Building a lifestyle business with Puno, founder of ilovecreatives

The “slashie” talks slow growth, side projects, and why she’s tired of people shitting on 9-to-5s

*if you enjoy this interview and you’d like to hear more from Puno about her approach to content creation, thoughts on trolls, and how to be more human online (+ an unexpected appearance from Jordan), you can find bonus content at the bottom of this post.

Ford Blitzer: Okay Puno, did you invent the word slashie? Or is this an internet thing I'm unaware of?

Puno: If it was invented before me, I didn't know. I said it because on ilovecreatives we have these creative profiles, and on there, there's these titles. And I was getting annoyed because the creatives would put blah blah blah-slash blah blah blah-slash  blah blah blah-slash, and I was like oh my God it’s just like so much— I like big text so I had to really increase the height of that div. And so then I kept calling them slashies. It was more like arghhh slashies than it was like, you’re a slashie! And then I just kind of owned it.

Ford: I love it. You're a slashie right? I feel like you do a lot of stuff. So how do you describe everything that you do? Not in an elevator pitchy way – like how would you describe it in a complicated way? Really tell me everything that you do. 

Puno: Oh my God, I've never been asked that. Okay, so let's start from the top. Founder of ilovecreatives, which is a website - we're calling it the new digital trade school. Then I'm Executive Creative Director of Studio, which is a design boutique agency. We do digital marketing and web design — design, design, design. And then content creator. I also am a cat photographer. I feel like if I have a 1099 for it, I’m just gonna go ahead and say that. Or I know that I want to do more of it. So like, I'll keep saying it. And then I'm going to add mom to this now, because that's definitely very big. 

Ford: Is that the final thing on your list right now?

Puno: I think so. I mean I also feel like designer, teacher… I think they all bubble into the top two now.

Ford: So do you think this sort of slashie-approach to your work or your life has opened up opportunities for you? In thinking of yourself, like, I could do this, or I could do that…

Puno: I actually just did this workshop yesterday that I've been wanting to do forever and it was called “Lifestyle Planning” because I've always wanted to build a lifestyle business. Not many people want to do that but I wanted to. But in order to do things like that, I feel like I leaned on skills. I knew that if I built skills, that is my leverage - more than money… Well, maybe not more than money - money is pretty great. But I didn't have it. So I can't just get money. I can get skills, though. So I feel like the skills have always [been] something I embrace because I love learning. I love digging into things. I'm always curious. It's very fulfilling for me to go through the process of learning. I don't know, I just can't stop. Love it.

Ford: So before we get into ilovecreatives, what is it that you do love about creatives?

Puno: So at the time, I had just quit my job. I was working as a UX director for Call of Duty, the video game. This was in 2013. I had just quit my job, and I was like, I don't know what I want to do. I think we're going to build a business, but I don't know what that is. And I needed new friends. And so I started making new friends like probably once a week and I ended up going to downtown, this is when we moved here… 

Ford: How do you make new friends once a week? Tell me.

Puno: I would go on Instagram. 

Ford: Really? So you use the internet to make friends? 

Puno: Hell yes!

Ford: Okay, so what's your approach?

Puno: I just comment and DM. I think in general, I comment and DM way more than I do anything else on Instagram. 

Ford: That's great. That's what they say - the happiest people on social media are the ones who engage. 

Puno: Exactly. Because to me, I always felt like it was a shortcut to meet people because you literally can see everything that they're interested in, there's a way for you to comment about it. And, you know, that's that.

Ford: Okay. So in the transition to ilovecreatives, were you around a bunch of people where you were like, Oh, I kind of want to be around more creative people, or different people. You mentioned you needed new friends - were you uninspired by the environment or what?

Puno: Yeah, I feel like I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted a little bit more creativity in my life, but I didn't know what that meant at all. Even when I called ilovecreatives, ilovecreatives, I was still in the back of my mind thinking, what is a creative? Like, is that right? But I'm just one of those people that if I have an idea, and I'm ready to go, I know I can change it later. So I never had another idea that was better than that. So I just went with that. It was either “I love slashies” or “I love creatives” and I was like, I don’t know… Slashies could be like… murder. 

