371: Becoming Full-Time Entrepreneurs and Growing Multiple Businesses with Bjork & Lindsay on the Simple Pin Podcast

This podcast is sponsored by Clarity. That is C-L-A-R-I T I.com and Clarity is really the hub for you if you are a blogger or a publisher.

If you have a website, it's really the hub for you, the place for.

You that allows you to better organize your portfolio of content. And it's all in one place.

So maybe you've been manually keeping track.

Of your blog posts in a spreadsheet.

Or a project management tool, or maybe.

You'Re not sure if the optimizations you're making so you make changes, but you're.

Not sure if those are actually moving.

The needle or potentially. I know this is true for us and our team. You're spending hours manually organizing what to update or keeping track of it in this massive spreadsheet. And it's just kind of overwhelming, or maybe you're just too overwhelmed to start. That's why we built Clarity. We wanted to have a tool that brought all of the most important things about publishing and blogging into one place. And right now that includes WordPress data, Google Analytics data, and Google Search Console data. And what we do is we bring that data in and we centralize it so you can look at a specific piece of content and you can see all of the different components traffic. You can see information about keywords, and then you can see the information about that post itself. And there's really two areas of Clarity. There's the ability to filter and kind of understand your content. We call that area Explore. So it's a place for you to look holistically at your content and say, what does it. What does it look like? You can easily slice and dice and get a better understanding of it. And from there you can create projects to improve your content. And sometimes people say, what do I do when I get in? Like, what is the first thing that I should focus on? And it's a really powerful tool, but sometimes it's helpful to give some simple examples. And I have actually five here, and I'll talk through each one of these. And for anybody who does sign up for Clarity, you can try these out as your first ways to filter and create projects. So, number one, inbound links, meaning are you having links to new pieces of content that you're publishing from other old pieces of content? This is an area for Pinch of Yum that we could improve on. We just published a bunch of really awesome how to articles, and we need to go through old posts that reference those or that could reference those and include links that point to that new piece of content because right now we're not linking to that new piece of content anywhere. And Clarity is surfaces really quickly. Surfaces any pieces of content that don't have inbound links from other places. Number two, broken links. So sometimes we publish a piece of content and 5 years pass and there's a link within that piece of content that's now broken. It could be an internal link on your own site pointing somewhere that maybe you've changed the URL or removed a post, or it could be somewhere else. It could be an external link. You can easily look through broken links within Clarity and create projects to fix those up. Number three, labeling your content now within WordPress, you can create a category, and categories are usually going to be public places within your site that somebody can go and like look through the different pieces of content in that category. But sometimes it's helpful internally to label content. An example for Pinch of Yum is we're labeling every piece of content that has step by step tutorials in it. You could also label sponsor content versus editorial content, so you could quickly go back and see. Great. In this last year, how many pieces of sponsored content did I do? Or how many sponsored content articles do I have in general? Number four, find a post that has missing meta description. So the meta description is an important piece to include because it's a suggestion to Google for what they should show, what or what it should show when somebody searches for a keyword and it shows a result. Now, Google doesn't always show that meta description, but it's best practice to fill that out and sometimes we forget to do that. So you can look through all of your content and see any pieces of content that are missing a meta Description. And number five, find any content that has more than one H1. And H1 is a header. And best practice for H1s is you generally just want one of those. But sometimes we forget about that. We're editing a project or editing a post and we add an H1, and technically it should be an H2 or an H3. So with clarity, you can quickly filter to see and say, hey, show me anything that has more than one, like two plus H1s. And you can create a project to say, go into these pieces of content and change those H1s to H2s or H3s. So those are just five examples of ways that you can quickly use Clarity and see value from it. If you're interested in signing up and becoming a user, Clarity is offering podcast listeners 50% off their first month by going to clarity.com food that's C-L-A-R-I-T-I.com food to receive 50% off your first month of Clarity. Thank you to the Clarity team for sponsoring this podcast. Hey there, it's Bjork. You are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast and kind of also today.

Listening to the SimplePen Media podcast, because.

We'Re going to be sharing an interview.

That we did with Kate, all from.

Simplepin Media, and she has a podcast called the Simple Pin Podcast, all about Pinterest. And she talks to us about kind.

Of what it's like to do what.

We do and a little bit of our story and background. And we'll occasionally do other podcast interviews, but we won't always share them here on our feed. But we felt like this was one that might be worth sharing because there might be some takeaways. Lindsay's on the interview as well, and she shares some of her perspective as a creator. And we talk about the story of Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro and tinybit, which is the parent company over some of the other companies that we have. And just a little bit of background on that. And for you, as an entrepreneur, as a creator, as somebody who's looking to build things, my hope is that. That there's maybe some little tidbits, some information that you would consider a takeaway or something that would be applicable to the decisions that you're making in your life as it relates to building a business and creating and working on the things that you want to work on. So hope you enjoy the interview. It was nice to be on the other side of the mic, so to speak, where we're answering questions instead of answering, instead of asking them. And it was also really fun to.

Have Lindsey as a part of.

Of the conversation as well. So let's go ahead and jump into this interview. I will pass it over to Kate, and Lindsay will be joining us as well. Let's jump in.

Bjork and Lindsay, thanks for coming on the Simple Pin podcast.

Yeah. Super excited to be here.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, I am so excited to hear your story. So as we dive in, Lindsay, I'm gonna have you start with what you do and what your business is centered upon, and then, Bjork, you tell me about all the businesses that you run as well. So do you go first?

Sure, yeah. So what I do on the Internet is I have a website called Pinch of Yum. Obviously, both Bjork and I do it together, but I'm. That's kind of like where I'm stationed at this point in time in looking at all of our businesses, I'm pretty exclusively Pinch of Yum. And so Pinch of Yum is like a recipe website. Started as a, I guess you could call it a food blog. I feel like we've kind of moved away from, you know, kind of the, that within the industry of the idea of blogging and more to like a, like a website, a database of recipes, a place people can go to find recipe inspiration. And my role at this point is primarily the content director, I guess you could call it. But I'm creating the content, I'm approving the content, I'm kind of setting the direction for all of the content, which is mostly recipes that ends up on Pinch of Yum.

