Turning a side project into a business

👩‍💻 Meet Cheryl Lau

Cheryl runs an online coaching business that helps others grow their coaching businesses. She helps people sign clients by helping them focus on three things:

• Becoming known for their unique thought leadership

• Building a sharply differentiated, yet genuine brand

• Ultimately doing just the “bare minimum” in their business, but doing each thing really well, so they can spend their time on other parts of their life that matter to them

Starting a side project

Cheryl didn’t just decide she wanted to be an entrepreneur. She actually started out as a content creator, and this was just a side project. She quickly started to receive questions from a small, but growing audience about confidence, content strategy, building a community, and more. So, she started to help people.

Leaving behind a PhD

Even as Cheryl started to help others with their businesses, she never planned to leave her career and start her own thing. In fact, she started her PhD in 2020. But, when the pandemic hit and she was isolated from her family and boyfriend (now husband) due to travel restrictions and quarantine rules in Asia, she reevaluated her priorities. As a result, she quit her PhD program and relocated from Hong Kong to Singapore.

Turning a side project into a full-time business

Even though she had moved and left her PhD behind, she still wasn’t yet convinced to leave her career right away. But, things changed in 2021. After three years of building, she had a breakthrough year. This year helped create the evidence she wanted to see to feel confident that her business could provide full-time income.

Building a business requires mental endurance

One of the biggest lessons she’s learned building her business is that it is a real mental challenge that requires mental endurance. Once you have a plan of action and find your groove, you need to manage your emotions and thoughts on a daily basis to continue to build and grow.

📚 Cheryl's Best Stack Ever

The tools and software she uses to run her business.

• Google Workspace client session notes, reviewing client work, etc (Daily)  

• Instagram for content and marketing (Daily) 

• Stripe for payment processing (Daily)

• Zoom she started with the free version but now uses the pro plan for hosting group calls and cloud storage (Daily)

• Libsyn for podcast hosting, sends to different podcast platforms (Weekly)

• Canva for graphics and content (Weekly)

• Thinkific for storing videos and training clients (Weekly)

• Calendly the “essentials plan” for scheduling, booking calls (Monthly)

• Bonsai for invoicing and contracts (Monthly)

Other products Cheryl uses, but not on a monthly basis are ShowIt (website builder), ConvertKit (email list service provider), Leadpages (for landing pages for webinars).

The one product Cheryl couldn’t live without? It was a toss up between Google Workspace, Zoom and Libsyn.

The advice she'd give to others

✨Representation matters. Know someone who might be inspired by Cheryl's journey? Share this newsletter with them✨

🍿 More to stack on

Celebrating Black Business Month. Black women entrepreneurs share what it means to be a Black woman entrepreneur and one piece of advice they'd give to Black business owners.

Entering our boss era. 60% of women small business owners said they started their own business because they wanted to be their own boss, according to "LegalZoom: Women and the Boss Era Survey."

Podcast recs this week:

• Awkward Silences a podcast where they interview people who interview people! Covers all things UX research, data, understanding people and building better products and businesses.

• Goal Digger from Jenna Kutcher is one of my favorites for business tips and strategies. I always find her episodes are full of actionable insights and takeaways.

• The Growth Hub Podcast interviews with leaders in B2B SaaS marketing. I’ve learned a few useful frameworks and strategies for growth.

If you have any questions or feedback, you can reach me at [email protected]

Always remember to have courage and be kind 💫

Ellen at Best Stack Ever