The Remote CEO Life Podcast

S301: Achieve Freedom: How to Start an Online Business That Works

• Sophie Biggerstaff • Season 3 • Episode 1

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The Remote CEO Podcast (formally The Commerce Club podcast) is BACK with a shiny new look, and feel for 2025, and I am SO excited about the changes that are to come. ⭐

In this first brand new episode of The Remote CEO Podcast, I share with you the updates about the changes to the podcast and my business, plus I dive in to a conversation around the 4 essentials of launching an online business to achieve a freedom-focused lifestyle.

I give a few insights in to my own my journey as a digital nomad, explore various online work models and provide insights on the 4 attributes needed for success in the online business world. 💻

Whether you're looking to work from anywhere in the world, want to start your own online business, or seeking remote jobs, this episode will guide you in understanding your personal freedom goals and the entrepreneurial mindset required to thrive.

#OnlineBusiness #DigitalNomad #WorkFromAnywhere #RemoteWork #Entrepreneurship #FreedomLifestyle #OnlineJobs #WorkFromHome #Freelancing #Ecommerce #PassiveIncome #OnlineBusinessIdeas #RemoteCEO #DigitalEntrepreneur #VirtualJobs

About The Remote CEO Podcast:

This podcast is for freedom-seeking online entrepreneurs, offering practical, actionable advice to help you step up into your new role as CEO by building an online business that works for you - not one you work for.

Hosted by Sophie Biggerstaff, an online business mentor, e-commerce founder, mental health advocate, and full-time digital nomad. 🙋‍♀️

👆Want to start an online business? Take my quiz to help you get started

👆 Want to achieve more freedom in your life? Find out how you can make it happen in my free masterclass.

👆Need online business advice? Get my best business tips directly in your inbox by signing up to my newsletter

👍 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share to hear more conversations about starting and growing an online business.

🔗 Stay Connected:

📸 Follow me on Instagram

🎥 Follow me on TikTok

🗣️ Connect on LinkedIn

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Sophie (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Remote CEO podcast. I am really excited about this episode because it is the first episode under the new name, the Remote CEO podcast. Previously, this podcast was actually called the Commerce Club podcast and it catered more towards e-commerce business founders because my whole business previously was focused towards catering and serving e-commerce business founders, helping them launch and grow their e-commerce and retail businesses. And...

I've switched things up, it's a new year, we've got a new name for the podcast. My business is changing a lot this year and we are now called the Remote CEO podcast. Now, let me explain a little bit more about why I've had this name change. Obviously for the past almost five years, I have been an e-commerce business consultant. I have been working directly with e-commerce business founders and just general e-commerce and retail businesses, helping them put in practices, strategies.

to help them boost sales, to launch their new products, to get them stocked into retailers. And everything I was doing was centered around Econ. But over the past six months or so, I'd say, I have been shifting my business more towards helping and supporting people who want to live a more freedom focused lifestyle. So like myself, I'm a digital nomad. I've had a business for five years. I live and work remotely from all over the world.

setting up their own online business. So my new purpose is to basically help you as an entrepreneur set up an online business that gives you the freedom to live in whatever way you want. And that might be that you want location freedom, more time freedom, more financial freedom. You might just want a bit more happiness and joy in your life, like waking up excited to do the thing that you're wanting to do every single day. Whatever that looks like, whatever freedom looks like for you, essentially that's what I'm now here to support you with. And I'm in this, in the next.

couple of months, I plan to shift all of my services to be more catered to that. So the name, The Commerce Club, no longer really served a purpose for what this podcast is going to be about because whilst I will still be talking a little bit about e-commerce, so if you are a regular listener, which I know that there are a few of you, there will still be some e-commerce business advice in here because e-commerce does still fall under the world of online business. It just depends on how you set it up as to...

whether it gives you certain levels of freedom, but I will still be focusing on e-commerce, but my shift, my focus will also be a little bit broader. I'll be shifting towards more, also speaking a little bit about services. Like I have set up multiple services within my own businesses. I'll also be talking about digital products and how you can monetize your skills and your existing passions to live a more freedom focused lifestyle. Now, the one question that I get all the time is like, how am I able to live in the way that I live? And like so many people.