I love that I heard a recent name for it, contentpreneur. So kind of a. Oh yeah, I love that.

Yeah, I've never heard that before.

Yeah, I just heard it recently too. And I was like, that's such a better name than blogger or food blogger. I was like contentpreneur really sums up this person who's really driven by content creation. Yeah. So love it. Bjork, tell me about what you work on.

Sure.

So Pinch of Yum is a company within kind of a parent company that we call called tinybit. And there's six small companies that are part of tinybit. Each one of those has a GM general manager who runs those. And so my role is kind of making sure that all the GMs have what they need, that we kind of have an idea of, generally speaking, where the businesses are going and a lot of the kind of boring behind the scenes stuff that's happening. So making sure that all of the kind of back office needs are tight and running the ships are running in time and whatnot. So I kind of oversee Tinybit and then tinybit has these other companies that other people are kind of seeing the day to day of those companies. So that's my role and that's kind of changed over the last few years.

Wow. Okay, I'm excited to unpack that. But first let's go back to the very beginning at when did the idea sprout for a Pinch of Yum to be born?

Yeah. Lindsay, you want to talk about that?

Yeah, I'm trying to remember like, you know, a specific moment. We always kind of tell the story about, about like for the origins of Pinch of Yum being that I used to just after Bjork and I got married, I used to just post any recipes I was Trying on Facebook, which was kind of the only, you know, main social media thing at the time, because that was how many years ago? 12, 13. We just said this the other day. We were like, oh, my gosh, how long have we been married?

Yeah. What year was it?

14 years. That was 20. Can you help me, Bjork? 2011.

It was 20. April 2010, when 2010 first started.

Yeah, 12 years. Okay. So, yeah. So anyways, at the time would have been even before that. And I was just like, loving to make recipes, loving making recipes, loving talking to people about the recipes. And at the time, I would just go on Facebook and post about it. And Bjork and I kind of got to talking one night and he was like, I think you said something, Bjork. Like, you know, well, you should start a blog. And I was just like, totally, Just totally rejected the idea. Like, this is such a bad idea. Like, I don't know anything, you know, in my head, like, in order to start a website or just start a blog, you needed to, like, be someone. You needed to have a special expertise. Like, I would need to be a professionally trained chef or something. But, you know, come to find out, actually, anybody can have a website and you don't have to be, you know, of any special. You don't have to have some special certification in order to, like, share what you're making on a website. So that's kind of the origins of it, like, how it started. I feel like it just started with me posting to my friends and family the recipes I was making on social media and then feeling like, you know what this is? I'm going to drive everyone away if I keep talking about this, like, on my personal Facebook page. So maybe we need a dedicated place for this.

So after you kind of rejected that idea of not. That's not going to be the plan. What actually made you think, okay, yeah, I am going to maybe drive my friends and family away now. I. I can do it. Like, what was that, I guess, moment where you're like, okay, maybe that is a good idea.

I think Bjork, like, and you can help me if you have a more clear memory of any of this. But, like, I think for me, with having Bjork's interest in, like, you know, the Internet and online business and all that stuff and just websites in general, like, once it got in front of my fingertips at a keyboard and I actually started to play around with what that felt like, I think for me, I realized, like, oh, this is what that means. And I actually really enjoy A lot of the aspects of this I enjoy, the writing I enjoy. Eventually, once I learned it, the photography and all of. All of the pieces started to kind of, I don't know, started to gain momentum and feel like I was actually. It wasn't this far away thing that just like other people did, but I actually started to get a taste of what it felt like to produce content on a blog. And it was fun and I really enjoyed it. And I feel like I liked playing the game of it of like, you know, Yesterday I had 10 visitors to the site and then I did a shrimp recipe, my super popular shrimp recipe that had 20 people to the site. You know, when the numbers are so small in the beginning, but it's so fun. And all of that just was really a motivator for me. I think once we actually got the site, like the bones of the site, it actually started on Tumblr, which is funny now and maybe in hindsight, maybe should not have done that, but it was a fun place to start and like, play. And I feel like it was a good. Maybe playground is like the right term, like a good little playground for me to kind of just get my feet wet with online content creation. Anything you would add to that? Bjork.

Yeah, I think one of the things that's, you know, when we rewind the tape and look at our story, and I think this could be applied broadly speaking to anybody who's listening to this and trying to understand their story within the context of other people's stories. I think a lot of times when we as like creators or entrepreneurs look back at our story, it can, like, I can see myself framing it up almost as like, advice, like, here's how we went about doing it. And this led to this, led to this. And I think what's important to point out and Lindsay kind of alluded to this is like, a lot of times you. You end up where you are because of a lot of hard work, a lot of hustle. Like, all of that was a component of it. But in regards to, like, Lindsay and I working together and building a thing, a lot of it worked out because it was like Lindsay's interests and my interests, like content writing, photography, recipe development, my interest in business, business mechanics. So like revenue, ad optimization, affiliate SEO, some of those things. And just naturally we had these areas that complemented each other. And it wasn't strategic and it wasn't like we set out with this master plan to, you know, build a site with a big following. It just ended up that we were lucky Enough to have kind of these complimentary areas of interest. And when you look back on it, it's like, well, that makes sense. Like, Lindsey was really good at this stuff. I was really interested in this stuff. And then we focused both of those interests on a singular point, which was pinch of yum. And the result of that was, with 12 years of showing up every day and working on it, that you get to a certain point. And the reason I say that is I think it's important for people who are listening to keep in mind, like, be aware of what is it that. That. What is that for you? Like, what is the thing that feels like gameplay that allows you to show up to work? It doesn't mean that it doesn't feel like work. It's still hard, and you still have to, like, grind to a certain level in work, maybe when you don't want to. But I think it's important to point out, just, I guess, a point of consideration when you hear other people telling their story, and then you kind of understand your story within the context of that.

