Okay, I’ve been in the online world since 2006—yep. That’s about 20 years—which in internet years is basically 50—so technically, I should be getting my gold watch from Google soon. Ha! Yeah, I won’t hold my breath.

Anyway, I will break this down for you because I’m sure you don’t want to read a 20-year synopsis of my online entrepreneur journey. However, as I started thinking about it, I realized it was rather interesting.

So, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.

I got my Master’s Degree in 2000 and started my first “real” job, making $28,000 a year. Yup, and just so we are clear, I had double that in student loans.

Let’s skip to 2005 when my daughter was born. I was still working full-time and starting to dabble in the internet space. Of course, the internet back then looked very different, but there were still some mommy blogs and, believe it or not, food blogs.

I was starting to get the itch to work for myself. Working 40+ hours a week with a little kid, house, husband, and everything else was a lot. They didn’t go over that in college.

In 2007, I had my second daughter.

I also discovered Gymboree. You’ll see how this is relevant in a second.

I loved dressing my girls up in the cutest outfits from Gymboree. Well, I was making no money and also had a hefty student loan payment, so I had to get creative.

I started buying and selling my girl’s gymboree clothes on eBay. I can’t even remember how I discovered this, but I did.

Then, I learned how to purchase and sell brand-new Gymboree for a profit. Before I knew it, I had an entire room dedicated to selling Gymboree on eBay. 

This is where my first digital product comes in. In 2008, I started getting emails from other gymboree moms asking how to sell gymboree on eBay.

So, I wrote my first eBook. And let me tell you, it wasn’t fancy at all. I wrote it in a Word document and saved it as a PDF.

And get this: Back then (I'm not sure how it is now), you couldn’t sell digital products on eBay.

So, I had to burn the eBook onto a CD and physically mail it to them.

😂 Yep, I’m “burned onto a CD” old. 

Anyway, I will always remember when I listed that first eBook for sale on eBay. I made $1000 in one day and sold it for $5. It was wild.

Of course, it didn’t continue to make $1000 a day, but it did bring in some nice clothes-shopping money for my girls.

That was the first time I realized that my experience and knowledge were worth something.

I sold Gymboree and that eBook until about 2009. I was still working full-time outside the home, and with two little girls, it was just a lot, so I stopped both and focused on my family.

Then, in 2010, I decided to change my life. At that time, I was 60lbs overweight, exhausted, and truthfully feeling miserable. So, I started to organize my life and eating with meal prep, freezer prep, and other strategies.

Well, I lost 40 lbs, and again, I was asked “how I did it.” After discussing meal prep for the 100th time, I decided to start Organize Yourself Skinny in March 2011.

Even though I was blogging to share my experiences, I still had the entrepreneurial spirit, so I knew there was an opportunity to turn my new blog into a paying job.

At that time, advertising wasn’t what it is now—in fact, Raptive (who I’m with now) and Mediavine weren’t even a thing. I could do things like AdSense and possibly some other smaller ad companies, but nothing like what you see today.

Affiliate marketing was available, but it wasn’t dependable. A side note: I learned the hard way years later when I focused on a few affiliates and lost thousands of dollars when Google's algorithm shifted and one decided to shut down.

Anyway, to make money, I needed to create products—that is, digital products.

In 2012, I created my first digital product - a monthly meal plan for Organize Yourself Skinny. It also included a habit challenge and an exercise challenge. Again, it was nothing fancy. I typed it up and saved it as a PDF. No design work or anything. I don't even think Canva was a thing back then.

I made over $1000 the weekend I sold it simply by selling it to my email list. I created four more meal plans but stopped because they were a lot of work, and I didn’t create a system to make it easier. However, these meal plans resurrected eight years later, so keep reading.

In 2014, I started creating my first eBook, Organize Yourself Skinny. I launched it in January 2015, which made $5000 in that first month!

This was the first design ➡️

Again, I sold it through my email list.

