Shopify ran a study with The Harris Poll across five countries this year. And there was one number I just couldn’t stop thinking about. 93% of people in the US say they feel at least somewhat ready to start a business. More than half say they could start today. And yet they haven’t. So the problem isn’t readiness. You get stuck in a cycle of “feeling ready.” You just keep reading and watching a little more. You are waiting for that one moment where everything makes sense. Then, before you...
8 days ago • 2 min read
When most people start a business, they have a pretty clear mental image of what “being ready” looks like. A website that looks decent. A logo. Maybe a social profile that’s at least halfway filled out. And I get it. Those things feel like proof. Proof that you’re real, that you’re not just talking about doing something. I found a survey of 500 marketers that came out earlier this year, and one number in it that I wasn’t expecting. Most people had already decided if they were going to contact...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Everyone wants a cool business idea. Something that sounds good when someone asks what you do. Something with an aesthetic, maybe a logo you could put on a tote bag. Bookkeeping is not that. No one brings up bookkeeping at a dinner table. It doesn’t get saved on Pinterest. There is no viral reel showing someone living their best life because they sorted a client’s QuickBooks account. And yet, there was this story on Entrepreneur. A 26-year-old woman started a bookkeeping side hustle about a...
22 days ago • 1 min read
Everyone sees a founder go viral and thinks that’s the way to do it. Post every day, follow the trends, grow your audience, and customers will come. So they start posting. Nothing happens. They post more. Still nothing. Then they quietly give up and blame themselves for not being “consistent enough.” But here’s the thing. The problem usually isn’t the content. It’s what they expect social media to actually do. I recently read an article about two teenage founders, and what they’re doing with...
29 days ago • 2 min read
I used Canva before I had a reason to. Not for a business. Not for any strategy. I just liked designing things, so I kept opening it. Back when it was still pretty new, before there were tons of templates like there are now, I was in there making things that probably nobody even saw. No plan. I just did it because I enjoyed it. Fast forward a few years, and Pinterest became a serious part of what I do at TalkBitz. And the thing I didn’t expect was this: I didn’t have to learn design when I...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Almost every side hustle tip starts with the same line. “Just find 30 minutes a day.” And I get it, 30 minutes doesn’t sound like much. It sounds like something anyone can manage between dinner and Netflix. But here’s the thing. Pew Research just dropped data showing that women in their 30s and 40s spend about 52 more minutes a day on housework than men in the same age group. On top of that, unpaid responsibilities like caregiving don't stop when the workday ends. And when you add it all up,...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
When you first start a business, someone is going to tell you to figure out what makes you different. So you think about it. You end up saying things like “I’m affordable and reliable” or “I actually care, unlike the big corporations” or maybe something more specific, like all natural ingredients, small batch, no shortcuts, nothing artificial or mass-produced. And it feels right. You put it on your website, your bio, your pitch. Then nothing changes. Not because the product is bad. Not...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
There’s this idea that if your product is good enough, customers will figure that out. They’ll buy. They’ll come back. That might be true eventually. But your first customer never gets that far. They decided about you before they even finished loading your page. Let me explain. There’s a psychological thing called the halo effect, and it’s been around since 1920. What it basically says is, people form one impression of you, fast, and that impression bleeds into everything else they think...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Every marketing guide, every YouTube video, every course you’ve ever seen says the same thing: lead with benefits, not features. And look, that advice isn’t wrong exactly. But the way most people apply it? It’s basically copy-pasting the same five words onto every product page on the internet. “Helps you save time.” “Grow your business.” “Transform your workflow.” I’ve written stuff like that too. Early on, I thought I was doing it right because I’d followed the rule. But when everything...
2 months ago • 1 min read