Yeah, and I can appreciate that, too, because when we hear a story condensed into 35 minutes or 40 minutes or even, it's like watching a cooking show, right? And like, you're watching people do Chopped or whatever, and you're like, I can totally make this amazing meal in 35 minutes. It's like, well, there's a little bit more to it. And also, your point of working together with complimentary strengths is huge, because a lot of people, I couldn't work with my spouse. I think we have a lot of complimentary, like, things that go together, but working on a particular business wouldn't be something we would lean into. I don't know if that would strengthen our marriage, but it sounds like it did for you both. And one of the things I'm curious about is, as you're starting this, how are you making money? Like, what is. What is the. The daytime work that you're doing during this time to fuel, I guess, this passion?

In the beginning, Yeah, I was working at a nonprofit, and Lindsay was a teacher. And I think, you know, one of the things that was really nice about that season of our life is we didn't have. And we didn't have kids at that time. And so, like, I was just talking the other day with a friend who just bought a house, and, you know, this housing market is crazy. And I was reflecting back on the house that Lindsey and I had bought. It was a condo for, I think it was $78,000. In, you know, our mortgage payment was like less than $500. And, and was. It was just a season of our life where we just didn't have a lot in regards to expenses. Like we were coming out of college and you know, so you still had this kind of college mindset. And so we had kind of these jobs that we loved. They weren't, you know, we weren't like consultants or working at, you know, these, you know, jobs where you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we didn't really have lifestyle inflation to the point where we had a huge amount of expenses that we had to cover. So that was one of the things that was nice. So as Lindsay was a teacher, as I was at this nonprofit, you know, we were working weekends, nights, over lunch, if we had had the time, and starting to see kind of income trickle in here and there. And then as that happened, we were really slow in making the switch to working on the businesses full time. So it kind of started as like, you know, we were working full time and then doing an extra 50% of our time working on the business. Pinch of yum at that point. And then it kind of switched where we maybe we went to like 3/4 time for each of us. So there's one day a week where we had just dedicated to the businesses and we kind of scaled back over these different seasons or blocks of time to make the transition a little bit easier. Not possible for everybody. Right? It's not. Not everybody has the ability to kind of have that flexibility. But we were really conservative in making that change, making sure that we had enough history of the business building to a point where we felt like we were comfortable with it sustaining us. And. But yeah, it was, it was Lindsay as a fourth grade teacher and me working at a non profit that partnered with schools to do retreats and programming for them. And that's how we got started. That's what we were doing before all of this.

So when was that point? And maybe if there, you know, you mentioned you were conservative and kind of wading into the waters with really going full time. When was the point that you went full time with it and was there a little bit of apprehension that went along with it? Like this worry of, okay, we've seen these things like is it going to work? And what year was that?

Yeah. Was it 2014, Lynn? So the summer of 2014?

Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, 2014.

So I think at that point, you know, the combination of us having there wasn't a ton of risk because of where we were at from a spending perspective. We didn't have a bunch of expenses that we had to, to cover. We had expenses for sure. But it would be much different today if we were making that change out of a full time job into an entrepreneurial career just because things look different. We have two kids and you know, we have a house that's bigger and just more expenses.

So it wasn't, I wouldn't say it.

Was super unnerving at the time. And the other part was we had had enough history to see like, okay, we've been doing this, you know, the blog, working really hard on it for four years. And at that point we had launched the membership site for food creators called Food Blogger Pro that had started to. There was increased interest in kind of members who were signing up for that. And so we had enough history at that point that I think there was not as much kind of angst around it. And I think we also felt confident that if we needed to, we could go back. Lindsay could teach, I could go back to the nonprofit I was at or another job. Like we had skills, I think that were transferable and so a little bit of a safety net. Yeah, for sure.

To go back. So Lindsay, as you are growing the, you know, the food blog and really leaning into Pinch of Yum, what would you say that it going from a teacher into this new profession, like what were some of the things that you are learning during that time about the industry or about, you know, what you loved or didn't love? Is there any takeaways about, I guess things that you would say to somebody else who's just learning. Right. How to be a food contentpreneur and that you would take away from that time when you were learning.

I mean, I think one of the things that's really stuck with me just as a lesson, I guess a life lesson or a lesson that I've learned about myself and as it relates to content creation is there was kind of this like in between time, kind of what Bjork described as like the time when we were starting to scale back our day jobs. But, but at that point like the blog and the other businesses that we had were also pretty well established and up and running. So then at that point it's almost like you have two full time jobs. And I think, I think in that transition period specifically, like, I specifically think about my last year of teaching, I was like in a 0.7, I want to say like a 0.7 position as a reading specialist. So I was going to work every day but then I also was like doing a ton of content for the blog. And I think the lesson that I've taken with me from that time is that sometimes we, I think, take more time than what is needed to do a task. Like, even now I'm doing this full time and like, I'm not producing as much content as I was during that time. Now, that being said, like, our content is a little more carefully done now and we have a different process for it and we have other people involved. So it's different. It's not apples to apples from what it was then. But like, I would get up in the morning, I would intentionally limit myself. I wouldn't write any of my posts ahead of time. This is not necessarily advisable. The big picture lesson is on like, just time squeeze in general and like, being efficient where you can. But for me, one of the ways that I did that was I would save all my writing for. For the morning that.

The.

The morning that that post would publish so that there was like a little bit of pressure, just like creating that pressure for myself. Like, I have to get, you know, I don't have to be into school until 9, so I'm going to get up at, you know, 6 and then write my post from 6 to 7, because really all I needed to write it was an hour. And so then I would write it from 6 to 7, hit publish, and then go to school for the day, you know, and then do whatever else I need to do in the evening. And I think it's just something that I reflect on now, now that I'm not working a different job, I'm only working this job and trying to think about like, I think there's like a craftiness, a forced, like a forced cleverness about your schedule and about your pacing that comes when you are walking with one foot kind of in both sides, you know. So I think for anybody that's feeling that and feeling that, it's stressful for sure. And that was like the right decision for me to just go one direction eventually. But I think there's some. There's a lesson there to be taken. And there are like, ways that we operate that can also still serve us well even once we leave our jobs and like go into content creation full time. And especially as people who, you know, consider themselves creatives in some form, I feel like there's a big risk to just like, if you don't have that kind of pressure to just, you know, take your time a little bit more.

