May 29, 2024 • 48 mins
Discover the inspiring journey of Laura Roeder, who navigated the challenges of building and selling businesses, all while making time for family and adventure. Her determination, creativity, and ingenuity are key to her success as an entrepreneur. In this episode, you’ll learn how she built businesses designed to grow without constant involvement from the founder, as well as finding what comes naturally and delegating tasks. Listen to her story and choose which action serves you best today.
Action Principles
Pick one to do this week:
- Network with purpose. Network successfully by building relationships with people you naturally connect with rather than forcing one. ACTION: Go to an upcoming networking event and find someone you genuinely connect with to grow a natural connection.
- Identify your natural gifts. Figure out what comes naturally to you. You should highlight your strengths rather than dismissing them. ACTION: Take Discovering Your Strengths on LinkedIn Learning.
- Focus on your MVAs. For optimal productivity, spend the majority of your working hours on your most valuable activities. ACTION: Reserve larger blocks of time in your calendar to focus on your MVAs.
- Make work enjoyable. Look for small ways to make your work easier and more enjoyable. You’ll find yourself more focused and productive! ACTION: Think of something you can either delegate or change and ask to speak with your manager to discuss options.
Guest Resources
Learn more about Laura Roeder at LauraRoeder.com. You can sign up for her newsletter to stay updated on all her courses and events, or you can follow her on social media.
Suggested LinkedIn Learning Courses
Discovering Your Strengths
Prioritizing Your Tasks
Time Management Fundamentals
Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura Roeder (00:00):
So if you're not sure how to start a software
business, you should marry asoftware developer. That's what
I did. Get advice for theaudience.
Dave Crenshaw (00:11):
In this episode, you'll get to know Laura Roeder,
the anti hustle founder. Andyou'll hear the story of how she
builds and sells businesses,while still leaving time to have
fun, and travel the world withher family. I'm Dave Crenshaw,
and this is my success Show.
Welcome back friends to the DaveCrenshaw Success Show. This is
(00:32):
where I speak to some of themost successful people I've met
and my life's journey, and I'mon the hunt for universal
principles to help both you andmy family succeed. In case it's
your first time here and you'renot familiar with me, I'm a best
selling author. I speak aroundthe world to Fortune 500
companies. And I've taughtmillions of people how to be
successful through my onlinecourses, especially on LinkedIn
(00:54):
learning. With this show, Iwanted to create something
lasting to help my familysucceed, and I thought you'd
enjoy learning along with them.
I'm looking for people liketoday's guest, who is an amazing
example of having multi facetedsuccess. That means success in
many areas of their life, notjust with money or with their
(01:17):
career. And as I talked to them,I'm looking for actions that you
can use right now to besuccessful. So as you listen to
today's episode, I want you tolook for something you can do.
Look for one action you can taketoday or this week to make my
guest success story, a part ofyour success story. Laura Roeder
(01:39):
is a lifelong entrepreneur andfounder of several multimillion
dollar bootstrapped companies.
She's the founder of paper bill,coach, compare, Meet Edgar Marie
Forleo is B School and LKRsocial media, Laura was named
one of the top entrepreneursunder 30, and has spoken about
entrepreneurship at the WhiteHouse in the United States. Her
(02:03):
favorite way to have fun istraveling around the globe with
her family. And Laura, thank youfor taking a little time from
all of those things to be hereon the show today.
Unknown (02:16):
Thank you, Dave, I'm excited to talk to you today. As
I was doing research
Dave Crenshaw (02:20):
and looking into what you've accomplished, I'm
just so impressed by the numberof businesses that you've
started, how you've successfullybuilt them and exited them. That
is not easy to do. And the factthat you've done it many times
is truly remarkable. Thank
Unknown (02:36):
you definitely had a few failures along the way, as
well, all part of the journey.
But yeah, I think yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (02:42):
well, and as we go through this journey, I would
like you to talk about thosebecause as you know, learning
from failures is sometimes moreinstructional than, than just
all of the success, right?
Unknown (02:52):
Yeah, definitely.
Dave Crenshaw (02:54):
So where are you located right now?
Unknown (02:56):
I'm in Brighton UK, which is just south of London.
And
Dave Crenshaw (03:01):
you're married?
You have children? Yep. I
Unknown (03:03):
have two kids in elementary school.
Dave Crenshaw (03:06):
Oh, that's great.
So all right. Let's talk aboutwhere you started. Every guest I
asked the same question. Andit's a question that we were
asked many times when we weregrowing up, which is what did
you want to be when you grew up?
Unknown (03:20):
One thing that I was focused on for a long time was
actually being a speech writer.
I don't know why I wanted tojust write the speeches. But I
thought that would be a cool jobto be a speech writer. I didn't
end up doing anything like that.
But I was I had that idea for awhile. You
Dave Crenshaw (03:35):
didn't want to get up in front of people. You
just wanted to write the speech.
Yeah.
Unknown (03:40):
Which now I really like doing. So I'm not sure. Maybe I
was like, but what but I talkedabout it, but I got off in front
of people. So yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (03:47):
well, I saw that I was I was watching some of the
places where he had spoken infront of an audience. And I was
like, Oh, she does a great jobwith this. I'm assuming you do
that, as well, as part of yourcareer. You accept invitations
to go speak at events.
Unknown (04:01):
Yeah, it's something honestly, you know, for a lot of
speakers, they're gettingcustomers from the events. For
me, I just kind of love businessand entrepreneurship. Like I've
spoken at a conference calledmicro comm for software
businesses. You know, mybusiness targets life coaches,
they're not at softwareconferences, but I just love
learning from others there andlove talking about it.
Dave Crenshaw (04:23):
Okay, so you wanted to be a speech writer.
But when you started to formconcepts about what your your
real career was going to be, didthat happen in high school to
that happened in college? Wheredid that idea start to come
from? Especially that you wouldbe an entrepreneur? Well,
Unknown (04:38):
before I was an entrepreneur, my first career
was a designer, graphic designerand web designer, and that's
something that I started to getinterested in, in high school.
I'm kind of that first internetage. So I had AOL when I was in
middle school in high school andI was I learned how to code
websites and create websites anddo A basic graphic design then.
(05:02):
So I got interested in graphicdesign. And when I went to
college, that's what I plan todo as my career. And that's what
I did do for my first job. Okay,where did you go to school?
University of Texas at Austin,which is well, so where I'm from
I grew up in Austin,
Dave Crenshaw (05:18):
were there things that you studied or learned in
college that were helpful foryou later on, or that are still
helpful for you today? No.
Unknown (05:32):
I had fun in college, and I made some some really
great friends. But you know, Iwent to University of Texas is
one of the largest universitiesin America. My classes had
hundreds of people. And it was alot of like, multiple choice
test. There was almost nothingthat I learned at college that I
(05:53):
ended up using later. That's
Dave Crenshaw (05:55):
an interesting experience, though. So clearly,
you're highly educated, clearly,you're have a lot of expertise
in what it is that you do. Wherewere you getting the knowledge
that you use? Now? Were you juststudying a lot on your own?
Where has that knowledge comefrom? If it wasn't from your
university experience? The
Unknown (06:16):
internet? I would say largely, so yeah, I mean, the
internet and just figuring itout as as I went, I mean, also
back then, you know, now you canstudy entrepreneurship, and
university, which I think isreally interesting. I don't
think that was a thing backthen. Or if it was, you know, I
had never heard of it. But whenI was in college, I definitely
(06:37):
wasn't thinking, Oh, I'd like tobe an entrepreneur, I just
thought I'd like to be adesigner. I actually wanted to
be a magazine designer. But Idid end up getting a job as a
designer at an ad agency after Igraduated. And
Dave Crenshaw (06:51):
how did you get that job? It tooks
Unknown (06:53):
it was really hard. It took such a long time, I always
have so much sympathy for peoplewho are looking for a job
because I think that's just oneof the toughest things in life
to be applying and gettingrejected over and over and over
again. So I was in a new city, Iwas in Chicago. And I didn't
know anyone, I didn't have anyconnections. So it was just
applying cold to job after jobafter job. And finally, I got
(07:17):
one. That
Dave Crenshaw (07:18):
brings up an interesting concept, though,
which is, I think sometimespeople look at being a business
owner, being an entrepreneur,and they see a whole lot of
risk. And there is risk. I'm,I'm not going to sugarcoat that.
But what they don't realize andyou're bringing up here is that
to work for someone else is alsorisky. Oh, yeah. When you create
(07:40):
your own workplace, when youcreate your own job, it's all on
you. There's no one to blame,but you but when you're applying
for a job, right, you got to gothrough all of those hoops. And
all of that was going throughthat experience did that form
part of the way that you werethinking about what you wanted
to do in the future, running abusiness rather than trying to
(08:01):
apply for a job.
Unknown (08:03):
It didn't occur to me at first to run a business, the
way I got interested in runninga business was so I was a
designer at an ad agency. And Iwas interested in the
advertising strategy, marketingstrategy client work, you know,
I didn't want to just design Ifound that a bit boring. But in
the agency world, to be involvedwith the strategic side, you
(08:27):
have to be at the top of thepile. So you have to be like
what's you know, often called acreative director title. And I
kind of thought, Okay, I don'twant to switch over, I thought
maybe I should switch careersand be an account executive and
be on the strategic side, Idon't really like that either.
And I'm like, okay, being acreative director sounds good.
But I'm 20 years old, it's goingto be another 10 years before I
(08:50):
can climb up this ladder and bea creative director. Or if I
started freelancing, I couldkind of do whatever I wanted.
And I could kind of do it all,you know, when you're
freelancing you're obviouslyinvolved in and getting the
clients and the strategicdirection of the work that
you're doing that whole clientrelationship. I think, actually
a lot of the things that a lotof designers Hey, I was really
(09:12):
excited about, like I wasinterested in how the business
worked and getting the clientsand stuff. So that's where I had
the idea to start working formyself. I'm like, I don't want
to wait 10 years to do the workthat I want to do. If I started
working for myself. That's justsounded like a much more
interesting workday to me.
