Ep. 57

Navigating the Technicalities of Entrepreneurship with Jennifer Duann Fultz

When Jennifer was young, she wanted to be a lot of things: artist, writer, reporter, actress. But she started blogging and building websites in the ninth grade, and hasn’t really stopped since.

She didn’t know any artists, writers, or actresses who looked like her, ate the foods she ate, or any that had to go to Chinese school on the weekends like she did. As for web design and blogging? She didn’t even know those were career options.

She ended up getting her master’s degree to teach high school science, but when she became a parent, she questioned whether she could be the type of parent and the type of teacher she wanted to be at the same time. So she decided to take a year off, and that’s when it happened–she started a business by accident.

Today, Jennifer is the founder and CEO of Chief Executive Auntie, a business aimed to help Asian American and other BIPOC freelancers and creatives earn more money through course creation. She believes in leveraging your identity and struggles as an asset, and she’s sharing how she’s accomplished that herself on this episode of Creator Stories.

Jennifer’s website: www.chiefexecutiveauntie.com

Jessmyn:

Welcome to Interact’s Creator Stories Podcast. Interact is the easiest way to convert curious people into loyal and happy customers by using a lead generating quiz. On Creator Stories, we get to hear the entrepreneur’s journey. This is a podcast about how they took their knowledge and experiences to carve out a place in the world, owned what they know is special about themselves, and turned it into a successful company.

Today we’re speaking with Jennifer Duann Fultz, a freelance writer and business educator specializing in creating online courses for business owners who want to leverage their expertise, their scalable information products. She’s also the founder of Chief Executive Auntie, a blog and podcast where she helps Asian American and other BIPOC freelancers and creatives earn more money. She believes in leveraging our identity and struggles as an asset, not a hindrance. In her spare time, she’s writing a novel about a Taiwanese American steamroller mom that is absolutely not based on herself. All right. Let’s get started.

All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Interact’s Creator Stories. I am your host, Jessmyn Solana, and with me today, I have Jennifer Duann Fultz. Jennifer, thank you so much for hopping on our show with us today. 

Jennifer:

Thanks for having me. 

Jessmyn:

Of course, of course. As you all know, we’re here to get the story of the entrepreneur. Jennifer, if you want to take us back to the beginning and let us know how you got started in and all, and how you got to where you are today.  

Jennifer:

Yeah. This is not my first business, but it is by far my most successful and most sustainable. I mean, my very first business, I think, was probably selling graphic design on neopets.com, if anybody else old enough to remember. And then I also had a small photography business in around 2011, 2012, 2013. I dabbled in some digital marketing at that point as well. But it wasn’t really until I became a parent that I really looked at being a business owner as a long-term, or at least mid-term choice for me. 

Prior to that, my professional training is in teaching high school science, which I did for a total of three years after getting my master’s degree. Interspersed with some other jobs. I think from day one, I was not really sure if classroom teaching was going to be a long-term fit for me, which was pretty scary because I had just spent 15 months getting a master’s degree in this thing, and then I get to my first classroom and I’m like, “Oh, this is really, really hard.”

Yeah. So I drifted between teaching and then some administrative jobs. But then when I became a parent, I questioned, I should say, I questioned whether I could be the type of parent and the type of teacher that I want to be at the same time, and I suspected that I couldn’t. So I took a year off from teaching. We had a lot going on in our lives in general at that time, so there was a couple of reasons for me taking that year off. 

But during that time, I really started my business by accident. I was blogging about just my experiences as a first-time parent and all the trials and tribulations therein, and just sharing that blog on my personal social media. Some couple of friends who had their own businesses, one was a web designer, one was in direct sales, they read my blog posts about potty training, and breastfeeding, and things like that and they were like, “Hey, can you write something for my business?” And I was like, “Sure, I can do that.”

That’s really just how it got started. I started doing content writing for other small businesses, and actually quite enjoyed that. I tried a lot of different things, probably in the first two or three years of my business. I had learned web design a long time ago, and [inaudible 00:04:40], so I improved my skills and brought it up to speed with… Technology has changed a lot since 2001 when I built my first website. So got up to speed there and did a lot of website building for other small businesses. 

I did some content marketing. I dabbled in branding and graphic design stuff. But that is really not my strong suit, so I left that fairly quickly. Eventually I separately started blogging about running a business as an Asian American, because I had not really found a whole lot of resources or very many other Asian American business owners. It turned out I just wasn’t looking in the right places. But at first, I was like, “Huh, if I want to learn about marketing or sales or the operations side of a business, all of the role models and all of the leaders, they don’t look like me. They don’t have my experiences as a child of immigrants.” And so I was like, “Huh.”

