she did.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

And her little uh like specialty on her page was the one idea lab, which we've we kind of you you kind of talked about it earlier without knowing her story. She called it the incubator, and she helps you validate your idea. Yeah. So she said that she noticed a lot of moms who were inspired by her story had a lot of, she called it untethered ambition. Yeah. She said, we've got all these ideas, so many, but we're not focusing on one thing and launching one thing. And so she created this one idea lab to help moms figure out like hone in on their one idea, what suits them, and go all in on that one thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

All in being the key.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yes. All in being the key and focused being the other key. Something that I'm always I feel like struggling with because I have so many projects going on, and I constantly think I could be so much better if I was doing one thing, but you're never that's never gonna happen. It's never gonna happen for me. I'm also Sagittarius, so it's just it goes against my nature. I need to experience everything, I need to kind of do everything.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, and as a mom, like you're never going to be just doing one thing anyway, especially as a business owner.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

So it's like, why, why, why just I'll just I'll try to keep my business launches to a minute. But also, if you come to me with a great idea, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

I'm I was first in line.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, faith is first. Okay, so she's so the more she's building out her businesses, she's sticking to the three to four hour work schedule. So she becomes less and less available personally to her audience. She now is hiring coaches and she has um part-time VAs as her buffer. She says at this point she has four to eight employees at this time, and she's charging a premium then to speak with her specifically because her time is so valuable. Yeah. So early on when she was getting started with launching her course, I was curious how she knew how to do this progression. Yeah. She took a course from Amy Porterfield. Have you heard of her? She's a big digital products online coach. And I definitely want to cover her on this because she she she's teaches all these courses how to do this. So I thought it was very fascinating that Andrea actually took her course.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah, because that's something that I find interesting. And I think I was talking about it earlier with you before we started. This is this online or the online course situation to me. I feel like I'm always looking for an online course, but I'm never quite convinced that they have the information that they uh that I actually need. And so it would be interesting to find the people who were doing it first because they obviously probably weren't doing what I'm binding online.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yes, and she she did say that she followed Amy's course to a T. She said, I'm an excellent student. Right. So I just did exactly what she said, what she laid out for me, and she has this incredible business, and then she was coaching people how to do exactly what she did.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

So yeah, I mean, I'm a huge one-on-one, like coach person, but course not so much. Like coaching, yeah, course hard for me. I don't know why. Do you feel that way?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

I haven't taken a lot of courses. Okay, I don't mind doing the research myself, and so a lot of times it would probably be faster to do a course.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah. I don't know. I I am I prefer like a one-on-one coaching to course.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

You could get, I think you get a lot more out of it. We actually did a business coach for our real estate business, and that was incredibly expensive, but I think it saved our company.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Exactly. I I've hired coaches for like sleep training coaches, I've hired coaches for like parenting coaches, I've had a coach for produ like ADHD in productivity, I've had a coach for I guess not um uh trauma awareness, which I have not completed. Sorry, Kim. Yes, we know what you need. Yeah, I'm I'm a big coach fan. So the course coach things, I'm I'm excited to look these people up.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Is your mic green? Okay, cool. Um yes, I I'm with you. I agree coaching is incredibly valuable. Yeah. So all of this is a little off track. It's all good. I was just trying to figure out where to get back. So all of this she built with five kids.

unknown 21:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah. This whole this whole thing. She has three businesses.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

It sounds like sometimes when you have so many kids, you don't have a choice but to make make one. You have to.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Oh, in today's world, I can't even m fathom having six children and the financial burden of that.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah, and you just figure that's why I tell people who don't have kids and they're scared about kids. They're all like, I'm just not ready.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

I'm like, there's never such getting ready.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

And it's like with anything. It's with anything, really.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah, and business, same thing. You're not ready. You just have to do it and figure it out. So I'm gonna go into numbers a little bit. We talked about the $45,000 year one just from the ebook and launching to 75 people. At the time of interview, so I there's a couple interviews that I was going through and taking notes, and by 2020, she's making 600,000 a year.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

2012 to 2020.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah. So like eight years. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

And she is hoping this for me channeling that energy.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

She's still at three to four hours a day, which I just can't get over.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah. The opposite of Elon Musk.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

In 2023, she has a seven-figure business, 14 employees, and 14 to 15 products.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

That's crazy. And she she has an email list. She's getting 100 to 150 signups a day. Oh, it's gonna be one of those. Yeah, I know. Same. I I already am actually. I already get all of her emails. I'm all in. And she's not even running Facebook ads at that time.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

That was the time of Google ads, even or ad words. I wonder if she even needed Google SEO.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Probably. She she was doing yeah, because blogging is SEO.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