Dave Crenshaw (09:29):
Did you start to create that business while you
were still working as a designerwithin a company? What was that
balance? Or what did thattransition from working from
someone to owning a businesslook like for you? For
Unknown (09:43):
me, it was a jumping off a cliff, which I would not
necessarily recommend. So I hadthis idea, okay, I could go part
time and that could be best ofboth worlds and I was really
underutilized on my job. I spenta lot of time and nothing to do
so. I thought, oh, okay, this isgonna be great for my employer,
they'll only have to pay me halfthe amount. And then I can, you
(10:06):
know, still have that steadypaycheck while I'm finding my
first clients. So I talked tothe business owner about it. She
said, No, you can't go parttime. But at that point, I had
gotten so excited about myfreelance business, I said, if I
can't go part time, I'm justgonna have to quit entirely. And
so that's what I did. So Ididn't do. Again, not not saying
(10:30):
this is advice, but I didn'thave any clients, I didn't have
any work lined up, I was justlike, into my job, start my new
life as a freelancer and I had alittle money saved up. But I,
you know, it was my first entrylevel job out of college, I
wasn't making much money, andbut my expenses were also really
low at the same time. You know,
Dave Crenshaw (10:48):
it's interesting, Laura, that you brought up, you
jumped off a cliff, I justinterviewed another entrepreneur
who talked about how she hadanother job that was going on,
and how that worked out for herto do both at the same time. But
I've seen the either pathway canbe successful. I mean, at least
you're more focused, right?
Because you don't have anythingelse. And sometimes that
pressure creates urgency that'snecessary to get the business
(11:11):
off the ground. Was that thecase for you?
Unknown (11:16):
Yes. I mean, I totally agree with you that there's no
one right way to do it. But forme, it was like, Well, I better
find a client or I won't haveany money, I didn't have any
other source of income, oranyone paying for anything. But
you know, that's what I willsay, as advice is when people
are interested in starting abusiness. I'm such a huge fan of
(11:37):
any kind of freelance servicecoaching, consulting, because
all you need is one client andyou get paid right away, right?
It's not like you're starting arestaurant or a shop where you
have all these startup costs,and you need all this money,
like to be hired for anyservice. If I give you an hour
of my time, and you pay me forthat hour, I just need one
client and you get paid rightaway. So I think that's a great
(11:59):
way to start out in business,especially if you've never run
any kind of business beforebecause you just learn all the
basics, the ins and outs. Imean, I was new to Chicago, I
knew that I would need abusiness owners, but I didn't
know any business owners. So Istarted going to all the Chamber
of Commerce events. And that'show I found my clients.
Dave Crenshaw (12:20):
That is such an important point is when you are
trying to grow a business andget clients and I think this
applies to someone who maybeisn't even an entrepreneur or
someone who's in sales, you needto go where your customer is you
go where your customer gathers,it's such a basic thing. And
yet, I've seen a lot ofentrepreneurs miss that step,
they start advertising, theystart buying space, they go out
(12:44):
knock doors, whatever heck itis. And that's not the way to do
it. That's the less efficientand effective way to do it.
Yeah,
Unknown (12:52):
I just showed up at at the time, Chicago had different
chambers of commerce for all thedifferent neighborhoods, because
it's a big city. And I actuallyfound that they all want to do
to join, but actually, theywould let you pay like $5. And
you know, because they neededpeople at the events. So I was
like, Oh, I don't really haveit, you know, $200 to join, but
I'll just pay the $5 to show upto the one event. And it was
(13:14):
great. And I met so many people,that helps me along my journey.
So it's like I met people thatbecame clients. But I also just
met experienced business ownersthat were so helpful, and it
just taught me so much. Let's
Dave Crenshaw (13:27):
pause on that for a second. Because I think
networking, which is what youwere doing, and those who are
not familiar, sometimes we havesome some novices here.
Networking is buildingrelationships with other people,
professional typically. Andthere's a right way to go about
networking. And there's a wrongway to go about networking.
Clearly you were successful withit. So can you talk about just a
(13:50):
couple of things that you did,or you saw others do in those
situations that made themsuccessful with networking.
Unknown (13:58):
A big lesson that I've learned about networking, is
there some people you hit it offwith and some people you don't,
and just focus on those naturalrelationships that you hit it
off with, because I've been insituations where there's someone
who I quote, unquote, shouldmeet, you know, they would be a
good connection for me, or theymight know people that would
know clients for me, but we justdidn't connect. And I always
(14:22):
found that it was always muchmore valuable, even if someone
didn't seem like a strategicconnection, right? If I couldn't
see how they were gonna get mebusiness. If we just liked each
other, and we just likedchatting, that was always always
always more valuable thansomeone who kind of made sense
(14:42):
on paper, but just we didn't endup becoming friends. So that's
just always been my strategy isjust like, which is great,
right? It makes it really easyand fun to talk to who you
actually want to talk to keep upwith who you're actually
interested in keeping up withthey like you too. They remember
you because If someone doesn'tlike you, they're not going to
(15:02):
refer you is just the truth.
Dave Crenshaw (15:05):
Well, and you're just gonna waste so much time
and energy trying to makeeveryone like you that that is
such a true thing. And it tookme a while to learn that, that
principle. So this firstbusiness, what was that that you
were building?
Unknown (15:17):
So that was just freelance design. So I would
mostly make websites for localbusinesses.
Dave Crenshaw (15:23):
And how did that go? As a business? Was that
pretty successful that it workedfor a while and then not?
Unknown (15:30):
It was very successful for me. So I was making about
$30,000 a year at my job. Sothat was kind of my big goal,
you know, to make $30,000 a yearin my own business,
Dave Crenshaw (15:41):
what year are we talking about with that?
Unknown (15:43):
That would be about 2006, something like that. Okay,
Dave Crenshaw (15:47):
that just gives us an idea of how much 30,000
was worth.
Unknown (15:50):
Yeah, so I hit that number in my first year, which I
was, you know, very proud ofgoing from zero to like,
replacing my my full timeincome. And then I was like,
Okay, I want to double it. Andthen in my second year, I made
about 60,000, I hit that goal.
So after that, I'm like, Okay, Iwant to make six figures, right,
really common goal, I want tomake 100,000 a year. And that's
when I kind of hit a wall. And Irealized, with my current
(16:14):
business model, I'm like, Okay,I can't really, you know, work
double the hours, I'm alreadyworking full time. I don't
really feel like I can double myprices, because I'm brand new.
I'm like, Okay, well, I guess,you know, in order to grow the
business, I would have to kindof create an agency and have
people under me, and I had just,I had seen all the things I
(16:37):
didn't like about the agencybusiness working at the ad
agency that I had been atbefore. I'm like, I really don't
want to have an agency business.
And that is what guided me to mynext business model, which ended
up being online courses, whichis a much more scalable business
model. What
Dave Crenshaw (16:58):
led to your interest in that? Like, why did
you feel like that was the rightbusiness for you?
Unknown (17:04):
Because I'd been making websites for local businesses.
And like I said, this was aroundlike, you know, 2006 2007, this
is when social media startedbecoming a thing like Twitter
was released, you know, you canmake a Facebook, I think it was
called a community page, thenfor your business. So my
customers would ask me, Should Ibe on social media? You know,
(17:25):
what do I do? How do I link iton my website? How does it work?
And I would just tell them aboutit. And one of them said to me,
you know, you could get paidjust for this part. So I'm like,
Oh, this sounds a lot easierthan like making a whole
website, I can just talk aboutsocial media. And I started down
(17:45):
the road of doing social mediaconsulting. But you know, I was
in the online world, I knew thatonline, they weren't called
online courses, then they werecalled info products, then I
knew that info products were athing. And I'm like, okay, I can
make an info product. My firstone was about how to use
Twitter, for marketing. Andlike, I could make an info
product about how to useTwitter. And I think it's so
(18:06):
important to find what's anatural fit for you. Like we
were talking about thenetworking, some people are a
fit for you. Some people arenot. The first time I did an
online class, I found it so mucheasier to sell than consulting.
I think I made like $3,000, thefirst class that I sold, and I
was like, Oh, this, you know,this was great. I felt like it
(18:26):
was so much easier than tryingto sell a contract for $3,000.
So that's how I kind of stumbledinto it.
Dave Crenshaw (18:32):
There really was a time period wasn't there where
that sort of product was easierto sell, and commanded a much
higher ticket. Price.
Unknown (18:43):
Yes. I think it was a few $100 that I sold it for was
Dave Crenshaw (18:47):
Meet Edgar, what you did next after that? Yes.
Unknown (18:51):
So Meet Edgar is social media scheduling software. So
you know, I brought up socialmedia, I continued to do classes
about online marketing, andsocial media marketing. And I
was teaching a class about howto create a collection of all
your social media updates, andnot just post them once or
(19:11):
repurpose them and have them indifferent categories and all
this stuff. And Meet Edgar wasand it is software that did for
you automatically what I wasteaching people to do manually
in the class. See that? I
Dave Crenshaw (19:24):
think is a totally different ballgame,
right? Because it's one thing toteach people. This is what you
do on social media. This is howyou bring in customers. That's
all educational. Now you'reproviding a software service.
And I know that for those whoare not familiar, if you haven't
heard of SaaS, Software as aService, that's a particular
type of business. So to me thatfeels like a very, very
(19:47):
different discipline requires alot different skill set to
create that. So what was thatlike for you making that
transition? Was that easy? Wasthat hard? Where'd you get the
knowledge to do that?
Unknown (20:00):
So if you're not sure how to start a software
business, you should marry asoftware developer. That's what
I did. That's my advice. Soyeah, so that's how it came
about. I was doing the socialmedia class. And then I met my
husband, Chris. And he helped mefigure out that what I was
teaching in the class, you couldmake an A software. So for me, I
(20:24):
don't know how to code. I don'tknow how to make the software.
But what I did, and what I stilldo is focus on the marketing
side. So I actually was usingthe same skill set that I'd used
for my online courses, justapplying them to a different
kind of business model. If
Dave Crenshaw (20:39):
you hadn't met your husband, do you think that
that's something that would havebeen on your radar? Or would you
have gone down a different path?
Yeah,
Unknown (20:49):
I mean, it was definitely something that was
already on my radar. Because atthat time, I didn't have kids
yet. But I knew that I wanted tohave kids. And I knew that I
wanted a business that couldreally thrive without me once I
had kids. And once I wanted tospend more time with my family.
So I was interested in differentbusiness models where that can
(21:13):
happen. And software was one ofthem. So it's one of those
alternate reality, you know, Idon't know if I had met him if I
would have still gone intosoftware and found a different
co founder or something likethat. But he definitely shorten
the path. And yeah, we startedthat company together.
Dave Crenshaw (21:31):
Yeah. And you knew that you, you needed to
change away from that. Just aside note, the word launch is
triggering to me, because ofwhat that's like in those info
marketing things, right, becauseeverything's about the launch.
And you got Yeah, it's very timeconsuming to prep for those
launches over and over on aconsistent schedule.
Unknown (21:52):
It's a very different type of, especially marketing
schedule, actually, it'ssomething that confused me a
little bit when I started intosoftware, because I was used to,
I love doing the big when you dolaunches, you do the big yearly
calendar, right? You have yourcalendar for the year, and
you're like, we're gonna dolaunches in February and
September, and then we're gonnalaunch this other program in
July, and then we're gonna runthe promo on Black Friday. And
(22:15):
you you have your marketingmapped out that way. Now in
software, I don't do any ofthat. There's no event based
marketing, there's no livemarketing, it's all kind of
improving systems to bringpeople in. So launch also is a
triggering word for me. But I domiss the big wall calendar. That
was that was kind of fun.
