Founder's Story - How an Irish Immigrant went from Side Hustle to Millions | Ep. 40 with Cathryn Lavery co-founder and CEO of Best Self

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Cathryn Lavery is the Co-Founder & CEO of BestSelf Co.—an organization dedicated to helping people become their best selves, fulfill their potential, and lead happier lives. Starting as an Irish immigrant with zero business experience, no personal network, and little resources, Cathryn has transformed herself into a serial entrepreneur, creating multiple brands and even helping others bring their ideas to life. She is passionate about showing others how to make the change and have the tools to achieve their goals. Please rate, review, subscribe, and share with a friend who will be inspired. Visit KateHancock.com for insights into guests and future episodes. Today's episode is sponsored by Anchor. Make sure to check out Anchor.fm and see why we love to use them as our podcast hosting. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ibhshow/supportOur Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation, and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs, and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur, and named one of the most influential Filipina in the world, Kate Hancock. We are live. Hi, everyone. This is Kate Hancock for the Inspired by Her podcast and today I have Catherine Lavery. Hi Catherine. Hi how are you? Great. Great to be here. Yeah I love your background by the way I think you have the best setup. Oh thanks I set up my uh my camera so that it's my webcam. Uh-huh it's's so great so everyone Catherine is the co-founder

and CEO of Best Self Company an organization dedicated to helping people become their best selves fulfill their potential and lead happier lives now starting as an Irish immigrant with zero business experience no personal network and little resources, Catherine has transformed herself into a serial entrepreneur, which I can't wait to hear your story, creating multiple brands and even helping others bring their ideas to life. Now she's been featured at Half Post, Wall Street Journal, now Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017, and New York Times. I'm so excited. Yeah, it's great to be here. Yeah, so Catherine, tell me, what was your journey like to get where you are? I feel short, but also long at the exact same time. So I moved from, I used to be an architect. So when I moved

from Ireland, Northern Ireland specifically, I went to uni in Scotland and England and I moved to be an architect in New York. I'd always wanted to live in New York City and I went there when I was 18. I was like, oh, I want to live here. So I got an opportunity to intern for a summer as an architect and they offered me a job. And so pretty much moved there, didn't know anyone. Well, I knew like two people. And then I started working as an architect. And actually, when I first got there, I was supposed to start work two weeks later. So I had two weeks to kind of explore New York and then I'm supposed to start work two weeks later. So I had two weeks to kind of explore New York and then I'm supposed to start.

And this company that I had interned with, like probably like a month before I was going to move there, they said, oh, we don't have a lot of work, but we love your work. So, but we can't pay you as much as we said we would. And so they were like, would you be willing to come over? And they like dropped my pay to like 25 percent less but I was so like I want to live in New York that I was like you know I'll figure it out I'll just go anyway and so then I get there and I'm supposed to start in two weeks and a week in I'm like getting my apartment figured out and all you know all the stuff and I moved with like 722 dollars something like that and I didn't

have a lot of money and so I'm like basically I'm only going to work have two weeks and then I'm going to get a paycheck essentially or you know in less than a month and then they said oh actually we still don't have a ton of work but maybe you could start in like six weeks. And, and so I'm, and you know, I called them the next day, this is 11 o'clock at night, they messaged me and I'm like, what am I supposed to do for six weeks? Like, you know, and they're like, you know, I know when people like graduate, they want to travel and like see the world. So maybe you could do that. And I'm like'm like I did travel I traveled from Scotland to here for this job and so that was kind of like my first um time where I realized oh I actually have to just figure stuff out for myself so I didn't tell my I didn't tell my family about the job stuff I

was just like okay I'm gonna just like I was helping people build websites and I was I learned how to form my kindle books for people I just basically was like I need to make money so I just kind of hustled for the next you know four or five weeks and then I started the job as an architect but by that time I kind of had this feeling of like oh I don't know that I can like count on these people long term because it kind of let me down twice and I wasn't making much I was making like thirty thousand dollars a year living in New York City I was like you know designing these insane apartments for people where they're spending like seventy thousand dollars on a closet and I'm like oh my god

