The online business world is full of MILLIONS of entrepreneurs trying to sell their unique approach to whatever it is they sell. And this is a beautiful world that I am part of. But it's really easy (at least it was for me) to fall into the paradigm that you Have To Scale your business. Scalability is a huge part of the small biz world.
But I saw a term on Threads this week that reached out and touched my very soul. "Micro Business." Because I am not a small business. I am a business of One. And trying to operate like an operation of Several when I didn't actually have the business to back it up was a recipe for disaster.
Of course, there was also the Cymbalta slowly eroding my Life Force. That was a factor.
In 2020, I quit my full-time job with $10K in the bank and decided I was going to figure this shit out. I got some clients, I picked up a freelance contract for 20 hours a week, I was doing AMAZING. Thriving. Happy. Amazed that I could be so free.
In 2021, we bought a house!!! I live in an intentional "platolycule" - four adults who live together and act like a family unit, but we're platonic. Except for me and Brennan. We're in loooove. So the white guy with the savings account got the actual mortgage, but the rest of us chipped in with closing costs, seventeen trips to Lowe's, etc. This was the first big hit to my savings account, chipping in for the closing costs. But I was still doing well and actually got hired for a second year by the same nonprofit who loved my work in 2020. WINNER.
In 2022 I started to wobble. (Oh, it's nice that I can use that word. That used to be an Abuser Word - he accused me of "wobbling" my confidence in our relationship, which was Not Allowed and made me a Bad Partner. But look at me go!) I joined a program to help me with my money mindset, and it was amazing. I instantly started thinking of my services and rates and pricing differently. This program made me understand that asking people to pay me was not annoying them - people WANT to hire me. (This is a huge important thing to believe... otherwise you are just Suffering All The Time).
But I was also a little bit in credit card debt after YEARS of living without any credit cards. I fell down the slippery slope. Back in my Dave Ramsey days I proudly called all my CC accounts to close and cancel them. "Did you win the lottery?" one of them asked - it was Discover, my longest held account. "No, I'm just getting debt free!" I told him. And I was on a really good track with getting debt free.
Til I wasn't. And the hardest part of that is that I had turned Becoming Debt Free into my latest moral high ground. Wrecked my car with a deer and used the insurance check to buy a used car outright instead of getting a newer car with financing = I'm better than people with a car payment. I know more. I am smarter and wiser and I have Dave Ramsey on my side. (Oh my GOD, I hate admitting that I felt so Holier Than Thou. I hate it, I hate it, I worry you will judge me and leave my blog and never come back, and also you will block me and tell all your friends to block me too. Maybe you will even throw a brick at my house, or steal my dog, and I would find a way to convince myself that I deserved it all for daring to say this out loud).
So in 2022, I'm trying to do the Credit Card Dance of getting a balance transfer card to avoid paying the interest that kicked in after my 0% APR promotional period ended... you know how the story goes. Allowing myself to have debt and not moralize it feels like torture. I yearn for self-loathing. If I Should Never Have Done That, it's easy to hate myself about it. If there's no morality at being stuck under a mountain of credit card debt, then I would have to accept that I'm okay, that I don't have to strive to be better / more / enough.
Every time the idea of "having to be enough" starts to leave me, I can feel myself yank it back into me. It's like a bird, but I keep clipping its wings. But soon it will fly away, and I will be enough without it, and I think I will fly too.
In 2023, I made $98,000 in revenue. It was my biggest year to date. I was a real business person, running a real business! People really hired me and I didn't have to beg them, they LOVED to hire me. They chose it again and again. I was at the top of my game, and had started To Scale.
I hired an executive VA to the tune of $550 per month on retainer. And let me be clear: THIS ISNT A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE RATE. I hired her on purpose. I wanted to hire her. But I hired her because I thought having a $550 a month executive VA made my business more real and serious and valid. And... buddy, that is an expensive mistake to make.
After investing over $7,000 from 2023 - 2024, I had to let her go because I just did not have the money. But realistically, I should have figured out that I didn't need THAT LEVEL of support just yet. I tried to put the support in place to make my business grow to a place that required it, instead of waiting until I had so much business on my plate that I literally needed to offload some of the administrative work.
But I only know this in hindsight. And I only share my shame with you now. Heading into 2024, I was still over the moon and the math was mathing and all signs pointed to Another Great Year.
I celebrated on Facebook. I shared the number of dollars I made. 99% of the comments were genuinely happy and congratulatory. And one person grabbed my Moral High Ground by the throat and body slammed me to the ground. She said I was rubbing my socioeconomic privilege in everyone's face. That I was a millennial one percenter. That I didn't care about the genocide in Gaza. And even though I knew this was a fucking STUPID and UNTRUE accusation, it ripped me apart.
A former friend who, I thought, was pretty close with me started talking shit, vaguebooking about how charity isn't leftism and it takes more than donating to a cause to really do the work. As if anyone can do the fucking work when they aren't adequately resourced.
Can we agree to stop romanticizing poverty so fucking hard? We are all losing against the oligarchs, but sure, Caitlin Fisher being able to afford manicures for one year is going to really set back the entire democratic socialist movement. My god. Stop being like this. People deserve nice things. And $98K in REVENUE is not the same as Jeff Bezos' $600M wedding. So kindly eat my ass.
So we're in 2024 now. I've "Scaled" in the following ways: Put that money mindset program on my credit card. Put a coaching certification on my credit card. (NO REGRETS ON THESE, TBH THEY WERE LIFE CHANGING, BUT IT STILL FEELS LIKE I NEED TO CONFESS MY SINS FOR NOT HAVING THE CASH UPFRONT). Hired a VA I couldn't actually afford. Subscribed to Dubsado ($400/year) to send contracts and invoices, which is something you can literally just do for free, but I thought I was building the kind of business where I was tits deep in clients clamoring for my attention and I really needed Dubsado.
You know what I realized? I don't wanna be that fucking big. "Fully booked" for me is not the same as "Fully booked" for a coach who wants to make millions. I want to buy the nice vegan cream cheese. We do not have the same goals, and there is no MORALITY IN THAT. I GET TO BE SMALL AND NOT WANT TO SCALE. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.
Anyway. Don't let anybody pressure you into growing for growth's sake. Please take your time. Think about your vision for your business and make decisions from your values, not from what That Coach Over There is doing.