So she's just doing it. I just and I couldn't believe how much she did off of the most random topic. That's why I love online. I love digital products online business for moms, because I think everybody has something, they have something that they're good at, something unique about them that they could package up into a product or a course or coaching, if that's what we prefer. But ever I think almost everybody has a course. Yes, true. So I guess I'll get into a little bit about the tactics. So when she was starting um the courses and classes, it sounds like she did some free, free things. She'd do free classes to get people into her funnel. She'd share on socials, a lot of free information on socials to get people interested. She would do an awareness week, day, or month. And then she just promoted her own content. Like you can make anything up. She's like, I'm gonna do an EC awareness week. This is EC awareness week. We're gonna do an awareness week on the village. This is a video awareness week. I hope you're aware. And then you just promote the heck out of whatever you're doing for a week and you just call it an awareness time frame. I like it. I thought that was weird. I love her. Too easy and too easy. Too easy. Please make it more complicated for me. Um, she talked about she'd do email challenges that built excitement. What what is this email challenge? So when you're a part of her email list, then she would just do a challenge. Um maybe I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

10 to five people, and you get this, I think.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Something like that. That could be. She didn't go specifically what her email challenge was. I'm trying to think what it could be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Um look into that. Yeah. I'm like really into bringing back old ways of doing business, I think, with the the new way of doing business, like so much AI and ads and stuff. I do think that there will be a time when we're back to like cold calling people and like one-on-one conversations. People want to talk about email marketing and stuff like that. So I'm interested, bring it back. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Do it. So she's doing email challenges, which then led to webinars, and she talked about how important it was important to have a room full of people or a webinar full of people that were actually excited about your topic. So she'd prep people so they're really excited, and then she'd host a webinar, all these excited people. Then she has this product, and so it it was like a really easy funnel to go into her courses. Yeah. And did you learn a lot about funnels? I did learn a lot about funnels. I love a good funnel too. This is so fun, yes. Um, she surveyed her audience constantly. She said she's always asking for engagement on socials, she's always asking, she wants to chat with her target audience. She wants to know what's happening. She says, I don't want this to be a waste of your time or my time. So tell me what you need. What do you want? And she turned that into courses specifically based on what they wanted to know, which was again too simple.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

What do you guys want to know? Let us know. So wait.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

So tell us what you want to know. So her pricing, she charged more for her ebook than you might expect. Her book was $54 and the Kindle was $38 at the time of the interview. And I actually found I went online to look to double check what her prices were, and it was 45 and 38. So almost the same.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

But she said when she her book, she included an audio version, forum access, links to videos, and she just really oversold her product. She added everything, a lot of value, a lot of value to it. So she thought it was it was definitely worth the value. And she said, I even tried to lower my price to see if it would do better. And she said it didn't. She said people don't value things that are free or even cheaper. When you have to pay a little bit more, people will pay attention to it and it means something. And I I'm the same way. I've done all these apps like um for fitness. Yeah, and I'm I currently have one that's more expensive than any of the other ones, but I actually take it seriously. I'm like, oh, I'm spending this much money.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

I actually have to work out that's an another thing about digital products too, is that they're easy to forget about. It's easy to like the subscription model is insane.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yes, and there are yeah, a lot of subscription models right now. But my takeaway from that was you might think to start really low, but you also have to remember what value you're giving.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

And she was very don't feel like the values there, add more. Add more.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

It doesn't always have to be crazy. So when she's putting this price tag on, she felt very confident. I this this is absolutely worth it because she's giving you also read some books or something.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

She knows she knows a few things.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

She knows a few things. She's naturally good at this, it sounds like, but also, I mean, she did the course at the beginning. I don't know what is in this Amy Porterfield's course.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Is that the one that um her husband was taking?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

No, this is separate.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I want to know what that one is.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

That was just a podcast he was listening to.

unknown 29:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Yeah, she went then her interest was was piqued. She went then and did the course to Amy Porterfield. Amy Porterfield. Learning how to actually sell online courses and do digital, a digital business. We have homework to do. We have a lot of homework. So in the beginning, she talked about the importance of an effective landing page. It was non-negotiable. She, if you have a great product, it will also spread by word of mouth, but you have to have an excellent landing page that you can capture emails, you can capture contact so that you can share this with them. So I like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Abdul would say the same, and I'm so glad that he did to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

So I'm gonna get into lifestyle a little bit. The four-hour work week by Tim Ferris. If you want to read that, I gotta add the Tim Ferris. Shaped everything. She stuck to her hour commitment even while scaling. She talked about it a lot in her podcasts about the mom hustle.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

And how moms are likely not trying to build a business that demands their time 24-7 because you have children, you've got a family, and if you wanted to work eight to 24 hours a day, you could just get a job. Right, go to school and get a job. Which and yes, I agree with, but also being an entrepreneur, it's it's demanding, and I guess you have to set boundaries, otherwise, you will end up working all the time. And it is your own thing, which is exciting. But I really appreciate that she knew right away. I am a mom, I'm dedicated, like I'm not doing something that's gonna rip me away from my children. I actually want to know my children.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

