From Radio Producer to Founder: How Willa Kammerer Built Firestarter Around Identity & Delegation

Willa Kammerer: I've got a big vision for it and it really feels like a community, a movement. what we do is really helping people bring their own visions and dreams in their life to life

Ryan Bulpitt: Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Ryan Bulbert from Cherry Assistant. I'll be hosting today's episode of Behind the Founders. And with us today we've got my lovely guest Willa Kamara. so Willa, if you don't mind just introducing yourself and then we'll take it from there.

Willa Kammerer: Sure, yeah. My name is Willa Kammer. I've been an entrepreneur my whole career of more than seventeen years. I lead the company Firestarter and I'm so happy to be here with you today, Ryan. Thanks so much.

Ryan Bulpitt: Thank you so much for your time. So yeah, you know, I took a look at your LinkedIn profile. Very interesting stuff with the way Firestarter evolved. so if you don't mind just telling us how things how that started, you know, your kind of from the jump, how you decided this is what you want to do and how it changed over the past few years into what it is now.

Willa Kammerer: Sure, great. So right after college, I decided, you know what, I want to be a public radio producer. I want to work in public radio. So I started exploring that space and I started freelancing. And, you know, one thing led to another. I said, you know what? If now is the time that I'm gonna give this a shot. So I started freelancing, got a job waitressing, and one thing led to another. And pretty quickly that freelance public radio career evolved into freelance video and film production. this was back in like 2009, 2010. So kind of like the earlier days of the internet. And I did everything myself

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. Nice thing to say.

Willa Kammerer: for the first few years. Yeah, exactly. And that was great. I learned a lot just by doing, by working with clients and running everything myself. But I realized I was just always gonna be kind of capped at the level of kind of quality, scale, and impact if I continued doing everything myself. So that's when I started building more of a team around me, just you know, initially hiring people. kind of project based, you know, for the things that I felt like I was less good at. So I kind of became manager of moving parts, you know, and working with a team of collaborators. And that I formalized into my company today, Firestarter. so for the first, I would say two thirds of our run as a business, we were really focused. We've always been focused in the brand space, but it was more big brands, kind of institutional brands, so much more B2B. So working with Colleges, universities like Harvard, and some other, you know, big names and global brands and foundations. and then a few years ago, about four years ago, you know, obviously there was COVID. I became a mom, I became a single mom. And the business I had built was really strong. It was going well. and I was proud of the work that we were doing. It was, you know, working on high-impact projects for a lot of good causes with a lot of great clients. But I felt like I had this just next level of personal leadership that I was meant to step into, just more of my own voice and impact that I want to bring into my work. And so that led me to really throw myself deeply into the personal brand space, which is where we're immersed today, you know, both my journey, you know, building my own personal brand and then applying everything that I've learned along the way to how we support clients today doing the same at Firestarter.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, amazing. well first off, congrats on being a mom and making it through COVID and everything. I know a lot of businesses

Willa Kammerer: Exactly. We all did. We're all here we're all here to talk about it.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, I know a lot of businesses took a really big hit during that, like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty period, so really great job on just surviving and thriving through that. You know, that's no easy achievement. for the listeners who aren't clued up, would you mind just giving them a small breakdown just of what Firestarter actually is, like what you guys really focus on? Like for for the lame

Willa Kammerer: Yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: years, you know?

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, sure. So Firestarter today really focuses on helping individuals and you know, companies, teams, anyone building a a personal brand really. So someone who has an expertise, an impact that they're looking to make, and really building a brand around that. And when I think of brand, it's like the whole digital foundation. and that is, you know, the visuals, the messaging. and then also the systems that run that. And I think that that is our differentiator in how we think of brand is it's not just, you know, the colors and the logos and the messaging and the aesthetics. It's like the whole foundation and the whole tech foundation of that. And for us, it's it's the alignment between the Tech Foundation and also like the brand as it's expressed. So that was not a simple way of explaining it, but the way I'll break it down is that Firestarter today, you know, works on both sides of brands. So the tech foundation, we have a high-level, go high-level white label platform, Firestarter Funnels, where we have a community of over 130 entrepreneurs building their businesses on our platform. So kind of like running the back-end tech of their platform as well as, you know, the front end funnels, websites, all of that. and so we have, you know, people who are doing it themselves with a lot of support that we have as part of that. And then we're also, you know, we hands on help people build websites, build funnels and do all their branding.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, nice. So a lot boutique support as well for like clients who can't really run it on their own. Okay.

