Stacy invests in websites to build passive income and helps others learn how to do the same. You can follow her journey and get on her website investing waitlist by taking a look at her website Her.CEO.
- CEO Hack: Book – Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
- CEO Nugget: Do it first then tell people later
- CEO Defined: Freedom to set your own goals, schedule, and daily life path
Website: https://www.her.ceo/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/stacy4startups
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stacycaprio
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stacycaprio
Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE
Transcription:
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Intro 0:02
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 0:29
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today as Stacy Caprio of her.CEO. Stacy, it's awesome to have you on the show.
Stacy Caprio 0:39
Thanks, Gresham, It's great to be here.
Gresham Harkless 0:43
Super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Stacy so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Stacy invests in websites to build passive income and helps others learn how to do the same. You can follow her journey and get on her website Investing Weightless by taking a look at her website her.CEO, Stacy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
Stacy Caprio 1:02
Yes, I am.
Gresham Harkless 1:04
Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to start your business?
Stacy Caprio 1:11
Yeah, so I was working in a traditional nine-to-five marketing role for a few years out of college. And I just wasn't happy with the hours. And I really wanted to kind of start my own thing. I'd actually always been pretty entrepreneurial. Even in college, I started my own swimming lesson business. And so I think it's just been kind of something that I've always wanted to do. So I decided to just give it a try. Even when I wasn't I was only making $1,000 a month on the side. And I just kind of went all in.
And I was very lucky because I have this wonderful grandma, actually, she's 93 years old. She let me live with her for a year while I was building my business here in Chicago, and she really gave me the opportunity to even try to start a business without having to go into debt or take out loans and stuff.
So I think she really gave me the chance to even start my business. And my first kind of, I was focusing on selling T-shirts at first, using Amazon merch. They change the algorithm. And I kind of ended up getting away from that, and into kind of investing in websites after reading a post on Spencer has niche pursuits blog. And so that kind of just got me into everything. And that's kind of what I'm still doing today.
Gresham Harkless 2:45
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And you know, grandmas are awesome. So shout out to your grandma for allowing you to get that opportunity to be able to pursue these entrepreneurial ventures that you already have. So I know you touched on it a little bit. But I want to hear a little bit more about how you work with clients. Can you tell us a little bit more about website Investing exactly what that looks like as well?
Stacy Caprio 3:05
Yeah, so I currently mostly, I've been just buying my own websites, managing them, and building them. As I've been doing this, I've kind of been building a small community on the side through her.CEO. And there are some people who just enjoy following my journey. And they sign up via the email list. And sometimes I'll send updates and I publish posts of other successful entrepreneurs on my blog as well to kind of inspire people.
Right now, I'm also kind of raising money for a bigger site purchase with some of the people who are on my website Investing waitlist. So that is more of a for the people who invest it's a bigger investment, it's a minimum 100k To buy a bigger site, 100k per person. And that's like a hands-off investment. So they don't have to manage the site. They don't have to log in, they just get the passive income dividend checks each month. And so this is something that we're kind of going into right now.
So I haven't it's not something that is currently it's more of in progress. It's not something that I've already been doing if that makes sense. But that's one way to work with the website Investing if you don't want to be hands-on with it. And then I also send out emails with site deals that I've edited. So like when I'm selling a website, if someone wants to get on the list, if they want to just buy a site and manage it on their own. That's the other kind of option if they want a more hands-on experience of kind of owning a website. So those are the two kinds of ways that I currently work with people interested in website investing.
Gresham Harkless 4:51
Nice Well, I definitely appreciate that, and for anybody who may not be familiar with it. It's very similar to I guess that if you do real estate investing separately investing in a website, I guess there's a website that's already been created. And it's being sold for some reason. And you have the opportunity for people to jump on the waitlist and be on the waitlist to find out about opportunities, whether it be with you, or them managing yourself, is that correct?
Stacy Caprio 5:15
Exactly. It's yeah, it's exactly like real estate in that sense. And it's actually kind of cool because it's so much newer than real estate, you can make your money back much more quickly than a real estate investment. So I think that's one of the big advantages, too, but it's yeah, it's pretty much just like an app buying an asset, such as buying a real estate building.