I just want to point out that I first wrote most of the content in this eBook as a series on my blog. This ebook alone has made well over six figures.

I should also point out that I quit my full-time job in the Summer of 2014 to go full-time with my blog.

In 2015, I joined Raptive (now Adthrive), and legitimate advertising revenue became a thing for me. I also found a couple of affiliates that worked well for me in the food space. 

2017, I expanded the Organize Yourself Skinny eBook into my first online course.

Again, I sold it to my email list, and it made $18,000 on my first launch and $200,000 over three years.

This was when I learned about the power of a nurtured email list and that continuing to grow that list with fresh leads was equally important.

In 2019, I was hit hard by the November Google algorithm update. I lost money across the board in advertising and affiliates.

I still sold my digital products (thank goodness), but it was super stressful.

I started focusing a lot on SEO, but now, looking back, I wish I had just focused on email growth, email marketing, and digital products. Now I know I have more control over those things. 

By the way, I never fully recovered from those Google algorithm updates despite working on SEO and spending tons of money on consultants, website updates, services, etc… I learned a lot and ultimately improved my website. Still, I never saw those huge SEO gains like other bloggers.

In 2020, I updated my Organize Yourself Skinny eBook and turned it into a bundle. Remember those monthly meal plans and challenges I put together in 2012? I pulled those out of the archives, spruced them up, added a little more content, combined them with my ebook, and turned them into my brand new 30-Day Reset & Flourish eBook Bundle. I even paid for a nice design! My audience loved it!

From 2020 - 2022, I was surviving the Pandemic (like all of us) and got hit with 2-3 more Google updates despite feeling like I was doing so much SEO work and spending so much money trying to improve my site.

I also learned about Google taking cookies away during this time, which means there is a huge possibility this will also affect advertising revenue. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s coming.

Anyway, at that moment, I knew if I didn’t focus on income streams that I had more control over then put a virtual fork in me because I was done.

So, in 2022, I completely focused on serving my audience with digital products.

Truthfully, I was so burned out with everything SEO. I just couldn’t get the needle to move forward even though I felt I was just grinding away day after day.

I was still making consistent income with advertising revenue. Still, all of my affiliate revenue was gone, so I needed to focus on something I had control over—digital products and email marketing.

In June 2022, I decided to host a live smoothie challenge in a Facebook group I’d left stagnant for years. By the way, the group had over 14,000 members. 

This challenge completely changed the direction of my business. My audience loved it and became completely invigorated and excited. Me too. It was truly amazing.

Then, I did a mason jar salad challenge. That was equally awesome!

My audience loved challenges, and I loved challenges.

So, in August 2022, I decided to combine the two challenges I had just completed—and then add overnight oats and a healthy dinner challenge—to create my 10-Day Healthy Eating Challenges Kit.

I launched this in October 2022, and it made $5000 on its first launch.

Since then, it has sold over 3000 copies and made nearly six figures on that one challenge bundle!

And it’s received amazing customer feedback. 

From then on, I decided that digital products would be my focus. I dug into what my audience wanted and started creating.

➡️ February 2023 - I created my Freezer to Flourish Bundle and other freezer prep guides. 

➡️ March 2023 - I opened the Reset & Flourish Shop - my Shopify store.

➡️ May 2023 - I retired the Organize Yourself Skinny course and created a brand new online course: the Reset & Flourish Program and the Reset & Flourish Planner.

➡️ June 2023 - I tested offering this program and planner as a membership but realized that wasn’t a good model for me or my audience, so I sold them as one-time purchases.

Today, I focus on continuing to be a digital product-based business instead of building my business on the back of advertising revenue that entirely depends on SEO and other traffic-grinding strategies.  

I still make money through advertising income, but I’m not worried about the next Google update or stressed out about the cookie apocalypse.

My focus is on building my email list, nurturing my audience once they are on my list, and serving my audience with the digital products I have created as solutions to their problems. 

So, that’s my experience and business in a nutshell. Of course, there’s a lot more in between these words, and that is what I teach.