Kevin Koskella founded Work Hero, a subscription service for unlimited WordPress and design tasks. He credits a climb up Norway's Trolltunga with teaching him to take risks, and argues that outsourcing administrative work frees entrepreneurs to focus on what matters. His advice: abandon the do-everything-yourself mindset and align with your true self.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by WagsMedia. WagsMedia provides you with everything you need to generate more customers and grow your brand. Head on over to wagsmedia.com, W-A-G-S-M-E-D-I-A dot com, to enter a contest where you can win a free, done-for-you custom website valued at $2,500 for a limited time only. Now let's jump into the episode.
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Kevin Costello with us. He is the founder of Work Hero, which is an online service that offers unlimited WordPress technical and graphic design tasks for busy entrepreneurs at a flat monthly rate. So welcome to the show, man.
Thanks, Tyler. It's good to be here.
Of course, man. Great to have you here. We'll dive right in. The first question I have for you, Kevin, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Yeah, so we were just before the podcast, we were kind of chit-chatting about travel. And one of the stories that comes to mind is something that I went through last summer. Last summer, I wanted to climb this. It's called Trolltunga. It's in Norway. It's basically a pretty long climb. It's like an all-day climb to the top of this fjord. There's this little tongue that sticks out and people get pictures at the end of that tongue. My buddy and I did it. It was like a grueling hike where you had all different types of weather and stuff like that. Then, we actually missed the bus getting there. There was this whole long backstory. Before that, and we had to take a super late night bus and get no sleep the night before. It was raining in the morning, and I just thought everything was just not lining up for the thing to happen. Then, yeah, I went for it and got up there. I have this crazy fear of heights where I really hate being up high, but I saw people taking the picture on the edge of that cliff, and I thought, "I got to do this. I got to psych myself up to do it." I stood in line to get to that cliff. I started having all these doubts and I thought about turning around, but then I just kind of sucked it up and did it. And it was just like, something about that was just like, it felt like I was breaking through a lot of barriers. And the underlying message there was that I needed to take more risks. And I wanted to start this business, Work Hero, at that point. That was July, and I wanted to start it and ended up doing it after that. Like a couple of weeks later when I got back to San Diego, I was like, okay, it's starting. And so, yeah, take more risk was the message there.
And I'm excited for your answer on this one. What is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Yeah, I think it's kind of an internal thing. So I would say don't hold back your true self. So when I started my first online business, TriSwimCoach, I embraced— I had embraced the idea of being a coach. And so, what I did is instead of trying to be someone that I wasn't, I wasn't a well-known swim coach, but I started a swim coaching business. So, I wrote all my articles and newsletters and things like that. They're all written from the heart and from knowledge. So, it's the same kind of thing with Work Hero. So, getting into a business where I feel like my strengths shine and where you can set things up so that the whole business doesn't depend on you to succeed. So, those are the things that I kind of go for now. Now that I've done business for quite a while, I see that that's— those are the most important things is making sure that it's kind of aligned with who you are. And then the fact that you don't have to be there at all times or your business will collapse is a good thing as well.
And you may have kind of already answered, but what's like your best piece of overall business advice? So, maybe for somebody like just starting out with their own business, like what would you tell them?
Yeah, I would say, and this is— I'm a little bit biased because I run Work Hero and we do tasks for people that are really busy, but I would say that you have to get let go of the idea of doing everything yourself or even doing most things yourself. Because a lot of, you know, especially in America, there's this whole thing of like working hard is so valued. So a lot of us were born with this idea that you have to be always working hard and constantly working. And then you get— the problem is you fall into this trap of kind of work for work's sake, and you're just keeping yourself busy, but you're doing work that you really don't need to be doing. So yeah, you can't really be an expert at everything. So if— and also, if you want your business to succeed, you've got to let go of that administrative work that you can easily pay for with outsourcing.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
It kind of goes to what I was saying before, but take more risks, fail fast, and shake off and learn as much as possible from mistakes.
And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
I would say being in alignment with your true self. And this takes a lot of deep inner work. So, you've got to go back and deal with any past traumas and get down to that self that is deep within you. And, everybody has it but a lot of stuff gets piled on top of us as kids and we have to kind of go back through that as adults.
And, what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
It's "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" by Harry Browne. And, what I learned from that is that we all limit our own freedoms by creating traps. And, all these traps have a way out since they are self-imposed. And, some of the traps that he outlines in the book are like having a mortgage or having a marriage that you don't want to be in or going into an investment that you feel is like you're stuck into it and you could go on and on. But yeah, just getting rid of these self-imposed limitations on your freedom.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
I'm going to go with this one. It's, "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. And that's by Albert Camus.
Yeah, I love that quote, dude.
That's sick.
Um, dude, thank you, uh, so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where's the best place for people to find like Work Hero and then like connect with you online as well?
Yeah, sure. Uh, so, uh, useworkhero.com is the website, and, uh, I have a podcast at fr freedomlovin— that's loving without the G—.com. freedomlovin.com.
Perfect, man. Thanks again for hopping on.
Yeah, thanks a lot, man.
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