746 Ellie Diop:

So, if you’re a regular listener of this podcast or you’ve lived the ups and downs of entrepreneurship like me and all 746 of my female founder guests so far, you’ll recognize in your bones what my guest today Ellie Diop (Jope) just said about constant pivots and learning to get comfortable outside of our comfort zones if we want to build successful businesses. Today Ellie shares how that credo and a $1200 stimulus check helped her build a multimillion-dollar business in just one year.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Podopolo, the interactive podcasting app and creator marketplace. Inviting you, wherever you are listening to this, to take a moment and download the free Podopolo. Follow Wings of Inspired Business there and join the Wings community so we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who used her $1,200 stimulus check to build a multi-million dollar online coaching business in one year. Yep, 10X returns in 1 year. So you won’t want to miss how Ellie Diop (Jope) accomplished that as the founder of the Founder of Ellie Talks Money & Ellievated Academy.

How far could you make $1200 go to build a profitable and growing business? It’s not a lot of money, and for a software and tech founder like me, having to invest millions to build an app like Podopolo, it seems like a tiny drop in the ocean.

Yet Ellie Diop (Jope) is walking talking proof that even a little bit of money can get you to a place that unlocks many millions more. She’s a business strategist, author, and transformational speaker and after losing her corporate job during the pandemic, Ellie used her $1,200 stimulus check to build a multi-million dollar online coaching business in one year. She’s the Founder of Ellie Talks Money & Ellievated Academy.

Ellie says entrepreneurship has changed her wealth trajectory, and she wants to help other women experience the freedom that starting her business has provided her. She is committed to assisting women to overcome their circumstances to build successful businesses so they can live the life of their dreams.

Also a mother of four, Ellie has built an online community of close to 350,000 people and educated almost 60,000 students through her business coaching and online curriculum. Her success story and advice has been featured in Bloomberg, Newsweek, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Black Enterprise, and many more.

So let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Ellie Diop,

and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ellie, welcome to Wings.

Ellie Diop:

Hello. Thank you so much. I am so excited and I’m ready to fly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, yes, and hats off to you for taking your stimulus check and creating a multimillion dollar business. That’s amazing.

Ellie Diop:

Thank you so much.

Melinda Wittstock:

What was the check again? It was a stimulus check at like $1,200 or something?

Ellie Diop:

Yep. $1,200, exactly. And 10 months later I turned it to 1.2 million, so very exciting.

Melinda Wittstock:

So I’m just going to start with a very simple question. How?

Ellie Diop:

Yes, right. Diving right in. No, it’s such a good question too, and I always want to make sure I dive into the how, so people know that it’s real. So I started my own coaching and consulting business. So a little bit of a backstory, I have worked in finance and as director of sales since graduating college in 2014. So I had a lot of great work experience. I knew a lot about sales and marketing and business funding, because I worked at American Express and then I worked at a startup. But after I was laid off in late 2019, I was applying to several jobs, over 50 jobs actually, and I wasn’t getting hired. I don’t know what was going on, but I just wasn’t getting hired, even despite my experience. So, to me, that was a sign.

Now granted, during the time I started my business, there was also so much going on. I had just gotten a divorce at the beginning of 2020, which then I had to move back to my mother’s house. I’m a mother, myself, of four children and my twins, who are my youngest two, were eight months at the time. Maybe eight or nine months at the time. So not only was I unemployed, but also just got a divorce. Now back in my mom’s house, trying to figure out what I’m going to do and no one’s hiring me. So it was just like, “Okay, where’s the break here?” So I took it as a sign. “Okay, if I’m not getting hired, there’s got to be something else I can do. Because, ultimately, these kids, these are my children, I have to provide for them.”

So I started my coaching and consulting business based off of the knowledge I had already gained through my work experience. And I did market research and figured and found, actually, that a lot of women-owned businesses, and particularly black owned businesses and women of color, struggled to get funding. And as a result, they struggle to scale. And I decided that I was going to create content through Instagram, which has been my number one platform up to now, educating business owners on how they can get funding, how they can scale, how they can make more sales, things I learned about and I created digital products around these. So courses, eBooks, and those literally scaled me up to a million dollars in under a year.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, of course, you had all this experience. You mentioned that you’d worked at a startup and also American Express. So you could take those skills that you’d gotten in the startup world and incorporate and immediately apply them. What did you find that was different, though, in terms of how you applied them in your own business? Was there any difference?