Ford: Yeah, I think you chose the right thing — “slashies” is definitely the B-story here.

Puno: Definitely.

Ford: So keep going on the origin story.

Puno: So I just wanted to meet a lot of people - meet people that were just doing different things. Because at this point, I'm just trying to expose myself. I think one of the first rungs that I went to was Sisilia Piring because I followed her - she's a photographer who is also on Instagram. I reached out to her when I quit, because I loved her photography as an art director, I was at an ad agency. And I was like, Hey, would you be open to mentoring me? Because she actually had that on her website - that she would do a mentor thing. So I reached out to her. And then she mentored me for a couple of days. Honestly, at that time, I tried everything. I tried styling, I tried photography, I tried different various types of graphic design, from UX, UI to Shopify to branding. I was just literally doing anything. It was my slashie phase. It was whatever I wanted.

Ford: Did that phase come easily to you? I feel like when you're younger, that kind of does come easily — you feel like it's your job to try stuff out. But then I think some people feel like, Oh! I need to figure it out! So where were you in that spectrum?

Puno: Well, I knew two things when I quit. I knew that I had runway. So financially, I knew I had a year. And I planned that because I got laid off in 2008. And I had just paid off my debt. So I was already on this, like, personal finance journey where I knew that I wanted time as leverage. So I had runway. That gives you the space to play. And then the second thing was, I didn't know exactly what I wanted but I knew that I didn't need it fast. Because I had been working with startups and with startups, it's all high growth. And so I felt like in my life, I didn't need that high growth, like that wasn't really fulfilling. But I knew I was a hard worker. So I was starting to delineate the two - it's very clear to me today. But at the time, it was fuzzy. But I just knew I didn't want to work at a startup, or I didn't want to build a startup. So I had been open then to more slower growth, like, let's play and let's have fun with this. But the money thing was huge. I mean, like if you don't have leverage…

Ford: Yeah - in your mind and body, it literally just allows you to free up so much space and relax. And then that's when everything enters in.

Puno: Even in the lifestyle workshop that we did yesterday — so many people are stuck because of the financial question. And I know, because I was, but you feel like you have to make money before you can be happy, which is not true. And I knew that because I was like, I hate that I have this debt, and I was understanding what interest rates were for credit cards and all this stuff. And I just didn't want that hanging over me and so I had to do things like budget, and I had to do things like save, but honestly, like when I learned all those lessons - those hard lessons - and I faced my bank account and things like that, it just really cleared so much space in my brain, in my heart of what I wanted to do. It was just like a big lift. And it wasn't easy. It wasn't fun. Like I didn't get to get matcha lattes all the time. *laughs* They didn't exist back then so it was okay.

Ford: So did the idea come easily to you or was it a journey?

Puno: I think it was definitely a journey but I think at the time I was very… I read a lot of articles from Paul Graham. Paul Graham was the founder of Y Combinator, which is like a VC incubator. Airbnb came out of it… But what I really liked about him was his realistic, candid approach to growing a company that I thought was applied to any company, it didn't matter if you were a startup. So he has this very Dreamweaver-esque website that still exists today that has all of his essays on there about what he thinks about startups. And one of them was about slow growth, or it was called “do things that don't scale.” And that one essay probably influenced how I think today about a lot of things. He didn't explicitly say, slow growth or anything like that. But it just showed that the manual stuff, the quick wins weren't real. And what's true is that if you do things that are smaller things, or things that might seem to take longer, actually will be fruitful.

Ford: So ilovecreatives is still independently funded?

Puno: It always has been and I don't think that we are in a position today to accept funding - funding is a totally fine way to go. But I do believe that if you're going to respect your investors, the people that are giving you the money, unless you're just lucky and you know somebody who will just give you money, you need to give them a return. So for you to just take it and blindly say like, Okay, I'm gonna figure it out in a year or two! To me, is just too much bullshit. Like, I just can't take that much bullshit.

