Welcome to the first episode of Frugalpreneur: How to Launch, Manage, and Market your online business for under 100 per month. My name is Sarah St John, and I will be your host. I want to record this first episode as an introduction, episode to tell you a bit about what you can expect from this show. I’m launching this podcast to coincide with my recently released book, by the same title as this podcast, I wanna give you a little background about myself and why I’m doing this podcast so I’m going to just read the introduction to my new book as it summarizes it perfectly.
Hello, my name is Sarah, and I’m an entrepreneur. That sounds like the kind of introduction, you’d expect to hear on an addiction recovery meeting. But entrepreneurship is my addiction. Let me tell you my story. It all started in 2008. I had six different jobs that year. Things just weren’t working out. So I started a business. And before you ask, the answer is: Yes. I continued to work a regular full-time job to pay the bills. I wouldn’t suggest quitting your day job to pursue your business full time, if you’re just starting out. Wait until you’re making enough from your side hustle or gig that it can replace your full-time income.
Since then, I’ve started close to 20 different businesses while having ideas for at least another 20. I’ll be honest, some were and still are successful and some bombed. Not so much because the ideas were bad (although there were a few of those), but because I didn’t have the time, money, connections, or resources to launch some of those business ventures. But that’s okay. Sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes regroup, and try something else. Even the most successful entrepreneurs and business owners will tell you that some of their ventures failed.
It’s rare for someone to get it right the first go round. I had a photography business for about seven years primarily photographing weddings, but while I enjoyed photographing animals landscapes and architecture, I eventually realized I didn’t enjoy photographing people, which is the primary way of making money as a photographer unless you get a gig for a magazine or something. In addition, I learned that photographing weddings was very time-consuming.
Sure, the wedding day itself only required actively taking photos for four to eight hours, but the sheer time spent editing afterward drastically reduced my dollar per hour rate.
Not to mention how expensive it is to maintain and upgrade camera equipment. It’s not just the camera itself, but also the lenses, the memory cards, the lighting kits, the software, the classes. Also I discovered that everyone and their dog was becoming a photographer.
It seemed to be the new go-to method of self-employment. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, per se, but it diluted the market and made for stiff competition. Needless to say, I wanted to do something else.
Ideally, something online and something that cost less than 100 per month operate. But it is through these experiences, I’ve learned that I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. It’s in my blood. Perhaps you could say I was born this way. As a young kid, I’d take things I got for free (like pencils candy bars, etc) And try to flip them by selling them to my friends, so I could profit. Even today, I’m constantly looking for ways to flip. Things like sold out concert tickets. With the each new business I launched, the entrepreneur may became more prominent. I devoured every book on business or entrepreneurship, I could get my hands on. I joined entrepreneurial Facebook groups and mailing lists, watched webinars, took online courses, and listened to podcasts. The more I learned, the more I yearned to learn. In all of my failures as an entrepreneur, I never gave up. I just moved on and try something else.
However, I got stuck. A turning point for me was during one of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace classes. If you’re not familiar with it, Financial Peace University is a nine-lesson course that teaches you how to pay off your debt and save via the snowball method. I whole-heartedly recommend the course. It’s an eye-opening game changer. But as I sat there in class, I thought these strategies to pay off debt and save money are great. But what about also making more money to achieve your financial goals, versus merely relying on your current income?
Then a light bulb went off in my head. And this is how the concept of Frugalpreneur began. I’ve spent the last few years testing out different ways to make extra money online while on the tight budget. So why not save other people a lot of time, money, and headaches and teach what I’ve learned? I am the Frugalpreneur, and you can be one too.
So what’s your story? In other words, why do you wanna become an entrepreneur?
Maybe you’re looking for a way to make some extra cash on the side for spending money
Maybe you’re looking for a way to build up your savings or pay down your debt or both
Maybe you’re wanting to create multiple passive residual and scalable income streams.
Maybe you’re looking for a way to work from home so you can spend more time with your family, and avoid rush hour traffic.
Maybe you’re looking for more financial freedom
Maybe you’re looking for a way to get out of the 9 to 5 office job rat race working to make someone else rich by instead of working for yourself and earning an uncapped income.
Maybe you’re a creative business-minded entrepreneur who enjoys running your own company
Or maybe you’re like me and all of the above apply, but there’s just one problem: money
After all, you’re interested in starting a new venture to make money, not spend money. However the saying, “you have to spend money to make money” is true, at least to a certain extent.
In this book, I’ll show you to make money without going broke.
To quote just one of my favorite fellow entrepreneurs, Chris Guillebeau: “It’s completely possible to start on a very low budget without hindering the odds of success.”
But I wanna take a moment to tell you what you could expect from this book (or in this case, the podcast). My goal is to show you various ways to start and manage an online business on a tight budget. Many of the tools I’ll discuss in detail are ones I use for my own business and the majority are either free or inexpensive. I’ll show you how, like me, you can reserve most of your business budget for marketing and advertising. To summarize, I’ll break down the different ways to make money online, detail and explain the must ask for your online business, and share the best free or inexpensive tools and resources to help you succeed.
So without further ado, let’s get started.
Okay, so that was the introduction to my new book that coincides with this podcast. By the way, you can get a free print copy at freefrugalpreneur.com. Again, that’s freefrugalpreneur.com. That’s a mouthful. With the introduction of the way, I’ll now get into specifics about what you could expect from this podcast. My goal is for this to be a weekly podcast averaging in length anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on whether or not there’s an interview involved.
The first several episodes I’ve lined up are interviews, so they’re on the longer end, but there will also be episodes where I’m just sharing a piece of advice, a tip or a trick, or an overview of a product or service I use and recommend that’s both affordable and makes the entrepreneurial journey easier to manage. In addition, I will also be answering questions you may have. If you have questions about entrepreneurship, you can leave me a voice message at 469-389-2656. Again, that’s 469-389-2656. This phoneline is dedicated just for this podcast. This is a line I don’t answer or respond to via phone, but I will play the voice messages, and answer them on the podcast. However, if you prefer not to have your voice aired, then feel free to email me your questions to Sarah@frugalpreneurs.com. Again, that’s Sarah@frugalpreneurs.com
Well, I guess that’s about it for now.
If you like the show so far, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review in iTunes or wherever you are listening to this show.
Until next time.
