I Built a "7-Figure Business" Coaching Stepmoms. Here Are The Careless Mistakes I Made (So You Don't Have To)

It started shortly after my daughter was born.

I went from zero to four kids in a very short period of time, becoming a stepmom of three at 26 and then having an “ours baby” the following year.

I was home with my baby. I was managing all the kids, but I was craving an outlet.

So I started a blog.

My posts would get four or five likes. I’d share what I was going through as a stepmom and a young mom. It was cathartic. I truly never thought anyone would read it. I just needed to get it out.

The more I talked about being a stepmom, the more traction I got. All of a sudden I was getting messages from stepmoms from all over the world thanking me for saying the things they couldn’t say.

It became very apparent that while real talk for moms was rampant online, stepmoms didn’t have the same support.

So I created it.

After months of spending hours talking to stepmoms online, I decided to run a live program.

The KICK-ASS Stepmom Project.

Six women. Six weeks. Wednesday night calls. Sharing the strategies that had helped me transform my stepmom experience.

I made my first $1,000 and felt like I had freakin’ made it. I was ready to really do this. But I had no idea how.

Knowing absolutely nothing about running an online platform, I decided to invest in a program called B-School, by Marie Forleo. She’s the OG in online courses.

Back then, I believe the course was $1,000.

Having already spent the $1,000 I made from the program, because man, did it feel good to have my own money, I put the course on my credit card and decided to figure it out later.

I knew this investment was going to teach me what I needed to do to really go all in.

$1,000 I didn’t have.

$1,000 I didn’t tell my husband about because I wanted to do it on my own. He was already drowning in legal bills and child support payments.

$1,000 on the MBNA credit card, vowing to figure it out.

Over the last eight-plus years, I’ve built a coaching business that has generated close to $1.5 million in revenue, created digital programs that have supported thousands of women worldwide, built a top-charting podcast with nearly two million downloads and partnered with brands like LMNT, Ritual, Cozy Earth and Lululemon.

I’ve also launched things that flopped, wasted time on things that didn’t matter and learned a lot about what actually moves a business forward.

And I know that if I had done some things differently, I could have had even more success.

But I did this myself. Through Google, trial and error and regular 5 am work sessions.

While being able to pick my daughter up from school every day, take countless vacations with my family and support my husband as he accelerated his career. That feels really good.

But if I could go back, there are so many things I would do differently.

A lot of what went into running my business was successful.

Some of it also made the business so complicated that it burnt me out and created unnecessary expenses.

If I had to build it again, I would do almost everything differently.

I would keep it lean.

Build one strong offer.

Create recurring revenue.

Hire less.

Sell more.

Track profit.

Here’s what I would not do again, and exactly what I would do instead.