Ford: So what have you gotten — on a personal level, business owner level… What good has come from not going that route?

Puno: I haven't really been burnt out since. I get to experiment with my company the way that I want to. Those were actually a lot of deal breakers, when I left my last company I wrote down all these deal-breakers and deal-makers of what I want to do with my life. And I knew that I need to get into the weeds and into the details as opposed to overgeneralizing about things. Because I did that before, and it didn't work. Like if I freelance, I'll be happy - that's too much of a generalization. I really need to dig into things. So that one generalization of like, you need to grow fast to be happy. I was like, Why do I not think that that's true? And there were some things about working at the last company that showed me... I love experimenting and I love owning my mistakes. I really like to talk to customers, I really like to build community. I mean, we had the biggest community - it was Call of Duty. And I wanted to go to kids’ homes and play video games with them. And like, just really understand it. And sure, that might not be fruitful and have a great ROI or whatever but I just wanted to do that because I thought that would be an interesting way to solve that problem. And so with owning your own company, and being able to run it the way you want to, I can do things like that. 

Ford: Yeah, you determine what the ROI is — because so much of that is unmeasurable…

Puno: I also didn't have a real business plan. So I'm just like making up things for ilovecreatives. And ilovecreatives didn't make enough revenue until maybe four or five years in to replace my income. I also knew that because I don't have an answer to it, it's not just gonna come to me because I asked it harder. I knew that I just didn't want that pressure of trying to figure that out so I will do other jobs, to bootstrap and supplement this idea to let it grow however it needs to grow. That was big for me to understand, like, how can I bootstrap and make money but also not get burnt out? Because you know, you're doing two things at once - you're building a business and you're also funding your own business. But I figured it out. I was very, very diligent about how much I needed to check in with myself. I was like, I can't check in once a year because that was why I was burnt out last year, because I let it go for five years. Or anytime I would do it would be New Years, but I'd be like way too drunk to care *laughs* — so I needed to literally give myself 365 chances a year. So I would check in every day and just ask myself like, how are we doing, what's going on? And I would just iterate, iterate, iterate every day. 

Ford: Cool. So from launch to now, can you give me an overview of what you guys started with, when and how it grew, and where it's at now?

Puno: So it started off as a newsletter. I just had this idea of like a Craigslist for creative people. Because all these creative people were doing all these different things like events, they had different services, some people were looking for help. And so I just went on MailChimp, Squarespace, put it together over the weekend, and then it went up. And then that newsletter went out every Wednesday since 2014. That was the first part of it.

Ford: Do you have a solid handle on that? Or do you still scramble ever?

Puno: I don't, no. 

Ford: You're like, I got it locked.

Puno: Yeah. And also, I handed it off pretty quickly. That was also the beauty of having to bootstrap as well. I didn't have time to do a lot of things. So I had to be really efficient. Anytime I would do something and I noticed that I was doing it repetitively, I'd write down all the steps, and then I would hire someone to do it that was lower than the cost of me doing it. 

Ford: So you started with the newsletter…

Puno: I started with the newsletter. And then we probably didn't make money for a while. But we just kept it going. And then it grew slowly. We already added creator profiles on there so they were there day one, too. And then anytime somebody would ask me about, like a spreadsheet… I had one for freelancing. So I would just put that on ilovecreatives because a lot of creative people are using this. And then I would just start adding random things on there that people would ask me about. And I'd be like, well, it's easier if I just put it on here. 

Ford: So resources - it started as resources.

Puno: Mhmm. And then a friend of mine asked me to teach about Instagram because I had been using Instagram to grow another thing. And that's my first time teaching, and I loved it. It was so fun. It was just a really great way to reflect on things that you've learned. And like I said, I've already been doing SOPs, like standard operations, just figuring out how to break down things that I do. And I really, really loved that part of it. 

Ford: Had you ever thought in your mind at all about teaching before this person asked you?

Puno: Absolutely not. And I had so many hang ups about it. 

Ford: Really? Before starting? 