Dave Crenshaw (22:36):
So I want to pause for a second before we go
deeper into Meet Edgar, which isa huge part of your story. And
just highlight something thatI'm noticing, and the words come
out from you as easier andnatural fit. And that's too
hard. It's too much work. And Ithink that's, that's great. I
love that. Where does thatphilosophy come from of wanting
(23:00):
to make life easier foryourself? Can you just sort of
expand a little bit on on whythat's a big deal to you?
Unknown (23:09):
Yeah, I mean, I definitely started my business
for freedom, which I think a lotof entrepreneurs do, I think a
lot of us start working forourselves, because we want more
freedom in our lives. And Ireally wanted to enjoy what I
was doing. And there's so manypeople that are running
businesses that they don'tenjoy. They don't like the
business, they don't like theclients, they find it very
(23:31):
stressful. And I'm just kind oflike, what's the point of
working for yourself, if I'mgonna have this much stress, I'd
at least rather have a job andnot be responsible for the whole
thing. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think sometimes we canforget how much optionality we
have. We all it's just humannature, right? We get used to
one thing, we get used to doingthings a certain way, change is
(23:52):
scary. And I've just alwaystried to be really open minded.
And remember that I can changeanything, if I'm not enjoying
the customer base. If I'm notenjoying the business model, if
I'm not enjoying the way, I'mrunning the team, try something
else. And that's what I do.
Dave Crenshaw (24:09):
Let's go into that Meet Edgar story. Talk to
me about the ramp up the firstyear or so.
Unknown (24:15):
So me and Edgar was a huge success right away. And I
will say I've since exited thecompany, which is why I often
talk about it in past tense, butit does still exist. And so we
when we launched mean, Edgar, itwas an existing category. There
were already really big playersin the market, but we had kind
of a new spin on it, this ideaof loading up your content and
(24:39):
letting the tool keep sending itout for you. And in retrospect,
it was very much Right PlaceRight Time. I already had the
audience built up because I wasalready doing social media
classes. So I wasn't, you know,launching it totally cold. I had
an existing business that Icould launch it to. So we were a
bootstrap business, you know,meaning we didn't raise any
(24:59):
money. If, and we hit a milliondollars a year in reoccurring
revenue, I think 11 months afterlaunch, which is huge for a
bootstrap business, veryunusual. And I went on maternity
leave, three months afterlaunching the business. And when
I worked part time ever since.
So I was pregnant, when Ilaunched this business, I knew I
(25:20):
was going on leave. So I'm like,I'm not going to launch a
business that's going to fail.
As soon as I go on maternityleave, that doesn't make any
sense. So I really designed itfrom the beginning to be able to
grow and thrive without just mepushing everything forwards.
Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (25:36):
that's so important. And I think that
definitely contributed to thesuccess. So many entrepreneurs
create their business, and theybuild it dependent upon them.
And often without realizing,right, their intent is just to
grow the business. But what theydon't realize if the business
growth is always dependent onthem being there, like you said,
they're just creating a job,they haven't created something
(25:56):
lasting. So I like the fact thatthe difficulty that having to go
on maternity leave presentedactually contributed to the
success of MeetEdgar. Yeah, I
Unknown (26:07):
always joke that everyone should be pregnant when
they launch a business, I guessit was, it was a great forcing
function, you know, because thisis hard for so many
entrepreneurs to take themselvesout to let other people do
things. And I, I just kind ofhad to from the beginning. So
Dave Crenshaw (26:25):
you built the business so that it wasn't
dependent on you? How long didyou run it with a lot of
employees? When did you make thetransition in that business
model.
Unknown (26:36):
So something really unique about a software business
is the actual value delivery,the core value is in the
software, what people are payingfor is the actual software. And
the software is not provided bya human, right, it needs humans
to like fix its bugs, it might,you know, go down or threaten to
(26:56):
go down every so often andsomeone has to pick it back up.
But software businesses are avery, can be a very low human
business. And after the businesshad plateaued for a while and
still wasn't growing, I'm like,I think this business could run
with kind of a skeleton team andgo into a kind of maintenance
(27:16):
mode, and it wouldn't actuallychange the revenue of the
business. So about seven yearsafter starting it, that's
exactly what we did. We wentfrom having a team of you know,
w two full time employees tocutting it down to just like one
part time freelance developer,like we had two part time
(27:39):
freelance customer servicepeople, and just kind of put the
business and maintenance mode.
And we're able to do thatbecause we had built up the
revenue. And the beauty of SaaSsoftware as a service, as you
said earlier, is the reoccurringrevenue, people pay for a
subscription. And if they'restill using the software,
they're gonna keep paying for asubscription. And that I mean,
(28:00):
there were so many lessons andthat but I think one of the core
ones for me, it was like reallygetting clear on what that what
that value mechanism is in yourbusiness.
Dave Crenshaw (28:13):
One of the hardest things for entrepreneurs
to do, in my experience coachingthem is, let people go. And I'm
sure that you experienced that.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow that felt to do that, and
how you move past it in aproductive way that was still
compassionate. So
Unknown (28:36):
it took me definitely a long time to come to this
decision to run it andmaintenance mode and let the
team go. And you know, becausethe business it had stopped
growing, but it wasn't failing.
So we were able to give people agenerous severance, we were able
to give people you know, plentyof time to find your new
position and help finding yournew position. So all of that
(28:56):
certainly helped. But it was Imean, you just getting fired is
horrible. And there's there's notwo ways around that. And that's
kind of, I think the mistake alot of entrepreneurs make is
focusing on how hard it is forthe business owner, it is
horribly hard for the businessowner. You do not need to talk
(29:18):
about that with the employee,they do not care. Oh, it's
Dave Crenshaw (29:24):
really hard for me to fire you. Right. I want
you to understand how hard thisis for me. Yeah, that's a good
approach.
Unknown (29:32):
That is your problem.
That is that is not theirproblem. So it was a really
difficult thing to do. Althoughit's been, you know, I was able
to leave it on good terms andpeople went on to have like
amazing careers at some reallycool companies. And that's kind
of how I framed it at the end ofthe day was like, this company
isn't really going anywhere likethis company has gone flat.
(29:52):
There's not growth opportunitiesfor you and your career at this
company and you deserve to goOh, somewhere where, where you
have those growth opportunities?
Dave Crenshaw (30:04):
So you achieved the dream of being an
entrepreneur, which is asuccessful exit? How did you
make that happen? So
Unknown (30:12):
I let the team go, I put the business in maintenance
mode, I actually thought thatwould, I would just keep running
it like that, I was like, Okay,it's gonna be kind of, I'll just
collect the money from thebusiness, and I won't have to
mess with it too much. And we'llbe in maintenance mode. And that
was my plan. And then afterdoing it for like, not very
long, like three to six months,I was like, This doesn't feel
(30:34):
good. And I think it was becauseas an entrepreneur, it's about
growth, it's about thatexcitement and running a
business that I had justaccepted was going to be flat,
you know, was going to declinewas not going to grow. I'm like,
this isn't really how I want tospend my time, even though I
wasn't spending my time day today, just mentally, it felt like
(30:55):
a drag. And that's when Idecided, I think I don't think
holding on to it is the rightmove, I think it's time to sell
it. And even though the businesswasn't growing anymore, it was
still a great asset for someoneelse to acquire, so that they
could do some differentstrategies on it, you know,
maybe that we hadn't done andget it to grow again. So, which
(31:17):
I think is another big lesson.
Like, I see a lot of people whodon't try to sell their
business, it doesn't occur tothem that they can, a lot of
businesses get just shut down orleft or the business owner gets
so burned out that they can'teven deal with the idea of
selling it because it is a bigprocess to sell it. And there's
often valuable assets, like evenif the business itself maybe
(31:39):
isn't profitable, maybe you'vebuilt up a website with a lot of
SEO value. Or maybe you've builtup a great email list or
something like that, there'soften assets that you could sell
it a business that just get kindof left behind.
Dave Crenshaw (31:51):
Well, and another thing that I see keep people
from selling it is it's theirbaby. They don't like the idea
of someone else taking it over.
And so they cling to it, becausethey're afraid of someone else
ruining the thing that theycreated. I'm not getting that
impression from you. Sounds likeyou were much more pragmatic
about the sale.
Unknown (32:12):
Yeah, I'm like, my babies are my babies. My
business is my business.
Dave Crenshaw (32:17):
That's healthy, though, I think that's really
healthy to separate yourselffrom it like that. Okay, you
mentioned your babies, yourbaby. So let's pause and talk
about that for a second. How doyou structure yourself and your
week to give time to them, I cantell that being a mom is very
important to you. That's a verydifficult juggling act to be an
(32:40):
entrepreneur and to be a mom. Sowhat are some tips? What are
some things that you do to makethat work? Yeah,
Unknown (32:46):
so um, you know, my husband and I worked together.
So now we're doing anothersoftware startup that we also
work together on. And so we bothhave worked part time since we
had kids on our oldest is ninenow. So that was nine years ago,
at our current company, actuallyeverybody works part time. And I
have a few theories about thisone, I think people have about
(33:10):
like three or four hours a dayin them have really focused,
deep work, I think most of ushave a kind of half day of like
really good work. And then weoften have another half day of
like meetings that we may or maynot need to be in email, a lot
of busy work. So that's part ofit is just cutting down your
(33:31):
hours to only the essentialhours where you're actually
getting productive work done.
And the other big thing aboutbalance for me is, it all needs
to get done. But it does not allneed to get done by me. So
especially some of the more liketime consuming parts of the
business, like customer serviceis just something that it's not
something we're trying tooptimize, right, we're trying to
(33:51):
answer every email like verywell very thoroughly give people
a great experience. It justtakes as much time as it takes,
and we have 1000s of customers.
So it takes a good amount oftime. So if I did my own
customer service, I wouldn't beable to do anything else. We
only need two part time peopleis what we have at paper ball.
(34:11):
Now they focus all of their timejust on doing that. We don't
have any meetings, we don't haveany other busy work for them.
All they do is the customerservice. But this collection of
people all doing their thingthat they're great at and they
love doing focused work. We canget all the things done for the
business with the founders ofthe business, only needing to
(34:33):
work limited hours on the mostimportant things. Does
Dave Crenshaw (34:36):
that make growth difficult to not have someone
that is doing something otherthan maintaining or is that part
of your three to four hours ofdeep focused work?
Unknown (34:46):
Right, my focus work is on the growth. So yeah, so paper
well actually has had a Yeah,excellent year over year growth,
right. We've doubled every year.