Gresham Harkless 5:38
Absolutely. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And it could be for you personally, or for your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
Stacy Caprio 5:52
I would say just my experience, buying the websites and then taking them from what they're making per month and being able to quickly double that is kind of something that I think is unique to what I do compared to what most people do when investing in sites, I have a few things that I've just learned both in my nine to five, digital marketing, and also just my experience, buying the sites, I'm able to, like, buy the undervalued ones and quickly increase their value. So I think that's something that not many other people are able to do.
Gresham Harkless 6:34
That makes perfect sense. Do you think that a lot of it has to do with kind of like that ability to see from a digital marketing perspective, like you maybe see some of the things that can be improved or how that asset can be, you know, I guess the value increased so that you can generate more revenue?
Stacy Caprio 6:50
Exactly. Someone who's not familiar with the space, wouldn't be able to look at it and do the same things.
Gresham Harkless 6:58
Makes perfect sense. So I definitely appreciate that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
Stacy Caprio 7:12
Oh, so Well, I've actually been reading a book recently, Tim Ferriss's Tools of Titans. And I really love him as an author, because he has, he writes so clearly, in ways that can really benefit the reader both of his own experience and all the CEOs and other people he's interviewed on this podcast, and this, this book actually has, like, so many just little hacks in it that are so helpful when running a business. And they also it also has a bunch of health packs, which I don't really pay attention to those sections as much.
But even just little online tools, like the auto Text Expander tool I read about in his book, it's just really helpful when you're typing something that like a phrase that you type a lot, or like an email signature, you can just type like a little phrase, and it will just expand it. It's like a Chrome extension, it's actually free. So that's just one little hack that I've been using recently that I got from that book, but there's a ton in there. So I definitely recommend that book to everybody listening.
Gresham Harkless 8:24
Yes, definitely a great, but it's a huge book, too, by the way. And I think that um, correct me if I'm wrong, you can kind of just flip through, you don't have to, I don't know how many pages is but you don't have to go through every part of the book, you can kind of flip through to whoever you want to read information about and then get those hacks and information.
Stacy Caprio 8:39
Exactly. And that's kind of what he recommends that you do in the intro. And when I've been reading it, I find it's helpful to only read like five pages at a time because it's so dense that like you don't want to just sit down and read it. So it's definitely something to just kind of, yeah, flip through whenever you're inspired to do so.
Gresham Harkless 9:00
Yeah, and I think a lot of times, just as you mentioned, with the Chrome extension, there's a lot of things that you can, you can do. And it's kind of like one of those. I don't know if I want to call it a workbook, would you kind of feel like each of you want to implement some of those things? So a lot of times you do just want to use a little bit instead of trying to read the whole thing and try to implement all of those hacks that they have in there.
Stacy Caprio 9:18
Yeah, exactly. And I always have my phone next to me when I'm reading it because I always Google everything and because there's so much it's almost just like a starting point for research and then you just kind of go off and start Googling more and I even I've ordered so many books while I'm reading it because he recommends so many really good books so it's well all the people he interviews to kind of recommend books and yeah, so you can kind of get yourself into a book buying whole there if you read.
Gresham Harkless 9:47
Exactly well keep the Library app open just in case maybe that helps out a little bit more but I appreciate Tim Ferriss Yeah, he's he writes incredible stuff, and he's always providing different hacks and definitely off mostly related to business, but definitely technology and health as well, too. So I appreciate that hack. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you could happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?
Stacy Caprio 10:17
One thing that I would say is never tell people, you're going to do something, and then go try to do it, I would just recommend doing it. And then after it's already successful, you can kind of tell people if you want, but I've just found that you're more likely to follow through and do it if you don't tell people about it, because their reaction will either be very positive or very negative.
So it could influence you. And either way, just to kind of not do it, because you already feel like you've gotten either the positive reinforcement, if it's positive, or if it's negative, it might dissuade you from thinking it's even possible. So I think it's more important to actually do, what you the idea that you have and what you want to do, than to kind of tell people about it until it's already done.