Ellie Diop:

I would definitely say that it’s interesting when you are working a job and you understand these concepts from outside of yourself and then when you’re doing them in your own business, it’s like, “What?” It feels very different. But what I realized is I had to break those things down into much simpler, actionable items, because when it’s your own business and as well with me coaching other small businesses who are in year one or year two, they may not be able to make some of the same decisions or move as quickly as businesses that are in year 5 or year 10, or American Express’ case, year 100. So it became really important to me to make the action items accessible, achievable. And instead of helping businesses immediately scale from $0 in funding to 200,000, it was “Okay, here’s how you get from 0 to 10,000. Great. Now here’s how you get from 10,000 to 50,000. Great. Now here’s how we go from 50,000 to 100,000.” And really taking my audience on a journey to levels of scaling their business, which has been really great throughout this time.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s interesting what you mentioned about the stages, because they are very different stages. And so what you’re doing at 0 to 10,000 is different from 10 to 100,000, and it’s different from 100,000 to, I don’t know, a million.

Ellie Diop:

Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Melinda Wittstock:

[inaudible 00:05:10]. Different again at 10 million. I’ve found that in my own entrepreneurial journey. It just requires different skills. So it’s kind of means that as an entrepreneur you have to get continually comfortable outside of your comfort zone.

Ellie Diop:

Big yes. I can tell you, every day it’s a new thing. And I always tell my audience and my students, I always tell them, “Never get comfortable, because what worked yesterday may not work today and what’s working today may not work tomorrow. And it doesn’t mean that it’s a reflection upon your entrepreneurial skill, but entrepreneurship is a constant pivot. Life, really, is a constant pivot and you always have to be looking at, “Okay, this process doesn’t seem to be getting me the result that I want. So how can I adapt or change this process a little bit to get a different result?” And that’s a daily thing. The way I’m operating my business now, two years in, is completely different than how I was operating two years ago. And two years is such a short period of time, but it happens quickly when you’re in the thick of building a business.

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s something about entrepreneurship when I think people read about it and they romanticize about it, “Look, I’m going to be in control of everything, because I’m going to be my own boss.” And the first statement is so incorrect. You’re not in control. You’re in control of yourself and your mindset. How you choose to accept or not the continual change and all the inevitable failures. And I like to think of those failures as learning experiences. So with all your expertise, Ellie, as you came into this, what were some of the mistakes or things that you might regard as a failure or something that you got wrong at the time? Because everybody has those. I [inaudible 00:07:10].

Ellie Diop:

Oh yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

So what were some of yours and how did you get around it, past it, over it, through it, et cetera?

Ellie Diop:

Yes, definitely. I would say one of my biggest mistakes was not hiring soon enough. And you might be able to relate to this, but as entrepreneurs, we have this, “I can do it myself forever” mentality. And the business is almost like our baby. We’re so used to just being the one to do every single job. We’re customer service. We’re fulfillment. We’re tech. We are fixing stuff. And I realized after I had made my first seven figures that if I had just outsourced even one hire, like a customer service person, which should have been much sooner, but that did end up being my first hire. I could have removed myself from working so much in my business and instead started to focus on working on my business, “What is needed now to scale. Okay, I’ve hit or I’m about to hit this seven figures, how can I diversify? How can I create more products?”

But I couldn’t get to that point yet, because I was still staying up at all hours of the night responding to emails and helping people do this and that. So that was definitely one of my biggest mistakes. And now I tell my audience all the time, “As soon as you can afford it without it breaking the bank, outsource, even if it’s just 10 hours a week. Get someone on board who can help you with certain task.” I would say my second mistake probably was not investing in a coach or a mentor a bit sooner. I’ve learned so much now, but also 2021 was the first year I joined masterminds and mentorship groups and hired a coach. And I’ve learned so much because of that and I’ve also made so much more money because of that. So I often think even when I had made my first 10K or first 20k, if I would’ve reinvested even just a portion of that to get on the phone with someone who is doing this and making a ton of money, even if it was just for an hour, that could have significantly increased my bottom line.