But then I did start to find people in these spaces, like Facebook groups of Asian American creatives and entrepreneurs. But I started just writing about my own experiences and having these conversations, and that was where my Chief Executive Auntie brand was born, which is just my way of having a lot of loud opinions. I think one thing that got a lot of traction was my content on pricing, because that’s always a question people have is like, “How much should I be charging? How much should my digital product cost?”

There’s no one right way to do that, but I started thinking about it and realizing like, “Huh, I have never been poor in my life, but my parents grew up poor.” They taught me certain things about money, certain stories about money that are not true for me anymore. That’s not my story and that’s not my life, but I’m still behaving as if it is. I am unwilling to invest in hiring a VA. I’m unwilling to invest in certain tools that will save me so much time in my business, because I’m afraid of spending money. 

Well, why am I afraid of spending money? Because of how I was taught to think about money growing up, and then realizing, “That doesn’t have to be my story now.” And so, that’s been a journey for me, realizing like, “Well, what can I tell myself that is more true to where I am now, versus some of these things that worked for my parents when they were growing up poor, when they came to this country without a whole lot of resources?” It worked for them then, but it doesn’t work for me now because I have different resources. I have different assets. I have different needs.

And so, just rewriting the script that way, and that’s the angle that I take when I talk about pricing. And then, in 2020, actually, in the middle of the pandemic, oddly enough, we had no childcare, schools were closed, it was a mess. I had a client come to me and they were like, “I want to make an online course. I’m really good at coaching on these topics, but I’m not a teacher and I don’t know how to set up a course. Can you do this for me?” And I was like, “I can.” I can get paid to lesson plan, which is everything I loved about being a teacher, and none of the things that were hard.

And so, that’s become my main service offering now, is helping other business owners create online courses. That has been super rewarding because I get to use a lot of the skills from many different times, from many different phases of my life, really, but I get to use them all now. And I get to learn from really, really smart, talented people, which is just a huge privilege. So that’s how I got to my business. It’s a very long and windy road. But I really like to think that I have learned something from every step of the way, even if it’s not something that I’m using immediately in my business now. It’s still something that I learned from and can take with me.  

Jessmyn:

I love that. That’s awesome because I feel like there’s so many different points that I want to touch on from your story, because I think what’s really cool is, yeah, it’s long and windy, but you can see the progression of how things came about and where it made sense and why the next thing happened. But something that stuck out to me first was how you were a teacher and now you’re using those skills to give services or offer services for your business.

I think that’s really interesting because I don’t think I’ve talked to somebody who had… I mean, you get the usual, like, “I worked in corporate. I did this and that,” but I haven’t had somebody who is a teacher, some totally different profession. I had an actor once, but still, totally different profession. And then, it led you to this spot and now really helps you actually perform in your business. I think that’s super cool because who would have thought? 

The other thing that stuck out to me was how your parents’ history and being a child of immigrants made you think a certain way about money, and I totally identify with that because my parents immigrated from the Philippines and I giggled to myself because I grew up always thinking we never had money. And even to this day, it’s always still that mentality of, when friends are like, “Do you want to go get dinner? Let’s do something nice.” I’m like, “Well, I went to dinner just two nights ago and I don’t have any money.”  

Jennifer:

Yeah. I’ve heard from many Asian American friends who were like, “I literally thought we were poor growing up and we weren’t.” But our parents, because of how many of them grew up, poverty, displacement, war, lots and lots of bad things happening to them, that causes them to behave and to think and feel a certain way. And as children, we don’t question that. We’re just like, “This is just how it is.” I remember, as my business has grown and progressed, I remember at first, I was like, “Oh my gosh, $39 a month for ConvertKit,” and now I’m like, “Yeah, just pay for the whole year all in one go.”

But it came from understanding like, “Huh, yeah, this tool costs money, but it saves me a bunch of time, and I can use that time to go and get more money.” I do not need to be spending my time on things that can be done by an automated tool, or even things that can be done by somebody who charges less money than I do, and if that frees up that frees up time for me to go and book a consultation, or book a project, or create a product that is going to earn me more money.

When I was stuck in the just like save, save, save, save, save mentality, I wasn’t able to get my head around that. But then once I realized, oh, wait a minute, I’m losing the opportunity to earn more money by sitting here and banging my head on my desk for three hours, trying to get this one thing done, when I could just either buy a tool that makes it easier, or buy a course that teaches me how to do it, or hire somebody who can do it for me and then I can go do something else. And just realizing that that equation can be changed was a really big thing for me.  

Jessmyn:

All right. I love that too, how you said you’re saving time by doing it, and time is money. But for those who are listening, what would you say if maybe they’re earlier in their business, they don’t have as much money saved? At what point were you like, “Okay. All right. This is the time that I can spend a little money here and there”? Did you do it all at once? Was it little by little? How did that whole process go?

