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Flying Solo Without Being Alone: Our Journey Serving Solopreneurs · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: What do a newsletter from Australia, a rush launch in the middle of a pandemic, and a big dummies book have in common? Well, they're all part of the lifestarr story and how it came to be. Today, Joe and I are pulling back the curtain on where this whole thing started, what flopped, what clicked, and the tiny wording change that completely flooded my inbox. Plus, we're spilling the details on our biggest launch yet, including a whole lot of our best stuff that we are now giving away for free. So grab your coffee because this one is a little more personal than usual.
• 0:30
  You're listening to the life first solopreneur, the podcast for those in pursuit of a life first business. I'm Carly Ries, and my cohost Joe Rando and I spend every episode with solopreneurs who are proving there's a better way to run a one person business and experts who are helping make it happen. We like to say life first then business. So let's get right to it. Alright, you guys.
• 0:55
  So we are less than a week from our big launch. If you're listening to this on the day the episode went live, this will be an exciting teaser. If you're listening to this after October 13, it's there. So get excited. But we have a big launch coming up because we've been making a lot of changes at LifeStarr over years, honestly. I thought ahead of this big release that we're so excited about, it's always helpful to like peel back the curtain. Is that it? Peel back the curtain, that's the phrase I thought?
• 1:26
  Joe Rando: Yeah. I think so.
• 1:28
  Carly Ries: To kinda discuss what we've been through as business, we're all solopreneurs, we're all contractors, but we've all been working together to get this thing out there. I personally always like seeing the behind the scenes of things. I think it's helpful to see where people start and give the story behind the why and to why we're here today. Because what we're about to release is not...
• 1:50
  Was not on a whim. It was after years of talking to solopreneurs, years of doing our own research, years of being our own solopreneurs, and seeing really what people want and need, and that is what has landed us here. And so, Joe, let's take our listeners on a journey from where it started to the changes we made, and what's coming. I think this is our most exciting iteration yet.
• 2:16
  Joe Rando: Yeah. Where it started, Where a lot of things started for me in terms of business, which is I wanted to buy something, and it didn't exist. And that turned into... When I sold my last startup in 2020, I said, you know, I'm gonna build it because it doesn't exist, and I want it.
• 2:40
  And I think if I want it, other people will want it. And shortly after that, I think I got ahold of you. We had worked together at that last startup, and you started helping me. And I had this idea for an app.
• 2:54
  And the idea for the app was basically I wanted a task management system that would let me work with people that didn't work for me. Because Even though I had employees, I wanted to work with people that weren't my employees too, and then the tools at the time didn't really even accommodate that. Some of them had, like, you could have a guest, but they were second class citizens. And I said, why can't it be like Facebook? Why can't I have something like Facebook but for working with anybody I want to that wants to work with me? So If I send a friend request to somebody, and they don't wanna friend me, they're not my friend.
• 3:24
  But if I send a friend request, they say yes, we get connected. So in this case, it was like, I send a task request, hey, will you do this for me? They can accept it, and then we're connected. If they don't, they're not. So this was my original idea.
• 3:40
  Carly Ries: And it was heavily inspired by David Allen's book, Getting Things Done.
• 3:44
  Joe Rando: Correct. Yeah. I had always loved Getting Things Done, and always felt that implicit in it was a kind of a social network kind of thing, a way of working, that there was no reason that you shouldn't be able to work with anybody, I'm trying to say. But the issue I had was that, I had this idea for a product, but you also need a target market. You also need somebody that you're targeting with it or, especially nowadays, you're launching into the void.
• 4:10
  And you being the marketing person came up with the idea of solopreneurs, which when you first said it, was like, solopreneurs. Yeah. And I looked into it. I said, oh, that's me.
• 4:21
  I was a solopreneur. My first business, I was a solopreneur for years. 1990 to 2004. So I was a solopreneur, I did build a life first business in that particular case. It was all about having control over my life.
• 4:41
  So it all started to click and then I was doing it again with LifeStarr, which at that point was called WorkStarr. And we started working on this idea of helping solopreneurs, which first started just with the app, which we kind of launched in a simple form and didn't really work. I mean, we didn't get a lot of traction.