Gresham Harkless 11:12
Absolutely, that makes so much sense. You know, what to say actions speak louder than words. And I think and I don't know if you've read this or heard this, but I feel like I heard and granted, I definitely don't know, but I thought I heard it from somebody where a lot of times if we tell people we're going to do something, it creates kind of like a little bit of accomplishment like we actually have done it.
So sometimes it also makes it more unlikely that we're actually going to follow through with it. If we say we are going to do it. That's some of the excitement that kind of happened just by saying it, but we actually haven't actually done anything towards that, that mission, or that goal.
Stacy Caprio 11:45
Yeah, I've heard similar things online. And yeah, it's definitely for me, I found it to be true. So I would definitely recommend that to other people.
Gresham Harkless 11:55
I love it. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on this show. So Stacy, what is being a CEO mean to you?
Stacy Caprio 12:08
Being a CEO means to me having that freedom to set your own goals and schedule, and being able to really just choose your daily life path.
Gresham Harkless 12:27
Absolutely, yeah, a lot of times we have, you know, a lot of tools and hacks and things at our disposal. But a lot of it is just how you put it into action and the things that you do. And you kind of have the flexibility and the freedom to some degree to make those decisions and be in charge of your path and make you know those goals that you want to create it and went ahead and those that you don't.
So I appreciate that definition in that perspective. And I appreciate your time even more. And what I want to do is pass you on the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get ahold of you get on the wait list, and do and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.
Stacy Caprio 13:04
Yeah, of course. So I actually have a cool opportunity for anyone who's interested in writing a guest post for her.CEO, they can reach out to me at Stacycaprio@gmail.com. And if they've had a successful side hustle or business, or have their own website Investing story, I'd love to have them write a post and they would be featured on the site. And as well as get a link to the site of their choosing, which would help with their SEO.
So I've had a handful of people do this already. And it's been great for her.CEO site and audience. So I'd love to welcome anyone else who is interested. And if people are interested in getting on the website Investing waitlist, they can go to her.CEO About page and sign up there, as well as to just the regular email list as well. And we'd love to have you on the list.
Gresham Harkless 14:10
Awesome, awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Stacy, for your time and all the awesome things you're doing. We'll make sure to have those links in that information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you if they have guest posts or they, of course, want to join the waitlist or just find out you know, all the awesome things you guys are working on. So, again, I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day, and take care.
Stacy Caprio 14:32
Thank you so much and we'll talk later.
Outro 14:35
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
Intro 0:02
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 0:29
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today as Stacy Caprio of her.CEO. Stacy, it's awesome to have you on the show.
Stacy Caprio 0:39
Thanks, Gresham, It's great to be here.
Gresham Harkless 0:43
Super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Stacy so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Stacy invest in websites to build passive income and helps others learn how to do the same. You can follow her journey and get on her website Investing weightless by taking a look at her website her.CEO, Stacy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?
Stacy Caprio 1:02
Yes, I am.
Gresham Harkless 1:04
Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to start your business?
Stacy Caprio 1:11
Yeah, so I was working in a traditional nine to five marketing role for a few years out of college. And I just wasn't happy with the hours. And I really wanted to kind of start my own thing. I'd actually always been pretty entrepreneurial. Even in college, I started my own swimming lesson business. And so I think it's just been kind of something that I've always wanted to do. So I decided to just give it a try. Even when I wasn't I was only making $1,000 a month on the side. And I just kind of went all in. And I was very lucky because I have this wonderful grandma, actually, she's 93 years old. And she let me live with her for a year while I was building my business here in Chicago, and that she really gave me the opportunity to even try to start a business without having to go into debt or to do take out loans and stuff. So I think she really gave me the chance to even start my business. And my first kind of, I was focusing on selling T shirts at first, using Amazon merch. They change the algorithm. And I kind of ended up getting away from that, but into kind of investing in websites after reading a post on Spencer has niche pursuits blog. And so that kind of just got me into everything. And that's kind of what I'm still doing today.
Gresham Harkless 2:45
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And you know, grandmas are awesome. So shout out to your grandma for allowing you to get that opportunity to be able to pursue these entrepreneurial ventures that you already have. So I know you touched on it a little bit. But I want to hear a little bit more like how you work with clients. Can you tell us a little bit more about website Investing exactly what that looks like as well?