So all of our growth strategiesare scalable. As we grow,
largely by SEO, we also do paidads. So
Dave Crenshaw (35:05):
this is a great example. You're saying you're
doing part time hours as focusedas possible, you're speaking my
language, I use a fairly similarstructure with my day. What are
you doing with the other hours?
How are you spending those,
Unknown (35:20):
I kind of more or less work kind of school hours, which
is like nine to three. I alsodon't work on Fridays, but then
also nine to three is my time toexercise to see my friends. So I
usually don't start work until10. Because it's kind of like
Kid time, drop them off aboutnine and then I have that hour
to do exercise or meditation orwhatever. And then yeah, my
(35:41):
husband and I trade offsometime. And it's like, we're
also very, very flexible withour schedules. Like, right now
it's 5 (35:47):
30pm My time, because I do podcast recording with people
in the US. And it's too early todo them in the morning, the UK.
So it's like, I have flexibilitywhere I need to, today, I'll get
home later than normal. Butlike, at six instead of at
three. And this happens, likeonce a month. So we have that
(36:07):
flexibility. But yeah, I thinkyou know, school hours are kind
of a good, something that'sworked for us. It's like get
kind of our life outside of thekids done, and those school
hours, and then we're havingfamily time, basically outside
of school hours.
Dave Crenshaw (36:23):
So this brings up another question with you and
your husband, it's veryimportant that you've been
working together as businesspartners. A common obstacle of
people who are married inbusiness together, is it's hard
to turn it off. Right? You'regoing on a date, but you're
talking about something that theemployee did or something that
the customer said, Are yousuccessful at being able to
(36:45):
create a barrier? Is it astruggle? And if you are
successful, what are you doingto maintain that boundary, the
Unknown (36:51):
way that we handle this, which works for us really
well is Chris will sometimesjoke that he is uncredited co
founder. So one reason for thatis he has no interest in having
any kind of public persona. Butthe other thing that's worked
really well for us is, eventhough we're co founders, we
started the business together,we don't run the business
together, he creates theproduct. So we actually aren't
(37:15):
collaborators on like, who tohire and how to spend the budget
and kind of like strategicdecisions with a business.
That's all me, he is in chargeof making the product. Great. So
we do talk about work atdifferent times. But we don't
tend to have much conflict aboutwork, because we're not having
to like, discuss and compromiselike we would, we would have a
(37:38):
lot of conflict, if we had tofigure out everything together.
You know what I mean? Okay, it'skind of a divide and conquer
strategy. I think that works forus, like we have our separate
lanes that we're solely incharge of. So there doesn't
really have to be debate aboutwork.
Dave Crenshaw (37:55):
But you're you're able to also not discuss the
bigger picture issues of work?
Or is that sometimes somethingwhere you have to remind each
other, hey, let's turn this offfor a second. I
Unknown (38:07):
think we're just not that interested in each other's
work is the truth. So, you know,for us, the core metric is like
monthly reoccurring revenue, hedidn't even know what our
monthly reoccurring revenue was.
He's like, he's not thatinterested in the business side
of the business. And I'm notthat interested in when the
server goes down. We do talkabout work at different times.
But it doesn't tend to be thislike, Oh, we're always
(38:29):
discussing the next crisis, Ithink, because we have like our
separate crises from from eachother. Well,
Dave Crenshaw (38:38):
you have a really clear division of labor. And
that's where I see the problemsoccurs where two people are kind
of in that leadership,managerial role. And that, even
if they get along, it juststarts to become a consuming
conversation. And if I'mcoaching someone, I say, you
(38:58):
know, okay, you got a need toschedule something that you're
going to do together, that isnot work related. Something else
to talk about some other hobbythat you're interested in. Yeah,
Unknown (39:09):
I find for married couples who want to work
together. If you have totallydifferent skill sets, it's going
to be a lot easier. And that Imean, I think this is true for
any co founder relationship. Andthis is something that I've just
come to over the years inbusiness, I've become so much
more of a dictator. And I findlike, obviously getting feedback
as as needed. But I find thatit's so much more clear. If it's
(39:33):
just like you're the decisionmaker on this. You don't need to
talk to anybody about it. Youdon't need to get anybody's
input. It clears up a lot ofpotential conflict that co
founders have with each other isjust that clarity on like, Oh,
this is a finance one. And wedecided that you're in charge of
finance stuff. So like, That'sjust you. Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (39:51):
and this is true, even without being married to
someone when someone starts abusiness, and there are partners
involved. You need to have Havethose clear dividing lines?
Like, like you're sharing?
Laura? That's a great example.
All right, unfortunately, I needto start wrapping this up. So
the big question five years fromnow, where do you see yourself?
(40:11):
Where do you see your business?
Unknown (40:13):
Oh, so I don't I mean, I'm not someone who sets big
long term goals. Actually, I'mmore of a believer in
discovering what amazingexperiences life presents me
with because, like, some peoplelove to have a bucket list. I'm
like, show me what you got.
Because there's so much. There'sso much cool stuff that I
(40:34):
wouldn't even think to put on mybucket list that that comes my
way. So I think in five years, Iprobably will be doing a
different business. I've beenrunning paper ball for four
years now. I think I do lovethat like startup stage starting
something rather than being theone to grow something really
huge. So I wouldn't be surprisedif I have a different business.
(40:55):
My family loves to travel. Lastyear, we took six months off to
travel full time around Asia.
And we definitely want to domore time, full time travel as a
family. So maybe we'll be havingour next go with that in five
years.
Dave Crenshaw (41:13):
Actually, I do want to talk about that. Just
briefly. What does that travellook like? I mean, how do you?
How do I hear about the thenomad lifestyle, the digital
nomad, right. And I think I'vegot children who are in school,
I've got an 18 year old now he'skind of out of the house. But
we've got a 15 year old, I got11 year old, we'd like to travel
but doing that for six months.
That just seems like alogistical nightmare. How do you
(41:36):
realize?
Unknown (41:41):
Yeah, you spend a huge amount of time on logistics for
sure. My friends with older kidshave all told me like do it
before they're teenagers,because once they're teenagers,
they don't want to. And we'vewe've always done a lot of
travel with our kids, we'vetaken a month to go to Thailand,
taken a month to go to Japan. Soit was something we were already
doing as a family and our kidswere kind of used to it. But
(42:04):
when we did the six months, mydaughter was four and my son was
a, so she didn't really need todo school yet. He's actually
just a really big reader. So hejust reads all the time anyway.
And we're like we're in Korearead this book about Korea. And
you know, we just sort ofpretend that that was. That was
enough as far as the theeducation went, but it's an
(42:26):
intense experience. I mean, wewere together literally 24/7 for
Dave Crenshaw (42:32):
six months. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Yeah, I love
my children. But that's a longtime to be continually.
Unknown (42:39):
It's a lot, we wouldn't want to do it. Some people do it
full time, like all the time weliked it, or six months. And
we're like, this was super fun.
We're ready for some some normaltime at home. Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (42:48):
I found that about six weeks is our max
limit. It's too much now it'sprobably more like two weeks
now. But that's wonderful thatyou do that and create those
those opportunities. Okay,Laura, this is the part where I
like to help someone who'slistening, find an action item
that they can do not like amonth from now or a year from
(43:11):
now. But something they can dotoday, this week, to help them
be successful. And the goal isto help them make your success
story a part of their successstory. So what I'm going to do
is I'm going to summarize aboutwhy there's so many things in
here, but I'm going to do mybest to choose three possible
action items that they can take.
And then I'd like you to chimein at the end with one of yours
(43:33):
sounds good?
Unknown (43:36):
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Dave Crenshaw (43:38):
The first thing that I'm going to call out is
going back to your story, whenyou were starting your business,
you were going to the chambersof commerce, and networking, and
that concept of focus on peoplewho you naturally connect with,
you don't need to be everybody'sbest friend. And you probably
shouldn't try instead, findsomeone that you connect with
(44:00):
and build that relationship andthen find one other person. And
I'll also add this, make surethat you're making it about
them, not you. So look for waysthat you can network with
people, either in person oronline and start to build those
relationships because down theroad, they always have an impact
on your business success. I alsowant to I'm going to combine a
(44:23):
couple of concepts here. Butyour example of looking for what
is easy for what is natural.
That sounds lazy, but it's not.
It's smart. It means that you'regoing to learn how to grow a
business without being dependenton you or even if you're not
(44:44):
growing a business, building acareer where you're doing the
thing that comes naturally andthat is such an important point.
I have built my career by doingwhat is easy and natural from Me
and usually what is easy andnatural for you is not what it
is for someone else. So don'tdiscount it, don't think, oh, I
(45:07):
don't, I don't have that. Sojust take some time this week
and consider what is easy, whatis a natural fit. And then I'm
going to call out that principleof three to four hours of deep
focused work a week. Now,someone listening, you may be in
a position where you need towork a full time job. We're not
saying I don't think Laura,you're saying, don't work a full
(45:29):
time job, right. But what we aresaying is, recognize what are
those hours when you're gettingthe most done in my books and
courses, I call them the mostvaluable activities, and focus
those most valuable activitiesduring those hours when you're
most productive, try to movemeetings, outside of that time,
try to move busy work outside ofthat time. And the more you
(45:52):
focus on those most valuableactivities during the time, when
you have the most energy, themore successful you'll be and
grow in your career. So thoseare three that stood out to me,
Laura, what's one that you wouldadd as an action someone can
take today or this week. So
Unknown (46:07):
I would add looking for something that you can make
easier and more enjoyable. And Ithink often when we are on a
job, we forget how much controlwe have, because we often don't
ask right like, so a reallycommon example of something you
could change this week, as maybethere's a meeting that you're in
every week, that's just a totalwaste of your time. You don't
(46:29):
need to be there. It bores youto death, right? If you can
bring up with your manager, youknow, I think I could have a
more productive hour. I don'tthink I need to be in this
meeting. And I see somethingelse that I could do that would
add more value to the companyduring that time. Do you think I
could try skipping it for thenext month? And we'll see if I'm
still able to keep up withoutit. Right? I think we often just
(46:53):
don't think to ask, we justaccept the status quo. So I
think what you can do this weekis look around for things that
you want to change that you'renot enjoying, and make one of
those little changes to makeyour work easier or more fun,
beautiful
Dave Crenshaw (47:09):
principle. I love how you created it in a way that
someone can listen to it andapply it to themselves, no
matter what their position is. Ican tell you're a pro that
you're comfortable behind themic and sharing these things
with us. Thank you so much foryour wisdom for your example.
And I think people are reallygoing to gain a lot out of this.