Yeah.

To take it easy and so exactly. Yes. And, like, I'm just thinking about ideas right now, but when you have that. When you have that tension, when you're kind of backed up against a wall a little bit, it's kind of incredible how much you can, you know, if you really have your heart set on something, how much you can produce and create and. And I think that's just something I reflect a lot. I feel like I learned that in that season, and it's something that I still think about it a lot now.

Yeah. I took that Colby test. Colby, a index text a long time ago, and it talked about people who are quick starts kind of needing that pressure at the end. I'm not a quick start. That pressure actually kills all creativity for me. But I think that's so important with what you said is you knew, okay, I'm going to wait till the day of. I have this hour here, squeeze it in, and then I can work on other stuff and then come back to it. But that produced that creativity for you. And I think that's so important for contentpreneurs to really into that, because I'm the person who wants to write it, like, two weeks ahead of time, and then I can go back to it and look at it. And some people are like, I want to write it, get everything I can. It's like sprinting. I want to do the 100 yard dash instead of a marathon.

Yep. And I think everybody. I. I feel like it's. I'm glad that you said that about yourself, too, because I do feel like for everyone, it's different. And even for different seasons within your business, it's different. Like. Like the caliber of content at that time probably wasn't as good as what it is now when we are scheduling ahead and we are working with the team. And, you know, I'm not just waking up in the morning and writing a post real quick. So I feel like there's multiple. You know, everybody's gonna have, like, their own. Yeah. Their own take on that and the way that that works for them. But that was just something for me during that time. That. That was really meaningful.

Talk to me a little bit about hiring your first team member. What was that like? And when did you have that moment of I need help kind of somebody helping to do another element in this.

Bjork, do you remember who was.

I think, ironically, it was Angela to do Pinterest.

Was it Angela or. Oh, that is funny. That's really funny. Here we are talking about that. I didn't want to do Pinterest and so that was my first hire. Seriously. That was, that was like when we were like, okay, there's a thing here that's a big deal for food content creators. And I don't personally feel that excited to like dive into that world. And so yeah, it was my friend Angela and we just like hired her. I don't even know if we really gave her much direction, but we hired her to kind of like set up a pinch of yum Pinterest and manage that, you know, very part time. And. Yep. And my sister, we also hired my sister in the beginning to help with comments and you know, kind of just some like community management type stuff. I feel like several of our first hires, quote unquote hires like that were part time, almost like single, single task positions that were like five hours a week or something like that. And that was kind of our very first dip into it. I don't know, Bjork, maybe you can talk a little more about like what you would consider to be our first official hire.

Sure, yeah. I think, you know, it's as you, it kind of depends on how you view hire. There could be like a full time team member or you could look at it as like somebody in a contracted role doing something really specific. And I think it can. Sometimes it can seem kind of intimidating, like the idea of hiring somebody, but as maybe a little bit of a pressure release for anybody who hasn't been through that. I think you can dip your toe in the water by hiring somebody who is a specialist in an area that you really need help with or support with that maybe you aren't as confident in or something you don't want to focus on. An example being like you could hire a simple pen. That could be a hire. It's hiring an agency. Right. But it's still under the umbrella of hiring. And in our case it was hiring for some really specific tasks. I can remember hiring for bookkeeping, you know, Pinterest, hiring for comments and, and, and as that starts to happen, it kind of allows you to practice a little bit. Hey, what is it like to work with somebody or even to ask somebody to do something? That can be kind of a weird feeling when you first are working with somebody. So that's, I think for us that was kind of the step into it. And then eventually you get to a point where it'd be like, man, it would actually be really helpful to have somebody who's not split across multiple things, but really just like dedicated to thinking about how to work on and grow and build this Thing. And that's where you could start to get into thinking about hiring somebody more in a full time capacity. I don't know the exact like order. We don't have, you know, employee number three type hires.

But I like Twitter.

I do know. Yeah. And usually how it would work in, in the cases of folks that we've worked with is we'd hire for a specific role. I think of Jenna, who's still with us. She's the GM of Pinch of Yum right now, which means she kind of manages ins and outs day to day. Originally came in and was in the role of office manager. And so we needed somebody to help with kind of all the logistics of the ins and outs of this really cool office space that we had. And also some, you know, we were doing events and helping with that and that as we got more comfortable with that, it was a part time position that grew and grew and it is what it is today. And you know, it's like, wow, that's, that's awesome for us. And I think that because we're a small company, have been able to like grow and develop the position and hopefully in a way that also is, opens up opportunities for whoever it is that we're working with. So it's. It was less. I don't think it needs to be as scary as some people think it is because you can kind of start slow and, and try it out and see what that looks like. Whether that be with really specific tasks or a part time position that maybe is kind of a catch all to help with kind of the odds and ends that get to be overwhelming.

Right.

And to, to wade into those waters. And what's funny is my first hire was actually Pinterest as well.

Sure.

It's so funny to admit, but it was like I was managing for everybody else and I was like, I, I need somebody to do my account. So that's maybe a really easy hire. Okay. So you mentioned after Pinch of Yum starts, you wade into the waters of starting this membership. So can you lead me down the path of how you got to the six companies under tinybit and maybe even a little bit about why you named it that?