Puno: 100% - I was like, Oh, no. Am I already becoming a teacher? Like, I thought you do that later? And that was the biggest hang up - just like you’re a failure already because you're teaching which is like, wow, that sucks.

Ford: And how long until you got over that?

Puno: So quickly. Because I loved it. And people would tell me - that were my age - this is great. This helped me so much. And I'm like, Oh, well, I'm for sure a helper, you know.

Ford: Did it just come naturally to you?

Puno: Yeah. I think — we are dealing now with a lot of different types of teachers at ilovecreatives. And I think there are people who, of course, can be taught to teach, but there are people who are genuinely trying to creatively come up with ways to connect what you're trying to teach to that person. You know, not necessarily mass, but like, if you've got one student that's struggling, you're gonna be like, Okay, what about this? Or what about this? Or what about this? And I feel like really good teachers are relentless about that — and I felt like I had that.

Ford: What was your favorite thing about it?

Puno: I think that genuinely helping people get confidence in themselves. One person just straight up said it to me and I cried. Like, what? I gave you confidence? That’s huge. They said, I didn't really want to be a Squarespace designer, but you gave me confidence that I can figure out anything I want to do.

Ford: I mean, there literally is nothing better than that. You just connected with a human being and made them feel good and… 

Puno: And capable. Yeah, I made them feel loved and capable.

Ford: Okay, so then you taught this class and you were like, maybe we should teach some classes on ilovecreatives?

Puno: Well, no, actually, I was bootstrapping, right? And then this freelancing business was actually growing. I was making six figures at that time making Squarespace websites. And I was like, I need a Squarespace junior designer to help me get more clients and get more work done. And so I went onto ilovecreatives, I put a job out, in like 2017, and then 100 people applied to that job. It was like — junior designer $20 to $40 an hour, very specific. And I was like, Wow, all these people want to learn how to make Squarespace! And then I looked at all of the applicants - this is probably the first time that I've ever done that. And I was like, uh oh, they're not that great. They're very templated. And I was really frustrated because one, this is our website. And then two, all these people want this job, but they don't know - like, it's a niche skill - how would they know what I'm looking for? And I personally felt like that, in general, this world of Squarespace websites or just like more, no code-y kind of websites was going to be more popular. But I knew that even if a Squarespace or a Canva, or whatever, had all these templates, people still want their own thing. So I was like, I want to teach these people how to do that. And so that's when I was like, Okay, what if we make a course?

Ford: Oh, interesting. So you saw the need for it. That’s so cool.

Puno: So that was the first course and I had a huge hang up about online courses.

Ford: Give me the era - what else was happening in online classes at that time?

Puno: Oh, it was bleh. It was 2018. Skillshare was kind of popping up. It was just a lot of long, wordy landing pages with countdowns and really, really wack emails. I don't know, it was just kind of… it was a lot about money. It was a lot about how to make money, how to make passive income and stuff like that. Which is so funny, because that is what I am talking about because I know that's what I was looking for - what I wanted to teach with Squarespace. But I was like, How do I actually talk about it in a way that I wouldn't throw up in my mouth? *laughs* That was basically my creative brief - don't throw up in mouth. How do I do that? And then I wrote down all of my deal breakers about it. And that was my creative brief. So I went out of my way, hired a 3D designer I thought was really cool and just gamified it in a way. And then I was like, okay, these videos are gonna be funny, they're not gonna be boring. It'll be really funny. I wanted a community behind it. Then I got the first course - it sold out. I think it was 50 students and it sold out. 

Ford: And you promoted it within your own community that you had already built?

Puno: I didn't even have Instagram at the time. It was just email.

Ford: What happened between then and now? 

Puno: Since then, that course has had over, I don’t know, 3000 students? Yeah. Which is incredible. And since then, I was like, Okay, what else can I teach?

Ford: Do you tend to have a really long term plan or take it one step at a time?

