How I Built My Business After I Moved Across the World
I’m just a small town Oregon gal
I know it sounds cliche, but growing up in a small town in Eastern Oregon (upper left USA), I never would have imagined that I would one day live on the other side of the world and have a fantastic business that allows me to help women grow and scale their own businesses by simplifying their customer experience with bespoke websites and streamlined systems.
In a way, I’ve always been entrepreneurial, my summer spending money often came from lemonade stands and dog walking businesses. I played around building websites to promote my hair-wrap business in high school and while I was in university I supplemented my income by building up a reputation as a great dog sitter!
When I graduated from university, I decided to move to Italy to become an au pair. For 3 months, I took care of twin 8 year old’s and made new friends from around the world. All who wanted exactly the things I did - to be put outside of their comfort zones, to see the world, to learn and to stand on their own two feet. At the time, I’d imagined having Oregon as my home base as I travelled and experienced more of what this world had to offer. Then life threw a curve-ball.
Along my travels, I met the most wonderful man
After my tourist visa expired, I decided to couchsurf in Ireland. My first night in Belfast, I was asked out by a local software developer. Fast forward through hundreds of hours of Facetime calls, a gorgeous, small wedding, and the hellish process of getting a settlement visa - I moved to Belfast to start the next phase of my life.
It turned out to be one of the most emotionally challenging things I’d ever done. The job market was different, making adult friends was a lot harder without a built-in au pair circle, and nice weather essentially doesn’t exist in Northern Ireland. A few months in, I decided I needed a project to keep busy and started Calibrated Concepts.
Creating order is my default
I knew that there were loads of small businesses that could benefit from the fact that I am a huge systems geek.
Let me tell you a quick story. At around 10 years old I decided I was going to be a librarian when I grew up. So naturally, I then alphabetised every VHS, DVD and book in our entire house. I then made my brothers, sisters, and parents “check them out” from me so I could put everything back where it belonged when they were done borrowing them from my library.
Anyhow, back to my business plans... here’s the thing, over the past few years my business has evolved time and time again. First I tried to market myself to overhaul systems for start-up tech companies (and failed. Then I found success as a general virtual assistant. After several months of that, I decided to specialise in operational/tech assistance and content management. And most recently, I’ve realised that I need to work on less ongoing (never-ending) type work and more short-term project-based work!
So I’ve pivoted again and am helping women-led businesses better position themselves for growth by building badass custom websites and by helping them streamline their email marketing systems in a day.
Now, I’ve lived in Belfast for 3 years and gone from running my business part-time to it being my full-time gig and it’s all pretty great.
It took a while, but I am really starting to feel like I have roots here in Northern Ireland. I love my business, our gorgeous little rental house, our old-man of a Springer Spaniel, and our new veggie garden in raised beds.
That said, I still desperately miss home some days. It’s where my best friends in the whole world live. It’s where I can get really damn good Mexican food. A craft brewery seems to be on every corner. The sun appears in the sky far more often. My main driver to start my business was absolutely to have the flexibility to keep growing my life here in the UK but to also be able to spend more time in Oregon.
I’m passionate about automation
In all the iterations of my business over the past few years my speciality has always been in automated systems and tools. The truth is that I’m a productivity badass who gets more done in a day than pretty much anyone I know… because I have incredible systems in place.
With my email marketing systems sessions and a killer website working for them - I firmly believe I can help business owners automate the mundane and get more of their best work done.