And I think as entrepreneurs we get used to, like I said, doing everything on our own so much that we don’t ask for help sooner. And so that was definitely my mistake.

Melinda Wittstock:

Those two things that you just said about not hiring earlier enough or not asking for help in the context of coaches, masterminds, mentors. I have not heard one woman on this podcast, some 750 episodes in, not having had made those mistakes. We keep doing this and it’s funny and I wonder if women are more prone to those than men in entrepreneurship, because men tend to be much more easily able to delegate or ask for help without any shame around it. They’re not trying to prove anything, they’re just kind like, “Hey I need help. Dude, what are you doing?” Right?

Ellie Diop:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s no friction around that. Whereas, I think as women, probably because we’re relatively new to this in historical terms. We think we have to prove everything. So we end up doing the equivalent, like my mom used to, of cleaning the house before the housekeeper came. So it’s kind of like a perfectionism thing or something. We think we have to know it all. And it’s impossible to know it all as an entrepreneur, you got to go in and assume that most of the stuff you don’t know and you just have to be curious and you have to be open to learning and each one of these things is a mistake and also be kind to ourselves, right?

Ellie Diop:

So true.

Melinda Wittstock:

So with all these experiences you’ve been going through, you’re helping other women avoid making the mistake that all women make, like hire early?

Ellie Diop:

Yes, hire early.

Melinda Wittstock:

Get a coach.

Ellie Diop:

Get a coach. I focus a lot as well on really the structure and the backend behind our businesses and particularly, because I do work a lot with black women-own businesses and women of color, what I find is the reason we typically get less funding is not because we don’t have good businesses, we have great businesses too. But what’s happening is we’re not understanding how and why we should have things like business credit. We may not understand how and why to formulate a business plan or a grant proposal. And so the ability to communicate how great our businesses are is what is not there. And the confidence and the ability to communicate how great the business is also not there. So I educate a lot on making sure you have an LLC, which seems like a small thing, but a lot of business owners are operating just as a sole proprietor, which is not going to put you in position to get the capital you need.

As well, making sure everything goes to your business bank account, making sure that you are tracking your spending and expenses and that you’re using payment processors. And while it may seem simple, those are often some of the reasons many business owners are denied for things like capital, because the foundation of the business isn’t there. So we spend a lot of time as well, and I have classes just focusing on that, making sure, “Hey, if we’re going to build this business to last more than 18 months, which right now is the average length of time that businesses are lasting for women and women of color. We’ve got to make sure that the foundation is strong so we can build this 10-year, 20-year, 30-year house or legacy on top of it. Super important.

Melinda Wittstock:

So there’s all kinds of things like that and getting all the legal things in place, like make sure you register your company name that you can get a trademark for and these sorts of things. So those foundational aspects I want to get into hiring for a little bit too because I think I’m curious your thoughts on this. We tend to easily regard hiring as an expense and if we change our thinking on that and think of it more as an investment, it changes the whole dynamic. Because then suddenly now you’re not hiring someone to do something that you don’t know what the return is going to be. You’re hiring them to deliver specific results and those results should be bringing more revenue or more traction or whatever your KPIs are into your business and increasing the value of your business. And so when you think about it that way… And it’s also freeing you up to do the things that you’re really good at and letting go of the stuff that maybe you’re not. Because not everybody’s good at everything.

Ellie Diop:

And I love that you position it that way, as an investment, because that’s what I had to learn myself. It took me so long to make my first hire, but now I’m so grateful to say I have a team of seven, some amazing, amazing women that I work with and we have our videographer, Kurt, shout out to Kurt, but some amazing people that I work with. And now I’ve really shifted that mindset where I no longer hesitate to bring someone on, because I’m always thinking, “Okay, in order for me to get to this next level of business, it’s not about me learning how to do it’s about me finding who can do it.” And that is what is going to ensure I get to that goal at a faster rate and without exhaustion, because I’m just putting someone in place who’s in their zone of genius, so I can stay in my zone of genius.