(47:30):
So thank you for being generouswith your time, Laura. Thank
you. And thank you everyone forlistening. Remember, it's not so
much about the knowledge yougained or the stories that you
heard. It's about the actionthat you take. So do something
today, and that way you'll makeLaura's success story, a part of
your success story. Thanks forlistening.
Darci Crenshaw (47:53):
You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw
success show hosted by my dad,Dave Crenshaw, and produced by
invaluable incorporated researchand assistant production by
Victoria Bidez Sound Editing byNick rights. Voiceover by me
Darci Crenshaw, and the music isby Ryan Brady via pond five
(48:13):
licensing. Please subscribe tothe Dave Crenshaw success show
on Apple podcasts, Spotify,wherever you like to get your
podcasts. If you have asuggestion for someone my dad
might like to interview, pleasesend it to guests at Dave
crenshaw.com and please don'tforget to leave us a five star
review. See you next time.
So if you're not sure how to start a software
business, you should marry asoftware developer. That's what
I did. Get advice for theaudience.
Dave Crenshaw (00:11):
In this episode, you'll get to know Laura Roeder,
the anti hustle founder. Andyou'll hear the story of how she
builds and sells businesses,while still leaving time to have
fun, and travel the world withher family. I'm Dave Crenshaw,
and this is my success Show.
Welcome back friends to the DaveCrenshaw Success Show. This is
(00:32):
where I speak to some of themost successful people I've met
and my life's journey, and I'mon the hunt for universal
principles to help both you andmy family succeed. In case it's
your first time here and you'renot familiar with me, I'm a best
selling author. I speak aroundthe world to Fortune 500
companies. And I've taughtmillions of people how to be
successful through my onlinecourses, especially on LinkedIn
(00:54):
learning. With this show, Iwanted to create something
lasting to help my familysucceed, and I thought you'd
enjoy learning along with them.
I'm looking for people liketoday's guest, who is an amazing
example of having multi facetedsuccess. That means success in
many areas of their life, notjust with money or with their
(01:17):
career. And as I talked to them,I'm looking for actions that you
can use right now to besuccessful. So as you listen to
today's episode, I want you tolook for something you can do.
Look for one action you can taketoday or this week to make my
guest success story, a part ofyour success story. Laura Roeder
(01:39):
is a lifelong entrepreneur andfounder of several multimillion
dollar bootstrapped companies.
She's the founder of paper bill,coach, compare, Meet Edgar Marie
Forleo is B School and LKRsocial media, Laura was named
one of the top entrepreneursunder 30, and has spoken about
entrepreneurship at the WhiteHouse in the United States. Her
(02:03):
favorite way to have fun istraveling around the globe with
her family. And Laura, thank youfor taking a little time from
all of those things to be hereon the show today.
Unknown (02:16):
Thank you, Dave, I'm excited to talk to you today. As
I was doing research
Dave Crenshaw (02:20):
and looking into what you've accomplished, I'm
just so impressed by the numberof businesses that you've
started, how you've successfullybuilt them and exited them. That
is not easy to do. And the factthat you've done it many times
is truly remarkable. Thank
Unknown (02:36):
you definitely had a few failures along the way, as
well, all part of the journey.
But yeah, I think yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (02:42):
well, and as we go through this journey, I would
like you to talk about thosebecause as you know, learning
from failures is sometimes moreinstructional than, than just
all of the success, right?
Unknown (02:52):
Yeah, definitely.
Dave Crenshaw (02:54):
So where are you located right now?
Unknown (02:56):
I'm in Brighton UK, which is just south of London.
And
Dave Crenshaw (03:01):
you're married?
You have children? Yep. I
Unknown (03:03):
have two kids in elementary school.
Dave Crenshaw (03:06):
Oh, that's great.
So all right. Let's talk aboutwhere you started. Every guest I
asked the same question. Andit's a question that we were
asked many times when we weregrowing up, which is what did
you want to be when you grew up?
Unknown (03:20):
One thing that I was focused on for a long time was
actually being a speech writer.
I don't know why I wanted tojust write the speeches. But I
thought that would be a cool jobto be a speech writer. I didn't
end up doing anything like that.
But I was I had that idea for awhile. You
Dave Crenshaw (03:35):
didn't want to get up in front of people. You
just wanted to write the speech.
Yeah.
Unknown (03:40):
Which now I really like doing. So I'm not sure. Maybe I
was like, but what but I talkedabout it, but I got off in front
of people. So yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (03:47):
well, I saw that I was I was watching some of the
places where he had spoken infront of an audience. And I was
like, Oh, she does a great jobwith this. I'm assuming you do
that, as well, as part of yourcareer. You accept invitations
to go speak at events.
Unknown (04:01):
Yeah, it's something honestly, you know, for a lot of
speakers, they're gettingcustomers from the events. For
me, I just kind of love businessand entrepreneurship. Like I've
spoken at a conference calledmicro comm for software
businesses. You know, mybusiness targets life coaches,
they're not at softwareconferences, but I just love
learning from others there andlove talking about it.
Dave Crenshaw (04:23):
Okay, so you wanted to be a speech writer.
But when you started to formconcepts about what your your
real career was going to be, didthat happen in high school to
that happened in college? Wheredid that idea start to come
from? Especially that you wouldbe an entrepreneur? Well,
Unknown (04:38):
before I was an entrepreneur, my first career
was a designer, graphic designerand web designer, and that's
something that I started to getinterested in, in high school.
I'm kind of that first internetage. So I had AOL when I was in
middle school in high school andI was I learned how to code
websites and create websites anddo A basic graphic design then.
(05:02):
So I got interested in graphicdesign. And when I went to
college, that's what I plan todo as my career. And that's what
I did do for my first job. Okay,where did you go to school?
University of Texas at Austin,which is well, so where I'm from
I grew up in Austin,
Dave Crenshaw (05:18):
were there things that you studied or learned in
college that were helpful foryou later on, or that are still
helpful for you today? No.
Unknown (05:32):
I had fun in college, and I made some some really
great friends. But you know, Iwent to University of Texas is
one of the largest universitiesin America. My classes had
hundreds of people. And it was alot of like, multiple choice
test. There was almost nothingthat I learned at college that I
(05:53):
ended up using later. That's
Dave Crenshaw (05:55):
an interesting experience, though. So clearly,
you're highly educated, clearly,you're have a lot of expertise
in what it is that you do. Wherewere you getting the knowledge
that you use? Now? Were you juststudying a lot on your own?
Where has that knowledge comefrom? If it wasn't from your
university experience? The
Unknown (06:16):
internet? I would say largely, so yeah, I mean, the
internet and just figuring itout as as I went, I mean, also
back then, you know, now you canstudy entrepreneurship, and
university, which I think isreally interesting. I don't
think that was a thing backthen. Or if it was, you know, I
had never heard of it. But whenI was in college, I definitely
(06:37):
wasn't thinking, Oh, I'd like tobe an entrepreneur, I just
thought I'd like to be adesigner. I actually wanted to
be a magazine designer. But Idid end up getting a job as a
designer at an ad agency after Igraduated. And
Dave Crenshaw (06:51):
how did you get that job? It tooks
Unknown (06:53):
it was really hard. It took such a long time, I always
have so much sympathy for peoplewho are looking for a job
because I think that's just oneof the toughest things in life
to be applying and gettingrejected over and over and over
again. So I was in a new city, Iwas in Chicago. And I didn't
know anyone, I didn't have anyconnections. So it was just
applying cold to job after jobafter job. And finally, I got
(07:17):
one. That
Dave Crenshaw (07:18):
brings up an interesting concept, though,
which is, I think sometimespeople look at being a business
owner, being an entrepreneur,and they see a whole lot of
risk. And there is risk. I'm,I'm not going to sugarcoat that.
But what they don't realize andyou're bringing up here is that
to work for someone else is alsorisky. Oh, yeah. When you create
(07:40):
your own workplace, when youcreate your own job, it's all on
you. There's no one to blame,but you but when you're applying
for a job, right, you got to gothrough all of those hoops. And
all of that was going throughthat experience did that form
part of the way that you werethinking about what you wanted
to do in the future, running abusiness rather than trying to
(08:01):
apply for a job.
Unknown (08:03):
It didn't occur to me at first to run a business, the
way I got interested in runninga business was so I was a
designer at an ad agency. And Iwas interested in the
advertising strategy, marketingstrategy client work, you know,
I didn't want to just design Ifound that a bit boring. But in
the agency world, to be involvedwith the strategic side, you
(08:27):
have to be at the top of thepile. So you have to be like
what's you know, often called acreative director title. And I
kind of thought, Okay, I don'twant to switch over, I thought
maybe I should switch careersand be an account executive and
be on the strategic side, Idon't really like that either.
And I'm like, okay, being acreative director sounds good.
But I'm 20 years old, it's goingto be another 10 years before I
(08:50):
can climb up this ladder and bea creative director. Or if I
started freelancing, I couldkind of do whatever I wanted.
And I could kind of do it all,you know, when you're
freelancing you're obviouslyinvolved in and getting the
clients and the strategicdirection of the work that
you're doing that whole clientrelationship. I think, actually
a lot of the things that a lotof designers Hey, I was really
(09:12):
excited about, like I wasinterested in how the business
worked and getting the clientsand stuff. So that's where I had
the idea to start working formyself. I'm like, I don't want
to wait 10 years to do the workthat I want to do. If I started
working for myself. That's justsounded like a much more
interesting workday to me.
Dave Crenshaw (09:29):
Did you start to create that business while you
were still working as a designerwithin a company? What was that
balance? Or what did thattransition from working from
someone to owning a businesslook like for you? For
Unknown (09:43):
me, it was a jumping off a cliff, which I would not
necessarily recommend. So I hadthis idea, okay, I could go part
time and that could be best ofboth worlds and I was really
underutilized on my job. I spenta lot of time and nothing to do
so. I thought, oh, okay, this isgonna be great for my employer,
they'll only have to pay me halfthe amount. And then I can, you
(10:06):
know, still have that steadypaycheck while I'm finding my
first clients. So I talked tothe business owner about it. She
said, No, you can't go parttime. But at that point, I had
gotten so excited about myfreelance business, I said, if I
can't go part time, I'm justgonna have to quit entirely. And
so that's what I did. So Ididn't do. Again, not not saying
(10:30):
this is advice, but I didn'thave any clients, I didn't have
any work lined up, I was justlike, into my job, start my new
life as a freelancer and I had alittle money saved up. But I,
you know, it was my first entrylevel job out of college, I
wasn't making much money, andbut my expenses were also really
low at the same time. You know,
Dave Crenshaw (10:48):
it's interesting, Laura, that you brought up, you
jumped off a cliff, I justinterviewed another entrepreneur
who talked about how she hadanother job that was going on,
and how that worked out for herto do both at the same time. But
I've seen the either pathway canbe successful. I mean, at least
you're more focused, right?
