GeekPack's 7 Year Journey To Global Recognition

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories. It's about the grit it takes to get there. All right. Hey, everybody, this is Julie. And today I am here with one of my dear, dear, dear friends, and client and colleague, Julia Taylor, the owner and founder of Geekpack and WP Rockstar. And we have a fantastic conversation we wanna share with you today because Julia has done some crazy things in the last couple of months. And so Julia, first, thank you for coming on and chatting about all of this. I'm really glad to have you.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm so excited to be here and share all the cool stuff recently, but really over the last handful of years as well.

Yeah. So I think what's going to make this episode inspiring, if you're listening, is that the things that Julia has done in the last several months are sort of bucket list things that many of us, you know, would be like, oh my gosh, that would be amazing. But I want to make it attainable because she started out very much like all of us do with just a small idea, very much bootstrapped. And so I want to start at the beginning, even though I know a lot of my followers know your story. Talk about that first. I mean, we met in 2016. And what your idea was in 2016 that brought us together.

Yeah, sure. So 2016, I, I, I was very much an introvert. I still am. However, I've figured out how to kind of leverage my introvertedness and, and still be a bit of an extrovert when I need to. But at the time, I did not want to be the face of the brand, and I really battled against that and did not want to. And the first time I met Julie, the conversation I had was, look, I've got a dog and his name is Blue. Blue, and I want him to be the face of the brand. And that's actually how I got started back in 2016, was with a blog called According to Blue. And it was about how he wanted me to work from home, learn to code, build websites, have my own business so I could play with him more. So that's where it started.

I mean, it was a really cool idea. I remember thinking, well, I don't know how long you can play this game of the dog being the face, you know. But you had this, this dream, this desire that you had found financial independence, if we, if we want to call it that, through coding. And you wanted to teach other women, you wanted to make this accessible to them. So we, we partnered up in like 2017. She was one of the original members of my mastermind, Digital Insiders, and you set out to launch a WordPress coding program. Do you want to tell them about that?

Yeah, sure. So it was October of 2018. Sorry. Yes, October 2018 when I finally launched. I joined DI in November 2017 and it still took me almost a year to do anything with that, which, you know, now I think back and I'm like, I should have given myself a little bit more grace and permission to take that time to kind of figure things out. So that's okay if anyone else is kind of in that space. So October 2018, it was a month after the in-person event in Connecticut where I learned your kind of launch method and I did it to a tee. And we talked about WP Rockstar and I, and it was one of those launches where the product wasn't built yet. So it was a, it was a beta launch and I did the whole pressure and I built my email list on Instagram using stories. Like I did the whole thing that you taught me and launched it. And I think we maybe had 80 or 90 folks join that very first launch and it's still going strong today.

Yeah, so, okay, so 2018, 19, 20, 21, 22. So it's like 5 years, 5 years this program has been running. And so over the years, obviously you learned a lot about like building brand identity and community and loyalty, and you also carry a very strong, um, desire for like a business of integrity and a safe space, especially for women who maybe are intimidated by tech. So WP Rockstar was really successful and you did multiple launches, but then Geek Pack sort of started to kind of take on a life of its own. If you want to tell people a little bit about that.

Yeah. So the brand has always been Geek Pack and we, we kept the kind of brand name in it. It's, it's called that exactly because of why it sounds. It's a, it's a pack of geeks. We look after each other, we take care of each other, we empower each other, we support each other, all those things. So the brand absolutely is exactly everything that it sounds like. And the product, we wanted it to be really specific to WordPress because that's what we were teaching at the time was web development, coding, all specific to WordPress. But Geek Pack really started to become the brand and we started sending out swag to our students and they're wearing the t-shirts. And if you go and look at any of my social media, you can see we show our students in our swag 'cause they're proud of it. Proud of it. We want other people to see it and go, I want to be a part of that. Uh, so it's, it's taken us years to kind of build up that, um, that brand. But Geek Pack is, is now the, the leading kind of umbrella brand, um, with a couple products underneath.