Jennifer:

Yeah, it was definitely gradual. I’ve always had a rule for all of my businesses, that they must pay for themselves. I cannot borrow from my savings account to fund something. If I want to invest in a course, I need to make enough money to pay for that course. If I want to invest in a tool, I need to factor that into my cost of doing business, which factors into my pricing. And so, I have to make those adjustments accordingly. So it was definitely a gradual process.

I will say, the one exception to that rule was when I first started, I did invest in business coaching with a friend of mine. We did a partial trade of services as well, so that made it more affordable. But he taught me the importance of process, of you as the business owner, knowing what happens next. Somebody emails me and they ask me a question, can I help them with this? What is the next step? I have to be the one who says, “Here’s the next step. Here’s what we do,” because the client doesn’t know.

The client has no idea what is supposed to happen next. You get to decide what happens next. But when you can outline that process very clearly, that makes the client feel like, “Oh, she knows what she’s doing. She’s confident. And great, that means she can take care of me.” I think having that foundation from the very beginning was very helpful for me. Then the upshot of that was the first tool that I invested in was Dubsado, which is a CRM.

I can send my invoices. I can schedule appointments. I could send contracts and questionnaires, to make that process very seamless, very slick, very professional looking. I still get compliments on it to this day. But at the very beginning, that was a very important shot of confidence for me, like, “I’m not making this invoice in Microsoft Word 30 seconds before I send it. I already have the system put in place.” 

I have a tendency to build systems that are more complicated than I actually need, because I like to build the system and I like to build the process. So, for me, it’s been a balance of learning, like, “All right. Let’s test the process a couple of times with a basic version and then we can plug in,” upgrades, and automation, and things like that. I will build the entire international airport before I even have an airplane. So I’m trying to get better at like, “Let’s build the airplane first and fly it a couple of times, and then we can build an airport.”

That emphasis on process and understanding internally what happens next, so that I can communicate that clearly externally, that has never failed me. So I would say if you’re just starting out, hammer out a process for yourself. Know that it’s going to change, but at least you have something. I will say, as somebody who has hired contractors, even when I’m looking for someone to clean my house or mow the lawn, I’ll let you guess who we hired. We hired the first people who actually answered their email and actually answered the phone.

It’s a surprising number I think of service providers who I’m just like, “I can’t even get in contact with them.” I’m over here, like, “Hello, I want to give you money. Please tell me how to give you money.” And so, if you’re just starting out, figure out that process. Figure out how people can give you money. And then, just communicate that clearly and people will be able to give you money. We try to make it very complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.

Jessmyn:

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. How does this… Because something else that stuck out earlier was you talking about how this was your first… You said sustainable, and what was the other word? I’m blanking?  

Jennifer:

Just longer term career. 

Jessmyn:

Yeah. I think sustainable was the one that really stuck out to me, mostly because that’s a question that I think a lot of people ask. And even myself, I’m always like, “At what point are you like, ‘Yeah, this is sustainable’? And if yes or no, how do you know when to move on or continue on with what you’re doing?” 

Jennifer:

Yeah. What really made this business sustainable, I think, is because I started it as a parent, because in my previous businesses, I was very loosey goosey with everything. I did not keep track of my expenses. I did not keep track of my income. I was afraid of charging money because I had raging imposter syndrome. And then, at one point, I think I finally sat down and actually went through all my expenses and my revenue, and I was like, “Huh, I’m paying money to take pictures of people. This is not a good business plan.”

But as a parent, when I started my business as a parent, I knew from day one, my time is not just mine. Every minute that I spend working is time taken away from the most important people in my life. It’s also, for me, it’s time that literally has a cost because I need to pay someone to take care of my child while I am working. I also had very firm guardrails on my time, which I did not have in previous businesses. 

Before, I was always either working part-time or full-time, and then my business was a side thing. But I was single. I did not have a kid. And so, I was like, “Sure, I’ll stay up until 11 o’clock at night doing whatever.” And that was doable then, is not doable now. When I first started my business, I had about two and a half hours of childcare a day, and that’s what I built my business on. 

Jessmyn:

Wow. 

Jennifer:

I think when you have limitations, I’m actually very grateful for limitations on my time, especially, because it forces me to be efficient and it forces me to be creative. If I have two and a half hours a day to work, am I going to work for $10 an hour when my childcare costs $7 an hour? No, that math doesn’t make any sense. It just took away the fear of, “Oh my gosh. How could I possibly charge this much?” Because I realized my time has a cost. 

It has a literal cost in terms of childcare, but there’s also just the cost of keeping me alive, the cost of keeping me alive and also the opportunity cost of, well, I could go back to work full-time and this is what I would be earning if I did that. So if I’m going to do this for myself, I either need to make at least that much money or work a whole lot less. Now, in this case, I have both. I make the same amount of money in a whole lot less time than I did previously.  