So she she said the amount of time you allot for work, work will fill that time. Like, that is so true. When I am like, oh, this is gonna take so long, it ends up taking so long. Or when you just have such amount of like a certain amount of time to do something, I feel like you end up making that happen.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Yeah. I'm a big procrastinator, so I just I run off pure chaos. So it's not healthy. But I enjoyed the adrenaline rush, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

So what I'm always interested in is how moms do it with kids and what's happening with the kids.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

And she said she never worked with her kids home. She always had a sitter where they were at school, and she didn't try to work while they were around. She said it was not efficient work and she was all about working efficiently.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

So when they're home, she put her work away and she put her phone away.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

And that was it. So if she wanted to work, she said even in the beginning, where she didn't have very much money to have a nanny, she would hire somebody for one hour to come over and she would work, and then she would work during nap time.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

We do need to remind people that she for the bulk of her career does have a lot of virtual assistants, and that is how she's making that work. Yes. Virtual assistants in the Philippines specifically are way, way, way, way less expensive here. Yes, like than here. So that like that is a big key on how she's getting this stuff done.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yes, it's it's a huge when she's home, she hides her, she hides her phone, she says. Because that was one question that one of the interviewers asked, How do you turn it off? And I was very curious about this too, because even though I say I'm not working, I have all these things in my mind that I'm thinking about it. And then she said, obviously that's very hard, but you have to set that's like just another thing, a boundary you have to set that I'm not working. And then she mentioned another book, How to Break Up With Your Phone. And I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I immediately got that book and started reading it. Basically, it just talks about how to set boundaries because with yourself, my mind, with yourself, um, but especially um phones. I think we're just all a little bit addicted. And then if you have the excuse of it's for business, I find myself a lot of times making the excuse to do it. Making the excuse that yeah, I need it. And yeah, basically I'm just becoming more aware of how real boundaries need to be set. Yeah. Moving on.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Is there something that you've noticed in your life when you don't that happens that when you don't set the boundaries?

SPEAKER_00 33:59

I have a hard time turning turning that business side off. And then I, even though I am physically around my kids and my daughter, and she's very active and energetic and she's wanting to interact, I am like kind of glazed over and grumpy. Yes, because I'm I'm thinking about that other thing, and oh, I need my phone because I need to respond to that, or I need to do that. But it's also just lack of organization I'm finding.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Because this week, as I'm using a project management tool way better than I have in the past, I realized I can actually get a lot more things done in this small amount of time. And then once I can get that stress, once I can get that those tasks done and that kind of out of my system, yeah, then I'm actually free, like I have the mental space to be with my daughter and not be frustrated that I'm not getting this other thing done. Yeah. So part of it is just my relationship, you know, that organization. So she also talks about automating the home like a business, which tell me more, I need all of this. So she said, even like grocery shopping, she's like, I always order order the groceries ahead. I either have them delivered or I have them ordered, and then I just swing by and pick them up. She had a weekly house cleaner who comes and folds the laundry. She said, as soon as like just like she launched the business, as soon as she could afford to hire an assistant in the business, she did that. As soon as she was at a place that she could afford to hire somebody to come to the house, she did that. She's like, This is not a good use of my time. Yeah. I've got this many hours I'm working. Yeah, I need the help in the home so that I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

What great advice? Because so many moms don't hear that. There's a lot of moms who are pressured into being full-time employees, full-time moms, and then told that they also must be in charge of their home.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

So absolutely. So she said the more kids she had, it just forced her to be more organ organized because there's no way she's doing it.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I guess if you start their own six kids in the mix, you're in charge.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

The moms in charge. You know how to do it, get things done. She also talked about how teamwork teamwork with your partner really matters. And even though she did have a a couple fail failed marriages, she talked about how much smoother things ran when you were doing this together. Together, and when you're on the same page. Yeah. So I feel like we can't not address the shadow side because we talk about the ups and the downs on Fiddle. Yeah. So she was the breadwinner, as we've talked about how much money she's making, and the husband originally was in between jobs and trying to figure out his own business. And at the time of one of the episodes I was listening to that was launched in 2020, she talked about how her husband was still trying to accept that she was the breadwinner. So there was definitely some tension in that. They ended up not working out, so I guess they never figured that out. She says it's not she did not attribute any of the divorce to her business, just more like a they weren't prepared well or growing together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

I mean I think that is uh definitely a hard part of starting a business not with your partner, like on your own is that your business can pull you away.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