that's like two years of my salary on a goddamn closet uh like some pieces of wood so so I knew like long term that wasn't gonna be what I wanted to do but um it was architecture is great for like learning how to come up with ideas and self-discipline and you know learning how to sell your ideas so on the side of my architecture job I started a Shopify store selling like design prints and t-shirts and things like that and I was just like very like on the side but it started like picking up steam even though I didn't know anything about marketing I would just like post on my tumblr page and then people would buy so I never bought Facebook ads or anything like that it was so um kind of successful by accident it was like the product was good but I didn't know anything about marketing it would be like if I got a sale I'd be like oh that's cool or if I got a

ton of sales on one day I was like oh like a magazine must have talked about me or something like that it was like not controlled at all and so that was kind of my first foray into e-commerce and that sort of thing. Wow. That's amazing. Now, can you tell me who was your first client? What was your first product that you made? Well, the first product I made, so this is probably like I when I was 14 I had an eBay store and I was like very into like I didn't know you could be an entrepreneur because my parents had like normal jobs and I didn't grow up knowing that you could actually have a business it was like you know I had an eBay store and I, I was, this was totally illegal by the way. I would, actually my first product was I would import Dawson's Creek DVDs from Canada because they

didn't sell them in the UK and I sold those. And then after that, the Dawson's Creek tram passed, I started making Justin Timberlake video CDs so I download all his music videos on like interviews and stuff and I would put it not on a DVD this was like pre-DVD I put on a video CD and I'd burn it and I would make all the like artwork and stuff and I sold it on eBay until they shut me down oh wow I think my husband did that like downloading stuff yeah remember this mirc back in the day where you can download files and sell it yeah i mean i don't think you could but we just did okay yeah so tell me that very first day where you finally come up with your first company what was that like yeah so that was um my the the shopify store it was called calm the ham and um

I bought a printer for like 500 and so I was printing everything myself on these really nice like like um glick prints and so it was great because if I got an order I would I would have to like manually do it myself and I was so picky with everything and then in my lunch break at my architecture job it was the post office like five minutes walk away so I used to like do my orders and then at my lunch break I would walk to the post office and actually we didn't really get a lunch break so I would feel bad I'm like running the post office to like mail the stuff out and then it got to a point where I designed a couple of things that kind of went viral and I just didn't have the capacity to to like have the job and do that so I had a task rabbit coming to my apartment okay and like just

picking up all these tubes and my whole apartment's like filled with all these U-line boxes. And I got some friends to help me like wrap up these posters. And at the time I didn't know anything about like mass, you know, bulk printing. I would do one by one. Wasted so much money, but I just didn't know what I didn't know at the time. And so this, this task rabbit would literally come to my apartment and just take these like huge bags the post office and then I would run to work so it was like every night from you know by time I got home from work it was like 839 and I would work until like midnight and then I would get up early and then he would

come at like 8 7 30 a.m. and he would like take these bags of orders to the post office and then I would go to work. Wow. Now, Catherine, how long did you keep doing this, doing your side hustle and finally decided to quit your job? So I stayed in that job for 18 months um because I was there on a visa I was waiting for my green card to come in so I knew I wanted to leave but I was kind of tied to the job until um my green card came in and so it was this like the last six months where all I wanted to do was like be done with it and like go and do my own thing but I couldn't and so I was so happy like the day I could leave but actually I kind of I didn't say I'm gonna quit because because I never like just had nothing to do so I'm like what if what if I quit this job and I turn

into a complete bum and I like sleep all day and I'm like I lose all my motivation so what I did was I said okay I don't want to leave my company in a lurch let me finish the projects that I have on site so I only work on those one day a week I'll go to site I'll do those and then the rest of the week I'll work on my own projects until those projects are done because in my mind I'm thinking like what if I just don't like it and I want to come back so it's kind of like tipping my toe in and then within like two weeks I was like oh my god I can't wait till these projects are finished so I can um just do my own thing because I knew then that you know I liked having my like, total control of my own schedule. And I knew I wasn't

going to just like lose momentum. But it's difficult because you don't know how you're going to be if you've never been in that situation before. Yeah, absolutely. Now, Catherine, where is that motivation or that drive coming from uh middle child syndrome um no I I think I've always wanted to just do something different I didn't know what that would be again I didn't know that you could just have your own business and I've always particularly since I moved to the U.S. like there's such a culture here of you know the this American dream of like really if you work hard and you you know develop yourself personally like you will you will get rewarded and I've definitely experienced that and so for me I've

