Episode 41 | Your First Year in Business with Lindsey

Laura Hargrave: Welcome everyone here at Boss It. We would love to hear from you. Join us in our Boss It community by heading over to our website, bossitclub.com, and join our mailing list. As we grow, we will be launching our community of fellow Boss It BFFs, and we want you to be a part of it. Okay, Sophia Noreen, let's dig into this. I can't wait to tell them all about how we got here.

Sophia Noreen: Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big-box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full-time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family, and self-care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day.

There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you.

Sophia Noreen: Hello guys today, we are going to be interviewing Lindsey from Schoolio.  She is a brand new entrepreneur. She has just started school year with her founders. And I am so happy that she has joined us today on the program.  We are going to speak to her about how she did it and why she did it. Her why is so incredible, you guys will love what is causing her to move forward. You will love her why and what is motivating her to keep going every single day with Schoolio and everything else. She's a homeschooling mom and she is busy for sure.  We speak with her about her time management skills and what she's doing to really keep things in check. We also touch on, the whole concept of Impostor Syndrome. I know for many of us, we do have a touch of Impostor Syndrome because we just don't feel like we're there yet. So listen to what Lindsey has to say about that. Guys, if you have any questions about Schoolio, you can go and click the hyperlink. That is her brand new business, and it's perfect for homeschooling parents, but it's also perfect for parents who just want to add to the curriculum. Okay, guys, I hope you enjoy this episode. 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another fantastic episode of the Boss It podcast. Today, I am super excited to have Lindsey on the show.  As you just heard from the intro, Lindsey is an entrepreneur. She's a mom and she started her own business called Schoolio with her partner. So we're going to go ahead and listen to Lindsey's story.

But first, we are going to get philosophical and ask Lindsey, what is her mantra? Lindsey, how are you doing today? 

Lindsey Casselman: I'm good. How are you? It's nice to be here. 

Sophia Noreen: Good. I'm super happy that you're here and our guests are super happy you're here because your story is very inspirational. I think given the fact that we just are coming out of a pandemic or we're still in the pandemic for some of us, homeschooling has become a big thing. I feel like many homeschooling parents are those who had to take on the role of the teacher during the pandemic. Having that motivation through a mantra or self speech or self-talk is so important.  Before we get right into your story, can you tell us what is the mantra that keeps you going every single day?

Lindsey Casselman: I don't have a specific, sort of one-liner mantra or something like that, that I tell myself every day, but I think my life and business philosophy has always been an overarching bully to always, choose kindness whenever possible to be as helpful as you can to others, as often as you can. For me, it's been about serving the community that served me when I was new to homeschooling. We all take our turn at being the newbie and we all learn and grow through, the help and support of others who are already the veterans in that community. Then we become the veterans and I think it's really important, to be always striving to give back to the people who come after you. That's always been my focus. If anything, my mantra would be, "What do people need that I am able to help them with?"

Sophia Noreen: I love that. And it becomes so good to have something like that inspires you to keep going because I'm sure there are days that you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is so difficult." But if you think of it as, "I'm serving others and I'm helping these other homeschooling parents get through their journey of becoming a new homeschooling parent," for example, or even somebody who may be on the journey for homeschooling and they just need, a bit more guidance or structure.

 That's great. I think that's one of our tips too. When we talk about finding your why or your North Star, we say you have to remove the gain or the benefit from yourself and you have to externalize it. So that way you feel motivated to serve that external force. I love that. 

Okay, let's get into your story. Tell us how you got into Schoolio, you can even speak about how you transitioned into a very traditional job and go for it. The floor is yours. We want to hear it. 

Lindsey Casselman: Okay. My entrepreneurship journey, started out of COVID. I've been homeschooling for a number of years and March 2020 hit, everything shut down. And there were so many parents thrust into the homeschooling world, and trying to figure out it out and at a loss. There was a lot of animosity in the homeschooling groups, where there's like this influx of new people there's in these established communities.  I started a Facebook group for new homeschoolers. So that was the whole point was, it was for new people and it started off small, just me and whoever wanted to join like an AMA, ask me anything, type of forum, where I was just, answering any questions that they had about homeschooling. Then it started to grow and more veteran homeschoolers joined. And the nice thing is, they know it's a group for newbies and they're only joining if they are interested in mentoring.  We have all these veterans now who wanted to mentor and all the new people who can ask the questions and it really grew into a little community of support.