• 5:04
  Carly Ries: Well, this was during COVID and this was like everybody was working from home. So we were like, gosh, we really need to get this out there in front of people as they're working from home because a lot of people are losing their jobs. They may become contractors. it was COVID. Nobody knew what was going on. And this was like April. so we tried to get it out there before it was ready. I mean, we're being honest, it just wasn't ready.
• 5:29
  So it didn't go very well because, it was rushed, and we also had just had that idea of solopreneurs. We didn't really vet it very well. I was like, I think this will be a good idea, I think we'd done a survey, but we hadn't really talked to anybody.
• 5:44
  Joe Rando: So then what happened is we were looking at this thing and was like, well, how many solopreneurs are there? And I came up with a number of, like, tens of millions in The United States alone. And I said, well, we gotta figure out where to reach them. We said, we gotta figure out where they are because we can't just say it's for solopreneurs.
• 6:00
  We gotta go find where the solopreneurs are. And we couldn't find any place. Remember, we found that one place in Australia that had a thing for Australian solopreneurs and there was nothing.
• 6:09
  Carly Ries: I think we subscribed to their newsletter.
• 6:12
  Joe Rando: And so then we said, well, let's build it. then we put the app to the side and started building, and we changed it to LifeStarr. I don't know when we did that exactly, was that done before or after we did the first release. I can't remember.
• 6:27
  Carly Ries: It was before because When I joined, LifeStarr was already in play.
• 6:31
  Joe Rando: Okay. Yeah. Because I'd already known that was about your whole life, not just work. But, anyway...
• 6:37
  So then we turned around and said, let's build a place for solopreneurs. And, we put together, a whole process for building a solopreneur business. In those days, we said, a solopreneur business that serves your life is how we used to phrase it.
• 6:55
  Carly Ries: And it's called the solopreneur success cycle. We did come up with that concept.
• 6:59
  Joe Rando: Yes, And then we did that and started working with that and helping people with that. Then we got the deal with Wiley. We built a community and got the book deal with Wiley, and that was a little bit of time.
• 7:12
  Carly Ries: We wrote Solopreneur Business for Dummies. You know, those yellow dummies books. Joe and I wrote that. Because we were like, oh, now we know what we're talking about.
• 7:20
  Joe Rando: we'd already helped a bunch of solopreneurs, so we said, you know, we feel good about what we're teaching here. We had some wonderful success stories and, people coming from the brink of disaster and, now they're too busy to come and talk to us anymore.
• 7:33
  Carly Ries: Yeah. But We love them. You know who you are if you're listening.
• 7:41
  Joe Rando: but that's good that they're working a lot. So anyway, but hopefully, having a life first business. So then once that really got going and everything, then we went back to the app.
• 7:53
  And it's kind of awesome.
• 7:57
  Carly Ries: It's awesome. Yeah. And here's what I love about the app. I'm sorry. I'm gonna take the baton for a quick second.
• 8:03
  What I love about the app is it's a cog in a really awesome wheel of assets and education and things. I love it as a standalone for sure, but I also love it because it works so well with the community, with our courses, with everything that we have. We kept saying it's the hub, and now it truly is the hub.
• 8:27
  And we were just missing that last piece of the cog.
• 8:29
  Joe Rando: Well, Yeah. The real thing that it's become, instead of just being like a task management app, we've coined the term commitment management system because what it does is it keeps track of all the stuff that you're doing, which are your to dos and your projects, and that's pretty typical of, what we call task management apps.
• 8:49
  But it keeps track of all the things other people are doing for you as well. And they don't have to be using the app for it to do that because it's an email client. So if they use the app, you can use it in the app. You don't have to ever email. You have chat, and you have the ability to send each other a task, but you can assign a task to somebody just with an email address.
• 9:06
  And they're interacting via email with you, but you're using this app, which is keeping everything organized for you, putting all the emails in with the task it belongs to, grabbing all the files that are involved and storing them in one place in the task. So it really becomes this management of commitment. So when you ask, you know, Dave to give you a proposal by next Thursday, he's getting an email from you that you didn't write on Wednesday saying this is due tomorrow. And if he doesn't do it and Friday comes, it's like, you're late. It's polite. It's pleasant,
• 9:40
  Carly Ries: you're fired
• 9:42
  Joe Rando: Yeah. That one... We're working on that one.