seen how I've developed myself personally and that's affected all areas of my life. And that's kind of a constant need for myself to grow that drives me personally and in business. I love how you're sharing the story of you working and packing and shipping during your lunch break, because I kind of did the same thing. And eventually, I can totally relate to you in that one. And so tell me about that so you created a Shopify store and how much like how much have you sold the first year I think the first year I I should have a better answer this right off. I think in the first year I did about 150,000 or so. Um, but I was doing everything myself, like literally everything. And I didn't know. And it's crazy. Cause like I was doing everything myself and like trying to be so like, uh, scrappy with money, but I didn't need to be at the time. Cause it's like, like you pay tax based on profit, but I'm like literally like not sleeping, just working my

ass off. And I, my tax guy at the end of the first year was just like, what are, like, what are you doing? Cause I had so little expenses compared to like the money I'm running because I was literally doing everything myself so I learned some lessons there but um I think this by the the best year of that business did about like 250 or so um and that was like I call that business like my vehicle to freedom business like was never going to be the thing that I did forever but it allowed me to you know learn new skills like learn about e-commerce learn about what I actually enjoyed doing which was a lot of like the product creation and then I got better at the marketing but I wasn't good at that at the start and then also it became kind of this business that was a cash flowing business that allowed me to explore other things so um and I think a lot of people that's a great business to

start something that you can learn a lot of skills in and also you know be able to really explore what it is that you want to do long term okay so tell me what did you learn about yourself when you're sharing this that you're doing it all by yourself, you're being cheap and that came with its own challenges. So I think, you know, at the beginning, it's good to learn every step because, because I, you know, did every step of the process. I know what shipping and order looks like, what doing customer service looks like, what, you know, an operations looks like. Doesn't mean I'm very good at it, but like, I have a general sense of like what doing customer service looks like what you know an operations looks like doesn't mean I'm very good at it but like I have a general sense of like what it is that needs to happen so that later on when I had a bigger company I wasn't unaware of all the little

intricacies that would need to happen to be able to be successful in fact I knew the things that I wasn't good at and didn't want to do so that I could put people in place to do that you know on the companies I have yeah so Catherine what is the most challenging experience while running your business that you've had to overcome um what is the most challenging? I mean, since I've started, there's been one, it's been, you're constantly running into challenges. I think the problems that you come up against are directly correlated with yourself and what you can handle in that moment so like a problem that we might have run into in year one in year three it would be like a Tuesday right but on year one it's like oh my god this could take us on uh whereas year three it's like oh I know how to deal with this I think the most challenging thing I've recently dealt with is I I had a business partner for five years and for the last two years, he had been out of,

basically not involved in any way, but still had 50% of the company. And so that was extremely challenging because essentially I was like, I'm strong on big decisions. And there was just a lot of internal conflict. So I have this huge thing going on on the side, but then I'm also trying to run the business in a way that doesn't let this, you know, overshadow, but it completely overshadowed

me for a long time. I actually just wrote an article about it and all the things that I've learned so again not regretting anything but that was definitely the biggest challenge because it's essentially you know you have something that could completely like derail this whole thing that you're working day to day on but you can't really deal with it but you're still having to work day to day on it and in my mind I'm thinking well I want to keep the company going and I want to maintain a team. But if I grow this thing, I then have to pay out this person more money. And so it's this like tight rope of like, okay, what do I do here? And so that was almost like a split personality of

like, you know, the selfish part of me that obviously didn't want to pay out more money but then the part of me that like wanted the company and the team to grow and so that was definitely the the biggest struggle I've been through recently yeah I could I could understand now did you hire a lawyer before you created a partnership with the partner did you have a good operating agreement no terrible operating agreement in fact everyone when it came to the point where I was like I need to to get out of this thing or like figure out how we can negotiate this thing um every lawyer I would show up to was like, this is a terrible