I think that is what has made it sustainable for me, is because I built my business around the life and the values that I wanted to have, versus the other way around where I’m like, “Okay, I’ve got to work this business. I’ve got to work 80 hours a week to make a certain thing happen, and then I’m just going to fit everything else in around it. For me, in my business, fits into my life. 

It took me a while to realize this, but I think my business has always been a means to an end for me. And I’m learning to be okay with that. I think the most publicly glamorized businesses are the six-figure businesses, like this is their full-time thing. I’m over here like, “I don’t want to work full time.” That’s not what I want. What I want is to earn a good amount of money in as few hours as possible, because I’ve got other things to be doing. I have other things that I want to be doing. 

That’s it for me. I don’t feel like this is necessarily my calling or what I was put on earth to do. This is a way to contribute meaningfully to my family’s finances and maintain the flexibility and margin in my schedule that we all need to be happy. That is the main purpose of my business, and I’m okay with that. For me, there’s not really a bigger, I don’t know, metaphysical purpose for it beyond that. It’s a way for me to use my skills and my talents in a way that is fulfilling. 

It’s also work. It’s just work. It’s not my whole life. That, for me, is also a large part of what makes it sustainable. It’s like, “This is one of many important things in my life,” and it empowers me to be present for the other important things, which is the key for me. So, yeah. I’ve been able to run my business very differently than I did previously, and that has kept it sustainable. 

Jessmyn:

I like that a lot though, because… And I don’t think it’s bad at all because I think… Not to say that passion businesses aren’t also sustainable, but I think what’s important here is knowing what the purpose is and using that as like, “Okay, this is why I’m doing it,” and that’s what drives you. So yeah, I don’t think that’s bad at all. I think it’s actually smart because I think there are a lot of people out there who want to start a business because they want something similar. 

They want that flexibility. They want that free time to do what they like to do. But they think it has to be something sort of a passion project. It has to be passionate. It has to be something that they are born to do, like you said, whereas, not necessarily. You can use your skills to have the same outcome, but for a different purpose. And not necessarily for a purpose that’s, like you said, it’s not like metaphysical or anything like that. It’s really just, okay, I have this goal and this is what I want to work towards. 

I actually saw a meme. I think it was one or two days ago. It was a tweet of this person who was like… She had said, “I left my 9:00 to 5:00 job to have more free time, start my own business, and now I work 24/7.”

Jennifer:

Yeah. One, that was just never an option for me. I always kept that in mind. I was like, “No. If I wanted to work full time, I would go work full time and get insurance and get benefits and retirement and have all of that. There’s a reason I don’t do that. What is that reason? It is to have more time. I wish more people talked about like your art does not have to be your work, and your work can feed your art. 

I just got an email, actually, today, from somebody who’s new to freelancing and they want to write. Honestly, what I’m going to tell them, is learn a type of writing. Learn content writing. Learn copy writing, because that will pay the bills and then you will have time to go do your creative writing. It is very hard. It is extremely difficult to earn a living with creative writing. I mean, even freelance journalism is really tough these days. Go be a copywriter. They can make bank.

Then you’ll have space to do the creative writing that feeds you. I’ve got the VA that I work with, whom I love. She does VA work. She does some editing work. And she does just enough to support the part of her family’s finances that is that she needs to support. And then she takes the rest of the time to work on her romance novels. I love that. She’s working to live, not living to work.

I’ve met quite a few writers, especially, who have struck that balance, and it’s like, “Yeah, if you can…” Some people like to have their… They like to have their work be very different from their art. I can see the case for that too, where you’re not using the same part of your brain for your work and burning all of that out and you don’t have anything left for your creative. 

Some people, they’ll be a VA and then writer, or they’ll be a web designer and an artist. It’s a different set of skills and they can reserve… But that gives them the time and the funds to pursue their art. So there’s like an air gap between the two. And that model works really well for some people too. Your job or your business does not have to be your everything. When I was a teacher, I think that was the expectation that I held myself to, and I just don’t think that is what I want to do anymore.

If I were to go back to teaching, I think I’d have a very different perspective on it now. I’m just like, “All right, teaching is a thing I do, and it’s something that I enjoy. But ultimately, it is to pay my bills and be able to support the lifestyle that I wanted to have. It itself is not my life.” I think that’s really healthy. I wish, for teachers, were empowered to have that perspective because I think as teachers, we are taught to be like, “Oh, it’s for the kids. We should sacrifice yourself.”