when they guess what I do, like, because I don't like the people that knew me back in the day, let's say like people that I knew in my early 20s or in my teenage years, I speak to some of them on Facebook every now and again, they might just randomly drop into my DMs. And they'll be like, Oh, so like you're a yoga teacher. I'm like, what? No, I'm definitely not a yoga teacher. I love yoga, but I'm definitely not a yoga teacher, maybe one day but.

actually no, like what they don't realise is that there is a whole world and opportunity out there to make money online. Like I don't have to travel the world and find a job in every location that I go to. I am making money wherever I am and I can be able to work from wherever I am, obviously given different visas in different places if you are moving locations or whatever. But even if you live in one location and you just want that flexibility to be able to work more from home, not commute into an office.

not have a company dictate your finances, your financial situation. Having more freedom in your life by setting up your own online business is essentially how you get that. That's how I've got here. And I did not believe that that was gonna be possible for me five years ago when I actually first started my business. Like I came from a very corporate role. I was working in fashion. I've worked for Burberry, Kate Spade, Diesel, Ralph Lauren.

None of those businesses in any capacity would let you work from home even. I'm sure that's changed since the pandemic, it's actually left at the beginning of the pandemic. But I always just crave this feeling, this freedom to just live on my own terms. Like I hated the fact that my whole life was being dictated by a company that I wasn't really being rewarded by in the role that I was doing. And that really didn't work for me. And I ended up really resenting what I was doing in my career.

So that's why I made that shift. And I can honestly say now, like on paper, I'm literally living my dream lifestyle. This is exactly how I wanted to live when I set out to do this five years ago. I even bought my flat in London.

to be able to go and live this lifestyle. So I ended up buying my flat about a year before I started my own business. I was still working as a buying manager for Burberry, but I went into that thinking, I am gonna leave this one day. I'm gonna be able to rent it out and then I can go and travel the world and it's like a savings account. So I've set myself up in various different ways to be able to work remotely, but the income that supports me on a day-to-day basis is from my online business. And now I have...

ventured into so many different areas of online business. I have done e-commerce, I have done creative services and online courses, I have sold digital products, I've done memberships, I've had a career coaching company, I've tried it all. I've done Etsy, Vinted, like everything that you could probably try to work online, I have probably tried it. So I have a lot of knowledge to give and essentially this name change to the Remote CEO podcast is reflective of that so that I can start sharing.

more of my life as this remote founder of multiple different online companies and I want to share the knowledge I've made all of the mistakes, I've lost money, I've tried so many different things, I'm not scared of failure like I will just try things and hope for the best. Obviously strategically and I have a strategy at everything I do but sometimes things just don't work out so I want to share that through this podcast and

I want to be able to share that knowledge through everything that I'm doing. I've said it before podcasting is absolutely my favorite way to speak to an audience. I don't love being on social media. I don't think you can fully get the message across that you want to present. So I'm way more into podcasting these days. So the remote CEO podcast is now the way that I'm going to be pushing that out. So in today's episode, I've given you a little background as to why the name of the podcast is changing and like what my new purpose is in.

in my new business ventures. But essentially, when I think about online business, I know that so many people want to venture into the world of online work. And I meet a lot of people, particularly as I am a digital nomad, I meet lots and lots and lots of people on a daily basis when I'm traveling. And so many of them, they fall into three buckets. One, they are a freelancer, and they have taken their existing skill sets from their

jobs that they've been working back in their home countries and they've just taken that online and maybe suggested to the company that they were working for previously can I go freelance can I be a contractor or they've like sussed out their own clients and pushed themselves out there to find clients with the skill that they already have so maybe they were a copywriter in their nine-to-five job

They've literally just pitched, started pitching to people to be their copywriter applying for freelance roles, which is a great way. That's how I started my online business. I started out by freelancing. That is naturally the route that most people take. The second thing that I see people doing is actually remote working for a company. So remote working for a company allows you to basically, most people are working for US companies, I would say, when they're working remotely for a company.

