Hey Reader,

I know I dropped a bomb in my last email about buying BestSelf back and then seemingly disappeared. I've been working to stabilize the business and get things back on track so it's been a grind.

I got a ton of interest on the inner circle idea and am trying to figure out the best way to do that. I was giving myself 60 days to focus on BestSelf before jumping on it — will be sharing a deep dive on the first 60 days shortly! Suffice to say things are looking up and I've already recovered my investment 🥳.

Google Drive Gold 🔑
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I was digging around the BestSelf google drive folder that was transferred at closing and found a 44-page investment memo presented to their shareholders on BestSelf in Oct 2022. Was interesting to read through it and learn more about the behind-the-scenes of their thought process, numbers, growth plans, competitors etc.
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I'd have to pay a bunch of money to get this sort of thing created. If I sold the company again I could re-use a lot of that presentation 😅.
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​(Btw, they think I managed the company "above adequately" which honestly is a compliment once you read today's post)​
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Despite them not succeeding in their grand plans (more on that later), they did some things that will benefit me moving forward. I wrote more on this below:

Inexperience Debt Hidden Cost of Entrepreneurial Growth Read my latest post →

Tool of the Month:

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I got my company back but without the team I sold it with. That meant rolling up my sleeves and handling things myself.

I hired an operations manager and brought back our designer to the team but have focused on staying lean. Other than that I've been working with agencies or consultants for specialty tasks.
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My secret weapon in getting projects done? Fiverr!
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I hadn't used it in years. But recently have had great experience using it for one-off tasks that I need an expert to handle. Here's some of the projects I've done, links to each expert and how much I paid for each:

• SEO audit + action plan ($169)​
Super detailed audit with action steps of what to handle first. This thing was so detailed with action steps on everything so that even a dummy like me could make the updates.

• Airbnb listing optimization ($131)​
After a painfully slow few months I decided to pay to optimize our airbnb listing with an expert. It's been a few weeks and we've gotten significantly more bookings. We're now booked out for the next 6 weeks! Below is the before and after (not including VRBO bookings) which listing was done in tandem with airbnb.

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​• Shopify store site optimization ($120)​
I was quoted 5k by a developer for this. I decided to try a well reviewed guy on Fiverr before dropping 5k on it. They delivered it in 4 days and increased the speed by 300%! The conversion rate on the site has significantly increased too.
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​Pro tip: Find someone with great reviews (and a lot of them) and be specific with providing them with all the info they need to be successful with the job.
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​• Amazon Account Audit ($359)​
I found a company on Fiverr to do a full account audit of the PPC on Amazon. You can see in November and December the PE firm were going nuts with their ad spend. They were using an AI tool which was really incredibly efficient at wasting money.

I got the audit back on Jan 31 (3 days after closing) so I could making moves and focus on running everything profitably again. You can see in February our numbers were much better — made more profit than in November & December 🥳

Recent Favorites:
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📹 Inspirational video: Sisyphus and the Impossible Dream by Casey Neistat​

💻 New Browser, who dis? After dealing with too many beach balls on Chrome I moved to Arc browser and it's amazing! I'll prob do an in-depth post on why I love it but for now, give yourself a day to get used to it and you'll thank me later.

🗣️ Ultraspeaking — did the Fundamentals L1 course recently and it was so good I signed up for their annual membership to do all the courses. So well organized and taught, can't say enough good things about it.
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(I'm speaking at Dynamite Circle in Mexico next month, and Ezra Firestone Blue Ribbon event in a few weeks. Let me know if you'll be there!)

🎧 Refamulating podcast an emotionally honest storytelling podcast that features real stories from real people who are creating families in unconventional ways. Emily and I did an interview on it and will be released soon. I went viral on TikTok last month sharing the story of how I met our donor.​

✍🏻 Great tweet from Andrew Wilkinson that reminded me alot about the issues I saw from the PE firm who bought my business — and ultimately why they failed and sold it back to me. Told from the opposite perspective.​

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Personal:

My baby is officially not a baby anymore — she has entered the Terrific Two's (I'm rebranding it 😁).

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Have a great week and thank you for your support Reader, 🙏🏻

- Cathryn

P.S. Read my latest writing on Inexperience Debt: The Hidden Cost of Entrepreneurial Growth​

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2028 E Ben White Blvd #240-5675, Austin, Texas 78741
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