Leslie Anne Eades and her partner Matt faced a major business disruption when the pandemic ended their event planning and hospitality consulting work that had been running for over 10 years. They needed to pivot their business model from in-person events to an online format while maintaining their ability to create meaningful experiences for clients. The challenge was building something sustainable that could support their remote lifestyle while traveling and working from a van. Leslie and Matt launched LMNTL, a coaching and retreat business, using Podia as their central platform to host their website, community, email list, digital products, coaching programs, and events all in one place. They built their community through grassroots efforts including one-on-one conversations, personal invitations, and live events. They implemented an affiliate program for guest speakers at their workshops, providing ready-to-use promotional templates to make collaboration easy. After testing different models, they removed the free community tier to focus on deeper engagement with paying members only. The business successfully transitioned from in-person consulting to a thriving online community and retreat business. Almost all community members attended in-person retreats, which filled up quickly through word-of-mouth and personal invitations. Engagement increased significantly after removing the free tier and focusing exclusively on paid members. The affiliate collaboration model successfully grew their community while rewarding partners with commissions. Leslie built a sustainable business that supported her remote lifestyle while maintaining flexibility to evolve the business model over time.

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Michelle Dale needed to build an online business that would support her digital nomad lifestyle after leaving the UK. She started as a virtual assistant, helping business owners with admin tasks, but quickly realized clients needed more comprehensive support. Each time she encountered a business challenge — whether building a website, managing email marketing, or creating digital products — she learned the skill herself first, tested it in her own business, and only then offered it to clients. Michelle developed a repeatable launch framework based on years of testing in her own business. The system involved consistently emailing her audience leading up to a launch, creating a free three-part video training series that taught core concepts from her paid program, hosting a live webinar that introduced the full offer, and opening enrollment for only four to five days to create urgency. She worked backwards from the final transformation clients would experience to determine what first step to teach in the free content. Michelle successfully executed her first six-figure launch using this system, then replicated the same framework with her clients to help them reach their launch goals. She built 1nSourcing Training Courses to teach service-based entrepreneurs her proven methods, launched a virtual coworking membership to create community, and continued offering one-on-one client services. After a platform she relied on shut down, she moved her entire business and client base to Podia, where she could manage websites, digital products, email marketing, and audience management in one place.

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Brittany Hardy started Empty Desk Solutions in 2014 as a marketing agency, which eventually evolved into a service-based business building websites for clients and running a marketing membership community. As her business grew, she managed a dozen disconnected tools including WordPress, ConvertKit, MailerLite, Notion, Calendly, and Zapier. After being diagnosed with ADHD, she realized the fragmented tech stack was overwhelming and unsustainable. Her WordPress blog attracted 50,000 visits per month, but those visitors weren't converting into email subscribers or consultation calls. Brittany discovered Podia and consolidated her entire business onto the platform, including her website, membership, blog, email marketing, and service offerings. She made the difficult decision to shut down her high-traffic WordPress site and rebuild everything on Podia. When her Facebook account was hacked in 2020, giving hackers access to all her client pages and ad accounts, she turned to her email list of 400 subscribers and started writing honest, personal emails about the crisis. She began emailing weekly, then twice weekly, and implemented Facebook Lead Ads with a social media content calendar template as her lead magnet after a single post in a local Facebook group generated over 250 responses. Brittany grew her email list to over 10,000 active subscribers, with 10 to 20 new subscribers joining daily on autopilot through her Facebook Lead Ads strategy. She automated her service-based business using Podia products, with automated welcome emails, client agreements, and onboarding questionnaires running without manual intervention. Her streamlined approach meant she hadn't sent a proposal in 3 years, with 9 out of 10 prospects already familiar with her pricing and ready to work with her before sales calls. She became a Podia Pro, regularly recommending the platform to clients building their own businesses.

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Jes Sudbrink, an art teacher who moved online in 2020, faced difficulty planning art activities for her own homeschooled children despite her teaching background. She searched Pinterest and YouTube but found incomplete lessons, inconsistent content, and no single teacher to follow. When she spoke with other homeschooling parents, she discovered they all struggled with the same challenges, prompting her to create her own solution. Jes built an on-demand art membership specifically for the homeschool community using Podia as her all-in-one platform. She structured her membership with a base tier offering full lesson library access and a "Plus Live" tier that added optional monthly live classes. She later added a lifetime membership option after experiencing value as a customer herself, and created standalone course packages for families wanting to try her teaching before committing. She also developed a visual "Pick a Project" catalog based on member feedback to make browsing her growing lesson library easier. Jes grew her business by focusing on a specific niche and finding her audience through targeted Meta ads, email campaigns, homeschool expos, and word-of-mouth in homeschool groups. She eventually started using TikTok about a year ago, which became her biggest surprise by bringing in customers with no ad spend. Her affiliate program through Podia enabled satisfied customers to share the membership and earn commissions. She consolidated her entire business—website, email list, campaigns, blog, and affiliate program—onto Podia after previously piecing together multiple separate tools.

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