Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in content creation but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Jessie Johnson, founder of Life As A Strawberry, located in Finger Lakes, NY.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Life As A Strawberry is a food media company that helps home cooks make food they're proud of. We share recipes, videos, and culinary training resources on our primary website, lifeasastrawberry.com, our sister websites, and our various social media channels. Our superpower is breaking big, complicated concepts into easy-to-follow action steps to help you feel like a pro in the kitchen (no matter how much experience you have!)
Tell us about yourself
I started Life As A Strawberry as a hobby food blog right after I graduated from college. I was working two jobs while I saved money for grad school, and I wanted a creative outlet that let me keep my feet in the food world. All of my academic work centered on food systems and food security, and I'd worked in catering and community kitchens, so writing about food on the internet seemed like a fun and natural fit.
A year into blogging, I moved to New York to do my graduate work at Cornell, and I kept the blog going. By the time I finished my MPA, I was being invited to speak at blogging conferences around the country and the website was making almost as much as the nonprofit jobs I was considering. Blogging was still pretty new then - we didn’t have the influencer industry we do today - but I had a gut feeling that going all-in on this company was the right thing to do. So I took a leap of faith and made Life As A Strawberry my full-time job. Almost ten years later, we’re a full-fledged media company with staff and contractors in 7 states.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
We've done a lot of things at Life As A Strawberry that I'm really proud of: we've built a great work environment, enjoyed some really fun media features, and reached millions of readers. But as an entrepreneur, the thing I'm MOST proud of is that even on the worst, most discouraging days, I kept going. It is so, so easy to give up when you're building a business. There are days when it feels like the world is caving in around you, or when something goes wrong and it feels like you'll never recover. And that can be really lonely. Every day that you feel that way as a business owner - when it feels like too much, or it's too hard, or you just want to burn it all down - every day that you feel that way, and you take a deep breath, and rest if you need to, and then get up again? That's huge. And that's an accomplishment worth celebrating, every single time.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
For me, it's often trusting my gut. Especially as an online media site, which is still such a new industry in so many ways, there's really no roadmap to follow. We're all just making it up as we go. And we have to make decisions really quickly, because the internet changes so quickly. When you're pivoting that often, and that suddenly, you really have to trust your own instincts. And that can bring on a lot of imposter syndrome. It's easy to be in charge and still feel like you need to look around to find the "experts" to tell you what to do. But when it comes to your business, YOU are the expert! No one knows your company, or your audience, or your customers, or your products the way that you do. Trust your own expertise.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
One: Just START. I see so many people fail to get an idea off the ground, not because it’s a bad idea, but because they’re so consumed with making it perfect before they tell anyone about it. If you have an idea, or if you’re passionate about something, just start. Start messy, and start imperfectly, and start without a real plan: but start. Because I can tell you from experience: No matter how much time you spend on that first step (a first post, a first logo, a first press release - anything) you will NEVER look back and be like “dang, that was perfect!” You will always, ALWAYS look back and see things that you could tweak or change or improve. So don’t let yourself get bogged down in the details at first. Just rip off the band aid and know that you’ll learn as you go.
Two: Find your people. Entrepreneurship can be so, so lonely - but it is so much better when you surround yourself with people who understand how it feels. Join a free Facebook group in your industry, find a mastermind, follow and engage with your peers on social media, and go to as many conferences and events as you can. It can take some time to find your people, but having that support system is a game changer. You need “work friends”: Other entrepreneurs who get it. People who you can ask for help when your payroll software malfunctions, or vent to when a contract goes sideways, or celebrate with when you hit a huge milestone. Find those people, make it a priority to talk regularly, and be each other’s biggest cheerleaders.
Three: REST. Take it from someone who learned the hard way: the world will not implode if you take the weekend off. Make time to rest, recharge, and take care of yourself. You're no good to anyone if you're burned out and exhausted.
Where can people find you and your business?
https://www.lifeasastrawberry.com
https://www.instagram.com/lifeasastrawberry/
https://www.facebook.com/lifeasastrawberry/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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