Willa Kammerer: Yes. Exactly. And I think that's where, you know, a lot of people get stuck. It's it's a lot. You know, a lot of people start out, I wanna create an online business because, you know, I wanna coach around fitness or, you know, my passion for this or my passion for that, but it's not because they wanted to master marketing and branding and tech. and just figuring out how to navigate that. in my own journey of trying to figure out the online space, I just found like that was such a barrier for myself and for other people I've seen along the journey. So we really reverse engineered everything that we do at Firestarter to help solve that, to be really that implementation layer where we see a lot of people getting tripped up.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. So like bridging the gap where tech is kind of the issue for a lot of people 'cause it's all a different mindset and skill

Willa Kammerer: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Bulpitt: set you need for marketing. So you guys kinda wanna bridge that for those people who can't reach that.

Willa Kammerer: Exactly. So that they can focus on the work that only they can do.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, nice. And you mentioned, you know, the way you guys look at branding. It's not just colours, it's not just the messages. So to you like personal branding, it's more than just a corporate identity document. It's more than

Willa Kammerer: Absolutely. To me, brand really starts at identity, especially when you're building a personal brand. Always like I believe that everyone is uniquely meant to build in their own way. And that's really where we step into our most power as a brand and just able to influence, able to pull people towards us to be part of who we are and what we're creating. so at Firestarter, yeah, we don't, you know, think of it as just colors, logo. We really start with who you uniquely are and how you're uniquely meant to build. So identity goes into brand, brand then gets expressed across, you know, the whole foundation. We actually have a pretty cool we call it our authority map. So it's an assessment that helps really kind of cut deeply to helping both us and the people that we work with understand who they are and how they are uniquely meant to bend build. My authoritimap.com if any wants to check it out.

Ryan Bulpitt: actually just gonna ask if you don't mind just expanding that sounds really like interesting. I haven't heard of that kinda set up before

Willa Kammerer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, in our in our work, so we work you know, closely with our clients in our kind of like higher level engagements, just really trying to kind of tease out through long coaching sessions, okay, you know, so understanding who they are and how they're different and how to kind of express that as part of a brand. and that's great, but it's not accessible for everyone. And so I've always found different personality assessments and perspectives on who we are as just a really interesting and useful lens for deeper self-understanding. And so what we did was take the Enneagram assessment, which is a really powerful, just kind of like identity assessment, very well respected, you know, in the in the world. We took that and combined it with bank code, which is another just Very powerful assessment, especially as it relates to how you show up in the marketplace, how you connect with other people, influence other people, combine that with our business and brand building methodology. And so what you get back is this, you take those assessments along with human design as an optional layer as well, and we put it through our, you know. Nifty Difty AI tool, which I custom developed. AI is obviously a whole nother topic. It's a, you know, wild time with A AI, but a very cool time, you know, as an entrepreneur, as a builder for anyone who is looking to bring something to life in the world. and so what, you know, comes out is this just really powerful 45 page report that kind of speaks to the heart of who you uniquely are, how you're uniquely meant to build based on these you know, robust and respected assessments. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: Assessment. Yeah. Wow. So it gives like a full breakdown, not just a quick little you're an A type personality, like forty five pages of this you

Willa Kammerer: Exactly. So and and I think the special thing about it is it's specifically, specifically speaks to building a business and building a brand. So you know, it takes the the Enneagram, which you could just read about yourself, but it's like, okay, so what does this mean for how you're meant to build? You know, what type

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Willa Kammerer: of business model is a best fit for you? You know, for someone it might be, you know, one on one coaching for other people, like leading like big group experiences, being in the room, being on stages. for other people, they're more kind of like behind the scenes, you know, maybe having like an

Ryan Bulpitt: Back day then. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Willa Kammerer: evergreen, you know, digital course. then, you know, kind of like suggested brand colors, tone, voice, all of this. So it's super fun to kind of create the whole framework for it. And it's and we've

Ryan Bulpitt: yeah.