It’s like, “No.” You will do a better job if you are supported. You will do a better job for the kids if you are not worried about money, if you are not worried about sick leave, if you are not worried about all these basic needs that you have. Same with creativity. I don’t know about you, but I do terrible work when I’m stressed out. So I’m like, “If I don’t have a business that supports my art, I don’t think I’m going to make very good art in the first place.”

I think people don’t like to talk about money as it regards to creativity, but it’s like, “You’ve got to have it, man.” Do I want to overthrow capitalism as much as the next person? Sure. But that ain’t happening today. You have to work within that system that you have, even if your focus is creativity. You’ve still got to keep the lights on. You’ve still got to buy your art supplies. You’ve still got to buy food. What do you need for that? You still need money. Sorry. You can’t escape from that.

Jessmyn:

I’ve also talked to a lot of people where they started some sort of a business or a side thing where they said, “This is my creative side. This is what I like to do. I really enjoy it.” But once they actually tie in trying to book people for it, actually offering it as a service, they’re like, “This feels like work now and it’s no fun.”

Jennifer:

Yeah. That’s what happened with photography for me, and I was like, “It’s not…” The hustle was not fun. It’s okay for some things to just be hobbies, man. We don’t have to monetize every single thing that we do. That is a lie that capitalism tells us, that should be overthrown. 

Jessmyn:

I love it a lot though because I think it makes things… Like you said, it’s so much more stressful. You can’t work under stress. I feel like that’s why burnout culture is here and so prevalent, especially, in our generation, because we grew up thinking like, “Yeah, this is what we have to do. And we have to hustle and grind in order for it to work,” and leave no room for play, like work hard and play never-

Jennifer:

Exactly.

Jessmyn:

… is what it felt like. But I think what you’re saying is totally right. The reason why we’re doing it in the first place is because we want that free time. But if you don’t give yourself that free time, then what’s the point? Where is it going? 

Jennifer:

Yeah. I listened to a podcast earlier this year. Somebody was talking about how they take a total of four months off every year, from their business. I thought to myself, I was like, “Oh, okay. That’s cool. Okay. If I meet my income goals by November of this year, maybe I’ll just take November and December off completely.” And then I thought, “You know what? No. I’m going to give myself the time off now. I’m going to give myself a week off every month now. And summer, when school’s not in session, I will adjust accordingly. I’m going to do that now. And then I will find ways to meet my income goal around those parameters.”

Because, again, if you wait until you meet some sort of money goal before you give yourself rest, you’re not going to do it. Or at least I’m not going to do it. I actually did this exact same thing last year where I was like, “I’m going to take some time off in November.” And then like three projects landed in my lap and I was like, “Okay, I will do this now instead.” And then, by December, I was like, “I wish I hadn’t done that.”

Jessmyn:

Right. 

Jennifer:

The money was good, but I was like, “I needed that rest more than I needed the money.” And because I didn’t have a plan about for it, I didn’t think about it intentionally. I was just like, “Sure, I’ll take this project.” But when I’m just like, “Hey, guess what, I am out of office these days,” or this week or whatever it is. I set that ahead of time. And then I can just plan my projects around that instead of like, “Well, if I get to this time of the year and I don’t have anything to do, then I’ll take time off.” It’s putting that rest in first. 

Again, limitations force you to be creative and force you to be efficient, if I’m like, “Okay.” Like this past July, I think I had 10 days of childcare the entire month, so that was cool. I planned around that, and I adjusted my revenue goal down to $2,000 that month. I was very strict about, okay, when my kid has days off from school, I am not working. I will maybe look at my email to make sure nothing’s on fire. But I’m not going to book anything those weeks, because I knew ahead of time what those weeks are going to be. It turned out I made $3,000 in July instead of 2,000.

Jessmyn:

Wow.

Jennifer:

I really find limitations and guardrails on my time to be a gift because it makes me think, do I want to take this small job or do I want to go and pitch a bigger project that will give me more bang for my buck? I mean, one thing I realized when I was tracking my time more carefully was that it takes about as much work to sell a $1,500 project as it does to sell a $3,000 project. So I should just sell the $3,000 project and get more return on the time I spend on that proposal and on the sales call and all that stuff.

Arguably, sometimes it’s even less work because I think people who are ready to spend a large amount of money to get a job done well, they just want the job done well. Money’s not… With the lower projects, you would think it would be an easier sell. But I think you tend to get clients for whom money is tighter, and that’s okay. But it is going to be harder for them to part with that than someone who has a six-figure business and they’re like, “Hey, investing $5,000 on this project will give me a digital product that I can turn around and sell to my audience and make lots and lots of more money.”

People whose businesses are more mature I think have a better understanding of the connection between like, “Here’s the investment and here’s the return that I’m going to get on it.” At least that’s been my experience. It’s like, oh, it’s actually sometimes easier to sell a $5,000 project compared to a $500 project.