So, I met my business partner, Sathish Bala in that group. He was one of those parents who was thrust into homeschooling with his own children. I was sharing in there, just photos, from my cell phone of the handwritten unit, plans that I had made for my own kids, any secular Canadian homeschooler, will learn really quickly that there's almost no curriculum content out there on the market for us. With my teaching background, I had, for the most part, always been writing my own content for my kids. I had all these like handwritten notes and unit plans, and I was just taking pictures of them and saying to people, this is one-way homeschooling can work. This is one way it can look like. All these parents just like grabbing onto these units, like a life ring when they're drowning and saying, "Could you please sell this to me?" I really wanted to help them, but these units were handwritten point form, they're meant for me to use with my kids. They referenced other textbooks and whatnot, so they needed a lot of work, to actually be like a product that a parent could use and find helpful. That's when Sathish approached me and he had this very new startup called Schoolio, that they had been ready to launch, as like an Uber for tutoring, for kids. Right in March 2020, they were going to launch and that's when everything shut down and completely squashed their business model. He needed to pivot there and when I talked to him, I just got that same vibe, that his primary goal was to help people. He had wanted his original vision with Schoolio, was to help people getting tutors for their kids. He still wanted to help people, just needs were now different because of the pandemic. We sort of clicked right away. Yeah, and we just decided to combine forces my content, with his business platform and business know-how. We took it to market and it was a whirlwind for the first six months. There are people messaging me every day, like, "I love the samples. When is grade three gonna be ready?" "Are you writing grade six? When will grade five be ready?" We write social studies, we write French and so much interest and so much customer love, that it was really motivating during that, a very beginning period where everything's super crazy. Lots of trust and patience from the parents as well. Where the content they needed wasn't even created yet, but they were waiting for it and trusting me to deliver it. Trusting that the product was going to be good being patient with me. It was so inspiring that it made all that, initial, early days work go a lot easier.

Sophia Noreen: That's fantastic because you were really satisfying customer's needs. You had started off the community, which is great because I find that connection was lost during the pandemic.  You as a homeschool parent may have, I don't want to say if you, - did you always have a community that you leaned on before? Did you find that helped you when you were starting your homeschooling journey just to speak to their parents? And did you do a co-op model, like a co-op model with other homeschooling parents in the area? Tell me a little bit about that journey because I feel that the community aspect is so important in entrepreneurship, but also as a homeschooling parent. 

Lindsey Casselman: Oh, absolutely. There's a lot of stereotypes about whether homeschool kids socialize and that sort of thing, but we were part of a big homeschool community. Four days a week, we were out doing things with the same groups of kids. , I've said to people this year that I've mentored, who are new to homeschooling. I can't imagine doing my first year with all the stresses and uncertainty. Without that community of other homeschooling parents to ask your questions or just hang out with and they get you and they're laughing about the same problems that you were stressing about. It's just so helpful, like, with parenting, you'd just feel better to have that community around you and it was the same way. I really feel for the parents who - this was their first year and they didn't have any of that community support. So that's really what we're trying to create with my Facebook group. Now we have a separate Facebook group that's just for Schoolio customers, so we can create that whole, that same support and community feel around people who are all using the same content.

Sophia Noreen: That's fantastic. So the parents get the lesson plans and then they facilitate the learning at home, but they have guidance. They know that for this topic, the subject matter, this is what we'll be doing on this particular day. Is it that narrowed down? 

Lindsey Casselman: Yeah, exactly. It's not like, "This! You do this day," but, we have all the lessons and you know that, if you grab a unit on whatever, the human body that it's going to cover, all the basics and your lesson is right there. Especially for math, cause that's the one, parents are usually the most apprehensive about teaching themselves. The lesson is right there. You go through it with your child, you can be learning it with them and no one needs to know. Then the practice work, to follow up with that. And that's we're trying to take away from the parents, the stress of what should I cover? What should I teach? How do I teach it? How much practice work are enough practice work and that sort of thing. 

Sophia Noreen: That's fantastic. And I think the community is a big, big sell point, especially for the parents.  People want to start the homeschooling journey. They don't know where to go. Given the fact that the pandemic more or less, some people are like, "No, we can't have our kids at home, because it's just not a conducive environment." Other people are like, "I do want to have my kids at home." And maybe that's another reason why they are jumping into entrepreneurship because it's a way of being flexible, right? You can work your time. You want to work with your kids. I have actually in my accountability groups, I have two ladies who homeschool. They're down the U.S. and they are entrepreneurs. They actually will homeschool in the morning. Then in the afternoon they do the work. And I imagine their kids do homework or have free time at that point. But their day has been so structured that everyone's needs are satisfied. It's great because the parents get the chance to spend that quality time with their children.  I love the fact that Schoolio has identified that this is a need and you guys are really serving your clients. So, that is such a wonderful story and very inspirational. Okay, I want to ask you one more question about your story actually. Did you always work as a teacher? Then when did you change over? Can you speak a little bit about that journey? Because many people, don't know, where to start when they leave their traditional jobs.