operating agreement. I'm like, I know that. I know. I already know that. I need help. And so actually the thing I just talked about was things that you need in your operating agreement that I didn't think of. So vesting is pretty common in startup world where you get your equity over time. So usually it's like four years. Whereas in a lot of bootstrapped small businesses, you just get it all up front. And so had we had just done that one vesting thing, you know, this other, my partner might have only had 20, 25% instead of 50%, you know because because he he was gone after like two years so you know that's just like a learning experience I didn't know that I didn't know at the time

and you know just a lot of things I would know to look out for as red flags that I didn't see at the start yeah absolutely now do you Now, do you, is that, is that problem solved? Are you still partnering? Are you still dealing with that right now? Oh, that's solved. Thank God. Yeah, I'm like a month, just over a month out of that. But it was, it was tricky because while we came to an agreement, we negotiated for like six, it was like six months of negotiation. And then, and then he was going through a really contentious divorce. And so that's another thing is like, the ex wife also needed to approve a deal. And so that also took time. And so now I'm dealing with business lawyers, personal lawyers, divorce lawyers on two sides.

And it was just like a literal nightmare. I could imagine. Yeah, there is actually a system that you can ask a question before going to a partnership. It's called slicing pie. So make sure you don't go. Yeah. Like, have you done that? I didn't do that.

But I in the in the blog post, I talked about this. I mentioned that software specifically is it really good because then that you know take away resentment and someone's gonna not showing up to instead of you being a partner right that's that's gonna be causing a lot of friction yeah I also would never I pretty much don't think 50-50 partners should be a thing because, you know, it's like a lazy way to make a decision. It's like a compromise in the beginning because you can't make, you can't have hard conversations around like what actually makes sense. And so going into it, like I was so, you know, insecure and the partner that I had was a good talker and like

a marketer and a sales guy. And so that's, I was like, okay, well, it makes sense. Meanwhile, I had all, you know, all the relevant experience for what it is that we were trying to do. And, you know, if I had really looked at it objectively, it's like, well, we're not really bringing the same things like i'm bringing the capital and the experience with e-commerce and kickstarter and the actual product idea and so you know i just i think a lot of um especially women going into partnerships where it's different genders can can discount themselves and what they bring into it uh because they're um either like insecure with their own skills or they just don't know how to ask for more because it's like oh you know 50 50

seems fair but 50 50 is not fair if you're doing more at the start and then it gets more unfair the longer it continues and you know it's it's so now I you know the vesting thing is crucial but then also just like a you know slicing pie or however you want to look at the actual objective way of how you should split equity yeah yeah so for what advice would you give for an inspiring hiring female entrepreneur? I mean, so I have this thing where like, I want to create a t-shirt that says like, it says girl boss on it, but girls cross-eyed, it's just like boss. Because I think there's the thing of like, you know, I love seeing female entrepreneurs succeed and, you know, we need more of them. I also just want them to see themselves as like entrepreneurs as well. So not discounting themselves or feeling like, I think female entrepreneurs,

especially have a lot of soft skills that help them in ways that they don't probably realize because you know I think uh emotional intelligence is a huge part of success is like being able to you know anticipate needs and know how to be empathetic towards someone and put yourself in someone else's shoes and so us as as women I think that's a natural thing that we do, but, but it's like not, you know, there's no MBA and empathy or EQ. But if you, if you read research on what the skills are or the qualities that make you successful, EQ is often more highly regarded than IQ. And so for female entrepreneurs, I would say, you know, you can lean on that a lot, but, and it will also only make the other skills that you have stronger because you, you're going to have a much better interpersonal relationship with people, but then,

you know, there's so much more that, you know, that you're probably discounting that, you know, because, you know, that's what we're used to doing absolutely yeah and we all suffer from the imposter syndrome which is so difficult yeah oh have you heard of meta imposter syndrome no what is that tell me it's it's like uh oh it's like imposter syndrome is like oh but um meta imposter syndrome is like when you meet someone that has imposter syndrome, you're like, yeah, but they're awesome. So like, they're not the imposter. I'm the real imposter. Uh, I get that. I get that a lot.