Jessmyn:

Right. Right. That’s actually an interesting perspective because I think you’re totally right about, if you price higher, you are going to get those people who are ready to… They’re ready to spend that money. They’re ready to invest in it. Not that if they’re not ready to invest in it, it’s not okay. But it’s just like, if you have your own goals around like, “Hey, I want to make X amount of money because I want to have time to do things that I like to do,” that’s the perspective that you might want to have because you have your own goals and you have your own thing that you want to basically get to.  

Jennifer:

Yeah. Lately I’ve been meeting a lot more business owners who are more focused on the diversity, equity, inclusion space, consultants, coaches, that sort of thing. They want to keep their offers accessible to the people who need them most. I absolutely applaud that, and there’s a lot of ways to make that work. There is sliding scale. You could do a group offer instead of an individual offer. 

You can also have a corporate price sheet and an individual price sheet, or a nonprofit price sheet, and you use the corporate price sheet, use the corporate projects to subsidize the nonprofit or the individual projects. And you just have to balance that. It’s like, “Okay, I can do a non-profit rate if I book a corporate rate the same month.” And if I don’t, then that’s a boundary that I have to keep because I can’t shortchange myself because long-term, if I do that, I’m just not going to be able to do this work anymore. 

That’s another perspective shift that I’ve thought about. It’s very hard, I think, for women and women of color to think of themselves first. But it’s like if you burn out and you go out of business, then you’re not going to be able to help anybody. I think we always come in like, “Oh, I want to help as many people as possible.” You’ve got to help yourself first because if you don’t, then you’re going to have to quit eventually. And then, what a shame and what a waste, that your talents are not there in the world for the people who most need them.

That’s been another shift in my thinking. It’s like, “Okay, no, it is okay.” It’s not only okay. It’s important to take care of myself and take care of my business and make sure my business takes care of me so that I can do the work that I want to do and the work that the world needs me to do. That’s been a shift in my thinking on mission and calling and like, “Oh, I really want to make a difference.” Well, I’ve got to take care of my house first. I can’t do anything if I’m not bringing in enough revenue, and I have to go get a full-time job instead. Then it’s like, “Well, then nobody wins in that case.”

Jessmyn:

Right. Right. Something that came to mind too earlier when we were talking about taking breaks was, if you have the thought to take a break now, you should take it because it sounds like you’re already tired.

Jennifer:

Absolutely. 

Jessmyn:

That’s what came to mind earlier and surrounding your pricing around that. I love that, like form your business around when you want to take those breaks, so that way, if you want to take it right now, you have that cushion versus thinking like, “Okay, well, when I make X amount of money, then I could do it later.”

Jennifer:

Yeah.

Jessmyn:

Something that you mentioned earlier in the conversation was not seeing Asian Americans in the same space. And so, when you were starting your business, you felt like you didn’t have that sort of representation. I identify this with a lot… Identify with this a lot. Sorry, tongue twister. But I identify with it a lot because, I mean, going into the tech space, it was funny. I actually went to San Francisco State University, and in San Francisco, there’s so many Asians.

And so, when I went into the tech space, I was surprised to find no Asians. Now being in the online space, I think you’re right, that I wasn’t looking in the right places. I didn’t realize at the time that, or, well, even in the last year or so, that unless you look for it, the algorithms online will not favor it and they won’t show you those people. But my question off of this is just, how important was that for you and how were you able to find your way, even though you didn’t have it at the time?

Jennifer:

I mean, I don’t think my business really got a whole lot of traction until I leaned into my Asian American identity. I did a lot of identity formation even, throughout the process of owning a business. I grew up in the Midwest. There are not a lot of us out here. And most of those people go the conventional doctor, lawyer, engineer route.

Jessmyn:

Right.

Jennifer:

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. How did I find my way? I started my own podcast for a while, and I just started looking. I was like, “All right. I want to talk to Asian American writers. Where do I find this?” Okay. I found one person on Twitter. I’m going to start looking and see who they follow. Okay. I will go follow them. And just following that trail. But then, once I did, I was like, “Oh my gosh, there’s a bunch of us.” 

We all have different stories and we all have different things that we’re doing. But just having some of the same, I don’t know, primary colors of your childhood that you don’t have to explain and people just know and they get it, I’m just like, “Oh.” It’s like coming home.

Jessmyn:

Right. Right.

Jennifer:

It is like coming home. It really wasn’t until I decided to build my business as an Asian American, not in spite of being Asian American, that I was able to grow and get traction. Now I know that there’s people in my audience who are not Asian American. I mean, I tend to relate most to women of color regardless of specific race or ethnicity. And there’s a lot of universals to that. I can talk to probably really anybody in the world, but certainly any immigrant culture in the world. I say “Auntie” and everybody knows exactly what I mean.

