Hi! I'm Cat Lady, a 30 year old entrepreneur in the Pacific Northwest. In November 2016 (remember that election?), I left a career in non-profit and political fundraising to try to ramp up a speaking/teaching side hustle I'd had for a few years. I didn't just "leave" a career, I abandoned my job right before the election when I was in a Director-level position in the state political party. So I burned that down.
I have spent most of my career making very little money but building really amazing campaigns and projects in the non-profit sector. I was personally responsible for $1-3 million raised per year, and was great at fundraising. But my average income hovered around the city's poverty level. Commission/performance bonuses are considered unethical in the non-profit sector.
Because I can live on a slim budget and have no debt (I lived in a cardboard house I built myself for years, and in a tree at a hippie commune, etc...), when I was making $39K a year in politics, I was able to save ~50% of my income and still travel to 10+ countries most years. Previously, I'd been in the Mr Money Mustache accelerated Slowlane - work hard, save a lot, retire early on savings.
I've always been entrepreneurial because I work for small organizations where I'm Fundraiser/Event Planner/Database Manager/Grant Writer/Teacher to At-Risk Youth/HR/Bookkeeper/Bike Mechanic/Solar Phone Charging Trailer Builder - you name it, I did it. This ended up transferring well to starting my own business.
My biggest challenges in business are sales & marketing, and NOT GETTING distracted by volunteer obligations/side jobs. I'm incredibly lucky that my professional reputation in my city is good enough (outside of party politics, which I will never go back to) that I get offered a job seemingly every few weeks, and it's been hard to say no to focus. This has meant the 1.5 years I've been doing the business, I've always done a few other part-time jobs as well. For awhile I was CFO/COO of a friend's small tech startup 15 hours a week, which paid the bills while I created infoproducts. I still run payroll for them once a month as a business contractor, but have stepped back being an employee. I also did some freelance graphic design, database management, and even was an auction caller for a bit.
Business Progress/Process Thus Far
BIG PLAN FOR THE SUMMER OF HUSTLE
I am finally scaling back to the gym job just 1 day a week, I am leaving the non-profit board I am on and will take no other side gigs for 4-5 months. Instead I will focus on getting business revenue from $600 to $1800 per month average, which is enough for me to live and save on (eventually I would like to make more to compete with my market value as a W2 employee and beyond, but that is my goal for this year). I am joining a podcast network which will allow me to outsource sales & sponsorship for the podcast. My book agent is working the circuit to sell my book to major publishers.
I also focusing on leveraging my engaged listenership as a lead generation service for people that work in the industry. I get inbound requests constantly from listeners for referrals, but don't have enough professionals to refer them to. I now have signed MOUs from two professionals, so I need to build up the tech.
Last but not least, I'm branching out to video from my current world of radio-only.
As I need to redo my website (who doesn't?)
Why Fastlane?
I have no desire to make a ton of money for myself, but I know that when I'm not worried about money, I make better sh*t happen in the world. I also have been lucky to work with a few fabulous philanthropists (even a few billionaires) in my days as a fundraiser, and I want to be that person some day. But I personally am interested in continuing to be a frugalista because I love simple living, but more money = more to give back to the community in time and money.
The work my business does has always been focused on providing Value and we have a program where I teach low-income youth, but we're not a 501c3 because I don't want to give up ownership to a board of directors, I want to possibly sell the brand in the future, and I actually currently would pay more in taxes to be a c3 than I do now.
Life Stuff - Like my Fastlane Partner
I live with my SSO (statistically significant other) who retired a millionaire at 32 after a entirely self-employed career building a tech startup (with 2 failed startups in there) and selling it. He made a few hundred thousand from the sale, but he split that profit into commercial real estate investments (his dad's business), small tech angel investing, rental properties, and index fund investing. He also has a niche website that pulls in about $15,000- $65,000 annually through ad deals. He wrote a book on a niche technical topic last year with corporate company, made some money from that deal, but last month, after ~1.5 years of retirement, the company convinced him to come work for them. They are paying him absurd amounts of money to do what he loved to do (consulting on a niche technical topic) without what he hated (managing the consulting sales pipeline.) Since he already had enough passive income, he's saving 100% of his unreasonably high salary in order to cash flow a mother-in-law apartment onto his local rental property next year. Hopefully he likes this job enough to keep it, as an always self-employed person. (And yes, our finances are totally separate, though he pays slightly more rent than me because he has fancier housing preferences, despite being a millionaire though, he spends just a little more than me - about $25,000 per year).
