My solopreneur business stack 2020

I started my business halfway through 2020 so I could invoice my publishing company for the book I had just finished. Then I decided to just keep going.

My business right now is giving lectures or similar talks, and because it’s 2020, online. The talks are based either on my research, or on my book, which in turn is based on my research.

In 2021 I plan to add two digital course offerings, and a workshop to go with the lectures.

Systems I bought or tried

• SEB enkla firman — a bank account, interfacing with my bookeeping program
• Visma eEkonomi, bookkeeping and invoicing that interfaces with my bank
• Crowdcast.io — I paid for a very expensive month of this because I needed to be able to host over 1000 people (1300+ had signed up). During a tech check with a customer we realized the page didn’t load in her browser, probably due to some security setting. Since they were a local government organization, I figured other similar organizations probably would have similar problems. The whole point of such a platform was that the webinars would be EASY to access and require no software installations. So I cancelled immediatly. So far it has worked out well that I have simply been invited to the customers platform whatever that may be: Teams, Zoom, or Skype (Skype was the worst). If I host a webinar in the future I will likely go with Teams or Zoom.
• Camtasia to capture screen and camera, and do video editing.
• Canva PRO — for making graphics and pdfs quickly.
• A bundle of templates for Canva from Anchor-A design
• Adobe Creative Cloud — especially for InDesign and Illustrator. Maybe could make do with Canva but I had a good deal on it. Worked on my pdf freebie here.
• Adobe Stock — later tried to cancel this but Adobe made that very difficult and punishing, generating some badwill. Used an InDesign template off here for a freebie, as well as a number of photos and illustrations.
• Doodle Pro — I thought I would have use for this but I’ve barely used it at all. First, you can’t schedule things to any time you want, they have FIXED 15 min slots (like you can start at 10.15 but not 10.10) — insanely bad. Second, after listening to this book (The business of expertise) on Audible, I decided against signalling availability on my website like having a calendar, links for booking etc. Besides, the people who had already contacted me to book had no trouble doing so. Actually I think this is a better way. People who contact me have heard about me somewhere, which is good, because then they know a bit more about me and my work already and this is what has attracted them. There’s a higher chance of a good fit and that they will like what I have to offer.
• Squarespace — I already hosted my website there so not sure it counts
• New Zenler — I thought I had decided on this instead of Kajabi, because the latter is so expensive. NZ seemed to offer similar functionality as well as free Zoom webinars, email funnels and other useful things. But I cancelled after two weeks because…
• Kajabi — this is a big one. So expensive. But very nice to use. I didn’t really like the backend of NZ even though the course pages looked fine on the frontend. But they didn’t look exactly like a wanted (like Kajabi!) and I didn’t see any way to edit what the course page presented like, you just dumped content into a module in NZ. I joined Kajabi through an affiliate which gave a 45 day trial, a tutorial to get you up and running, and 3 coaching calls which I have yet to use. Kajabi made me feel instantly welcomed and like they care about my success. (not, like, personally care, but you know in that corporate way). Within minutes my first product was created and ready to be filled with content. Adobe Stock + Canva made it easy to instantly create first drafts of course graphics. So far everything about using Kajabi has been delightful and the help resources are something else. I feel a bit like, Oh, is this what its like to be a paying customer for things? Sign me up! Since I am running my business as a side hustle, its very important for me that its fun to work on it. Kajabi brings that fun and ease factor.
• Stripe — as I signed up for Kajabi I quickly created an integration with Stripe so I can charge people.
• Mailchimp — I use the free account for my newsletter/emails. Might switch into Kajabi but we’ll see.
• Microsoft Office 365; Dropbox; Google Drive

Educational resources

I also bought digital courses and workshops and lectures from others, and learned a lot from it. Above all I think it made a lot of things just seem more… doable, like they were a thing I could do. Like when I helped my friend by reading through her book while she was writing it. It just made it feel clear like that was something I, too, could do. And the more expensive ones really hold your hand through a process which again — very helpful! When I was younger and childless I would just pour more time into things but that isn’t possible now, nor do I want to do everything myself from scratch anyway. I enjoy paying people to help me or do stuff for me now. #middleage

(most of these I bought with some kind of offer valid at the time, i.e. not at list price)

• byRegina Get paid to post superclass on creating and selling knowledge products
• AJ&Smart Design Sprint masterclass and Workshopper Pro
• Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy
• Mariah Coz Icons of High Ticket summit
• Tarzan Kay email welcome sequence & nurture sequence swipe copy
• Laura Belgray aka TalkingShrimp — not sure if I bought anything per se but I bought DCA through her to get her bonuses which were all awesome not least Launch Hero and the very inspiring “Get it up” masterclass about creating a minicourse or other product, with Michelle Martello minima designs
• I also bought some stuff from dudes but the value of those products were decidedly below all the people I mentioned.