which means they're working on US hours, but they are free to work from wherever they want. Like they're not contracted to one location, but it does still mean you're working usually those office hours, depending on what time zone you're in. And then the third route that I see people go down, which is the route that I've obviously gone down is online businesses and trying to find ways to make income a little bit more passively income that can be scaled. Because obviously if you're working a remote job, if you are working on a freelance basis,

you are still trading time for money. And when you are trading time for money, it is very hard to scale that financial growth. And it just depends on like what your motivation is to find freedom. it's financial, then potentially those two options are not the right ones for you. If you want more financial freedom, online business is more for you. If you want more time freedom, again, remote work isn't probably for you. Freelance may be. So freelance and online business might be a really good option for you if you want more time freedom because

you are in full control over the time you have clients or you have a business that you have to show up for but you can do that in your own time as long as you set those boundaries. Whereas if you're remote working your time is usually still dictated by the company that you're working for so it's not always still the best option for working online if you want time freedom. Whereas if you just want location freedom having a remote job for a company or a freelance project

is fine because you're able to do that from wherever you are. But it really does depend. And going back to what I said, like so many people want to work online, but they don't always know the reasons why they want to work online. They just think, oh, I want to be able to travel and I want to do this. But they don't really think about the fact that whatever they actually choose to do is going to have a direct impact on the situation they put themselves into when they actually become working online. And let's say you go traveling for six months and you are wanting to experience all of the things, but you're tied into a remote

job for a company, you're probably not going to be able to have that time freedom to be able to go and experience all of the things that you want to experience. And I see this a lot with people that I meet, like the people that have the remote jobs and are freelance, they don't have as much flexibility as like the online business owners. Like I could literally take a Monday morning off and just go out on an adventure, for example, because I'm in control of my time. I could maybe make the hours up on Sunday and that would be totally fine because I've only got an answer to myself.

But if you've got a company that you're working for, you're going to have to apply for holiday and take a day off. And then you might lose money because you're a remote worker or a contractor or freelancer. You probably don't have the same rights as you do as somebody that's physically working in the office. So there's a lot of different things to think about if you are wanting to start working online. But I know so many people do want to start working online because they want that freedom. They want the time, the location and financial freedom. It's just about like really honing in on like...

What is your goal? What is your mission from actually wanting to work online? And my whole new business model essentially is going to support people to actually make in that transition, particularly if you have already started like Dublin in freelancing or side projects. My new business is going to basically support you in coming out of that world and make it into a more scalable office. So you can actually have all three of those freedoms, right? So that's where I'm kind of taking this and taking this podcast, taking my business now.

But one thing I wanted to talk about today is the things that if you are thinking about starting an online business, one, I want you to be really clear about like what kind of level of freedom you want to seek. And if you're not sure about what that actually is, I'm actually going to be hosting a free masterclass that's going to be launching at the end of January, which is going to basically talk you through how to figure that out. And then what jobs or which remote online businesses would work really well for your

your freedom goal basically. So make sure you keep a look out for that. I will definitely pop a link in once the masterclass is live. And then two, I also want you to know about if you are wanting to start working online on your own online business, I really do believe there are four things that you need to be able to do that because...

You can have all of these goals, all of these ambitions to start an online business. And I see this so much and particularly for like new entrepreneurs that have never experienced this before. They've come out of a corporate world and I held my hands up. I was this person five years ago. You're naive. You're very naive to like what actually goes into it. And I was very naive going into this and I want to be able to educate people on what actually it takes to be able to run a successful online business, particularly if you are doing it.

as a traveler, as a digital nomad and you're working remotely because it's really hard sometimes. And I don't say that to scare you, but the reality is there are certain attributes that you need as a person to be able to do this. And they're not attributes that you can learn these things, they're all things that you can learn, but you need to be able to apply yourself to these four things.