• 9:45
  But, you know, it's keeping people committed to do Or, notified of their commitments that they've given to you, so they don't fall through the cracks. And it makes a big difference. Because, when you're a solopreneur, you don't have managers that are sitting there, who their whole job is to make sure everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing.
• 10:06
  It's all on you, and it's very hard to keep track of what other people are supposed to be doing for you, while you keep track of what you're supposed to be doing, and running the business, and doing all the other stuff that you gotta do. And we wanted to make a tool that would make it easy for you to keep track of all these things that you're doing, other people are doing, how they all tie together. So, making a project can involve things that you're doing, involve things other people are doing for you, and then they can give the things back to you that they need. And it just creates a really powerful system for managing all the things that you're doing in a one person business.
• 10:40
  Carly Ries: Well, you guys, as a one person business, you are also balancing life. So just for a heads up, you can put your honey do list in there and make your notifications, remind your spouse of when things are due. So the whole point, the life side of it is, yeah, you're running your business. As part of your business, you're also trying to manage your life too, and both things can go in there.
• 11:05
  Sorry. Go ahead.
• 11:06
  Joe Rando: No. I'm so glad you mentioned that because, you can create roles. so one role could be work. And those are the default, work and life. And you can just click to the life role and only see all the stuff that's going on in your personal life, you know, the honey do list or whatever it is.
• 11:22
  And if you click it over to work, then it gives you other roles, that are related to the work you're doing. You can create multiple different ones. So for different aspects, I remember at one point, I was working with a nonprofit, and I had One for the nonprofit. So I could just see the stuff I was doing for them.
• 11:39
  And so Yeah. It lets you run your whole life, which is why I changed it from WorkStarr to LifeStarr because it really had that ability.
• 11:45
  Carly Ries: Well, and the thing thing I really like is We're talking about commitments, but It's also committing to yourself. you can assign yourself something and hold yourself accountable. And I think a lot of things that solopreneurs miss is that accountability thing.
• 11:57
  And for whatever reason, the way our brain works, I don't know, we need to get Nancy Harhut on here to talk about how this works with our brains, But, if I am like, oh, I have to publish this podcast episode by Thursday, and I just know I have to do that, that could be easy to forget. But if I see a reminder and it's like, hey, you have to republish this by tomorrow. It's like, oh.
• 12:20
  It's almost like your accountability buddy to be hey. Yeah. You have to do this, and it's staring at you in the face.
• 12:28
  Joe Rando: That's true. And so, I know we're talking about the app a lot, and There's more to the story than the app. So, one of the other things that I was really surprised to learn, was the fact that we'd made a change from, talking about it in the context of a business that serves your life, and we changed it to a life first business, building a life first business. And I don't know about you, but I was shocked at how many people responded to that very positively.
• 13:03
  Carly Ries: Joe, When I send the invoice at the end of the month, you don't wanna know how much of that time is responding to emails of people that want to be on the show since we have changed it to the life first solopreneur.
• 13:15
  Joe Rando: Yeah. It's wild. It's podcast guests. It's just other people that we talk to, people that come in. And that's one of the things that kind of weirds me out because I think I don't have enough of an understanding of the subtleties of language and of copywriting. But, that little change is huge in terms of its impact on the people we're reaching out to.
• 13:41
  And I think that's a lesson for everybody that sometimes... I mean, the life first business and building a business that serves your life are the same concept. Right? It's the same concept. But for whatever reason, the life first business just seems to resonate more with people, and that can be really, really powerful.
• 13:59
  Carly Ries: I think it's also because, there's no question on what it means. And, it's immediate like, we're the anti hustle culture. We're not hustle bros. I mean,
• 14:11
  It's three thirty your time, 12:30 my time. You need to jump in a few minutes because you have a haircut in the middle of the day. And then you'll get up and you'll go work a bunch after. I have a commitment at 01:30. I'll take a break, and then my kids have after school things, then I'll work for a few hours then.