Yeah, so I wrote an email and a post about, uh, different types of brands, and this is a really interesting moment to say that, you know, Julia, you didn't really want to start as a personal brand. You wanted your dog to be the personal brand, but eventually you sort of, you know, got comfortable in the role that you felt aligned with. So you were that personal brand for a while, but you had a strong name and a strong identity around the Geek Pack name. And so now you've become this hybrid brand where like Julia Taylor is known, but Geek Pack is also known almost as much as Julia Taylor. And so if you go to my blog at juliechenell.com, you can look, it's 3 different brand types. So Julia made this transition from what I would call Mountain 1, the personal brand, to Mountain 2 with this hybrid. Okay, so Geek Pack is going— it's a community, it's a membership. You've got WP Rockstar. Where did you learn how to get free money from grants? Because at some point you stumbled on this idea, uh, of getting money to continue to grow your business. Free money from the government and in nonprofits.

Yeah, how did I stumble on it? I, um, there's a local accelerator program here in Durango, Colorado called SCAPE, Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs. It's a mouthful. And I'd seen it advertised on Facebook and I thought, oh, you know, that sounds really cool. Be nice to meet some local, other local entrepreneurs. And I joined it. And it was in that program when I started on this, I say kind of new journey, this kind of other path of learning about quote unquote like traditional business and VC funding and not making any revenue but having an idea, like all these things that I'd never really been aware of. And I, I come, come kind of thinking, this is weird, like why would you have a business where you don't have any money for years and years and years? And right, right, just say like a lot of it seemed a little odd, but then I guess, okay, well, that's, that's quote unquote traditional business. And I learned so much. I learned about grants. And as I told other people about my business model, they are absolutely floored. And they're, they're like, you, you're profitable and you made money from the beginning and you don't have crazy expensive overheads. And, you know, how have you, how have you done— you sell around the world? Like, all these things. The fact that I have an online business blows people's minds in the kind of outside our space. We are very much in this bubble.

Bubble.

Just keep this in mind because there's this huge world out there, people that don't really understand or know what we do. But what we do is magical. What we do is incredible. It is not the norm. And I, I learned how to do what I do because of you. So I— a lot of times when people say, oh, it's so amazing, I'm thinking to myself, I've got to tell Julie that, like, the things she's teaching us to do are outside the box, but they are applauded as being the way forward from quote-unquote traditional business. So I found out about grants through all these accelerator programs I did.

Yeah. So it's an interesting discussion. I know that there's— we are in a bubble and we are all used to kind of that bootstrapping internet marketing more, you know, type of revenue generation. But there are a lot of businesses that really, we know them today, they would not exist without large amounts of capital, like large amounts of capital. And these are businesses that we would consider as consumers very, very you know, productive businesses, even though their balance sheets don't quite look the same. So you stumbled upon grants, um, because you haven't, you haven't raised any funding yet, like, um, VC funding, and that usually requires you giving up some equity and some decision-making power, but you did discover grants. So what was the first grant you were awarded and like, what, what did that feel like? What, what did you win and how, how did that all go?

Yeah, sure. So the very first one was through an organization called Hello Alice. So you can— anyone here can go to helloalice.com, sign up for free to find out when grants become available. And this one so just happened to be through a VC fund called Tiger Global Impact Ventures, and they gave $50,000 to 20 women who are the CEO of tech businesses. And that was the first one that I was awarded. To date, I'm up to $425K in free money.

That's amazing.

With no strings attached. There's some paperwork, you know, don't get me wrong, there's a good amount.

You got to apply for it, but it's free money. No payback, no equity given away, nothing.

Absolutely. Yeah. So almost, almost half a million in grants. And the first one was $50,000. One of the ones that I got was $250,000 and that was through the state of Colorado. So that has the most paperwork, but it was also the biggest that I've had. And there's been a handful of others since then. And I've found that once you, once you get one, like success breeds success, my husband says that all the time. And I've found that people, if they go, oh, so Cartier has said yes, or Hello Alice has said yes, or the state of Colorado has said yes, well then someone else has already vetted her. So we're gonna, we're gonna say yes as well. So once you kind of get it, then it just snowballs from there.

Yeah. All right. So, so what are you doing with all this free money? Like, what are the things that you've, like, invested in and started investing in, whether it's ads, funnels, people, those kinds of things?