I strongly believe that you need all four of these to really make something work on the long haul. If you just want something part-time, you're like, I'm just gonna travel in for a year. Maybe you don't need all of these things, but I wanna share with you the four things that I believe you need when it comes to starting an online business. And they are passion, purpose, perseverance, and self-belief. So passion means to have a business.

doing something you absolutely love, something you are super passionate about and you could speak about and talk about all day, every day, because you love it so much. Purpose is your why, so why you're doing what you're doing. So going back to what I just was talking about about those different freedom levels, why do you want that level of freedom? Like what does it mean to you to be able to have that extra few hours in the day? What does it mean to you to have those extra few pounds coming in on your paycheck? What does it mean to you to be able to work remotely from anywhere in the world, for example?

So you need to really understand your purpose, your why, you're doing what you're doing because ultimately that's gonna keep you going to remember like the reason why you're doing it because that will outweigh the situation that you were in before. Perseverance to meet your end goal despite any challenges that might present to you because ultimately like I just said, running an online business is actually very difficult. Running any business is very difficult, let alone when it's online and you're working remotely from different places around the world. So.

Having that perseverance and knowing like your purpose and your passion for something is gonna get you through and the resilience that you've built up through going through different failures, going through different challenges and knowing that it all works out in the end is gonna keep you going. So you need to be perseverant in everything that you do. And then self-belief because you have to understand that it is gonna be possible for you to do this. If you don't believe in yourself, how is anybody else gonna believe in you? So I think a lot of founders fall short and struggle

when it comes to running an online business because they don't have that self-belief. They've got limiting beliefs that hold them back and they talk negatively to themselves and maybe they really beat themselves up about their failures. When you are a business owner, you have to lose the fear of failing because it is going to happen at some way in some point or another. So, you you really do have to have that belief in yourself that you can turn things around to make things work. And if you don't have that, you're very likely to just be able to give up at the first second that something goes wrong. So,

All of those four things I believe you need because of that element of challenge that comes with running an online business. You don't want to do something first of all that you hate, right? Like because you've still got to show up for every single day. If you really wanted to do something you hated, you might as well stay at your nine to five job if that's something that you're trying to get away from. So you don't want to build a business that you don't love doing. So I really do believe that you have to be passionate about what you do because otherwise you're just going to lose interest in it.

You also don't want to do something just for the sake of doing it, right? Like you don't want to just be like, I want to start a non-business because I want to travel like, okay, cool. But like, what does that look like in the long term? Like I'm really all about like making sure that you are doing things for the long run, because ultimately, like I say, starting a business is quite challenging. Why would you just do it for six months and give it all up? Like if you're going to build something, having that purpose, knowing your why and like building towards it gradually and knowing you're getting closer and closer to it is going to be way more.

more rewarding for you than just doing something and giving up in six months. And then sometimes, like I say, it can be so difficult that like you really do have to have that purpose in your mind to be able to persevere through the challenges because otherwise there's no real reason as to why you're doing what you're doing. So having all of those three things are really important because they all work in tandem with each other. And then like I say, self-belief, like so many people...

think they believe in themselves. So many people think they are really happy with what they're doing, but actually deep down, they're maybe having a really negative self talk. They're really critical about everything that they're doing. And possibly they don't actually believe that they can do it. So sometimes you do have to just fake it till you make it. Like I will say for the first couple of years, a hundred percent I was faking it till I made it and a hundred percent I was just trying to.

figure things out as I went along and I would commit to things I didn't actually know how to do and I'd just figure it out because that's what you do. Like part of being an entrepreneur, part of running an online business is just being a little bit scrappy about it and just figuring things out as you go and that's okay. But you do ultimately need that core underlying belief that says I can do this. And that is definitely something you can change about yourself. Like rewriting your limiting beliefs, rewriting your self belief is definitely something that happens and it all happens through your subconscious. I'm not gonna talk into.

that today but I want you to know that even if you're sitting there today being like this isn't something that could be possibly for me but it is something that you want know that you can get to a point where you are feeling confident enough to make it happen for yourself. A big part of that is expansion and understanding that other people already have done it. Now that's another reason why I want to change this podcast name, change my business model because I want to show more people that they can do this. I can meet so many people that are like