His goal is that by May of 2019, he can break ground for a ~800sq ft apartment to be built on his current rental house, paid for entirely in cash, which we will live in once it is done (right now we live in a rental apartment). He is doing the permitting and plans now. In May, he'll move into the second unit on the property while construction happens, and I'll run off to travel for a few months. So the goal is by next May 2019, I have enough location-independent income coming in that it is easy to travel for a few months and still have cash coming in.
Anyway, that was long, but welcome to my process/progress thread! I'm excited to be here! I hope I can provide motivation and help to others, and glean business advice from this amazingly robust community.
I have spent most of my career making very little money but building really amazing campaigns and projects in the non-profit sector. I was personally responsible for $1-3 million raised per year, and was great at fundraising. But my average income hovered around the city's poverty level. Commission/performance bonuses are considered unethical in the non-profit sector.
Because I can live on a slim budget and have no debt (I lived in a cardboard house I built myself for years, and in a tree at a hippie commune, etc...), when I was making $39K a year in politics, I was able to save ~50% of my income and still travel to 10+ countries most years. Previously, I'd been in the Mr Money Mustache accelerated Slowlane - work hard, save a lot, retire early on savings.
I've always been entrepreneurial because I work for small organizations where I'm Fundraiser/Event Planner/Database Manager/Grant Writer/Teacher to At-Risk Youth/HR/Bookkeeper/Bike Mechanic/Solar Phone Charging Trailer Builder - you name it, I did it. This ended up transferring well to starting my own business.
My biggest challenges in business are sales & marketing, and NOT GETTING distracted by volunteer obligations/side jobs. I'm incredibly lucky that my professional reputation in my city is good enough (outside of party politics, which I will never go back to) that I get offered a job seemingly every few weeks, and it's been hard to say no to focus. This has meant the 1.5 years I've been doing the business, I've always done a few other part-time jobs as well. For awhile I was CFO/COO of a friend's small tech startup 15 hours a week, which paid the bills while I created infoproducts. I still run payroll for them once a month as a business contractor, but have stepped back being an employee. I also did some freelance graphic design, database management, and even was an auction caller for a bit.
Business Progress/Process Thus Far
- November 2016: Decided to start the business, acquired CFO/COO pay the bills job; did a big local talk to an audience of 1000 in order to kick off my local radio show & podcast
- January 2017 - March 2017: Built the radio show & podcast to deliver value, started calling up radio stations in other cities to send them my tape to consider for syndication. Built my email list to ~450 people through opt-ins. Got to syndication to 8 cities.
- March 2017: Created my first paid product - an online course that I filmed at the local public access TV station (professional cameras and lighting and studio for free!); also did local speaking gigs.
- April 2017: Sold the course, my first paid product, to my email list, made $3,000 profit.
- June 2017 - August 2017: Decided local speaking gigs were not financially profitable (but were good marketing); instead focused on building a new info product - a book. Got the podcast to 8K downloads per show. Gave 2 international speaking gigs at conferences.
- August 2017: Left my part-time CFO/COO job.
- August 2017 - September 2017: Traveled from Dublin, Ireland to Shanghai, China (13 countries) by train, bus, and ferry (including the trans-siberian railway) and sent over 200 postcards along the way to my list to build excitement for the book kickstarter which launched in..
- October 2017: Launched a kickstarter for the book which solved a Need in a niche market. Goal was $7,500. I gave 5 talks at different conferences across the US & Canada (my feet touched down in my town for only a few days in 5 weeks). Most of those I cash flowed as marketing expenses, none were paid beyond a small honorarium. It paid off, the kickstarter raised $15,000, and I had enough to pay myself and cover expenses for the book. Bundled the online course with some of the high-tier kickstarter rewards. Email list was now 1,000.