Yeah. We always suffer from that. Now, Catherine, what is the best marketing strategy that works for your business? I think the best marketing strategy is showing people what success looks like with your product. So a lot of people will, you know, they're selling the features and what it is it does. But if you can show people what success looks like

and then show them like an example of what that looks like and then show them like an example of what that looks like especially for them so you know for the self journal for example that can be used in so many different ways so it's like if you have a health goal or if you have a business goal and so what we learned is that telling a story around something that someone wants to achieve with it because you know people want the product because of what it's going to do for them so you need to sell them on what it's going to do for them like you know nobody cares about the actual thing they care about what it is going to do for them so you need to learn how to tell

that story in different ways according to which person it is you're talking to yeah yeah now Catherine I love all your branding in your book it's so colorful is that dark it's the sixth side of you is that you did all that oh yeah I mean I I don't do all the branding now but I start I did all the initial stuff so I'm very you know my architecture background I'm very into design and like I'm not one to be picky with details as far as like paperwork or you know random things except for design I'm like such a perfectionist that I will notice like everything and so I think because I've been like that since the start I also you know now I have a team that know that I'll know you know I pick up on stuff like that and I think the brand itself has just kind of grown from this idea of you know how do we make people enjoy not just you know using the products

but like the feeling of when they open it and like they take it more seriously because it feels like more of an investment and I've been like involved in how do we create that product experience from the start yeah yeah absolutely now a lot of people are doing this e-course e-learning thing that's used right now because everyone's quarantined what did you learn from doing that and what is the best strategy that works for you I love all like I love all the classes that you're selling um so for us you know once you know that everyone went into lockdown one of the things that you know best help has been a remote company since we started and so we did this work from home summit and we were like okay what do people need from us and so the online stuff is really just like little bite-sized pieces of content to help one area of your life so it might

be like your relationship or being more productive or like planning your year's resolution or whatever it is so it's not trying to be everything it's like okay how do we help you get a quick win with this area and so I think that's been a huge help for people. And how did you get your traffic to sign up for your e-course? I mean, Facebook ads, our email list, we do free challenges, Instagram, things like that. I mean, it's pretty standard. I think we've been trying to grow our email list over the last you know since we started but definitely more of a focus on it because you know paid traffic is just getting more and more expensive yeah especially the big guns are attacking it right now since you get to have

your own email list and you know own your own real estate yeah yeah now Catherine knowing what you know now what would you do differently um what did you differently I think I would have done less um I think at the start when we were growing Vassal we tried to do a lot of different things. And so I think it diluted what we were doing. So we were like, okay, we used to do all of this stuff. And I think the real power is saying no to things and really just double doubling down on things you're good at, because, you know, we made some missteps and some mistakes with like, initiatives or like, stuff that we tested and just wasn't very good. So if I was starting out, I would say,

focus on what you're good at until you don't really have to work at it. And then you can like pick another channel or pick another product or whatever it is. Don't try to do like 10 things at once because you're just going to probably do 10 things. Not very well. Yeah, absolutely. Now, Catherine, can you name a person who has had tremendous impact on you as a leader? Person? I think Marie Forleo is pretty great.

I've been lucky enough to meet her a couple of times with the Shopify competition. And she was always despite, you know, she was one of the experts and the mentors but she was always hanging out with the with us all and like giving us feedback and also just super open and I think being vulnerable with things that don't always come hand in hand but like okay you know being a female entrepreneur but I'm also being open to be vulnerable so I think that was something that I learned from her um and I also just like Sarah Blakely that's another person that I've never met her but I think what she's created is pretty incredible so I love seeing um like powerhouse woman create something huge. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Now tell me how's your parents,

are they supportive of you now being an entrepreneur or they're still freaking out? Tell me. No, they're, they're fine. No, my mom was always like knew that I would be fine, whatever. So even when I told her I was thinking of going to, I was going to quit, she's like, oh, front. And my dad, he's a doctor and worked in the same job for 40 years or something like that.