Because you don't have anythingelse. And sometimes that
pressure creates urgency that'snecessary to get the business
(11:11):
off the ground. Was that thecase for you?
Unknown (11:16):
Yes. I mean, I totally agree with you that there's no
one right way to do it. But forme, it was like, Well, I better
find a client or I won't haveany money, I didn't have any
other source of income, oranyone paying for anything. But
you know, that's what I willsay, as advice is when people
are interested in starting abusiness. I'm such a huge fan of
(11:37):
any kind of freelance servicecoaching, consulting, because
all you need is one client andyou get paid right away, right?
It's not like you're starting arestaurant or a shop where you
have all these startup costs,and you need all this money,
like to be hired for anyservice. If I give you an hour
of my time, and you pay me forthat hour, I just need one
client and you get paid rightaway. So I think that's a great
(11:59):
way to start out in business,especially if you've never run
any kind of business beforebecause you just learn all the
basics, the ins and outs. Imean, I was new to Chicago, I
knew that I would need abusiness owners, but I didn't
know any business owners. So Istarted going to all the Chamber
of Commerce events. And that'show I found my clients.
Dave Crenshaw (12:20):
That is such an important point is when you are
trying to grow a business andget clients and I think this
applies to someone who maybeisn't even an entrepreneur or
someone who's in sales, you needto go where your customer is you
go where your customer gathers,it's such a basic thing. And
yet, I've seen a lot ofentrepreneurs miss that step,
they start advertising, theystart buying space, they go out
(12:44):
knock doors, whatever heck itis. And that's not the way to do
it. That's the less efficientand effective way to do it.
Yeah,
Unknown (12:52):
I just showed up at at the time, Chicago had different
chambers of commerce for all thedifferent neighborhoods, because
it's a big city. And I actuallyfound that they all want to do
to join, but actually, theywould let you pay like $5. And
you know, because they neededpeople at the events. So I was
like, Oh, I don't really haveit, you know, $200 to join, but
I'll just pay the $5 to show upto the one event. And it was
(13:14):
great. And I met so many people,that helps me along my journey.
So it's like I met people thatbecame clients. But I also just
met experienced business ownersthat were so helpful, and it
just taught me so much. Let's
Dave Crenshaw (13:27):
pause on that for a second. Because I think
networking, which is what youwere doing, and those who are
not familiar, sometimes we havesome some novices here.
Networking is buildingrelationships with other people,
professional typically. Andthere's a right way to go about
networking. And there's a wrongway to go about networking.
Clearly you were successful withit. So can you talk about just a
(13:50):
couple of things that you did,or you saw others do in those
situations that made themsuccessful with networking.
Unknown (13:58):
A big lesson that I've learned about networking, is
there some people you hit it offwith and some people you don't,
and just focus on those naturalrelationships that you hit it
off with, because I've been insituations where there's someone
who I quote, unquote, shouldmeet, you know, they would be a
good connection for me, or theymight know people that would
know clients for me, but we justdidn't connect. And I always
(14:22):
found that it was always muchmore valuable, even if someone
didn't seem like a strategicconnection, right? If I couldn't
see how they were gonna get mebusiness. If we just liked each
other, and we just likedchatting, that was always always
always more valuable thansomeone who kind of made sense
(14:42):
on paper, but just we didn't endup becoming friends. So that's
just always been my strategy isjust like, which is great,
right? It makes it really easyand fun to talk to who you
actually want to talk to keep upwith who you're actually
interested in keeping up withthey like you too. They remember
you because If someone doesn'tlike you, they're not going to
(15:02):
refer you is just the truth.
Dave Crenshaw (15:05):
Well, and you're just gonna waste so much time
and energy trying to makeeveryone like you that that is
such a true thing. And it tookme a while to learn that, that
principle. So this firstbusiness, what was that that you
were building?
Unknown (15:17):
So that was just freelance design. So I would
mostly make websites for localbusinesses.
Dave Crenshaw (15:23):
And how did that go? As a business? Was that
pretty successful that it workedfor a while and then not?
Unknown (15:30):
It was very successful for me. So I was making about
$30,000 a year at my job. Sothat was kind of my big goal,
you know, to make $30,000 a yearin my own business,
Dave Crenshaw (15:41):
what year are we talking about with that?
Unknown (15:43):
That would be about 2006, something like that. Okay,
Dave Crenshaw (15:47):
that just gives us an idea of how much 30,000
was worth.
Unknown (15:50):
Yeah, so I hit that number in my first year, which I
was, you know, very proud ofgoing from zero to like,
replacing my my full timeincome. And then I was like,
Okay, I want to double it. Andthen in my second year, I made
about 60,000, I hit that goal.
So after that, I'm like, Okay, Iwant to make six figures, right,
really common goal, I want tomake 100,000 a year. And that's
when I kind of hit a wall. And Irealized, with my current
(16:14):
business model, I'm like, Okay,I can't really, you know, work
double the hours, I'm alreadyworking full time. I don't
really feel like I can double myprices, because I'm brand new.
I'm like, Okay, well, I guess,you know, in order to grow the
business, I would have to kindof create an agency and have
people under me, and I had just,I had seen all the things I
(16:37):
didn't like about the agencybusiness working at the ad
agency that I had been atbefore. I'm like, I really don't
want to have an agency business.
And that is what guided me to mynext business model, which ended
up being online courses, whichis a much more scalable business
model. What
Dave Crenshaw (16:58):
led to your interest in that? Like, why did
you feel like that was the rightbusiness for you?
Unknown (17:04):
Because I'd been making websites for local businesses.
And like I said, this was aroundlike, you know, 2006 2007, this
is when social media startedbecoming a thing like Twitter
was released, you know, you canmake a Facebook, I think it was
called a community page, thenfor your business. So my
customers would ask me, Should Ibe on social media? You know,
(17:25):
what do I do? How do I link iton my website? How does it work?
And I would just tell them aboutit. And one of them said to me,
you know, you could get paidjust for this part. So I'm like,
Oh, this sounds a lot easierthan like making a whole
website, I can just talk aboutsocial media. And I started down
(17:45):
the road of doing social mediaconsulting. But you know, I was
in the online world, I knew thatonline, they weren't called
online courses, then they werecalled info products, then I
knew that info products were athing. And I'm like, okay, I can
make an info product. My firstone was about how to use
Twitter, for marketing. Andlike, I could make an info
product about how to useTwitter. And I think it's so
(18:06):
important to find what's anatural fit for you. Like we
were talking about thenetworking, some people are a
fit for you. Some people arenot. The first time I did an
online class, I found it so mucheasier to sell than consulting.
I think I made like $3,000, thefirst class that I sold, and I
was like, Oh, this, you know,this was great. I felt like it
(18:26):
was so much easier than tryingto sell a contract for $3,000.
So that's how I kind of stumbledinto it.
Dave Crenshaw (18:32):
There really was a time period wasn't there where
that sort of product was easierto sell, and commanded a much
higher ticket. Price.
Unknown (18:43):
Yes. I think it was a few $100 that I sold it for was
Dave Crenshaw (18:47):
Meet Edgar, what you did next after that? Yes.
Unknown (18:51):
So Meet Edgar is social media scheduling software. So
you know, I brought up socialmedia, I continued to do classes
about online marketing, andsocial media marketing. And I
was teaching a class about howto create a collection of all
your social media updates, andnot just post them once or
(19:11):
repurpose them and have them indifferent categories and all
this stuff. And Meet Edgar wasand it is software that did for
you automatically what I wasteaching people to do manually
in the class. See that? I
Dave Crenshaw (19:24):
think is a totally different ballgame,
right? Because it's one thing toteach people. This is what you
do on social media. This is howyou bring in customers. That's
all educational. Now you'reproviding a software service.
And I know that for those whoare not familiar, if you haven't
heard of SaaS, Software as aService, that's a particular
type of business. So to me thatfeels like a very, very
(19:47):
different discipline requires alot different skill set to
create that. So what was thatlike for you making that
transition? Was that easy? Wasthat hard? Where'd you get the
knowledge to do that?
Unknown (20:00):
So if you're not sure how to start a software
business, you should marry asoftware developer. That's what
I did. That's my advice. Soyeah, so that's how it came
about. I was doing the socialmedia class. And then I met my
husband, Chris. And he helped mefigure out that what I was
teaching in the class, you couldmake an A software. So for me, I
(20:24):
don't know how to code. I don'tknow how to make the software.
But what I did, and what I stilldo is focus on the marketing
side. So I actually was usingthe same skill set that I'd used
for my online courses, justapplying them to a different
kind of business model. If
Dave Crenshaw (20:39):
you hadn't met your husband, do you think that
that's something that would havebeen on your radar? Or would you
have gone down a different path?
Yeah,
Unknown (20:49):
I mean, it was definitely something that was
already on my radar. Because atthat time, I didn't have kids
yet. But I knew that I wanted tohave kids. And I knew that I
wanted a business that couldreally thrive without me once I
had kids. And once I wanted tospend more time with my family.
So I was interested in differentbusiness models where that can
(21:13):
happen. And software was one ofthem. So it's one of those
alternate reality, you know, Idon't know if I had met him if I
would have still gone intosoftware and found a different
co founder or something likethat. But he definitely shorten
the path. And yeah, we startedthat company together.
Dave Crenshaw (21:31):
Yeah. And you knew that you, you needed to
change away from that. Just aside note, the word launch is
triggering to me, because ofwhat that's like in those info
marketing things, right, becauseeverything's about the launch.
And you got Yeah, it's very timeconsuming to prep for those
launches over and over on aconsistent schedule.
Unknown (21:52):
It's a very different type of, especially marketing
schedule, actually, it'ssomething that confused me a
little bit when I started intosoftware, because I was used to,
I love doing the big when you dolaunches, you do the big yearly
calendar, right? You have yourcalendar for the year, and
you're like, we're gonna dolaunches in February and
September, and then we're gonnalaunch this other program in
July, and then we're gonna runthe promo on Black Friday. And
(22:15):
you you have your marketingmapped out that way. Now in
software, I don't do any ofthat. There's no event based
marketing, there's no livemarketing, it's all kind of
improving systems to bringpeople in. So launch also is a
triggering word for me. But I domiss the big wall calendar. That
was that was kind of fun.
Dave Crenshaw (22:36):
So I want to pause for a second before we go
deeper into Meet Edgar, which isa huge part of your story. And
just highlight something thatI'm noticing, and the words come
out from you as easier andnatural fit. And that's too
hard. It's too much work. And Ithink that's, that's great. I
love that. Where does thatphilosophy come from of wanting
(23:00):
to make life easier foryourself? Can you just sort of
expand a little bit on on whythat's a big deal to you?
