Episode Details

The following podcast episode was taken from an Instagram Live recording. Follow me at @marvettelacy to see future Live videos!

Transcript of Episode:

Hello, this is Marvette your dissertation strategist. I help you write your dissertation successfully defend it so you can graduate and become a doctor. I'm a little bit rusty cause I feel like I haven't done a live in a while. So I'm just gonna pin this comment here. Today I wanted to talk about the 10 lessons I've learned since being in business for two years and I wanted to share just a little bit about my story because I don't really talk much about it. I am also procrastinating a little bit right now as I'm supposed to be doing other things, but I thought I would do two things at once since I have missed a lot from the past week or so and I need to record a podcast episode. So I want to do both. But I, let's see, my story really starts three years ago, so my business anniversary will be on September seven.

Because September 7th, 2017 is when I had my first paying client. And that is a day I'm choosing to say as my anniversary because although I do like all the backend stuff and put in the paperwork to have a legal business, I didn't have a client until September seven, which I'll tell you more about my story. In a lot of people will say like, they started a business, but until you are actually making money and you have a client or a customer, then you do not have a business. You have a very expensive hobby probably. So anyway, my story actually happens or it takes place three years ago, 2016 in the fall of 2016 when I first decided that I was going to get serious about starting my own business, I was supposed to be, you know, progressing through. I was in my phd program and I think at that point, yeah, I was actually working on my dissertation.

And if you are in the dissertation phase and you know, you get all of the ideas, you think about all the other things that you can't do or you should be doing instead of writing your dissertation because you don't want to write it. And so that happened with me and I was like, you know, I wanna start my own business because if I start now and then I give myself a whole year, then by the time I'm ready to graduate I'll have a job. Cause in my mind it was only going to take less than a year and I was going to have this very booming business that I didn't need to go find a job and everything will take care of itself. So this is like September ish of 2016. There was someone named Happy Black Woman is her business, her handle all of that. She was promoting that she was doing her annual course, which helps women to launch their business pretty much walking you through all the steps you would need to have a business.

And so I decided to take some money and sign up for it. And it was not cheap. Okay. It was not cheap. I don't, I can't quite remember, but I just know it was not, it was four figures anyway, so I signed up for it cause I was like, yes, I want you to tell me exactly what to do and I'm going to do that. So I signed up for the course. I did all of that. So it had to think about like exactly what your business was going to be. And at the time my business was focused on helping women who were currently in toxic relationships as a result of past sexual abuse. Now I'm sure as you hear that, you can understand why that didn't quite work out so well. Also, it didn't work out well because it's like, how can I help someone when I was in a situation myself, I do my own work and as similar to students who come into qualitative research, they're usually choosing topics that are very personal to them.

And it's like, research is me search. You're trying to figure out your own stuff until you decide you're g