Yeah. So I can speak to that first. One of the things we talk a lot about as a team and then we have a podcast we talk about on the podcast when we're writing things like that is this idea of getting a tiny bit better every day. And I think in this world it can be, it can seem really intimidating because there's so many things that you need to do. There's an endless list and it feels like it can just crush you. And so we have this idea of 1% infinity, which is getting a tiny bit better every day forever. And it's really about showing up and doing the work and trying to find out ways that you can get better at that work. So that's the reason for the name tinybit, in terms of the companies. Really what it is is keeping an ear to the ground with the community that we have and trying to hear what people need. And so from Pinch of Yam, we would talk a lot about kind of the behind the scenes of blogging. So once a month for stretch, I don't remember if it was four or five, six years, I would come on and say, hey, here's some ways that we're creating income from the site. Here's where we're getting traffic. Like, here's what Pinterest traffic looked like. Hey, we got a lot of Pinterest traffic this month. Why was that? And it was, what happened was we started to get a lot of other content, contentpreneurs, a lot of other publishers who are coming and asking questions and kind curious to see, hey, how somebody else is. How is somebody else doing it? Or people sharing with us? Here's what I learned. And so from that, we started a community called Food Blogger Pro, which is a community of food publishers who are learning how to improve their content, learning how to increase traffic, learning how to monetize. And that really came from hearing questions that people had. And it gets a little bit boring if I go deep into every other business. But the general idea is continuing to listen and say, hey, what are the other things that people are like, hey, this is kind of a problem that I have. Or this is something that is kind of a tension point. And then seeing, is there a way that we can solve for that? I would assume simple. Pin is pretty similar in that you heard enough people saying, attention. Point for me is I know Pinterest is important. You even hear it in our story. I know Pinterest is important, but I don't have the bandwidth or the interest in spending my time like managing and optimizing my account. Hey, business opportunity, which you've taken advantage of and have done such a great job with. So that's really the story of anytime that we're looking at starting a business or potentially acquiring a business is looking to say, like, do we feel like this? There's a need out here that we could solve in a unique and helpful way.

And one of the questions I would have around that, that I hear from people, and maybe I even have a little bit of is that fear of stepping into a new lane. So as I picture what you guys have built, I see these six lanes of traffic and some people feel overwhelmed by that or they don't know how to divide their time. And you mentioned having a GM oversee each one of those. What would you tell somebody who it has this idea? They, they have the main business now they have a second idea that has been fueled from the first one, but they're really scared about diving into a second business because there's all these feelings of what if it fails? What if it doesn't serve people? How do you both kind of counteract that and say, we're just gonna. Well, how do you both, I'm not gonna assume, how do you lean into that?

Yeah. So I think it's important to know, like, a lot of times there something might not work and that's okay. Like, it's not uncommon to get an idea, to pursue something, and for that to not get traction. There's a concept that is maybe overused and it's a little bit older in the startup world, but I think it's still helpful. This idea of a minimum viable product, but essentially putting something into the world that you feel like is basic enough to get some feedback on, to see if people are actually interested in that thing or if it's just like in your head, you think it's going to.

Be a good idea.

And a lot of times that means you're not build, you're not spending a lot of time building. You're spending that early time having conversations and validating the idea. So I would say that would be a piece of it. I think another important piece to think about for anybody who's in that headspace of thinking about. The next thing is, is to be, to be aware of the transition from maker to manager. And if you are interested in building, growing, scaling, maybe having multiple businesses that you're working on, but you also really love being a maker, which I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast probably are makers. It's something that you should be aware of and it's okay to continue to be a maker and be a really good maker and to have impact in that way as opposed to attempting to scale and grow and build a team, because it's a very different skill set and it'll feel very different when you're doing that work. And a couple years ago we actually had that conversation and that's why, you know, when Lindsey comes on, she's like, I'm content director. That's what I focus on. That's what I do is like, I'm good at content. And, you know, my. I don't want to speak for you, Lindsay. Maybe you can speak to this a little bit. But, like, if your role was purely, like, management of a team producing content, that would be a very different job. And my guess is maybe not as fulfilling.

Yeah, I think it's exactly what you said. Like, I just. I feel like I. We went. There was this fork in the road and we went this direction, and I. I realized for myself, like, I'm really excited about all these things and, like, want these things to happen and want them to grow, but I don't like how it feels to do this work as opposed to the other work I was doing, which was a little more like hands on with the creative process. And I feel like. Yeah, it's just. That was. Yeah, that was like a kind of a significant. I would say a significant, like, moment. I think of that meeting we had. Bjork, like, whenever. That was like, a year. I think I was pregnant with Lena at the time. And, yeah. Just kind of having this realization of, like, okay, if we're gonna build and structure this way, we're gonna just make the decision that I'm not gonna be a part of that, because I don't. That's not where I'm happiest. I'm happiest over here doing the thing that I've always been doing. Yeah. And kind of separating that.

And I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, Kate, as well. But I feel like one of the things that is important in what we're doing, and I think we're continually learning this and always will be, is that sometimes you can get in this world. You talk to a lot of other entrepreneurs, you talk to business owners, you see other people doing other things. And I think one of the things that can happen is you can start to anchor your decisions based off of kind of where you'd place yourself against other people in terms of growth or whatever it might be. Revenue traffic, Instagram followers, Pinterest traffic, Pinterest followers. Right. Team members. Like, all of those kind of visual, tangible, trackable metrics. But one of the really important metrics that is hard to track, that we have the ability. Everybody, really. But speaking to kind of entrepreneurs, contentpreneurs, publishers, creators. One of the metrics that I think is important to track is like, how does this. How Is this thing that I'm building fit within my life? What does that feel like in terms of the work that I'm doing, the satisfaction that I get from it, the alignment that it brings me in my life, like, does it make me more stressed or less stressed? Like, those are harder to track, but I think also really important, and I think it's worth calling out because it's, it's individual, it's. It applies to each person. And nobody's going to look at what you're doing and say, hey, I can see. Maybe they, maybe they will. But, like, hey, I can see that. That, like, serves them really well. That thing that they have built serves them really well. It's easy for us to say, like, oh, that thing they built has a bunch of followers, but it's kind of a vanity metric if in the end it's not, you know, giving to you in a certain way or, and, or, and I think this is both and, or giving to other people in a certain way.