Unknown (23:09):
Yeah, I mean, I definitely started my business
for freedom, which I think a lotof entrepreneurs do, I think a
lot of us start working forourselves, because we want more
freedom in our lives. And Ireally wanted to enjoy what I
was doing. And there's so manypeople that are running
businesses that they don'tenjoy. They don't like the
business, they don't like theclients, they find it very
(23:31):
stressful. And I'm just kind oflike, what's the point of
working for yourself, if I'mgonna have this much stress, I'd
at least rather have a job andnot be responsible for the whole
thing. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think sometimes we canforget how much optionality we
have. We all it's just humannature, right? We get used to
one thing, we get used to doingthings a certain way, change is
(23:52):
scary. And I've just alwaystried to be really open minded.
And remember that I can changeanything, if I'm not enjoying
the customer base. If I'm notenjoying the business model, if
I'm not enjoying the way, I'mrunning the team, try something
else. And that's what I do.
Dave Crenshaw (24:09):
Let's go into that Meet Edgar story. Talk to
me about the ramp up the firstyear or so.
Unknown (24:15):
So me and Edgar was a huge success right away. And I
will say I've since exited thecompany, which is why I often
talk about it in past tense, butit does still exist. And so we
when we launched mean, Edgar, itwas an existing category. There
were already really big playersin the market, but we had kind
of a new spin on it, this ideaof loading up your content and
(24:39):
letting the tool keep sending itout for you. And in retrospect,
it was very much Right PlaceRight Time. I already had the
audience built up because I wasalready doing social media
classes. So I wasn't, you know,launching it totally cold. I had
an existing business that Icould launch it to. So we were a
bootstrap business, you know,meaning we didn't raise any
(24:59):
money. If, and we hit a milliondollars a year in reoccurring
revenue, I think 11 months afterlaunch, which is huge for a
bootstrap business, veryunusual. And I went on maternity
leave, three months afterlaunching the business. And when
I worked part time ever since.
So I was pregnant, when Ilaunched this business, I knew I
(25:20):
was going on leave. So I'm like,I'm not going to launch a
business that's going to fail.
As soon as I go on maternityleave, that doesn't make any
sense. So I really designed itfrom the beginning to be able to
grow and thrive without just mepushing everything forwards.
Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (25:36):
that's so important. And I think that
definitely contributed to thesuccess. So many entrepreneurs
create their business, and theybuild it dependent upon them.
And often without realizing,right, their intent is just to
grow the business. But what theydon't realize if the business
growth is always dependent onthem being there, like you said,
they're just creating a job,they haven't created something
(25:56):
lasting. So I like the fact thatthe difficulty that having to go
on maternity leave presentedactually contributed to the
success of MeetEdgar. Yeah, I
Unknown (26:07):
always joke that everyone should be pregnant when
they launch a business, I guessit was, it was a great forcing
function, you know, because thisis hard for so many
entrepreneurs to take themselvesout to let other people do
things. And I, I just kind ofhad to from the beginning. So
Dave Crenshaw (26:25):
you built the business so that it wasn't
dependent on you? How long didyou run it with a lot of
employees? When did you make thetransition in that business
model.
Unknown (26:36):
So something really unique about a software business
is the actual value delivery,the core value is in the
software, what people are payingfor is the actual software. And
the software is not provided bya human, right, it needs humans
to like fix its bugs, it might,you know, go down or threaten to
(26:56):
go down every so often andsomeone has to pick it back up.
But software businesses are avery, can be a very low human
business. And after the businesshad plateaued for a while and
still wasn't growing, I'm like,I think this business could run
with kind of a skeleton team andgo into a kind of maintenance
(27:16):
mode, and it wouldn't actuallychange the revenue of the
business. So about seven yearsafter starting it, that's
exactly what we did. We wentfrom having a team of you know,
w two full time employees tocutting it down to just like one
part time freelance developer,like we had two part time
(27:39):
freelance customer servicepeople, and just kind of put the
business and maintenance mode.
And we're able to do thatbecause we had built up the
revenue. And the beauty of SaaSsoftware as a service, as you
said earlier, is the reoccurringrevenue, people pay for a
subscription. And if they'restill using the software,
they're gonna keep paying for asubscription. And that I mean,
(28:00):
there were so many lessons andthat but I think one of the core
ones for me, it was like reallygetting clear on what that what
that value mechanism is in yourbusiness.
Dave Crenshaw (28:13):
One of the hardest things for entrepreneurs
to do, in my experience coachingthem is, let people go. And I'm
sure that you experienced that.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow that felt to do that, and
how you move past it in aproductive way that was still
compassionate. So
Unknown (28:36):
it took me definitely a long time to come to this
decision to run it andmaintenance mode and let the
team go. And you know, becausethe business it had stopped
growing, but it wasn't failing.
So we were able to give people agenerous severance, we were able
to give people you know, plentyof time to find your new
position and help finding yournew position. So all of that
(28:56):
certainly helped. But it was Imean, you just getting fired is
horrible. And there's there's notwo ways around that. And that's
kind of, I think the mistake alot of entrepreneurs make is
focusing on how hard it is forthe business owner, it is
horribly hard for the businessowner. You do not need to talk
(29:18):
about that with the employee,they do not care. Oh, it's
Dave Crenshaw (29:24):
really hard for me to fire you. Right. I want
you to understand how hard thisis for me. Yeah, that's a good
approach.
Unknown (29:32):
That is your problem.
That is that is not theirproblem. So it was a really
difficult thing to do. Althoughit's been, you know, I was able
to leave it on good terms andpeople went on to have like
amazing careers at some reallycool companies. And that's kind
of how I framed it at the end ofthe day was like, this company
isn't really going anywhere likethis company has gone flat.
(29:52):
There's not growth opportunitiesfor you and your career at this
company and you deserve to goOh, somewhere where, where you
have those growth opportunities?
Dave Crenshaw (30:04):
So you achieved the dream of being an
entrepreneur, which is asuccessful exit? How did you
make that happen? So
Unknown (30:12):
I let the team go, I put the business in maintenance
mode, I actually thought thatwould, I would just keep running
it like that, I was like, Okay,it's gonna be kind of, I'll just
collect the money from thebusiness, and I won't have to
mess with it too much. And we'llbe in maintenance mode. And that
was my plan. And then afterdoing it for like, not very
long, like three to six months,I was like, This doesn't feel
(30:34):
good. And I think it was becauseas an entrepreneur, it's about
growth, it's about thatexcitement and running a
business that I had justaccepted was going to be flat,
you know, was going to declinewas not going to grow. I'm like,
this isn't really how I want tospend my time, even though I
wasn't spending my time day today, just mentally, it felt like
(30:55):
a drag. And that's when Idecided, I think I don't think
holding on to it is the rightmove, I think it's time to sell
it. And even though the businesswasn't growing anymore, it was
still a great asset for someoneelse to acquire, so that they
could do some differentstrategies on it, you know,
maybe that we hadn't done andget it to grow again. So, which
(31:17):
I think is another big lesson.
Like, I see a lot of people whodon't try to sell their
business, it doesn't occur tothem that they can, a lot of
businesses get just shut down orleft or the business owner gets
so burned out that they can'teven deal with the idea of
selling it because it is a bigprocess to sell it. And there's
often valuable assets, like evenif the business itself maybe
(31:39):
isn't profitable, maybe you'vebuilt up a website with a lot of
SEO value. Or maybe you've builtup a great email list or
something like that, there'soften assets that you could sell
it a business that just get kindof left behind.
Dave Crenshaw (31:51):
Well, and another thing that I see keep people
from selling it is it's theirbaby. They don't like the idea
of someone else taking it over.
And so they cling to it, becausethey're afraid of someone else
ruining the thing that theycreated. I'm not getting that
impression from you. Sounds likeyou were much more pragmatic
about the sale.
Unknown (32:12):
Yeah, I'm like, my babies are my babies. My
business is my business.
Dave Crenshaw (32:17):
That's healthy, though, I think that's really
healthy to separate yourselffrom it like that. Okay, you
mentioned your babies, yourbaby. So let's pause and talk
about that for a second. How doyou structure yourself and your
week to give time to them, I cantell that being a mom is very
important to you. That's a verydifficult juggling act to be an
(32:40):
entrepreneur and to be a mom. Sowhat are some tips? What are
some things that you do to makethat work? Yeah,
Unknown (32:46):
so um, you know, my husband and I worked together.
So now we're doing anothersoftware startup that we also
work together on. And so we bothhave worked part time since we
had kids on our oldest is ninenow. So that was nine years ago,
at our current company, actuallyeverybody works part time. And I
have a few theories about thisone, I think people have about
(33:10):
like three or four hours a dayin them have really focused,
deep work, I think most of ushave a kind of half day of like
really good work. And then weoften have another half day of
like meetings that we may or maynot need to be in email, a lot
of busy work. So that's part ofit is just cutting down your
(33:31):
hours to only the essentialhours where you're actually
getting productive work done.
And the other big thing aboutbalance for me is, it all needs
to get done. But it does not allneed to get done by me. So
especially some of the more liketime consuming parts of the
business, like customer serviceis just something that it's not
something we're trying tooptimize, right, we're trying to
(33:51):
answer every email like verywell very thoroughly give people
a great experience. It justtakes as much time as it takes,
and we have 1000s of customers.
So it takes a good amount oftime. So if I did my own
customer service, I wouldn't beable to do anything else. We
only need two part time peopleis what we have at paper ball.
(34:11):
Now they focus all of their timejust on doing that. We don't
have any meetings, we don't haveany other busy work for them.
All they do is the customerservice. But this collection of
people all doing their thingthat they're great at and they
love doing focused work. We canget all the things done for the
business with the founders ofthe business, only needing to
(34:33):
work limited hours on the mostimportant things. Does
Dave Crenshaw (34:36):
that make growth difficult to not have someone
that is doing something otherthan maintaining or is that part
of your three to four hours ofdeep focused work?
Unknown (34:46):
Right, my focus work is on the growth. So yeah, so paper
well actually has had a Yeah,excellent year over year growth,
right. We've doubled every year.
So all of our growth strategiesare scalable. As we grow,
largely by SEO, we also do paidads. So
Dave Crenshaw (35:05):
this is a great example. You're saying you're
doing part time hours as focusedas possible, you're speaking my
language, I use a fairly similarstructure with my day. What are
you doing with the other hours?
How are you spending those,
Unknown (35:20):
I kind of more or less work kind of school hours, which
is like nine to three. I alsodon't work on Fridays, but then
also nine to three is my time toexercise to see my friends. So I
usually don't start work until10. Because it's kind of like
Kid time, drop them off aboutnine and then I have that hour
to do exercise or meditation orwhatever. And then yeah, my
(35:41):
husband and I trade offsometime. And it's like, we're
also very, very flexible withour schedules. Like, right now
it's 5 (35:47):
30pm My time, because I do podcast recording with people
in the US. And it's too early todo them in the morning, the UK.