Sure. To be honest, it goes straight into the account and it's kind of there to just pay for all the things that happen. But since I started receiving grants and the first one I received was November of not last year, but the year before. So what is that, 2022? So that's when I started getting them. The thing that we have done, the biggest change is add more team members, but add specifically a new division to the company that we refer to as the Geek Pack Partners Program. And this is where we are venturing into B2B and kind of B2G. We partner with nonprofits, with big companies in order to reach more women really. At the end of the day. We still do all our B2C stuff, and that's handle all the day-to-day, and that is handled by the team. So I've invested a lot into getting the, the B2B partners program off the ground, and it's slow. Oh my word, it's like starting a new business, and it's nothing like selling to individual people, which is— yeah, um, but selling to, to nonprofits, to big companies, um, is— it's the, the cycle is long, like a year and a half long.

Right. But then the, but then the contracts when they come in are 100 times bigger than an individual customer. Exactly.

You just need cash in order to, to do something.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, all right, I want to now bring us to present day. I— you won. You were the number one winner of the Cartier Award for North America. Like, this is insane. And you went to China to accept this award. So I just need you to tell me the story, like, from start to finish.

Yeah. So that's easily been the, the most rewarding, most incredible experience. The opportunity, the— yeah, I can't even say enough wonderful things about Cartier. I mean, I've got my trophy. I've got my trophy right there, like a legit trophy. I mean, this is Cartier, like the, the international, the luxury brand. The jewelry, like it's this company. And the CEO of Cartier is a huge proponent of this program. So it's called the Cartier Women's Initiative. This is the 18th year that I just went through. I found out about it about a year ago and applied. It was a very long application process. My team members were interviewed, some stakeholders were interviewed. RAA actually was interviewed. I had to present like it was intense. The due diligence, they looked into my finances, like everything. And I found out, um, in, um, late November that I was in, um, I was one of the, the top 3. So the Cartier Women's Initiative, there are 11 different, um, kind of regions, and there's 3 fellows from each. There's those 33 fellows, and we all are CWI fellows. We, um, all went to China, and it was while we were in China, just to a few weeks ago where we had the awards ceremony. And you guys, it was, it was like the Oscars, you know. We're all in, in cocktail dresses and gowns, and, and we had people doing our hair and makeup. And there were 1,200 people in the audience, this gorgeous opera house in China. Um, 11 million people watched it online, which is just incredible. Um, Karlie Kloss, who is a supermodel entrepreneur— she, she runs a nonprofit called Code with Klossy— she was the special cast there. She gave me the award. P.S., we're chatting about partnerships, which is really cool. She's so tall, she's so good.

I know.

Sorry, I don't think I told you that yet.

No, no, I'm just finding this out now on this.

Yeah, yeah. So that's a whole nother thing. Um, that was incredible. Um, I brought her an amazing gift that was really, really personal, um, that Helen helped me, uh, me come up with. So anyway, I'm—

I'm Helen, by the way, is the mindset, uh, coach in Digital Insiders. Just want to put that out there. Yes, she's incredible.

She also helped me come up with the idea Richard Branson's Very Personal Gift, which happened a few weeks prior to that. So I know it's unreal. That's what's kind of happened in the last couple of months. And I, you know, it was about an hour and a half long award ceremony and some of the fellows got to speak, but it all kind of came together when we were all on stage and they announced who got third place, second place, and first place, and they announced it in that order. And I have gone back and watched the YouTube video, the replay once, and I just did it the other day and I struggled to kind of hold myself together because they announced third place and the woman who got third place is incredible. And then the woman who got second place is incredible. But when, when my name wasn't third or second, yeah, I like this, this moment of all of my team members like you, Helen, everyone in DI, all of my students, like immediately it was, it felt like they were You know, everyone has come on this journey with me and it was, I was stood up there, I accepted it, but it wasn't just me. It's the community, it's every single person that's ever had any part of Geek Pack becoming what it is now. And it was such an incredibly powerful moment to experience that and go, oh wow, like, Maybe I shouldn't be such a— I shouldn't feel like such an imposter all the time.

So I know I, I watched it and I got so choked up. It was like such a moment.

Yeah.