• 14:29
  It's like, I feel like life first, it just makes it so clear. oh, I run a business, but I do have a life.
• 14:36
  Joe Rando: Right.
• 14:37
  Carly Ries: Yeah. I don't know.
• 14:39
  Joe Rando: So I just thought it was interesting. But, yeah, I think for whatever reason, that gets that concept across better. And I think for, a lot of solopreneurs out there, it might be something to think about. Maybe there's a better way to say what you do so it'll resonate better with people. But, like I said, You know, I'm an old guy, and this is like a new lesson for me. I'm going, I learned something new. It really surprised me.
• 15:06
  Carly Ries: Yeah. I think the other thing is, throughout the evolution, everything, what we've really learned is solopreneurs need community. They need accountability. They need systems and processes, and they need a vision for their business, and they need to be able to react and pivot if things change, whether if it's in their life or whether it's in their business.
• 15:26
  And that's kind of what we teach, and everything that we have now supports all those things. it's kinda like our old slogan, or I mean it was unofficial, but I used to say it all the time, flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. And that still stands, and it's just kind of everything we've put together now, whether it be the app, the community, our videos, our AI targeted at solopreneurs specifically, our office hours, all these things. But some of those are in our paid tiers, so I don't want to say all that's free, but a lot of it is free. I lost my train of thought, but all of that ties back to let's hold your hand.
• 16:00
  We're all in this together. Solo together. I think that's the biggest thing we've learned. And so this next part really leans into that. I'm sure in six months, we'll be like, we have other really cool things that we've added. But for now, this is the most, I think, excited I've been of what's about to be released. Would you agree? Definitely. I mean, We're being like the crazy guy on the TV commercial. you know, we're giving it away.
• 16:29
  Joe Rando: We took all of our premier content, our content that was only in the paid tier, and we're putting it all into what we're calling LifeStarr Academy. So all of our content is now available for free. So we have, all of our solopreneur success sessions, all of our regular courses, they are all in there for free. So that's a big change.
• 16:54
  We do have some paid programs still. there's a free version of the app. There's a paid version of the app, but the paid version has the AI, the coaching AI that's available. And a bunch of other things, some workshops and other things for the paid tier.
• 17:15
  But, we're giving a lot away for free because, some of those people are going to want to upgrade to the paid tier, but all of them are gonna be able to benefit from what we've put into LifeStarr Academy for free. So, it's a win win.
• 17:32
  Carly Ries: You can get all of that right now. I mean, you can get access to all of it next week. If you're listening to this when this launches, October 13, that's when you'll have access to everything. But you can sign up right now, so that when it goes live, just go to LifeStarr Intro. The link is in our show notes, that will give you access once that day comes.
• 17:49
  Joe Rando: Right. You'll have access already to the community and stuff, but there'll be more stuff on the thirteenth.
• 17:55
  Carly Ries: Yes. And you guys, I know that this Has kind of been... The intent behind this episode wasn't to be salesy or anything like that, or look what we're doing.
• 18:05
  But we genuinely just think this is super helpful for solopreneurs. So we wanted to give our backstory, how we landed here, why we're qualified. And the eighty twenty rule. We provide educational information on this show 99% of the time. So I'm gonna take the one episode and do a shameless plug episode.
• 18:26
  That wasn't the intent, but I don't mind . And it's genuinely genuine because we know how much it will help all of you. So thanks for letting us take nearly twenty minutes of your time to explain what we've been up to. We really do think it'll be worth your while, just go sign up at LifeStarr Intro. Joe, anything else before I do my standard sign off? I guess not. No. I think we've shamelessly plugged away enough. You know, one thing about this, is proof that we don't script these. We just come in and talk to each other and try to, discover the truth. And the truth is we needed to self promote this episode.
• 19:06
  Exactly. And for our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. It really does mean the world to us. Leaving a five star review actually will help us spread the word to other life first solopreneurs. So please do that if you think any of our content is valuable to you.
• 19:21
  Share this episode with a friend that you think could really use all of the services and products we're about to offer. Subscribe to our show on Apple or Spotify or anywhere you listen to your podcast including YouTube. We'll see you next time on the Life First Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go.
• 19:48
  Why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.