Lindsey Casselman: Yeah. I was only working as a teacher before my kids were born. Once we had the kids, I initially had intentions to go back and then decided that I just wanted to stay home. We were a military family at the time as well which means a lot of moves and, it makes it hard often for the spouses to have career aspirations. So entrepreneurship is really a great route where it travels with you. I stayed home with the kids, and then they went to school for a few years, and then we ended up pulling them and we've been homeschooling since then.

Sophia Noreen: That's fantastic. I love that. And you just knew like you wanted to stay home with them and that's completely okay. You don't have to go back to the office or go back to your traditional job. If you can basically afford to, I guess that's really the name of the game. A lot of female entrepreneurs or people working in the traditional setting, struggle with that as a new mom and that's a big conversation that's worth having. A lot of people they're like, "Should I go back? But then I have to because I have to pay the bills," but you can develop an exit plan saving and looking into other ways of doing it if that's one of your goals.

Lindsey Casselman: That was one of our pillars with Schoolio as well, was that it be affordable so that it's more accessible. Homeschooling is, obviously, for the most part, a privileged sort of thing that you can do that you can survive on one income or, work from home or whatever the case is that allows you to homeschool.  Homeschooling material is traditionally quite expensive. It's not uncommon for one subject area to be about 200 bucks a kid for the year. 

Sophia Noreen: Wow! I didn't know it can go up that much.

Lindsey Casselman: Yeah. It depends on the material you're choosing and depending on the province and state you live in. You're not necessarily obligated to use any material, but for parents who want something and want that structure, that's a big price tag. If you're looking at four or five subject areas at 200 bucks apiece, times however many kids you have, that can really be prohibitive and it makes homeschooling less accessible to more families. One thing that we really wanted to accomplish with Schoolio was to do everything we could to keep it affordable. We're around $200 price point for your whole grade year. And then individual units vary from 10 to $20. 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah. And then you can base it on the - I'm not sure now. I'm not a homeschooling parent yet, but it's a question that I have regarding homeschooling. As the kids get older, I know the curriculum, they do have options to choose what they enjoy Inquiry-based learning? 

Lindsey Casselman: Yes. Part of our vision is to create an interest-based education, where we'd have this huge library of units rather than, "Oh, your kid's in grade four. So they have to learn rocks and electricity and space or whatever for science," instead we'd be like, "Oh, your kids are in grade four. Here are a dozen units, science units that you might choose from and you can pick what they're more interested in."

Sophia Noreen: I love that. Would you suggest Schoolio for parents like myself, who are currently going into a traditional school setting, but again inquiry-based? So my daughter is very inquisitive. She is definitely a science geek. Now, if there's something that she likes, is it possible to pick up one of those additional packages from Schoolio? 

Lindsey Casselman: Absolutely. That's why we're going on a unit model. So the other thing with most homeschooling companies is that you have to commit to the year,  you buy whatever program and it's the whole year. But that doesn't accommodate people whose kids are in school or in virtual learning or you just want something interest-based for the summer or whatever. So with our units, if your daughter's super into, whatever. I just did a unit on honeybees and how honey is made and harvested and everything. That's a fun spring unit, whether you're homeschooling or your kids are in school, you can grab that for 15 bucks and you can spend, however long you want to go through that with your kids and just have that interest there. The same thing with the whole affordability and access thing is that tutoring is very expensive. Prohibitively expensive for a lot of families but you can, if your child is, maybe they're a superstar in geometry, but they're struggling with algebra. You can go to Schoolio and you can grab just the algebra units and then you can spend all summer, you can spend evenings or whatever you want, just working through that algebra to solidify those skills. You don't have to commit to a whole year or bear an expensive program. 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, this is fantastic. I think it's also very reasonably priced. And like you said, by selling it by the unit you're allowing more access. I think for anybody who's listening, who's interested, we will put the Schoolio hyperlink in our show notes so they can go straight to the website and check it out and I'm sure there'll be many parents that will be like, "Oh my gosh, we need this." We need direction. Because sometimes that's all you need is all direction and a little bit of community. 