Jessmyn:

I died laughing when I first found you. I was like, “Oh my God, this is amazing.”

Jennifer:

Everybody knows the well-meaning, kind of bossy, kind of rude, but she’s going to tell you the truth because she loves you auntie. I’m like, “That is what I need, and so I’m going to make that for whoever needs it too.”

Jessmyn:

Right. Right. I love that you touched on finding people through people because I did the same thing. I know it sounds bad that we even have to do this, but I just started looking up Asian-American entrepreneurs, Asian American influencers, and that’s how I found some of the people. I started following those hashtags on Instagram. And so, that way, it would show up and I would find more people to follow. I think, for me, finding that community has always been super important because, I mean, even in school, it’s like you always feel…

I don’t know if left out is the word or like kind of lonely in it where you can’t find people with the same shared experiences or they don’t understand why your parents won’t let you out past 9:00 PM or things like that. And so, yeah, I think finding that community is super important and not necessarily that it’s wrong if you don’t have it, but I think it’s super helpful as well.

Jennifer:

Yeah. Well, and I remember having a discussion and somebody was like, “Clients can’t pronounce my name because it’s not an English presenting name, and they assume that I can’t speak or write English. So how do I get clients?” And I was like, “I have never heard anybody ask that question before because it’s not relevant to the mainstream White community.” That’s not something that’s ever going to cross their minds, and particularly for Asian Americans, because it is the perpetual foreigner syndrome. Like if you hear a name that you can’t pronounce, you’re going to think, “Oh…” And they have an Asian presenting face, they’re going to be like, “Oh, can this person actually write in English?”

That not something that even every other marginalized group has to deal with. And so, I was just like, “Huh.” There are specific questions I think that face Asian Americans more often than other groups. I certainly don’t claim to speak for all Asian Americans, like there’s many, many, many different Asian American experiences. Mine is just one of them. But I think there’s common threads that are worth talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. The school experience, I think you’re right. Lonely is… Nobody was explicitly rude most of the time. It did happen. But just little things, like little pieces of cultural capital that you don’t have and you don’t realize you don’t have until it’s like, “Oh.” I remember a big thing for me was craft type projects, like, “Make a cabin. Make a model log cabin.” I don’t know, like, papier-mache, whatever, whatever. 

Looking back, I’m like… I liked arts and crafts, but I hated those projects because I had no idea where to get materials for those things. I’m pretty sure a big reason that I did not take AP Physics, besides just not really wanting to take physics, I did not want to have to build a trebuchet because I didn’t know where I was going to have to get all the crap to build a trebuchet. 

Jessmyn:

Right. 

Jennifer:

Because my parents were like, “An entire store devoted to art supplies?” It’s not even on their radar. Of course, now I’m sitting in front of a desk full of craft supplies. So if my kid has a kindergarten project, I’ll be like, “Great. I have everything you need.”

Jessmyn:

Yeah. Oh my God.

Jennifer:

I’m making up for what I didn’t have as a child. It seems like such a little thing. But it’s over time, all the ways where you feel like, “I don’t quite belong here.” And those little things that you’re missing that everybody else has. Food is a common experience for this to happen. But craft supplies, “I can’t go out to do extracurriculars because my parents want me home at a certain time.” All those little tiny things they do add up over time and you feel just like, “I’m so alone.”

It was like that coming into the business space. At first, I was like, “Great, I’m going to be like a chirpy White mommy blogger.” And that was totally unsustainable for a lot of different reasons. I was just like, “Look in the mirror, first of all.” But then I also just don’t have a blogger lifestyle and I’m way too lazy to have a blogger lifestyle. I think I met someone who makes their living from writing, who is Asian American, for the first time in my life, in 2017. I was 30 years old. 

I was 30 years old, and meet an Asian American creative who that is their full-time thing. And I was just like, “This is magic.” This is magical, because it’s like, “Oh, somebody else… It is possible, and we are out there. We just have to find each other.”

Jessmyn:

Yeah. I love that. I love that. Well, I just have a couple of last questions to wrap it up. But before that, just want to say, glad we found each other. 

Jennifer:

Yeah.

Jessmyn:

Second to last question, what are three things that most people wouldn’t know about you?

Jennifer:

Oh, boy. Three things that most people would not know about me, which is hard because I feel like I talk about myself online a lot. 

Jessmyn:

Think real deep.

Jennifer:

Yeah. Think really, really deep. Well, let’s see. I think I shared this a little bit recently, but it’s not very commonly out there. I went to the state Geography Bee in seventh grade.

Jessmyn:

Is that like a spelling bee for geography?

Jennifer:

Yes. It is a spelling bee, but for geography.