And so for him, it was like, you're gonna quit your architecture job? And I think a lot of my friends in architecture were thinking I'm having a midlife crisis or something and a lot of them you know I studied it for six and a half years and then I worked in it for what you know total like two and a half and so a lot of people were like oh well why don't you you should have stayed in it for seven and a half years because then you would have had you know more time in it and it's just like the sunk cost of yeah I put the time in I studied and I you know I got the master's whatever but I also learned a

lot and I learned how to make products and buildings and everything and so you can take that education and use it somewhere else so I think there's a lot of this like sunk cost bias of like trying to put more time in just because you've already put that time and that time's already gone like I can't change it now and I wouldn't. So I think at the start, like my parents were like that. But then now they're just like, I think they kind of know what I do. But like I work on the internet, but now my mom watches, she'll probably watch this Facebook Live. She watches like all the videos I do multiple times

over. That's wonderful. Now, Catherine, what do you think is an advantage is being an immigrant? I am an immigrant myself running a business in America. Can you tell me? We get the job done is not how the song goes. I think for me if you know I think it's just this idea of you come over here and then there's this idea of the American dream and you want you have to work hard to get to it but I do think like well you have to work hard you have to work smart there's a lot of people working really hard that you know really really hard that are not doing the same. So it's just a different model. But I think for me, it was just this idea of like, well, I don't have anything else to fall back on, except, so I have to make something work. And I think that kind of your back against the wall

thing makes you just figure stuff out that maybe if you had an escape an escape hatch that you go to or a support system then you wouldn't need that as much yeah absolutely now think of someone who cares deeply for you what would you say your purpose is is uh my purpose is to help people become the best version of themselves love it now Catherine how do you want to be remembered uh I think I'd like to remember this creator so yeah I just I like to I like to write I like to make products I just like to create things that um either learnings that I've had or things that I think will help people love it Catherine it's so nice hearing your story where can they find you what's your handle website tell me uh my handle is just katherine lavery c-a-t-h-r-y-n uh my company is best self best self.co and then um best self co on all socials

and then i i blog and i write on little might.com and that's where you'll read uh i just wrote about my business partner woes so if anyone is thinking of getting into business partnership with someone Oh, love it. Catherine, what's the end goal? What's the big, hairy, audacious goal? Oh, no pressure. I mean, I want to make myself into like a household name, multi, not multi-millions because it's the revenue. It's like how many lives can we change with our products and with our ideas? So that's what my big goal is because I've seen like how my life's changed change with our products and with our ideas so um that's what my big goal is because I've seen like how my life's changed from personal development and really like being

intentional with different parts of my life and so it's kind of like a like a like a cheat code for life is what I consider it it's like why didn't I learn this stuff at school is you know all this we spend so much time in traditional, but it doesn't really help us get set up for being successful in life. And so for me, best self is about giving people the tools to sort of democratize this idea of personal development. So they don't have to read like 200 books to like get the gold or, you know, like we'll create the frameworks for you so that you can get, you know, this goal or this goal or this, you know, system in your life. And so that's, that's what I'm really excited about. I love it. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. I'm having fun talking with you. Yeah, this is great. Yes. I'll send it to my mom.

Yes. Have a good day. And thank you so much. Of course. Talk soon. Bye. Bye. That was great. How was it? Oh my God my god I love your story I can relate to you yeah thank you so much this is awesome I'm like trying to go on Facebook to see how I can share it yeah yeah I'll share you the link and stuff but like yeah there's so oh my god so much things that you are doing I was like doing it myself so I was just yeah back of my head yeah I started with 20 and selling stuff online and they got to like eight figure business so I was like packing and shipping in my lunch break so do you know the Gymshark story? No, no, no. So Gymshark is this like British clothing brand. And I met them at one of the Shopify things, but the guy there, he started when he was 16, he learned how to sew his own gym clothes. And like he was doing the same thing where he's like

sewing it and shipping it and like working as a pizza hot delivery guy and all this stuff. And his story is fucking awesome I don't even know if I could swear on your thing so I didn't but I swear sometimes um so he it just got uh he never took outside investment until earlier this year and it got valued at 1.45 billion dollars holy god I gotta I gotta I gotta I gotta i gotta watch that's crazy well that was so much i can't wait i'll i'll follow up with you i'll follow you on instagram and i can't wait what you're doing and um you know i you're gonna make it to be a household name i'll support thanks kate appreciate you and thanks for reaching out and asking me to be on your show yeah yeah thank you have a good day okay bye bye we hope you enjoyed the show don't

forget to rate review and subscribe and visit katehancock.com so you don't miss out on the next episode