Lindsey Casselman: Yeah, we're launching in the U.S. hopefully in June. We've been working on our U.S. additions of all our units and so that'll be ready to go. 

Sophia Noreen: Likely we will be, sending this out to everyone in June, this episode. So it'll be right on time. 

Lindsey Casselman: Great. 

Sophia Noreen: Okay, great. Let's go on and ask you about advice. Now you're entering entrepreneurship. It's been one year since you've joined Schoolio. Can you give us some advice for those who are just thinking about going into entrepreneurship or have, they're also within that initial phase?

Lindsey Casselman: Yup. So, I feel weird giving advice because I'm so new to this entrepreneurship world, but what I've learned so far is, maintaining your focus.  For me, I always have so many ideas and visions. There's so much I want to do, and there's so much I want to write and create, provide, and I really need to force myself to prioritize, focus on one thing, one goal, work on that. I guess that's my advice to keep your focus. Remember that you can't do everything at once. Do one thing, do it right and then do the next thing. And then the next thing, and catch up. It's hard when you have all these things going on in your mind. But having all those ideas and all those goals is amazing. I'm not saying give up on any of them or anything, but to not get lost inside of them. 

Sophia Noreen: Very well said, and I think you're a little bit creative. Sometimes the creative folk has a hard time focusing and we're all like this and they just, yeah. There's too much going on and we can't focus. And I love how you said that. Just do one thing and do it well, is what you said, right? 

Lindsey Casselman: Yeah. I think a big thing, as well, that seems to be really common with especially female entrepreneurs is the Impostor Syndrome. That feeling, that you don't deserve to be here or your work is not good enough. I have battled with that over the past six months because I wasn't an entrepreneur. I wasn't a businesswoman. I was a stay-at-home mom who was homeschooling and, it's hard to fight that feeling that, like I'm not special, I'm not creating something special. Anyone could do this themselves. No one's going to want to pay for this. But to be aware of that, that it's a thing, Impostor Syndrome is a thing that your brain is just telling you, like having some strategies, I guess, for dealing with it when it crops up. 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, that's really great advice, actually. The Impostor Syndrome, we haven't done an episode specifically on Impostor Syndrome, but it is a very, very big barrier for so many things that we don't take action on. I feel like people have it written down somewhere, as something they want to do one day and they're like I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet." But then the question is, will you ever be there and why do you think you're not there yet? Right? What is preventing you from moving forward on your plans? I like how you said that you really narrowed down the exact feeling like anybody can do this, but you know what, Lindsey, not everybody can do it. That's why they want a shortcut. We don't want to spend time and energy making our own curriculum. So I think you're solving a lot of problems for other people; in that, you're helping them get to that goal faster where they can spend that full time with their children in a very positive learning environment. So that's great. I'm glad you're so vulnerable and open about the Impostor Syndrome. I think everyone has to really dig deep and see what it is that's preventing them from moving forward. Is it actually Impostor Syndrome? Yeah. 

Okay, let's move on to our next question. How do you manage it all? You're an entrepreneur. You're a busy mom. You have a Facebook group and now you have a second Facebook group for Schoolio. I'm sure there are many other things, I'm not even mentioning.

  Lindsey Casselman: That's like a lot when you say it all like that. 

Sophia Noreen: I know. I know. I know. Tell me, what you do to manage it all? What are the things that you do for time management? 

Lindsey Casselman: I'm terrible to comment on this because I love my work and I would rather work most of the time than do most other things. So, I really struggle with that balance. But for me, like the keys to managing - for one, my mental health is like having a team that works similarly to me. I know, if I text my business partners to reach out he's probably gonna answer me. If I asked my digital content lead a question, on a Sunday afternoon, she's gonna respond. Not every team has to work like that, but the fact that I have found and built a team around me, that do work similarly to me is really helpful, like avoiding frustrations and that sort of thing, especially when a bunch of us are parents as well and working from home and homeschooling. You work all over the place, a little here, a little there. Then having a really supportive spouse and family who believe in the project. Even if you have those months where you put in a ton of hours, but you didn't get a very big paycheck, but they're saying that this is good your work is good and you're helping and just being supportive. Not like both physically in terms of helping with the house and the kids and everything, but mostly that emotional support that my family my spouse, in particular, are my biggest cheering squad. So that really helps me to manage everything and just stay focused and, to remember, plan in balance and schedule-balance is one thing that works for me. 

Sophia Noreen: When you say, like schedule balance, do you mean scheduling and time specifically to spend with your friends, family, fitness? Is that what you of do? 