Willa Kammerer: found it's just really spot on, you know, with our clients. And it's never like, this is absolutely like you have to follow every word of this. It's more just like

Ryan Bulpitt: Just a guideline.

Willa Kammerer: A useful reflection tool, exactly.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, nice. So it's like this person's more introverted, they're gonna wanna run the thing from the back end of the scene. They don't wanna be shouting out loud what's going on here. Okay, wow. I'm gonna have to actually take a look at that 'cause that's really interesting.

Willa Kammerer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got no, you've got to so so I'm a luminous catalyst, but we've got, you know, refining architects and there's thirty-six types. Yeah,

Ryan Bulpitt: I love the titles. Loving these titles.

Willa Kammerer: exactly, exactly. So we kind of created our own our own versions of of each of the assessments. Yes, exactly.

Ryan Bulpitt: Your own like personality spectrum kind of

Willa Kammerer: Yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: So that's that's really cool. I'm definitely gonna take a look. and you actually mentioned

Willa Kammerer: Awesome.

Ryan Bulpitt: something I wanted to touch on later. this custom made AI tool that you've got, 'cause like you say, crazy

Willa Kammerer: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Bulpitt: time right now in the tech space. it's

Willa Kammerer: Yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: mo it insanely accessible for anyone. Like anyone can open up Claude, Gemini, Chat GPT and all that. So I actually wanted to ask, what kind of what kind of tool is this that you guys have? Who decided to implement it? How did you guys implement it? What does it do for you?

Willa Kammerer: Yeah. So yeah,

Ryan Bulpitt: 'Cause that's really that's really the topic right there.

Willa Kammerer: so I think one of the, you know, kind of biggest things that happened to me this year was I always think it's so powerful to be in rooms where people challenge you and expose you to different things. So as I was at a mastermind event, I think it was back in April, maybe March or April in California and someone who was part of the group was just presenting on how he was using AI in his business and know I'd been playing around, of course we all started on Chat GBT and then I had moved over to Claude, but I'd mostly I'd begun to experiment a little bit with cowork, but I was had mostly stayed kind of in chat and a little bit of cowork experimentation. But he just encouraged everyone to just, you know, take take hold of the reins and just not be afraid of Claude Code. and I really just took that as a permission slip to just, you know, open it up and start, you know, taking my ideas, bringing them there and you know, seeing what I could build. So I'd had this idea. I think I'd already started working on it. I'd had this idea for kind of creating this report, combining these methodologies. I actually know Sherry Tree, who's the founder of Bank Code, and you know, we'd been talking about different ways to collaborate. So I had been cooking on this, but I think his permission to just really go all in on Claude Code and just start building things really was what I needed. And so I first use that to develop the report format, but then I wanted it to be scalable and wanted it to be something there we didn't have to kind of go and customize, you know, hand create the report every time because I wanted to make it, you know, accessible to

Ryan Bulpitt: Every single time. Yeah.

Willa Kammerer: more people, right? So you know, I I spent a lot of time kind of getting the report framework right. But what happens is, you know, people take the assessments that gets emailed to our team, goes into our system. And then actually my assistant Fly, who's amazing, she just can upload the reports and it creates so I created a kind of front facing tool, you know, that she has access to. so she's not in my claw, it's like a deployed tool. so she can upload the reports and it's all branded and stylized as ours. And then it she can download the report and send it out to people. And this can all happen like in the space of, you know, 15 minutes after they submit their results. So it's pretty amazing.

Ryan Bulpitt: Of the long step.

Willa Kammerer: and the cool thing is, you know, it's standardized to the sense that like it's automated the creation of it based on their individual results, but the Enneagram alone, you might be a type seven, but there's all the kind of like wings and subtypes under that. So there's really almost

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Willa Kammerer: infinite possibilities for, you know, how of how the different kind of assessments can can pair

Ryan Bulpitt: All the categories and stuff.

Willa Kammerer: exactly. So it really is truly custom.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I'm definitely gonna take a look because I mean, you said what about thirty-two different kind of titles? That's mathematically that's more than thousands.

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, thirty thirty s thirty six, which even if you like compare yeah, exactly. So it's pretty cool. Yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: That is an insane amount of customization. no, that's that's crazy. I really want to take a look at that.