But also, like, you know, as, as you tell that story, I mean, it's like you see this, like, grand moment in time, but you think about all the things that you did to become the person that was ready for that moment, right? Like that first grant that you applied for. And like the fact that you actually went through the process to apply for this, you know, you did all that work and that is, you know, that's a testament in and of itself of just like your diligence of like you've had a mission that's bigger than you, that's bigger than just like, hey, can I make a business that puts food on the table? And that, that vision is why you are like scaling a lot of these mountains that, that many people don't get to climb.

It's interesting you said about like everything that has happened in the past that led me to that moment. And there were, there were a couple of things. The one of the jury members that selected me not only to be a fellow but for the first place. So they call them jury members. They're the kind of selection committee. She, she works for the Gates Foundation and she said to me, how have you built such an incredible kind of virtual community of women who they said, we've read every single testimonial, we've read every single case study of your students. Like, how have you done it? You know, they're asking me. And then interestingly, so I did speak to Karlie Kloss at the awards ceremony. Actually, when she handed me my award, she said, we need to talk because our businesses are so aligned. And we spoke afterward. I told her a little bit about my story. And the next day we had a session with her and she came directly up to me and she said, I went down a rabbit hole last night. I looked at your website. Our visions are so aligned. I watched your YouTube videos. I've looked at everything. She said, you know, we're going to, we're going to do something in the future. Let's, let's set up a Zoom call and get in touch, which, by the way, we are now. I say all that because you've talked about having an ecosystem when it comes to kind of marketing. And I'll never forget one of the, one of the DI events that I went to. The fish kind of analogy and— oh yes, and the farm. And I've watched that movie, The Farm. So if y'all are wondering what I'm talking about, Julie, tell them where to kind of go and figure it out. I have spent years building an ecosystem so that when someone like Karlie Kloss or Richard Branson or whomever goes, huh, I want to know a little bit more about Geek Pack or Julia Taylor, and they go and look and they see we have a YouTube channel. It's not massive, but we have it and we're consistent. We're on all the social media platforms. We have a website. Like, is all of this stuff perfect? No, but we have it and we have lots of content. And it's very clear that we've been doing this for a long time. We are successful and we are moving in the right direction. So it will take time, but start to build up your ecosystem. It's so, so important.

That is such like that. I'm so glad you said that. It's profound. It's true. And it's like, because when those moments happen, you want to have all of that ready. And that does take years to build. You know, I was thinking, uh, you know, I started running ads with, um, Kathy and, and Dave for another product. And he works with lots of people and he's like, man, you know, I went to this other person to talk to them about the funnel and they're like, it's working. And the guy was like, I— this shouldn't be working this way. Like, why is it working so well? And I said, well, that's what happens when you do something and there's a ecosystem because people immediately Google us and then they see our, our communities and our channels and they see all of those testimonials. And so that ecosystem is what really sustains a business long-term. And that can't be, you can't shortcut it, right? The movie she's talking about is one that I've mentioned over and over and over again. It's called The Biggest Little Farm and it's about this couple that goes and, and wants to build a farm. And the, the guy, the old guy who's like the the mentor, he says it's going to take you 7 years. 7 years you're gonna, you're gonna not know why you did this, and then on year 7, things are going to start to change and you're going to feel that, that momentum and alignment. And I think it's true in business too. And, and clearly you're on year 7. Yep.

This is year 7. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, exactly. That is so ridiculous and awesome and very poetic.

Yeah, it is. It didn't occur to me until just now, but yes, I'm on year 7.

Yeah, you're 7. Well, there you go. Okay, so, well, thank you so, so much for telling the story. People want to learn more about you, want to learn more about Geek Pack, where should they go?

Honestly, just Google Geek Pack or go to Instagram. We, we're on, we're on all, they're everywhere, we're everywhere. Just, yeah, look for Geek Pack, you'll find us. geekpack.com is our website. Um, I do have somewhat of a, of a, you know, personal stuff on Facebook and on Instagram, Julia the Geek, but For the most part, just geek back, you'll find us.

Awesome. Yeah, so, and if you guys, any of you listening, are interested in getting coached or being a part of Digital Insiders where, uh, Julia and many other very successful entrepreneurs are hanging out, just go to digitalinsidersmastermind.com.

Do it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, thank you. Appreciate it.

And talk soon. Bye. And there you have it, folks, another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie Chenell, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.