Yeah. And I think what the disadvantage from maybe even going back to when you started with, you know, 201011 with, you know, Tumblr and just Facebook and very limited Twitter is we did have so much more. We had less of this different vantage point that we now have. And so we do take these things of what we see as snapshots on Instagram or snapshots of somebody's Pinterest traffic. And we tend to make those things the whole instead of coming back to this place to say, yeah, there are things that can't be measured. And I love to think of my impact in helping other businesses to release them to do something that they love. Right. Or something that they want to pursue. And it's. I think maker versus manager was such a good call out. And you, Lindsay, acknowledging that piece to say, I just want to be the maker, because that's really what lights me up. And I don't know if there's enough conversation around that sometimes because people do feel, either they feel like they have to do all the things, or there's, you know, in the 12 years too, that you have grown this business, your lives have gone through so many different things and the iterations of who you are and, and having kids. And I even heard that yesterday in one of my entrepreneurs organization meetings, somebody was saying, I've had this company for so many years and I'm now a different person and I'm going into a different phase, but I want to get back to the maker phase. That's where my I, I love that thing. But I've become so manager entangled. And that is, you know, I just, I think, a really interesting topic as people have these businesses that go longer than three, four years, because, you know, there are all those people that burn out with trying to be maker and manager overall. And when we think of a legacy business, we go, yeah, that is a really important question to ask is, do I want to be doing this the rest of my life? It's also different, right, because our parents didn't ever ask that question around an online business, so they don't even know what that looks like. They're like, well, you just worked this job for 40 years, and that's what you did. And we're like, yeah, it's a little different now, you know?

Right.

So it's good.

Yeah, it's. It's. I think it's a wonderful thing to be able to question and also a difficult thing. Like, I think there's some simplicity in saying, this is what I do. I show up, I do it, and I know that I'm going to do it for a long period of time. And we have this wonderful gift of being able to say there are. There's actually a lot of opportunities that I have in front of me. I can build around that, even if it's not, you know, online business. But maybe you want to put together. I was interviewing somebody on our podcast yesterday, and he said, I made this decision for a month. This temp job I had was stressing me out, and so I was going to deliver Instacart. Like, that's an option that we have now. And if the job that you have is stressing you out in a week, you could potentially be shifting to another thing that is kind of entrepreneurial, allows for autonomy, flexibility. Like, we have all of these options, which I think is just this wonderful, incredible thing. Also potentially creates a little bit of analysis paralysis of, like, yeah, there are so many options. What do I do? But, yeah, it's. It's. It's a new set of circumstances that are before us that create a new set of questions that we ask ourselves.

Right. Okay. So here's a few questions I like to ask everybody who's gone through this story series with me. Number one, what has surprised you most about being entrepreneurs? And Lindsay, I'll start with you.

Whoa. Okay. Get my brain thinking fast.

I have one. Like, if you want me. If you want me to go to give you some time.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So I won't actually listen to what you say. I'll just Be saying it's like ordering.

At a restaurant where somebody's like, yeah, we're ready, and then you realize one person's not. No, I think for me, it's the. I think you. I came to realize, like, you have to be comfortable with always having open loops. Like, you're never going to be able to get to a point where, like, everything is closed and you have everything buttoned up. Like, once you have that, something else will open, something will change, something will evolve. And so I think there has to be a certain comfort level with things always changing and being different, and you'll never. You never get there. And. And I think at one point in my life, I would have maybe thought, like, hey, you get to a point, and that point is maybe this point of, like, resolution where things resolve and feel better and, you know, you're not kind of struggling through something or wrestling with a big question, and that just doesn't happen. Like, it's always there. It's always changing. There'll always be something before you that will be a challenge and difficult. Um, and also there'll be seasons where, like, those loops do close and maybe you have, you know, a stretch where it feels, like, great, 1, 2, 3. Like, these things that I've been working on that have been pushing hard for. For a really long time have all kind of come together and resolved, and that can feel really good. And there's kind of that balance of, you know, really. I heard somebody describe being an entrepreneur, and I feel like this speaks to this a little bit as, like, each day, like, if there's four days that you look at an entrepreneur, like, they'll. Each day for three days, you take one step back, and then on the fourth day, you take four steps forward. And so, like, on any given day, it can potentially feel like you're going backwards, but when you look at it at a macro level, you're actually making progress. And I think that's kind of what I'm speaking to a little bit, is like, there's always these challenges, and then you'll have these unlocks that move you forward. And I think in pre entrepreneurial seasons of my life, I would have thought it would have felt more like every day sequentially is a step forward, but I don't think that's always true. So that's my rambling answer to give you some time.

Oh, thank you. Thanks for the rambles.

Love it.

Appreciate it. I. So this kind of. You kind of touched on this. This is kind of two things, but it just. I would second I would second the first part of what you said for myself, which was you kind of vaguely mentioned Bjork about like, everything's always changing and like the industry. And I think this is true of any industry, like for us in the food slash Internet content whatever industry. Like, I think when I, when we started doing this, I. It's like you expect that you're gonna master a skill and then you'll be good to go. You know, you master your skill, you like, build your system, you build your business, and then you kind of just like go. And I think that's only true to a certain extent because of how much things change right now. Always, but especially it changes a lot right now, like with the Internet and various social media platforms and how people consume information and how money is made through that and all of that. It just feels like it's always shifting. So like you never, you always have to be learning, you always have to be ready to, to be flexible, to adapt. And you can't just, at least in, I feel in our space, our little sector, you can't like just get something and it'll be good to go forever. And maybe that's just true across all businesses too. But the other thing I was going to say is I, I'm surprised at how difficult it can be to determine what the most important thing is to be working on or like, what the, what the best. Yeah, what the, what the top priority should be. Because I feel like a big part of being an entrepreneur is looking at all the things in front of you and kind of building your priority triangle or whatever, you know, what goes on the base and what's above that and what's on that. And I feel like, I just feel like I'm constantly doing that and, and I find it sometimes challenging. And I think for some people.

It.