Willa Kammerer: Yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: and then I know you mentioned you at the start when you opened up about what Firestarter is, you mentioned employing people on like project based, like the things that you weren't too great at. what kind of things were those? The things that you don't really enjoy like doing in this space?

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, well I would say my first, you know, hire or the first thing that I hired out was prior to really starting to kind of formalize into more of a company. It was when I was early days of being a, you know, radio producer. And the way that you would what you would do is you would interview someone and then the standard way that I was taught was then you had to would have to go transcribe that interview. So literally sit down for two hours and type out the interview. This is long

Ryan Bulpitt: yeah.

Willa Kammerer: before AI transcripts. And I just even I had very little money, but it's still just struck me as a very poor use of my time. And so that was the very, very first thing that I delegated and hired out for. and then it just grew from there. So when we were more focused, you know, as I was, I was evolving into, you know, from freelancer into team and business, you know, we were really immersed in the production space. And so, you know, it was starting to, instead of doing all the editing myself, it was starting to work with, editors. It was instead of doing all the filming myself, it was hiring a cinematographer because I was never gonna be the best cinematographer, the best editor. I loved doing all of it and I was interested in it, but I just knew I was it wasn't kind of on my heart, kind of my thing that I was most passionate about, or frankly that as skilled at to be like

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, wasn't like a thing that maybe the yeah.

Willa Kammerer: the ex the master of my craft at, right? But I knew that there were people who I had so much respect

Ryan Bulpitt: Who like love and breathe.

Willa Kammerer: exactly. and so I started, you know, bringing those people on, you know, based on, you know, based on projects. And then I know you work, you know, in the kind of staffing and support space. And and I think the next key milestone for me was going from just hiring people project to project to actually bringing someone on really internally to be alongside me day to day in my operations. Daniela, my my who joined me as a virtual assistant, I think 2000, it's been more than five years. She's still with me. she's our longest Firestarter team member. But yeah, she she joined and yeah, to kind of be alongside me in the trenches of the business. So that was the next key hire.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay. And how was that experience for you? I know you said virtual assistant, so how is that as opposed to, you know, my teammates sitting next to me? 'cause also that's that's not something that's

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, exactly. It was kind of funny how it happened. Yeah, because it was let's see. I mean, it was it was mid-COVID and I knew I was becoming a mom and I got this cold message on LinkedIn like, Hey, have you ever thought of, you know, hiring a virtual assistant? Like, it's funny because I actually have. It's been on my to-do list. So I was like, let's have a conversation. So I ended up hiring,

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. I think an algorithm works.

Willa Kammerer: yeah, her at the time through the through a staffing company. ended up, you know, working with her directly a a couple of years after that. But I just knew that I was gonna have a baby and I needed to keep the business going. and I wasn't gonna be able to do it all myself. And so I think letting go of some of those things initially can be really hard, like how to initially start delegating things. but it's one of the most, you know, high impact places that you can focus is to, you know, start to kind of assess where are those things that I can let go and hand off and get help. And then once you

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Willa Kammerer: have someone doing those things, it just the relationship becomes so natural. So it's it can feel like really hard initially, but I think to kind of force yourself to do that is

Ryan Bulpitt: To take that step.

Willa Kammerer: i exactly

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay. And what were those things that initially you were like, I still want to do this, I don't want to pass this off just yet? What was like the toughest for you to let go of to Daniela?

Willa Kammerer: Yeah. I mean, I think the easier things were things like calendar, scheduling, things like that. you know, she got into my inbox pretty early. I'm still th fairly in my inbox in the sense that, you know, most emails still come from me and things like that. But I think the harder things

Ryan Bulpitt: Nothing wrong with me.

Willa Kammerer: were yeah. I think the harder things were more of like the creative work, you know, the kind of client facing creative work that it just felt like. were the things that only I could do. But ultimately a little bit after, you know, bringing Danielle in, that kind of built my muscle of delegation. And I was able to bring in another team member shortly after that to start to take on, you know, some of those more client facing like the core work of the business again, because there's nothing like having it be a little bit forced by knowing that I needed to have the business continue, but I also was becoming a mom. So that was one of the best things probably that could have happened in terms of creating an inflection point for the business to just begin to build a lot more support around me.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. Just to expand further. And how would how big is your team now? 'Cause I know Daniela and then this next person who took on the client facing, how strong are you guys now in terms of your numbers?