Puno: Ever since I went on mat leave, or even before we were planning for mat leave, it was like a really big question of - alright, I can't be in front of the camera, I can't teach all the time, I'm gonna be super busy. We got to change this up. At the same time, I've learned so much about our community and I've learned so much about students and why people come to and share ilovecreatives. And the main thing that I've noticed is that people are coming to ilovecreatives because they're not sure what to do next. They either got laid off or they are still an employee, or they want to try freelancing, or they're a student or they're a mom - there's just a new path and this is the place that for some reason gives them permission to explore. 

Ford: Why do you think that is?

Puno: I think because that's exactly who I was when I built it. And so all the tools are made for people who are thinking that.

Ford: It also does just feel really inviting and like, human. I keep calling it really human because it just feels full of life when you go on there.

Puno: I mean, now it's a lot more intentional and I know exactly what's not right or what's too, you know, design-y, because we have to straddle this line of — inspire but don't be condescending, or you know, inspire but don't be *inspire-y*. We have to be approachable and we have to be fun, but not so like, saccharin that you're just like, cringe after five minutes. It's this weird line, but I know what it isn't - I always rely on my, Oh, that's not what it is. And then it’s kind of like a bumper.

Ford: That’s such a good way of looking at it.

Puno: And then copy. I think copy is huge.

Ford: Do you write?

Puno: I write — I would write everything. I believe so much in copy. And I only learned that because the first creative director I ever worked with was like, You seem like a good writer. And I was like, why? And he's like, because you write like how you talk. And I was like, that's a good thing? I didn't know. 

Ford: That’s the main thing. That's my bumper, like when you read it out loud. And you say, Would I actually say this out loud? Such a good guideline for writing. On the note of the fun - even your “About Us” video…

Puno: Oh, we had so much fun with that one.

Ford: It's funny. It's entertaining. And you just come across like you're having a great time. What does it take behind the scenes to make it come across so fun?

Puno : That is a beautiful question. Because when I'm hiring, it is something I have to be very straightforward about now. I have to be like, I know that we look fun. I know that I look like I'm gonna be your best friend. We're not rude. Nobody's like crazy burnt out. It's not a toxic culture, at least in my mind it's not, I hope not. But we do work very hard to get things done and I think I have to just be really, really candid, that this isn't the place where you're just gonna have fun and not work.

Ford: Yeah. It looks effortless but I imagine it's so much work to make that happen. 

Puno: So much work. And the type of people that I'm surrounded by right now are just like, incredible at working together and getting this thing moving and made. When I went on mat leave, it was like the biggest test of, how is this team gonna function? Right? And they thrived. It was incredible. And I was just like, Whoa, I need to get out of the way a lot more now. 

Ford: I imagine it helps you actually see more clearly what your strengths are — what the business's strengths are because you're just like, Oh, I maybe didn't even know that we had this so covered. 

Puno: I think it actually showed me - maybe not what my weaknesses were, but what my unnecessaries were. There's a lot of times where I would give feedback and I was like, eh. Now I'm like looking at the things that I would do and just really pause and be like, Wait a second. What am I asking here? Because I was always in this mode of, let me just do it because I want to see blah blah blah. And it was on my time, it's my dime, you know. But one of the moms that I talked to before I went on mat leave, she said, just say this over and over again: I trust you. Whatever you decide, I trust you. And then just let it go. And you have to. And if you don't then, why are you working with that person? They're probably going to thrive somewhere else.

Ford: Yea. Has the managing aspect of this been a learning curve? 

Puno: Oh, yeah. I think anybody who has to work with other people - it either kills you, or you learn how to deal with it. I don't know many people that are like, Oh, I love it and I'm thriving! Because it's hard.

Ford: Tell me a little bit more about the workshop you did. What was it called?

Puno: It was called—this is something I've always been like, was this the right word for it? It was called Lifestyle Planning Workshop. But I've always just wanted to call it Lifestyle Business, because it's my approach to how I've built my business with my life.

Ford: Explain that a little bit.