I would love to have your lifestyle, but I would never be able to do it. And it's like, well, why? And I understand that everybody's circumstances are different. Everybody has got different privileges for sure. but I do believe that everybody also has.

the ability to make changes for themselves, the power to take their own lives into their own hands. And that is something that I want to show you how to do if that's a circumstance you want to find yourself in. If you're sitting there being like, I love my nine to five though, I don't want to leave it. I don't want to leave the comfort. I'm quite feel like I've got love freedom. That's great. This just isn't for you. Like I'm really speaking to those people that are in that nine to five life or living that white picket fence lifestyle. And they're like, I want to break free from this. I see that there's more out there.

My everything I'm doing in my business and my podcast and the content that I'm going to be putting out there is essentially to inspire you, to expand you, to show you what is potentially possible. But what I would like to just caveat that is you need to remember those four things I've just said, passion, purpose, perseverance and self belief, because I really do believe without at least three out of all four of those, you are going to really struggle to make something work in the long run. So remember that, write those down.

and keep coming back to those if you do want to venture into the world of online business because it is gonna really help you to put those at the forefront of your mind. So, they were the main things that I of wanted to share with you today. Like my new why, the reason why you've now noticed that the podcast has shifted from the Commerce Club to the Remote CEO podcast. Essentially, I am a Remote CEO. I have multiple online businesses that I run from anywhere in the world. So this name felt a little bit more fitting.

I have definitely built those four things over the past five years. So passion for what I do, I've realised that you need the passion because I've just ventured into things that I wasn't passionate about and I didn't carry them through. I didn't see them through because I got bored. I was like, this isn't for me. The purpose, I've always had a really strong purpose. I've always known why I was doing this. Like I always knew the lifestyle that I wanted to achieve. And for me, having that lifestyle is more important than anything because I understand that my...

lifestyle really impacts directly my physical and my mental health. And for me, that is my top priority in life is maintaining my mental health. Because without that, I don't have anything else really. having that purpose and knowing why I'm doing certain things is keeping me going. Like even when it is hard, it's helping me persevere. And I've had to really work on my self belief over the past few years, particularly.

and I've had to rewrite a lot of neuro pathways through subconscious meditation, through subconscious work. And I will say I'm at a point right now where I really do feel very strongly that I can do all of the things that I want to do.

And that wasn't the case. Even like if you asked me that a year ago, I still felt a little bit unsure sometimes of what I was doing and imposter syndrome was still creeping. And imposter syndrome is a completely natural and normal thing to go through when you are starting a business or starting anything new to be honest, because you're a beginner at something. You're not bad at it, you're just a beginner. You're learning as you go. And I've had to really shift my mindset to think like that rather than think, I can't do some crap at this. It's not working, da, da, da, da, da. I've had to really think.

I'm a beginner, I can learn, I can make this happen for myself. And the more that you start seeing things, the results of your efforts and the things that you're doing and you start tracking the things, the little wins in the good every single day, that self belief starts to build. So I want to assure you that you can make all of these things happen for you, even if it doesn't feel possible right now. So

If you want a little bit more inspiration on all of this and you want to expand yourself further, make sure you hit subscribe and you start listening to this podcast every week because I will be sharing my own personal experiences. I'll also be having more guests on like I have had previously to work through different scenarios that occur in online business to help support you in yours. And yeah, I will be also like I say, venturing into.

new online courses, new services. I'm going to be hosting a masterclass, like I said, at the end of January about how to really figure out what you can do online. And that goes back into figuring out your purpose, figuring out your transferable skills and the passions that you can bring into your online business. So make sure you are staying tuned for that. Thank you for joining me today for the first episode back in 2025. I am so excited for this year. I had a really difficult year last year in 2024. So I am so excited to just like...

rewrite a lot of things and make big shifts in 2025. So hopefully I can take you along with me. And if you want to start your online business in 2025, there is no better time than the present moment. stay tuned and I will see you very soon.