Willa Kammerer: Yeah. We always fluctuate a little bit, but in the past year we've we've like three Forex to the size of our team. So we're now about fifteen across the world. Yeah. So, you know, we've got team members across the US, and also, you know, across the world we've got some team members in Pakistan, in the Philippines. So, but on a day to day basis, you know, collaborating in our Slack, it's about fifteen of us.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, amazing. And your support members from Pakistan and the Philippines, are they also like through staffing agencies and virtual assistant type setups? Is that how you got hold of them?

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, so we've actually our Philippines team members, we I think the first person we hired, we actually just celebrated her year anniversary, Fly, who actually took

Ryan Bulpitt: Nice.

Willa Kammerer: on Daniela's kind of took over Daniela's you know, kind of virtual assistant, my executive assistant role.

Ryan Bulpitt: Like the initial stuff. Yeah.

Willa Kammerer: Yep. Firestarter is on a fire line here in Connecticut. So I apologize for the fire truck going by my office here. It's at least sort of on brand.

Ryan Bulpitt: No worries at all. It's nice nice.

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, yeah. So we we explored different pathways but ended up just going on, I think it's online jobs.ph and hiring our Philippines-based team members there. We've also had great success with Upwork over the years. So quite a few of the, you know, people who work on our team are through Upwork as well. And I think

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, nice.

Willa Kammerer: my goal, you know, in hiring people has always been a lot of people, you know, are set up as contractors, but we really build long-term relationships. and so you know, even if technically someone's a contractor, it's like we work together as if we

Ryan Bulpitt: Keep them for a while.

Willa Kammerer: are an ongoing, you know, cohesive team.

Ryan Bulpitt: Like a full time in office kind of thing almost.

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: Got it. And are you still looking to grow even further? I mean, I know that's usually the goal with businesses, like we want to get bigger and bigger. So what's kind of the next steps for Firestarter? Where do you guys where are you guys going next? What's the next big thing? 'Cause I know the big change was

Willa Kammerer: For sure, yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: to be interpersonal, which is a massive shift. So what's the next what's

Willa Kammerer: Yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: the next shift if there's one coming?

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, it's been I mean it's there was a lot of building behind the scenes to in the past few years to reach where we are today. And about a year ago, a little over a year ago, things really reached an inflection point and all of that building started actually like the thing that we were working on, you know, started to actually grow and take off and not just be

Ryan Bulpitt: You like it?

Willa Kammerer: something that we were trying, right? and so it's been, you know, a year of really big growth for us in the new part of the business. And I'm just really excited to keep growing it. we went, you know, in this past year we went from three clients on our Firestarter Funnels platform to over 130 clients. So it's just been, you know,

Ryan Bulpitt: Make up pick.

Willa Kammerer: this journey of yeah, building up, you know, all of the support around that and not doing everything perfectly along the way, but just being really committed to learning, doing better, you know, as we grow. So you know, I think the first chapter of the business, I'm proud of it. but it wasn't ever something that I felt deeply called to scale. I was always I thought about it, you know, and I would kind of surround myself in business growth rooms, but it just wasn't something I was just really excited to kind of grow really big. But this just feels I've got a big vision for it and it really feels like more of a community, a movement. and so there's kind of no limit to how I really want to grow it, because I I see it also

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Willa Kammerer: as the the rip ripple effects of it because you know what we do is really helping people bring their own visions and dreams in their life to life to life. So I just wanna have the ripple effects of, you know, more impact.

Ryan Bulpitt: It's like you're building a community and not like a business. Like these are my

Willa Kammerer: Yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: people. Like all of these clients, they're part of my my group.

Willa Kammerer: Yes, yeah. And people really do, you know, identify as firestarters, which has always been, you know, part of my vision for the brand from the beginning. it's actually a little bit of a funny story when I came up with the name Firestarter, when I was evolving from the freelance career into more of a business and a team. I didn't have a business plan. I actually wrote a manifesto. I came up with the name Firestarter Interactive and I just, you know, wrote a manifesto on a big notebook piece of paper with a

Ryan Bulpitt: Mindful kind of thing.

