About Me
My Story
I guess the big change in my life came after the economic crash of 2008. There is nothing like financial struggles to make you realize there has to be a better way. I was a mom with six children, one of whom was a newborn baby girl. I worked for my brother’s mortgage company as a loan officer. My husband, Nate, was also a loan officer. So, as you can imagine, the big “mortgage crash” of 2008 was a huge blow for our family. Times were very hard. Putting food on the table and keeping a roof over our heads was a miracle.
During this time, my frustration and almost poverty turned to passion. A burning passion to have something of my own. Something that didn’t depend on number of hours worked. Something I could do that was flexible and required very little start-up cost. I would have to do this as a side hustle because I had to make an hourly wage to help support my family.
I started helping my brother with the development of his properties. It was a job I could do from home. I hadn’t been involved in land development before. I figured if others could do it, then I should be able to figure it out. I did get very good at it … after a few years. And I did build something on the side.
My First Website is Born
My daughters and I had started a website called Smarty Pants Fun where we provided adorable printable paper crafts. Everyone loved them! We had a ton of traffic and followers. The plan was to make money on advertisements on our site, as well as selling books of crafts that we made ourselves. We learned all of the “what not to dos.” We spent over two years and made no money on this one. But the lessons we learned set us up for success on our next venture.
My First Profitable Website is Born
After wasting hours and years on a venture that had been unprofitable, my daughter and I decided to start a new website. We had become super passionate about helping children with learning disabilities. We had found an approach that really worked for my kids and wanted to share it and the products with the world. We undertook many online trainings about how to create successful online businesses. What we learned through a little failure, a lot of experience, and some good education, was about to pay off.
I remember it well, the day our first online sale happened. I was checking my emails and had two messages notifying me of two sales on my website … Aaahhh! Yasss! Talk about a high – I almost didn’t believe it. I almost tripped over myself trying to get to my computer to see if I really had. Two $14.99 sales had truly taken place. The first of many. Now we sell many products and courses online.
The Perfect Business Model
Through experience, we learned that online business is the best business model. And here is why:
- It requires very little start-up cost.
- It can be done on your own time.
- It can be done right from home.
- It isn’t an all-or-nothing kind of start-up. You can build it slowly as a side hustle.
- You can automate most of it.
- The site makes sales even when I am on vacation or sleeping.
- If you also make a product that can be delivered electronically, it can be easily scaled up.
I never looked back. Once I got those couple of sales, I knew it was real and could be repeated and scaled. We had successfully found the right way to sell products and information downloads. And, we would use this to build our own future. We now have three courses, physical products, and a number of downloadable products selling over four websites. We learned how to boost income while reducing time spent on the boring stuff, like accounting, shipping, daily posts etc. This is what I plan to share with you.