And if yeah, if your partner's on on not on board, you could inevitably end up kind of going separate directions. Separate directions. So she said in the year of 2021, she actually hardly worked at all. This is already after she has a $600,000 um, or she's making $600,000 a year. In 2021, she goes through the divorce, and she says she's not working basically that entire year, but the business survived without her because she had built it to run without her, which that's the payoff of the whole structure, yeah. How she did that. And she said, I obviously did not plan to have a failed marriage. Yeah, but that's inevitably what happened, and she was just so thankful that she had built her company in the way that she had because it was a devastating time and she just couldn't mentally handle being there.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Yeah. So I think from my experience with the delegating, because I've done a lot of delegating and been off work for a month, I feel actually. Um I'm still working, but it's not to the extent that it would be normally. And if I wouldn't have I feel like I actually didn't really have a choice in hiring somebody or not, or getting the help or not. I I literally couldn't do it all.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

So yeah, I think well, that's good that you knew that. You knew right away you weren't gonna try to do it because I think that's a trap that a lot of solopreneurs get into is they have to do it all. And I we definitely were in that with the real estate.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Initially, we were doing everything ourselves and we were spinning, and we were also keeping the equity of the whole company. If yeah, that's another tactic that you know she didn't do here. She was able to make money so she could hire assistants. But some people like if you if you can't do it all yourself, you can also partner with somebody, yeah, and obviously give away part equity and which I am considering doing myself. Um is better than maybe not making money, having a hundred percent of the company and not.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Well, like for now, I delegate a lot of work, and but right now I'm still in the growth phase, so I don't really make a whole lot of anything. It's everybody else that makes the money, but the business wouldn't I I wouldn't be able to run the business without them. It it's just like a necessary thing, in my opinion. But I do think that a lot of people try to do everything themselves and they find themselves burnt out and not wanting to do it and not being able to survive past that and then the not making it because they wanted to make money, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

I get it, it's kind of hard. Yeah, it's it's hard in the beginning. So that's the end of my story. I guess I'll go through some takeaways. Yeah. So the one thing is the focus being dedicated to potty training infants for years. She said, I'm just doing this one thing, and she had the ebook for five years, but it was like everything that she built was a natural progression. It started with this one thing that the potty training. Yeah. And she just had the uh ebook initially. So just staying focused and then letting it that grow, but everything like complemented each other, yeah. So that it wasn't like she was trying to do many different things that didn't correlate. She was really focused and like I said, that's that's what I need a little bit more of in my life. Don't ex don't don't put me on the chatting block. She also said when you're thinking of an idea or you have an idea to start a business, she said pick one and stick with it for 12 months before you try anything else. You've got to give it at least 12 months to season and see if you've really got something. It can take a little while for for it to pick up. So before you ditch it and try something else, stick with it. And then I really liked that she talked about um hire as soon as you make money. Yeah, literally. Even if you're not making it as soon as it's kind of ended, yeah, we were just talking about that. If you can't afford to hire partner with somebody, yeah. Because you can't do it all, especially if you're also trying to run a household.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

This is the only way to scale is to delegate. And I tell moms that quite often, even though I'm not I not I might not be coaching them or being paid to tell them. Unfortunately, I do tell them I'm like, they're like, I have a hard time telling. I have a friend specifically who's told me I have a hard time figuring out what to delegate. And I just say everything. Delegate everything. You don't need to choose. There's no reason to prioritize. Literally, you do not want to be doing anything.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Like if you're if you're really good at one thing, if you have your specialty, obviously you would do that thing, but the r like there's so much that goes into biscuit business. When I became when I started doing photography, however many years ago, yeah, I was like, oh, I love taking pictures. I'm gonna be a photographer. Not realizing that taking photos is about this much of the company. It's like 10, 12, 20% tots of actual business. And I got really frustrated because I wasn't trying to get into business at the time, not realizing it, just thought it would be fun way to make money. I thought it'd be a fun way to make money, not realizing all the things that go into it, managing a website, managing clients, multiple clients at a time, um, deadlines, invoicing. There's so many things. Marketing is a job in it in and of itself.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Social media, like try not try to market on social media and not get trapped in social media for two hours accidentally.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Yeah, tell me about that. I think also hiring the right people is super important. Like, you don't just go hire anybody just because you can afford them. I think you can there's people in your affordability range, I guess you could say, that are good employees and you need to bet them very well because you can spend a lot of time training somebody on how to do something and then not work out, and that is really difficult. So I I think spending more time trying to find the right people is really important.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

The right people, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Sometimes they just stumble into your front door via babysitting. I don't know. That would be nice. I have one, her name's Scarla. All right, that's all I have for you today. Fun bun fun. I like her. She's very cool. I can't wait to look her up and get my tiny potty, tiny undies.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Yes, all of it. The course I'm probably gonna get the email to like uh Amy Warterfields for our work week. Oh, yes. We'll link everything in our blog. In the blog, we'll have links to all these things and in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

They'll be there for you. Okay. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Bye.