Lindsey Casselman: Yeah, we have a similar schedule to what you were mentioning earlier about homeschool. I work in the mornings because my kids are late risers and slow starters. I work in the mornings and they are responsible for doing their chores and walking the dog and that sort of thing. But otherwise, they have free time in the mornings.  It's like at one o'clock we do school and I have to pull myself away sometimes, from whatever I'm hyper-absorbed in my work. But it's one o'clock is time for school. Then four o'clock is a family walk.  If I need to work a little bit after dinner, am allowed, I allow myself that, but after the kids go to bed, then that's spouse time, so I'm not working in that timeframe sort of thing. Making those blocks helps me. 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah. The time-blocking right? We're totally big on time-blocking.  

Lindsey Casselman:  Yeah. The time-blocking where it's like this portion of my day is dedicated to this task and this portion of my day is dedicated to that.

Sophia Noreen: That's right. Time-blocking.  Yeah. There's another trick that I have is called chunking. I've spoken about it a few times where I'll hyper batch a lot of content at the same time, especially if I'm doing social or if I'm doing anything like batch-creating podcasts. I'll say, "Okay, this time of the week, this Thursday, for example, I'll do two or three podcasts. I haven't done that recently, but, that's a good trick that I've been using as well. So I liked the time blocking, batch-creation, and then chunking the calendar. Yay. I'm glad that you mentioned those. Okay. Let's get down to mental health. How do you keep yourself in check in regards to your mental health?

Lindsey Casselman: I think this year that everyone has probably struggled more with mental health than anything else. I definitely noticed the lack of female friends that I can get together with and meet up with because COVID has just been crazy. But, yeah, I don't know. Just getting outside a lot helps, walks, taking breaks, stretching, all that sort of standard stuff. Yeah. And having that support around you, both of my work team, and my home life and being able and willing. One thing I have really had to work on is asking for help when I need it. This is what I need from you right now to help me and not trying to take everything on yourself, like, "Sure, I can do that for you. Sure, I can do that for you. Yes, I can do that." So that was a big thing for me, is learning to ask for help and allowing people to help me to manage the stress and the load.

Sophia Noreen:  I know. There's a saying that it's better to be 80% perfect than not getting done at all. So meaning, delegate it off to someone that you think can even do it at 80% of what you could actually do. Cause you would be at a hundred percent. So my, example is, delegating off even the house chores now. Everyone's at home making a mess. But if the dishwasher is not loaded to my satisfaction, that's okay. Let it just be at 80%. It's going to get washed and if it doesn't, then it will get washed again. So that's me letting go. So I totally hear you on that. Okay, guys, that's all the questions we have for Lindsey. Now, before she goes, I want her to give us all of the places we can find her and Schoolio. Remember if you guys have questions for Lindsey, you can reach out to Schoolio and I'm sure there'll be able to help you out. I know that many of you are also in the same boat as being parents. Trying to homeschool, especially at this point. We don't know what we're doing half the time. So, I think Schoolio might be our answer. I definitely am gonna check them out for the add-on curriculum because my daughter, again, is very inquiry-based and, I don't know what to do with them this summer cause there are no camps. So this might be my answer.

 Lindsey Casselman: So you can check out Schoolio online at schoolio.io and there are tons of FAQ's. You can look at all our units and see everything that we have to offer there. You can contact us right through the website. You'll get in touch with our lovely customer service rep, Marie, who is awesome. Yeah, and we have a Facebook group and, Schoolio learning on Instagram. So you can check us out in any of those. We'll all link you together, to be part of the Schoolio community and get a feel of our vibe.  Everyone on our team is wanting to help the parents out there who are struggling. So we're all super eager. Sometimes you'll ask a question and more than one of us will answer you at the same time. Cause everybody's wanting to help. So don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions and we can help guide you or program planning or whatever it is you need.

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, that's great. And again, I'm going to hyperlink everything in the show notes. So you guys should just go and click and take you straight to schoolio.io. If you want to head over to another social, you can go and visit one of those as well. And thank you again, Lindsey, this was such a pleasure to have you on the show and to hear all about your journey, about how you started the business this year, and how well it's going. How it's serving so many parents. And again, guys, look at this story as inspiration, you can do it. A lot of us will hold back because we might have Impostor Syndrome or we feel like we're not ready yet. But, Lindsey is a good example. If you can get things going, you can get things done, and remember, you can make a plan and take action and yes, you can have it all. Again, we'll see you guys next week. Okay. Take care. Bye for now.