Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 quick questions with Kate Erickson, Founder of Entrepreneurs on Fire (part 2/2)
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is, what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?
- 0:18I grew up very corporate America. I didn't really know what entrepreneurship was. I didn't understand this whole concept and I certainly was not of the mindset that you can create your life exactly how you want it. And after I found that out, I became very dedicated to helping other people realize that too. And for me to even be able to just share with one person that they are in charge of their
- 0:43that they get to choose, that just because you've been doing something or oftentimes it's like, oh, I do it that way because that's the way it's always been done. Or I do it that way because that's the way it's supposed to be. Like challenging that and understanding that, no, you get to choose whatever way you want to go. And that's my why is helping other people realize that.
- 1:06I love that. Love that. Very cool. Question number two is what do you think has been the number one marketing moment for entrepreneurs on FIRE?
- 1:17Ooh, wow, that's a great one. You know what? When I look back on our journey, something that was so exciting for us because it was brand new and we were just entering a world in so many different ways that we were very unfamiliar with is when John launched the Freedom Journal and we decided to launch it with Kickstarter. And that whole process of...
- 1:46creating a physical product, which was the first time we'd ever done that. We'd never marketed a physical product. We'd never used Kickstarter before. And that whole campaign, we reached out to, you know, those people that we'd connected with on our journey up to that point. And the...
- 2:06marketing campaign that was put together purely from the incredible relationships that we had built through the podcast, it was really reaching out to past interviewees. So it, you know, it all went back to the podcast, but it was really incredible to see. We hit our goal within the first day on Kickstarter and we went on to generate, um, yeah, I mean, it was, it,
- 2:29It was a really special moment. I'm so grateful that we treated it like a true launch too. Like we did an in-person launch party. We were living in San Diego at the time. So we had a bunch of people come out and celebrate with us. We had like the Kickstarter page up on a screen. So everyone was watching like as we hit our goal. And it was a really cool moment, you know, to be diving into something brand new and
- 2:55And to have those people around us supporting us, that was a really, a really special moment. Gosh, that sounds amazing. And how much did you generate in the end? I cut you off a second ago. Yeah.
- 3:07No, yeah, we ended up getting to $453,000 on Kickstarter. Oh my God, that's crazy. Wow. It totally blew our minds. That is amazing. Wow. Question number three is what's your go-to business resource outside of your own resources, obviously, when it comes to book, podcast, or newsletter?
- 3:31I love Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It's an incredible time management book for anyone who feels like they kind of struggle with like focus or staying present in their work. Essentialism by Greg McKeown. My hand is up.
- 3:46I'm also a huge fan of T. Harv Ecker's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. That was a really big like money mindset shift book for me. It's definitely one of my go-tos. And for a newsletter, I love James Clear. James Clear is big in like the habit space. And he has a 3-2-1 newsletter, he calls it. It's a weekly newsletter. It's one of my favorites to receive. So if you're not opted in for that, I highly recommend it.
- 4:15I'm going to be signing up. I didn't know he had a newsletter. That's so cool. Yeah. And it's, I love it because it's a really, like a really quick hitting. Just, yeah. Oh, it was super inspiring. Amazing. Thank you. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM habits as we've just been speaking about that help you kick your goals?
- 4:38Yeah, definitely. The night before, I'm always kind of preparing myself mentally for what my next day looks like. So I'm never starting my day like not knowing or being prepared for what's ahead of me. I do that the night before, which I find incredibly helpful because that way when I get to my work time in the morning, I'm able to dive straight in rather than like sitting there and trying to wrap my mind around what I have going on that day. And really just being diligent about task management.
- 5:08I use Asana for task management and I also use it with projects and to work with our team. And that has been a really integral tool for me in terms of, you know, I'm never like shuffling papers or trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be working on. I just put everything in Asana. You can put due dates on it. You can keep notes. You can add attachments. Yeah.
- 5:30It's a very simple system that is very all inclusive to where when I sit down in the morning, I pull up my asana and I know exactly what I have to do that day. So there's no guessing, which I think is incredibly helpful when you're trying to be productive to not have to spend any of your mental bandwidth wondering what you're supposed to be working on. Gosh, absolutely. 100% love asana.
- 5:54Question number five is if you were given $1,000 of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend that in the business? And it's more to highlight kind of what your most important spend of a dollar is. Hmm. Okay. Okay.
- 6:09That's a great question. Team. I'd probably spend it on team or, you know, like contract services. I know we talked about it a little bit earlier in this episode, but...
- 6:25Um, you know, we're big on content marketing, so we really don't spend advertising dollars per se. Um, we don't do like Facebook ads or anything like that and feel very grateful for that, that we've built a business on content marketing. So, um, yeah, I think our spend is probably a bit different from a lot of companies and businesses and that, um, those funds would be allocated, I would say to team. Yeah.
- 6:50Amazing. And last question, question number six is how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach when things don't go to plan?
- 7:02Hmm, this is definitely has changed for me over the years. I feel like I've become a lot better at dealing with failure as I learn more and grow more. But it's absolutely in this moment in time, I have, I feel like I have the ability to take a step back and look at it and try and.
- 7:26understand what went wrong versus getting really down on myself, frustrated, mad, angry, any of those types of things. Being able to separate myself from it and just say, okay, that didn't go the way that I wanted it to or that I thought it would. Why not? And being able to reflect and evaluate on that so that those same mistakes don't happen again and so that you can approach things better the next time I feel is incredibly helpful.
- 7:54Absolutely. That one's a learning curve that we all go through at some point. It's not easy. It is not easy. Kate, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today and share your learnings with entrepreneurs on fire. So far, I'm just in awe of what you guys are doing. And thank you so much. I super appreciate that. Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed our chat.
- 8:27Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
- 8:52And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
- 9:14As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
- 9:31Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
- 9:55And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
- 10:18As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.