Puno: So, there's two ways that you can build a business, in my mind - or, I don’t know, there were when I started. There were two ways - it was a high growth way, the VC way, and then there was this lifestyle business. The goal of a lifestyle business is to align with the founder’s values, and that was the main goal. Whereas the startup, the main goal is to get a return on your investors. So you can see how that main goal will infiltrate the rest of the company's decisions. And so I was always like, I want to be a lifestyle business. I remember reading all these articles that were shitting on lifestyle businesses. I mean, today, it sounds so crazy, but maybe five or six years ago, it was like, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. At the time, I was like, Why? What? So it's very obvious to me, but I think at the time, culture was very much - let's just grow.

Ford: So, was it the first time you did it? How’d it go?

Puno: Great. And also awful. It was great because I just put it out there and I had so much hesitation on doing it, because I don't want to feel like a guru. But I was just like, ah, but people always ask about this. And so I just wanted to do it and just see. But I think for me, the part of it that was so insightful — actually, somebody wrote me about it and they said that it just really helped to see my point of view on planning your life or answering that question, what do I want to do with my life? Because essentially, I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions that I had thought, that were just stopping me from living my life or trying new things. And so he said, basically, you weren't presenting a list of instructions. You were presenting a list of questions. And the list of questions was the thing that allows me to try. But the big thing about this was, I came in there and I knew it was messy. I knew how I was talking about was messy. I knew that it felt a little vague.

Ford: I think the ability to go into a situation like that and be like, I know that this is not perfect, but I'm just gonna…

Puno: Yeah, wing it.

Ford: Do you feel like you've always allowed yourself to do that? Or has it taken some time?

Puno: Always. Always. And I think it started because I'm very comfortable talking to strangers and not being perfect, and asking for help. I have so many stories of that in my life where I've had to do that. And it's just this skill that has helped me and I'm like, yeah, just keep doing it. Who cares?

Ford: That's so great.

Okay, so I want to talk to you about podcasting. Because when we asked you on here, I was like, Oh, I love ilovecreatives, this will be great we'll talk all about that. And then I looked into you, and I was like, Oh, she hosted the fucking Girlboss podcast?? Like you're so good. What did what did you learn from that experience? Like going into someone else's thing and doing that?

Puno: I learned a lot about the business. I learned so much about, that when you're selling, when you're trying to get brand sponsorships for a podcast, you’ve got to sell the whole thing. You’ve got to sell the social - it's a 360 campaign thing. Or you're not going to make money if you just sell the podcast, basically.

Ford: If you were recording a new podcast episode tomorrow, how would you prepare for that? What's your process?

Puno: That's such a great question. So I hired a podcast producer and we came up with this thing — actually, we took a lot of notes from Gimlet. Gimlet has a free podcast course. It started off as just this internal tool that they used for all new Gimlet employees, but then they put it on Spotify. And so we took that and basically - well, the first thing was, we would think about our next 12 to 24 episodes. And we were like, what do we want to talk about? What do we want to say? And I came to Girlboss with an agenda. 100%. I mean, that's the only reason why I would do it. I wanted to showcase different types of people. I wanted to talk about different ways people are redefining success. I wanted to do that. So then we essentially had all these ideas, and then we kind of casted for it. So we were like, Okay, we want to learn more about politics, but maybe more about trans politics. And so like, who's the right person for that? What's the story that we could tell there? And then from there we would prepare for the interview. And we had three acts in that interview and each one would kind of lead to our theory about what that person is all about, or what the big message is about that person. And we would do research and figure out, what are the questions that we can ask to lead to that. So in a way, it was like, we're coming in with a lot of assumptions about what we think. But I think it helped create more of a story and more of a flow that we really needed, because it was a weekly show. And it's so hard to just come up with good stuff if you don't know what you're aiming for, in a way.

Ford: Did you ever go through that whole process of preparation, and then get into the interview and have it be flipped on it — where you’re just like, Oh, this is not what I thought that they were going to say—

Puno: Of course, yeah.

Ford: Were you good at pivoting? 

Puno: I was. There was a few people that I was like, damn it. I was like, really? And some of those - we were so close to just cutting it. Because you're just like, this is such a waste of time. The answers were short, they weren't diving, like why are they on this interview if they don't want to be interviewed?

