The Design Business Show 236: Getting Support For Brave Life Changes with Fresh Starts Registry Co-Founder, Olivia Howell

Olivia Dreizen Howell is the co-founder and CEO of Fresh Starts Registry, the first and only platform for everything you need to begin again, including divorce or breakup, moving, career changes, stepping into your truth, or starting again after grief. Her background is in social media marketing, and she is also the founder and CEO of March Lion Media. She's a single mom of two amazing boys on Long Island (born and bred!), and in her spare time, she loves to watercolor, make handmade cards, read about generational trauma, listen to 90s music, and collect crystals I know nothing about, but love the way they feel.

 

 

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

 

How Fresh Starts Registry Started + How it Works

• How I came across Olivia on Twitter when she was doing a challenge involving reaching out to people in business that you normally wouldn't shoot your shot with 

• Olivia says that everything she's done in life, she hasn't had a background in - if you want to do something, go for it 

• The story of how Olivia got into teaching and then left after 8 years to run local businesses' Facebook pages which grew into a global agency that her sister eventually joined 

• Olivia's marriage ended in 2019, and after her husband moved out of their house, she wondered why there wasn't a registry for divorce, breakups, job loss, moving - any of the hard moments in life 

• How Olivia and her sister created Fresh Starts Registry, which is the first and only platform for everything you need to start again 

• Olivia explains how to use the registry builder on their site and shares that they have over 60 experts in all different categories to use as resources 

• When you become an expert, you get all these amazing resources and benefits like workshops, seminars, and public relations

• Usually, Olivia charges $100 - $200 an hour to work with them one-on-one, but when you're an expert, you pay $37 a month and can come in to get help as many times as you want 

• How Olivia got 5 clients before she had a website when she was starting, all because she talked to people

• If you're starting a business; you need to be able to vocalize what you do, be confident, and network within your industry  

• The reason why Olivia didn't want to niche down to just divorces was in order to celebrate all brave life decisions

• It was important when Olivia and her sister started building Fresh Starts that it was a safe place for people on the internet, which is why they don't collect user data of the people going through life changes 

Olivia’s Talent for Connecting Others + Teaching 

• One challenge they had at the start was keeping experts, but once they started supporting them, giving them resources, and teaching them all the marketing tools they knew to help them grow their business