So I would encourage and I always encourage my audience to look at, yes, it’s going to feel like you’re taking money out of your account and paying someone. It’ll feel like that at the beginning, but you’ll realize when you outline the tasks that you need them to do and when those are done, track how much comes back to you on the backend by removing those things off of your plate. It gives you the freedom to now scale or make more sales or think of a new marketing campaign or create more content, which all increased revenue. So it is so true that it’s an investment and I believe the more employees you have, the more people that you work with, actually the ratio will increase how much you make in your business. So I’m looking forward to the day I get to 10, because hopefully that’ll mean I’m also making 10 million.

Melinda Wittstock:

So I want to get into money mindset issues, because this holds back the vast majority of people. In fact I don’t know anyone who didn’t grow up with some version of a money block, whether they just heard their parents arguing about money and thought, “Oh money causes conflict, so I, subconsciously, just this idea money doesn’t grow on trees or they doubt their own value so for it or don’t think they deserve it or all these things. And when you go into business, if you have that stuff in your subconscious mind, it is going to impact your business. So how much of your coaching gets into that whole thing about the money story and how to get rid of those subconscious blocks? Because it’s not a bad thing to have money. Does anyone harass Oprah for having money?

Ellie Diop:

No.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Right.

Ellie Diop:

And it truly is a mental block that we have to let go of. And I talk about that a lot in my content, because of the fact that even for me, when I first achieved six figures and then seven figures, I didn’t know what to think. I felt guilt. I felt fear. I felt all these different things around having made this much money, because I hadn’t been educated on how money is an asset and not a problem giver. And as well, I didn’t have anyone really in my family or in my network that I could go to and say, “Hey, what should I do now? Now that I’ve made this much, what should I do?” So one of the things that I like to talk about is the importance of educating ourselves and how money truly is a resource and how we can use it to better our lives, better our children’s lives and overall build wealth.

And I encourage them that “Even if you become the first millionaire in your family, or even if you’ve never seen it done, you can unlearn what you were brought up with. And, yes, it takes time and yes it takes work, but taking small steps towards adjusting your money mindset by doing things like investing, by doing things like outsourcing work, even if it is just a small task, you begin to see money as a tool versus money as something you have to hoard. And I know for me it took me so long to hire, because I felt like, “If I let this money go, it’s never going to come back.” And that was a mindset block that was a money block.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, I know, it’s really true. It’s almost like the more money is in flow, the more money flows back. It’s like an energy.

Ellie Diop:

Exactly. It is an energy.

Melinda Wittstock:

Getting back into that stimulus check though, what’s the first thing you did with that money? How did you use it, that first $1,200?

Ellie Diop:

Yeah, absolutely. So when I knew that the stimulus checks were coming, I began to plan. So that’s when I did my market research and I’m like, “Okay, 1200 isn’t a ton, but it’s way more than I have right now, so let’s come up with my list.” So one of the first things I spent that money on was my LLC. So I went ahead and took care of that, got that out the way. A second thing that I did was purchase my domains for my brand, my website, and I did my website myself, but I paid for a couple things just to make it look like something. Next thing that I spent my money on was a ring light from Amazon to be able to put my phone up, because I understood I would need to create content in order to grow, since I didn’t have money for ads. I also upgraded my phone. So I paid the tax payment, which maybe was around $100 or so at the time to get a better quality iPhone.

And as well, I paid for my Canvas subscription. So Canvas is a online graphic design platform that’s around $13 or so a month that you can use to create your own posts, your own visual things on Instagram. And then the rest, which maybe there might have been 2 or 300 left I think. I just set aside as backup in case I needed it for whatever was to come in this business. And I was off to the races. And I always tell people, and I hope anyone listening knows, you don’t need to have a lot of money in order to go and make a lot of money. I think connected to what we were saying about this perception of entrepreneurship is that you need to go into it with all this money, all these rounds of investments and et cetera. And that is one way, yes.

But you can also have 1,000 bucks and put in your time, your effort, your consistency and get a big return from that. Especially nowadays with social media, being able to connect with people for free is definitely what set my business apart, because I didn’t have to pay for traffic. All I had to do was work for the traffic and post to get the traffic. Yeah, big difference.

Melinda Wittstock:

And it sounds like you really knew your ideal customer from the get go, who this was for, because I think a lot of people go into business with the product or service, “This is for everybody.” And it’s not.

Ellie Diop:

It’s not.

Melinda Wittstock:

So did you have a really strong idea of exactly the people that you wanted to help right from the get go? Or was there any refinement there?