Willa Kammerer: permanent markers. Yeah. Like this is what we stand for. This is what we're all about. This is my vision. This is how I want it to feel. This is what I want to work with. This is the team. This is what we stand for. And all of it still really rings through today. So I think that's back to the kind of like brand and identity. I think I really just believe in the power of starting with that foundation of the identity, the vision for it, and then building everything from there.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. So you've kept the core values from like day zero basically up until now.

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: And obviously with you know, expansion and natural growth there comes constraints. I mean, you mentioned not doing things perfectly as well. That's every business ever. but what to use, something that you guys definitely notice could be improved on, whether it's with the right tool or the right team member, like where do you guys think, okay, I can actually make this better, I can fix this.

Willa Kammerer: Well, I think we're really looking at our production right now and it's such a dynamic time with AI and I'm spending a lot of time thinking about how we can accelerate results for our clients. So, you know, when we were doing more manual building, you know, on high level, building everything out manually, there's just a lot of steps, you know, in that process. But what can be done now with design and deploying things quickly at a really high level with code is just really exciting. And so we're really kind of like pushing the edge of how can we get our clients launched faster, but also in a way that is even higher quality. So I'm really excited about kind of pushing the envelope with that and just figuring out, you know, kind of seamless processes around it.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. So it's still ringing back to what you mentioned about what branding is to you. It's the tech foundation. You're still pushing that even now with

Willa Kammerer: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: big bubble we in now. So that still rings true for you.

Willa Kammerer: 'Cause it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to, you know, build a brand in a business. And so, you know, helping

Ryan Bulpitt: Sure.

Willa Kammerer: take take some of that off of people's plates because there's a lot of great coaching out there, but at the end of the day, you know, someone's hands need to, you know, do the things of the business. So that's where we really try to come in.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. So yes, you're really trying to just automate that, keep pushing the tech foundation like you mentioned.

Willa Kammerer: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, awesome. Well, that's amazing. Well, I thank you so much for you know, sharing us your guys' story, what you're looking for next. this is a little bit kind of off the beaten path. Well, not in podcasts, but for this podcast. But to end off, I just wanted to know if there's something that you could say to any other people that might be where you were back before COVID. So trying to get your feet off the ground, trying to build your brand, build your business. 'Cause it's a big it's a big risk. It's scary out there, you know, without like job security and stuff when you're doing it for yourself, it's kind of scary. Is there anything you would tell people who are trying to get to that next stage on how to get your business out there? Is there any kind of quote or piece of advice you

Willa Kammerer: Sure, yeah. Yeah, I'll give like two quick thoughts that kind of relate to each other. First thing, I just am such a believer in like action creating clarity so we can kind of feel like, I just have to kind of have the perfect plan or, you know, figure it all out before I jump into the arena. But I'm such a believer in jumping into the arena and figuring it out as you go and that we get clarity and learn. 10 times faster when we're actually doing the thing and like figuring out where we fit in and what we're building by actually doing. So that's kind of piece one. Piece two, kind of like back to the just like tactical of how do I actually build a business that costs money? You know, you really have to kind of like invest in things as you're growing. For me, I think knowing that I could cover my expenses very early on, you know, waitressing for the first year, that gave me the freedom to. Just get my feet under me and figure out what I was doing and put myself out there. So not, you know, putting all the pressure on yourself immediately when you have this idea to just like have it be monetized a hundred percent and supporting you out of the gate. I think the flip side of that is, you know, if you are in a full-time job and supported in that way, knowing also when you do need to make that leap and just kind of commit to it and not having that be always the excuse standing between you and really going all in on. the thing that you're here to build. So that's what I would say.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay, thank you so much for that. So there you heard it folks. Take action and have a little bit of backup so that you don't completely go all in on making your money first off. thank you so much for your time, Willa. It's been an absolute pleasure and yeah, we'll be chatting to you soon on you know, getting you your clips and everything from this. But thank you so much for your time.

Willa Kammerer: Awesome. Thank you, Ryan. Such a pleasure. Take care.