So it's like, I have flexibilitywhere I need to, today, I'll get
home later than normal. Butlike, at six instead of at
three. And this happens, likeonce a month. So we have that
(36:07):
flexibility. But yeah, I thinkyou know, school hours are kind
of a good, something that'sworked for us. It's like get
kind of our life outside of thekids done, and those school
hours, and then we're havingfamily time, basically outside
of school hours.
Dave Crenshaw (36:23):
So this brings up another question with you and
your husband, it's veryimportant that you've been
working together as businesspartners. A common obstacle of
people who are married inbusiness together, is it's hard
to turn it off. Right? You'regoing on a date, but you're
talking about something that theemployee did or something that
the customer said, Are yousuccessful at being able to
(36:45):
create a barrier? Is it astruggle? And if you are
successful, what are you doingto maintain that boundary, the
Unknown (36:51):
way that we handle this, which works for us really
well is Chris will sometimesjoke that he is uncredited co
founder. So one reason for thatis he has no interest in having
any kind of public persona. Butthe other thing that's worked
really well for us is, eventhough we're co founders, we
started the business together,we don't run the business
together, he creates theproduct. So we actually aren't
(37:15):
collaborators on like, who tohire and how to spend the budget
and kind of like strategicdecisions with a business.
That's all me, he is in chargeof making the product. Great. So
we do talk about work atdifferent times. But we don't
tend to have much conflict aboutwork, because we're not having
to like, discuss and compromiselike we would, we would have a
(37:38):
lot of conflict, if we had tofigure out everything together.
You know what I mean? Okay, it'skind of a divide and conquer
strategy. I think that works forus, like we have our separate
lanes that we're solely incharge of. So there doesn't
really have to be debate aboutwork.
Dave Crenshaw (37:55):
But you're you're able to also not discuss the
bigger picture issues of work?
Or is that sometimes somethingwhere you have to remind each
other, hey, let's turn this offfor a second. I
Unknown (38:07):
think we're just not that interested in each other's
work is the truth. So, you know,for us, the core metric is like
monthly reoccurring revenue, hedidn't even know what our
monthly reoccurring revenue was.
He's like, he's not thatinterested in the business side
of the business. And I'm notthat interested in when the
server goes down. We do talkabout work at different times.
But it doesn't tend to be thislike, Oh, we're always
(38:29):
discussing the next crisis, Ithink, because we have like our
separate crises from from eachother. Well,
Dave Crenshaw (38:38):
you have a really clear division of labor. And
that's where I see the problemsoccurs where two people are kind
of in that leadership,managerial role. And that, even
if they get along, it juststarts to become a consuming
conversation. And if I'mcoaching someone, I say, you
(38:58):
know, okay, you got a need toschedule something that you're
going to do together, that isnot work related. Something else
to talk about some other hobbythat you're interested in. Yeah,
Unknown (39:09):
I find for married couples who want to work
together. If you have totallydifferent skill sets, it's going
to be a lot easier. And that Imean, I think this is true for
any co founder relationship. Andthis is something that I've just
come to over the years inbusiness, I've become so much
more of a dictator. And I findlike, obviously getting feedback
as as needed. But I find thatit's so much more clear. If it's
(39:33):
just like you're the decisionmaker on this. You don't need to
talk to anybody about it. Youdon't need to get anybody's
input. It clears up a lot ofpotential conflict that co
founders have with each other isjust that clarity on like, Oh,
this is a finance one. And wedecided that you're in charge of
finance stuff. So like, That'sjust you. Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (39:51):
and this is true, even without being married to
someone when someone starts abusiness, and there are partners
involved. You need to have Havethose clear dividing lines?
Like, like you're sharing?
Laura? That's a great example.
All right, unfortunately, I needto start wrapping this up. So
the big question five years fromnow, where do you see yourself?
(40:11):
Where do you see your business?
Unknown (40:13):
Oh, so I don't I mean, I'm not someone who sets big
long term goals. Actually, I'mmore of a believer in
discovering what amazingexperiences life presents me
with because, like, some peoplelove to have a bucket list. I'm
like, show me what you got.
Because there's so much. There'sso much cool stuff that I
(40:34):
wouldn't even think to put on mybucket list that that comes my
way. So I think in five years, Iprobably will be doing a
different business. I've beenrunning paper ball for four
years now. I think I do lovethat like startup stage starting
something rather than being theone to grow something really
huge. So I wouldn't be surprisedif I have a different business.
(40:55):
My family loves to travel. Lastyear, we took six months off to
travel full time around Asia.
And we definitely want to domore time, full time travel as a
family. So maybe we'll be havingour next go with that in five
years.
Dave Crenshaw (41:13):
Actually, I do want to talk about that. Just
briefly. What does that travellook like? I mean, how do you?
How do I hear about the thenomad lifestyle, the digital
nomad, right. And I think I'vegot children who are in school,
I've got an 18 year old now he'skind of out of the house. But
we've got a 15 year old, I got11 year old, we'd like to travel
but doing that for six months.
That just seems like alogistical nightmare. How do you
(41:36):
realize?
Unknown (41:41):
Yeah, you spend a huge amount of time on logistics for
sure. My friends with older kidshave all told me like do it
before they're teenagers,because once they're teenagers,
they don't want to. And we'vewe've always done a lot of
travel with our kids, we'vetaken a month to go to Thailand,
taken a month to go to Japan. Soit was something we were already
doing as a family and our kidswere kind of used to it. But
(42:04):
when we did the six months, mydaughter was four and my son was
a, so she didn't really need todo school yet. He's actually
just a really big reader. So hejust reads all the time anyway.
And we're like we're in Korearead this book about Korea. And
you know, we just sort ofpretend that that was. That was
enough as far as the theeducation went, but it's an
(42:26):
intense experience. I mean, wewere together literally 24/7 for
Dave Crenshaw (42:32):
six months. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Yeah, I love
my children. But that's a longtime to be continually.
Unknown (42:39):
It's a lot, we wouldn't want to do it. Some people do it
full time, like all the time weliked it, or six months. And
we're like, this was super fun.
We're ready for some some normaltime at home. Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (42:48):
I found that about six weeks is our max
limit. It's too much now it'sprobably more like two weeks
now. But that's wonderful thatyou do that and create those
those opportunities. Okay,Laura, this is the part where I
like to help someone who'slistening, find an action item
that they can do not like amonth from now or a year from
(43:11):
now. But something they can dotoday, this week, to help them
be successful. And the goal isto help them make your success
story a part of their successstory. So what I'm going to do
is I'm going to summarize aboutwhy there's so many things in
here, but I'm going to do mybest to choose three possible
action items that they can take.
And then I'd like you to chimein at the end with one of yours
(43:33):
sounds good?
Unknown (43:36):
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Dave Crenshaw (43:38):
The first thing that I'm going to call out is
going back to your story, whenyou were starting your business,
you were going to the chambersof commerce, and networking, and
that concept of focus on peoplewho you naturally connect with,
you don't need to be everybody'sbest friend. And you probably
shouldn't try instead, findsomeone that you connect with
(44:00):
and build that relationship andthen find one other person. And
I'll also add this, make surethat you're making it about
them, not you. So look for waysthat you can network with
people, either in person oronline and start to build those
relationships because down theroad, they always have an impact
on your business success. I alsowant to I'm going to combine a
(44:23):
couple of concepts here. Butyour example of looking for what
is easy for what is natural.
That sounds lazy, but it's not.
It's smart. It means that you'regoing to learn how to grow a
business without being dependenton you or even if you're not
(44:44):
growing a business, building acareer where you're doing the
thing that comes naturally andthat is such an important point.
I have built my career by doingwhat is easy and natural from Me
and usually what is easy andnatural for you is not what it
is for someone else. So don'tdiscount it, don't think, oh, I
(45:07):
don't, I don't have that. Sojust take some time this week
and consider what is easy, whatis a natural fit. And then I'm
going to call out that principleof three to four hours of deep
focused work a week. Now,someone listening, you may be in
a position where you need towork a full time job. We're not
saying I don't think Laura,you're saying, don't work a full
(45:29):
time job, right. But what we aresaying is, recognize what are
those hours when you're gettingthe most done in my books and
courses, I call them the mostvaluable activities, and focus
those most valuable activitiesduring those hours when you're
most productive, try to movemeetings, outside of that time,
try to move busy work outside ofthat time. And the more you
(45:52):
focus on those most valuableactivities during the time, when
you have the most energy, themore successful you'll be and
grow in your career. So thoseare three that stood out to me,
Laura, what's one that you wouldadd as an action someone can
take today or this week. So
Unknown (46:07):
I would add looking for something that you can make
easier and more enjoyable. And Ithink often when we are on a
job, we forget how much controlwe have, because we often don't
ask right like, so a reallycommon example of something you
could change this week, as maybethere's a meeting that you're in
every week, that's just a totalwaste of your time. You don't
(46:29):
need to be there. It bores youto death, right? If you can
bring up with your manager, youknow, I think I could have a
more productive hour. I don'tthink I need to be in this
meeting. And I see somethingelse that I could do that would
add more value to the companyduring that time. Do you think I
could try skipping it for thenext month? And we'll see if I'm
still able to keep up withoutit. Right? I think we often just
(46:53):
don't think to ask, we justaccept the status quo. So I
think what you can do this weekis look around for things that
you want to change that you'renot enjoying, and make one of
those little changes to makeyour work easier or more fun,
beautiful
Dave Crenshaw (47:09):
principle. I love how you created it in a way that
someone can listen to it andapply it to themselves, no
matter what their position is. Ican tell you're a pro that
you're comfortable behind themic and sharing these things
with us. Thank you so much foryour wisdom for your example.
And I think people are reallygoing to gain a lot out of this.
(47:30):
So thank you for being generouswith your time, Laura. Thank
you. And thank you everyone forlistening. Remember, it's not so
much about the knowledge yougained or the stories that you
heard. It's about the actionthat you take. So do something
today, and that way you'll makeLaura's success story, a part of
your success story. Thanks forlistening.
Darci Crenshaw (47:53):
You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw
success show hosted by my dad,Dave Crenshaw, and produced by
invaluable incorporated researchand assistant production by
Victoria Bidez Sound Editing byNick rights. Voiceover by me
Darci Crenshaw, and the music isby Ryan Brady via pond five
(48:13):
licensing. Please subscribe tothe Dave Crenshaw success show
on Apple podcasts, Spotify,wherever you like to get your
podcasts. If you have asuggestion for someone my dad
might like to interview, pleasesend it to guests at Dave
crenshaw.com and please don'tforget to leave us a five star
review. See you next time.
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