- November 2017: Signed a deal with a book agent to try to sell the book to a mainstream publisher after the print run of 1000 for kickstarter backers is sold out.
Also took a part-time minimum wage job at a high-end boutique gym because 1) I am interested in owning a fitness boutique studio as a "retirement" business in the future and 2) I am able to work on my business on the clock and 3) I like their classes but would never pay that much per month - November 2017 - March 2018: Pretty much head-down working on the book, which I released in weekly chapters starting in February to backers to get feedback. Made another $3,000 in pre-orders. Started reaching out to niche stores (the book is a niche book) to see if they would carry it. Retail price is $19.99, and I make a 62% profit margin when I sell direct to consumer, and a 31% profit margin on wholesale.
- April 2018: Discovered the fastlane forum. As someone who doesn't like cars and lives really frugally, was initially put off, but read the book and realized it was a lot of business principles I needed to learn. I am also finishing out a side contract at a global corporation doing database management, and now am down to 1 day a week at the gym job.
BIG PLAN FOR THE SUMMER OF HUSTLE
I am finally scaling back to the gym job just 1 day a week, I am leaving the non-profit board I am on and will take no other side gigs for 4-5 months. Instead I will focus on getting business revenue from $600 to $1800 per month average, which is enough for me to live and save on (eventually I would like to make more to compete with my market value as a W2 employee and beyond, but that is my goal for this year). I am joining a podcast network which will allow me to outsource sales & sponsorship for the podcast. My book agent is working the circuit to sell my book to major publishers.
I also focusing on leveraging my engaged listenership as a lead generation service for people that work in the industry. I get inbound requests constantly from listeners for referrals, but don't have enough professionals to refer them to. I now have signed MOUs from two professionals, so I need to build up the tech.
Last but not least, I'm branching out to video from my current world of radio-only.
As I need to redo my website (who doesn't?)
Why Fastlane?
I have no desire to make a ton of money for myself, but I know that when I'm not worried about money, I make better sh*t happen in the world. I also have been lucky to work with a few fabulous philanthropists (even a few billionaires) in my days as a fundraiser, and I want to be that person some day. But I personally am interested in continuing to be a frugalista because I love simple living, but more money = more to give back to the community in time and money.
The work my business does has always been focused on providing Value and we have a program where I teach low-income youth, but we're not a 501c3 because I don't want to give up ownership to a board of directors, I want to possibly sell the brand in the future, and I actually currently would pay more in taxes to be a c3 than I do now.
Life Stuff - Like my Fastlane Partner
I live with my SSO (statistically significant other) who retired a millionaire at 32 after a entirely self-employed career building a tech startup (with 2 failed startups in there) and selling it. He made a few hundred thousand from the sale, but he split that profit into commercial real estate investments (his dad's business), small tech angel investing, rental properties, and index fund investing. He also has a niche website that pulls in about $15,000- $65,000 annually through ad deals. He wrote a book on a niche technical topic last year with corporate company, made some money from that deal, but last month, after ~1.5 years of retirement, the company convinced him to come work for them. They are paying him absurd amounts of money to do what he loved to do (consulting on a niche technical topic) without what he hated (managing the consulting sales pipeline.) Since he already had enough passive income, he's saving 100% of his unreasonably high salary in order to cash flow a mother-in-law apartment onto his local rental property next year. Hopefully he likes this job enough to keep it, as an always self-employed person. (And yes, our finances are totally separate, though he pays slightly more rent than me because he has fancier housing preferences, despite being a millionaire though, he spends just a little more than me - about $25,000 per year).
His goal is that by May of 2019, he can break ground for a ~800sq ft apartment to be built on his current rental house, paid for entirely in cash, which we will live in once it is done (right now we live in a rental apartment). He is doing the permitting and plans now. In May, he'll move into the second unit on the property while construction happens, and I'll run off to travel for a few months. So the goal is by next May 2019, I have enough location-independent income coming in that it is easy to travel for a few months and still have cash coming in.
Anyway, that was long, but welcome to my process/progress thread! I'm excited to be here! I hope I can provide motivation and help to others, and glean business advice from this amazingly robust community.
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