Ellie Diop:

There was definitely some refinement, but I knew from the beginning that I wanted to be a coach for me. And so what I mean by that is I knew who I needed at that time. I needed someone who looked like me, who had maybe been through similar experiences and was also just trying to figure out how to start a business in order to provide for their family. I needed that person, so I decided to become that person. So I knew that I was going directly after mostly women. Mostly women who are under the age of 35 now I just turned 30. So at that time I was 28 or 27. It would also be great if they were mothers, because as a mother I knew that my tactics would relate to other mothers based on what was working for me would likely work for them.

And I recognized that there was a bigger need in the audience for black-owned businesses or women of color entrepreneurs. So it took me some time, because at the beginning I was like, “Well, let me just go for all new business owners, whether they’re women, whether they’re men, as long as they are of color. Let me just go for everyone.” But then I realized the messaging that I have is being relatable more to women, because I started looking at my insights. So really my audience ended up helping me shape who I was focused more on to where I still do have, for example, students that are men, but majority are women who have similar experiences to me. They’re mothers,, they’ve been divorced, they either have a job or had a job and are figuring out how to start again.

That is the audience. So I came out with clarity, but I also let the insights and the analytics shape what was working. And I think that’s a key element. So much of the time we decide who do we want to serve? But in business, a lot of the time you have to let the people tell you if they want to be served by you. Do you see what I mean? I could have decided I’m only going to focus on men, but if they didn’t want my product, I’d be out of business. So I really had to let them dictate, “Okay, this is what we like. We agree and we’re going to show up.” And then that let me know, “Okay, these are my people. I’m going to keep serving them 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

So Ellie, your online community is now close to 350,000 people. That’s huge in a year. And 40,000 students have come through this. What’s your price point? What do they pay? What do they get?

Ellie Diop:

Yeah, absolutely. So we are approaching 60,000 now students, which is so amazing. And my offers, which are my digital products, classes, eBooks, are anywhere between $197 and $397. So I would say low to mid-tier. I do have higher end products, but those are only provided to those who pretty much request, like if you wanted to work one on one or things like that. But the majority, I really try to go for volume. I really try to make products that are accessible, that are affordable, but also really high quality. So I think that’s what has worked well in my business, because when I first started, my products were 50 bucks, 75 bucks. By the end of 2020, I had gained enough confidence to raise my price to $125 and that was what took me into that first million. But I’ve always tried to think about, again, “What would I have needed three years ago?” And I may have wanted a great coach, but maybe I only had 300 bucks. So I try to be mindful of that and create products that everyone can get a piece of.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, so important. So the other vital question to ask you is you have four kids.

Ellie Diop:

I do,

Melinda Wittstock:

How do you balance all of this with your kids?

Ellie Diop:

Wow. So now it’s a bit easier. I do have a full-time nanny, who is amazing. She’s just such a big part of the family and my mom has also been really helpful. But at the beginning, it was a lot of time blocking. I would, “Okay, these are the hours that I’m with the kids.” My mom was helpful too. And then when they go to bed, “All right, so from 9:00 to 1:00, these are my hours to create content. These are my hours for the business.” So it definitely took a lot of sacrifice. It took a lot of prayer. It took a lot of attempted care to make sure that I didn’t get to burnout. But really just finding ways to structure the day so that, “Okay, this is my dedicated time for mommy duties and now this is my dedicated time for business duties. So having family to help was key. And now having a nanny is also really great, but when I’m on duty, it still has to be structured.

I involve them with the business, but I don’t want to bore them too. So it’s like, “All right. This is mommy’s working time. See you later.” But now you guys, I’m all here. You guys have my full attention.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. Yeah, so, so true. So Ellie, what is the best way for people to find you and work with you?

Ellie Diop:

Absolutely. So you can find me on every platform @EllieTalksMoney. And that’s E-L-L-I-E Talks Money, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. And if you do want to enroll in classes to learn how to start your business, gain funding for your business and scale it up, you can enroll in my online school, which is called Ellievated Academy, and that is on Instagram social, website, ellievatedacademy.com. And I would definitely look forward to having you all in any of my classes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your Wings and flying.

Ellie Diop:

Yes, Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.