Obviously depends on the business, depends on the person. It might be easy if you just know the bottom line is whatever produces revenue and income and therefore I'm going to follow those paths and then those become my top priority. But even if it's that straightforward, that's always shifting kind of to my previous point. There's always, there are always things evolving and I feel like a good example in, of what's happening right now is like, you have social media, I'm sure this is your world too, with Pinterest. But like, for example, Instagram, it's like, oh, you get all these, we work so hard on these videos and you get all these views on this. You have one video go viral and it's so exciting and so fun. And it's like, what. What does that mean for my business? Like that. And that this was mentioned. Somebody, one of the two of you said this earlier, but kind of like the vanity metrics, like, that feels so good to have that many views. What does that mean? Am I getting more people to my website? Am I making more money from that? Am I, like, how does that play into the business plan and not kind of getting swallowed by, like, all the extra things that feel good, but maybe aren't necessarily, you know, serving you from a business perspective? So I think that's one of the surprises that I've found is I, I think I thought it would be a little more straightforward to say, like, this is where you need to go and what you need to do, but it's not always easy to tell what the most important thing is.

Yeah, it's like a moving target all the time.

Yes, totally. Totally.

The. The. I. I would say I've always said this, that anybody who is in the food content creation space, it seems like the hardest. The hardest job to have the hardest industry to be in because it is such a moving target with promotion. And then it's a moving target with, like, SEO and connecting with your audience and getting feedback from them of what they like and what they don't like. And I will forever have admiration for Anybod is a food content creator, because I think I would make one recipe and I would be like, I'm out. I'm done forever. Exactly. It's so hard. And I think, I think I really, you know, because Lindsay, you and I connected really early on. I want to say it might have been 2014, 2015, as you guys were really wading into the waters. I think we had like, a brief phone conversation, but I think that led me into exploring this world of food content creators and we going to their conferences, and that gave me such a depth of understanding about the business, and I think that made my work better because I knew all these spinning parts and plates and to have you to say that's what surprised you. And speaking to that moving target piece, I get it. Like, I, I think it is a really hard thing to lean into when. And that's the feedback that I do get from food content creators is, why can't things just. Why can't they stay the same? Like, why we just do one thing.

For, like, we just got good at this. Like, just let it. Let's just let it stay.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which makes it so much harder. But I think my Next question would be what has been your greatest joy in all of the businesses that you have been starting and growing and scaling?

What.

Just what's been the greatest joy for you both?

Yeah, I can go. I. That's an easy one for me. I feel like it's a twofold answer again. But my greatest joy and like I even just get tears in my eyes just thinking about it. But like it is such a joy to do to talk about something I love to talk about and share something that I love with people who also love that thing and like the connections with people, you know, even though know it's all via the Internet, it's all via social media, emails, comments, whatever. But like knowing that I can put something into the world that actually touches people's real lives is just so fun for me. So that is the first part and then I would say the second part maybe feels a little more, I guess it's a little more like self focused. But really it's been such a joy for me in, in having our own thing that I've been able to have the flexibility that, that I've had to be with our girls as they've grown up and to be able to take time off when I need it. And our daughter had our three year old last fall. She had like a heart. We found out that she had a. She's going to need a heart surgery. She was going to need a heart surgery. And, and it was just like really scary and, and to just know that like we have the freedom with our jobs to be able to like give ourselves the time we need and to be able to give our team members the time that they need. Like when something like that inevitably happens for something else. I think just ultimately the flexibility of being an entrepreneur and there's the shadow side of that too, obviously, like you're never working, but you're always working. You know, you're in the hospital dealing with something and then payroll has to go out or whatever thing it might be. But, but ultimately I really feel like that flexibility has been such a gift.

Good gift for sure. Bjork, what about you?

Yeah, I think anytime that somebody's come to us and said the things that I've learned from what you've shared have helped me in my journey to get to this place where I am and where I, and I really like where I am like that it's, it's kind of speaking in generalities, but that's. That happens. And whenever that happens, I think for me it's the greatest affirmation in that it's not us doing the work, it's people doing the work. It's people being creative, smart, capable, awesome people doing hard things. And I think in some ways I use the idea of the four minute mile a lot. It's like us saying two people, hey, this is possible. Or interviewing somebody on a podcast who shares what they've done and that becomes inspiration for somebody to say, I bet I can do this. And it does become possible for them. That conversation that I had on the podcast just the other day was with a individual named Eric, who I've known, have emailed for years, and he's now his blog is what is the income that sustains his family? And they're traveling around the world in an rv and he has four kids. And that's not because of us, it's because of his incredible work. But to be able to, for some point, walk alongside somebody or to share some ideas or insights that help somebody to make that progress or to see what might be possible, that's really, that's really encouraging. And for me, like, wow, like, hugely motivating.

Right? I love that. And to follow up on that, I just want to say this too, as well as I've kind of, you know, we've crossed paths and chatted behind the scenes and all these things over the years is that, that is something I take away from both of you and especially Bjork, as you and I have had a lot of email conversations of just being so helpful and being willing to lean in. And I think that is such a rare attribute. I hate to say that, but it's this rare attribute that we see in this online industry. And I think that story and that interview with him illustrates your willingness to go in with people and to say, I'm here to help. You know, you've asked me that a few times, like, how can I help you? It's like, yeah, you just don't hear that a lot. And I think with that extension of that kind of, hey, here's if you need a hand up to work through this, I'm here to help you. Or if you need an, an introduction or anything like that. So I just want to just say that, that, that impact, I felt that impact, I'm sure tons of other people have. But I just appreciate that about both of you.

Thanks. Yeah. And same to you. Appreciate that. And a big part of it, you know, for you, Kate, is like, it makes it easy to do when you know somebody's gonna actually do it.

Right?

Like, it's, it There, there are times where you kind of have this like stress test that you put through. And I've. This has happened occasionally where if it's kind of an out of the blue thing, somebody reaches out, I'm like, hey, awesome, great to connect. Here's a couple things that you could do, like read this, try this, and then like circle back around, like before we do a one hour phone conversation. Yeah, here's some places to start. Circle back around and then let me.

Know how that goes.

And, and like a lot of times it's like, oh, you don't, you just don't hear from people after that.

It's like the gate.

Not as fun to do the work. Yeah, exactly. But when, when there are people who do the work, like yourself, you know, and I'm sure you get that a lot too. People reaching out to you, you can kind of get a feel for. This is somebody who's like doing stuff in the world and it's exciting and inspiring to surround yourself with those people. So equally as valuable for me to have those conversations and to, you know, hear what you're up to and what, what you're thinking about.