I realized that at Girlboss, one of the big things - insights - was so many people were there for career. And there was a lot of career, social stuff happening - still is - but I think I realized how much the way people talk about jobs these days annoyed the shit out of me.

Ford: So tell me about that. 

Puno: And Girlboss did a lot of that and still does. And it's not just Girlboss, it's all of social. But they shit on nine to fives, shit on employers, shit on corporations, shit shit shit on working and jobs. They overgeneralize on things like freelancing, or being your own boss - and all of that is just going to make you happier. And I feel like all of that stuff is just so frustrating for me because it's like making people feel helpless, and making people feel like the game is against them and like they can't do anything about it.

Ford: Do you think that everyone now feels like they have to be their own boss and go that route? 

Puno: I don't think everyone does. But I definitely feel like there's a sentiment of that. And I don't think that that's true.

I was talking to a girl who had the same thought, and we really broke down, what is it about your job that you don't like? And she was like, Well, I'm doing certain things there and I really want to get into UX UI, but I'm doing social media. And then I talked to her and I was like, Okay, well, how's your bosses? And she's like, actually, my bosses are really nice, really cool, and let me do whatever I want. And I'm like, so hold on… Have you ever talked to them about that? And really just going into the details of her situation and being like, how can you make the most out of what you have right now? How can you talk and tell your bosses - I'm going to tell you as a boss - they don't know what you're thinking. Most people in life don't know what you're thinking. And if you care that much about it, give them the opportunity to see if they'd like to do something about it. And if not, then you guys aren't the right fit. But if they are, it might just be a better situation. It ended up being where she was like, You know what, you're right. I can probably do this here. And I'll think about talking to them.

Ford: So you obviously talk to so many people who go freelance… Can you tell right away like, Oh, your brain is a good brain for this, or, can you spot it, I guess is what I'm saying?

Puno: I can definitely spot the people who are going to do so well so fast, because it's just very obvious and they're very rare. But I think that the other thing about freelance, and it's almost as if freelance should be… There should be home ec. And there should be freelance and sports and arts. Because like freelancing, whether or not you want to do it or it's just not the right path for you, just to learn the things that are required to be a freelancer is going to help you in your job. If anything, it'll make you really happy about your job.

Ford: Do you have any final words of wisdom for the internet — for our corner of the internet?

Puno: For the women of the internet!

I feel like the problem sometimes with the internet or making content on the internet is — how I feel about it. It feels forever and overwhelming, and that already, that's enough. And so I would say that, for me, I've always like leaned on small side projects — short projects that always had a deadline and a timeline. And it was a very finite thing that I could just get into. And there's always been something fruitful that has come out of side projects. The worst thing that could come out of it is that you now know you don't ever want to do that again. That's great. That's huge. That is direction.

So I would say for anyone that's feeling overwhelmed by it, you clearly have some kind of need to create or need to share or need to talk about something. So what is the smallest way that you can do that in a month? I'd say a month is like a very long but short enough timeline for people to get things done. And I'm telling you, as someone who has an online self-paced course, a month is a nice amount of time. If you need more than that, you'll know. But I'd say yea, side projects, wow.

Ford: What's an example of a side project?

Puno: Everything I've done has been a side project. ilovecreatives was a side project.

Ford: So you're like, this is something I'm trying out, I'm not putting all my eggs in this basket, it’s a seed and I'm gonna see if it grows.

Puno: No, no, that's too much expectation. It's just the thing I'm making right now. 

Ford: Okay. I like that. 

Puno: It's not a big deal. It doesn't need to be a series. It doesn't need to be a franchise. It could just be its own little stupid thing that you did. You don't even have to talk about it. You actually yourself need to finish it because it's eating at you. And you're getting tired of hearing yourself complain.

Ford: Yeah. That’s such good advice. 

Puno: Side projects!!!

Ford: We’re going to cut it right there. Cut to music. 

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If you’d like to hear more from this conversation, upgrade to paid. Puno explains her motivations (and hesitancies) for sharing online, and Jordan chimes in to talk about what she’s learned from being too transparent…