Jessmyn:

Wow.

Jennifer:

It’s hosted by National Geographic. I was reading National Geographic when I was in like second grade, because I’m just that big of a dork, I guess. But I totally washed out in like round two. 

Jessmyn:

Oh my goodness. 

Jennifer:

But I mean, I’m a dork, so that’s… I’m a nerd and that’s pretty common knowledge. What else? Three things other people might not know about me. I am a Taurus-Gemini cusp, which I did not really believe in astrology very much until I had a child who is also a Taurus. And then I was like, “Oh, okay. That’s where that comes from. That’s my fault. I’m really sorry.”

Jessmyn:

That’s amazing. 

Jennifer:

My kid is the most Taurusy Taurus to ever Taurus, and I was like, “Oh, okay. Maybe there is something to this.” And then, lastly, I got my undergrad degree… I have two bachelor’s degrees. One is in English, which was mostly English literature and not super useful for my life now. And the other is in molecular genetics. 

Jessmyn:

Whoa.

Jennifer:

I graduated with honors in both of those. Got my master’s in education. I don’t use any of them directly now anymore. I like to learn, so it was good to have those. Good to have those under my belt.

Jessmyn:

I love that variety. That’s awesome. My last question for you is, if you could give yourself a single piece of advice at the start of it all, what would it be?

Jennifer:

Track your time. Track your time. That’s a very practical nitty-gritty one, but I think that’s what I would do, because for a long time I didn’t have any idea how long it actually took me to do anything. I would just pull prices out of thin air and like, “Here’s what I feel like feels good to me today.” It wasn’t until I started tracking my time and I was like, “Oh, it takes me eight hours to write a proposal for this project. I probably should factor that into my pricing.”

Jessmyn:

I love that.

Jennifer:

And also maybe find a better way to write proposals so it doesn’t take me hours. It was realizing that I wasn’t just spending time on the work, I was spending time running a business. I knew that on a surface level, but I didn’t realize that it was more than half of my time was the running of the business and the getting of the projects and the getting of the clients. That’s more than half of the time that I spend and that none of that time is billable.

So realizing I had to set my prices to account not just for the time I spend writing the course, or building the website, or whatever, doing the actual work. I’ve got to account for the time I spend getting the project in the first place, which involves my marketing, having a website that functions, the sales call, the proposal. All of that has to be included in there, which I did not realize until probably about a year and a half ago when I started tracking things more carefully.  

And I was like, “Oh, I have been undercharging for a really, really long time.” I thought I was good at pricing. I thought I was like, “Oh, I’m confident. I’ll do like $90 an hour. Great.” But if you actually look at it, it’s like actually it’s not $90 an hour for four hours. It’s $90 for eight hours, which is actually much less money than I thought it was going to be. That is the very practical and not very touchy feely, warm and fuzzy advice that I would give myself. But that’s what it is.  

Jessmyn:

But I love that though, because imagine how much time you would have saved if you had actually looked at it from the beginning and you were like, “Okay-

Jennifer:

I would have invested in-

Jessmyn:

[crosstalk 00:52:53] way too much time, or I’m not charging enough for this time that I do have to spend on this.”

Jennifer:

Absolutely. I would have invested in tools earlier. I would have invested in a VA, these virtual assistant services probably much earlier, and just having a better understanding of where my time is actually going.

Jessmyn:

Right. I love that. I love that. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for being on Creator Stories with us today.  

Jennifer:

Thanks so much. It was great to be here.

Jessmyn:

Of course. Can you please just let everyone know where they can find you online?  

Jennifer:

Yes. My website is chiefexecutiveauntie, or auntie, depending on where you’re from. That’s A-U-N-T-I-E, chiefexecutiveauntie.com. I’m on Instagram @chiefexecutiveauntie. Yeah, that’s where you can find me. I’m also on Twitter at JennDuannFultz because Chief Executive Auntie was too long for a Twitter handle.

Jessmyn:

I didn’t even know they limited that. 

Jennifer:

I didn’t either and I was just like, “Okay. But Chief Executive Auntie everywhere. Oh, I guess I can’t. Okay.” Yeah, on Twitter, I talk a little bit more about personal stuff too. So I was like, “Okay, I’ll just use my name on there.” But otherwise Chief Executive Auntie everywhere.

Jessmyn:

Awesome. We will link those for you guys, if you do want to check out the show notes. We will see you next time. Bye.

Jennifer:

Bye. Thank you. 

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Jessmyn Solana

Jessmyn Solana is the Partner Program Manager of Interact, a place for creating beautiful and engaging quizzes that generate email leads. Outside of Interact Jessmyn loves binge watching thriller and sci-fi shows, cuddling with her fluffy dog, and traveling to places she's never been before.