Inspiring.

Yeah. Been a cool thing. All right, last question is, if you both had to give one piece of advice or share a resource book, podcast or whatever that you think could help somebody who is an entrepreneur, what would you tell them?

I. I can go. This is something that I've never said before, but I feel like it's. Somebody's going to hear this and it's going to impact them. I don't know who it is, but whoever it is, I'm speaking to you, but just to be gentle with yourself, I think that especially entrepreneurs, people who have a lot of drive, people who work really hard, I think we can be hard on ourselves. And I think one of the things that is important for us to be reminded of is like, it's, it's hard out there. It's hard to do creative things. It's hard to be a parent and to work. It's hard to have a full time job and to try and fit in a side hustle. And I think we can be hard on ourselves because I think we see our complete picture who we are entirely right, like warts and all. And then we have an incomplete picture of other people that we oftentimes default to being more generous with how we paint that picture. We don't see as much of the shadow of other people. And so we're, we're comparing our full story, our full self against somebody else's highlight reel. And I think that can lead to us being potentially pretty hard on ourselves. And so I would just remind people to be gentle with yourself. Um, and that doesn't mean, you know, don't work hard or don't try and be strategic or stretch yourself, but along the way, don't be too hard on yourself. And I think it's something that. I think a lot of people are really hard on themselves. So that would be my piece of advice.

That's great.

Lindsay, what about you?

I feel like, for me, something that has really kept me in this as long as I've been in it is. So let me reframe this. So sometimes I. I think of the difference between, like, people who, quote, unquote, make it, whatever that means, and people who, you know, don't decide to. Decide to leave what they're doing or go a different direction. And one of the things that we can say about every single person that makes it again in whatever, however you want to define that, is that they keep going. Like, they. They didn't stop. Like, they kept on. They're still showing up. They're still there doing it. And for myself personally, one of the key things that has enabled me to keep going is to be surrounded with people who are supportive and who either have an interest in understanding or actually do understand from their own experience. So some examples would be, obviously, Bjork has been like, a huge, like, we do it together. And so there's downsides of that. There's, like, difficulties with that. But there's also a lot of benefits in that. I feel like he's able to understand what I'm going through and, you know, talk to me, talk me off a ledge a lot of times, like, oh, don't, you know, kind of what he just said, like, be gentle with yourself or whatever. But I also have that with some friends that. Who are also in the space and have kind of developed up these. These friendships at, like, almost where you would have co workers, where we're not. We're working online, we're alone a lot of the time. We're working on our phones and our computers. And it's just so nice to have one, even one other person who you can really be honest with about how you're feeling or kind of like commiserate when the algorithm changes or celebrate when they launch their cookbook or whatever thing it is. So my. The bow. Putting a bow on this is that my piece of advice would be surround yourself with people who can support you and. And maybe Even, maybe that's even too generous. Surround yourself like you don't need, you don't need 100 people around you who understand the industry that you're working in or the unique struggles of what you're doing. I think even if you have one person that you feel like you can talk to, that you can go to, that you can send them a text and be like, I'm super annoyed. This thing just happened. I just got a really nasty comment. It's really bringing me down and I'm feeling, feeling this way and this way and you know that they're going to be receptive to that. For me personally, that's just been such a, like, really a huge lifesaver and I feel like without that I wouldn't have, I wouldn't be doing this anymore because it's just, it's just we're not made to do this stuff alone. And a lot of, I'm guessing a lot of the people who listen to this podcast do their work online and work alone and work on devices and, and I think adding in that support and that human component and giving yourself like that kind of that cushion around what you're doing is, is that would be my number one piece of advice.

Yeah, 100%. I think that especially coming out of the pandemic and being even more isolated and not having in person events where you could potentially meet somebody, because I know that's what's happened for me too. And I'm sure you as well is you go to this event, you connect with somebody and it's like, let's keep connecting because our conversation is like so good. And, and there is a lot of public feedback that you receive on your website and it does take a little bit of thick skin to develop, but it's kind of great to have that person next to you helping you develop the thick skin because you're totally devastated. Somebody just left a nasty comment. You know, you just need somebody to come alongside you and go, I'm in this with you. I'm in the trenches. I, I love that piece of advice and I think as people are listening to that, be thinking about who those people might be for you, especially over the next year, and especially if you haven't connected with people in person or you've just started your business. A lot of people became entrepreneurs by default, some of them in this 2020, 2021, and, and now, and you just got to find your people. So I appreciate that advice. So thank you so much, both of you for just sharing your story, sharing your pieces of wisdom.

Hi.

Hi, Alexa here from the Food Blogger Pro team. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast. And if you want to go even deeper into learning how to monetize, grow your food blog your food business, we highly suggest you check out our Food Blogger Pro membership at Food Blogger. It's there that we share all of our course content about monetizing, photography, video, and everything that food creators need to know in order to move the needle on their business. We also hold live Q&As every single month, as well as study halls where we get a chance to break into small breakout groups and connect with each other in a really intentional way, talking about specific topics like creating recipes, keyword research, and more. It is just one of the most positive places on the Internet in my opinion, and we have a ton of testimonials from some of our members. We've helped over 10,000 bloggers do what they want to do better and that just feels so good. So this testimonial from Tammy from Organize Yourself Skinny says this month, after 12 years working full time in higher education, I recently resigned from my position to become a full time professional blogger. This was a decision I did not take lightly, but in the last seven months I made more money blogging than I made in my real job and I decided it was time to take the leap. I strongly believe that because of the knowledge you share within your income reports and also on Food Blogger Pro that I was able to take my blog to a professional level. I have been and continue to be inspired by, motivated and educated by the information you so selflessly and graciously share with all of us. Thanks for that awesome testimonial, Tammy, and we just so appreciate learning about your journeys and being able to just be a small part in helping you get to where you want to go. So if you're interested in becoming a Food Blogger Pro member and getting access to all of the content we currently have for our members, which is a lot, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com join to learn a little bit more and get signed up there if you're interested. But otherwise we'll see you here next week on the podcast. And until then, make it a great week.

Sam.