Stacy Caprio 3:05
Yeah, so I currently mostly, I've been just buying my own websites, managing them and building them. As I've been doing this, I've kind of been building a small community on the side through her.CEO. And there are some people who just enjoy following my journey. And they sign up via the email list. And sometimes I'll send updates and I publish posts of other successful entrepreneurs on my blog as well to kind of inspire people. Right now, I'm also kind of raising money for a bigger site purchase with some of the people who are on my website Investing waitlist. So that is more of a for the people who invest it's a bigger investment, it's a minimum 100k To buy a bigger site, 100k per person. And that's like a hands off investment. So they don't have to manage the site. They don't have to log in, they just get like the passive income dividend checks each month. And so this is something that we're kind of going into right now. So I haven't it's not something that is currently it's more of in progress. It's not something that I've already been doing, if that makes sense. But that's one way to work with the website Investing if you don't want to be hands on with it. And then I also send out emails with site deals that I've edited. So like when I'm selling a website, if someone wants to get on the list, if they want to just buy a site and manage it on their own. That's the other kind of option if they want a more hands on experience of kind of owning a website. So those are the two kind of ways that I currently work with people interested in website investing.
Gresham Harkless 4:51
Nice Well, I definitely appreciate that and for anybody that may not be familiar with it. It's very similar to I guess like if you do real estate investing separate investing in a website, I guess there's a website that's already been created. And it's being sold for some reason. And you have the opportunity for people to jump on the waitlist and be on the waitlist to find out about opportunities, whether it be with you, or them managing yourself, is that correct?
Stacy Caprio 5:15
Exactly. It's yeah, it's exactly like real estate in that sense. And it's actually kind of cool, because it's so much newer than real estate, you can make your money back much more quickly than a real estate investment. So I think that's one of the big advantages, too, but it's yeah, it's pretty much just like an app buying an asset, such as buying a real estate building?
Gresham Harkless 5:38
Absolutely. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And it could be for you personally, or for your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
Stacy Caprio 5:52
I would say just my experience, buying the websites and then taking them from what they're making per month and being able to quickly double that is kind of something that I think is unique to what I do compared to what most people do when investing in sites, I have a few things that I've just learned both in my nine to five, digital marketing, and also just my experience, buying the sites, I'm able to, like, buy the undervalued ones and quickly increase their value. So I think that's something that not many other people are able to do.
Gresham Harkless 6:34
That makes perfect sense. Do you do you think that a lot of it has to do with kind of like that ability to see from a digital marketing perspective, like you maybe see some of the things that can be improved or how that asset can be, you know, I guess the value increased so that you can generate more revenue.
Stacy Caprio 6:50
Exactly. Someone who's not familiar with the space, wouldn't be able to look at it and do the same things.
Gresham Harkless 6:58
Makes perfect sense. So I definitely appreciate that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
Stacy Caprio 7:12
Oh, so Well, I've actually been reading a book recently, Tim Ferriss's Tools of Titans. And I really love him as an author, because he has, he writes so clearly, in ways that can really benefit the reader both of his own experience and all the CEOs and other people he's interviewed on this podcast, and this, this book actually has, like, so many just little hacks in it that are so helpful when running a business. And they also it also has a bunch of health packs, which I don't really pay attention to those sections as much. But even just little online tools, like the auto Text Expander tool I read about in his book, it's just really helpful when you're typing something that like a phrase that you type a lot, or like an email signature, you can just type like a little phrase, and it will just expand it. It's like a Chrome extension, it's actually free. So that's just one little hack that I've been using recently that I got from that book, but there's a ton in there. So I definitely recommend that book to everybody listening.
Gresham Harkless 8:24
Yes, definitely a great, but it's a huge book, too, by the way. And I think that um, correct me if I'm wrong, you can kind of just flip through, you don't have to, I don't know how many pages is but you don't have to go through every part of the book, you can kind of flip through to whoever you want to read information about and then get those hacks and information.
Stacy Caprio 8:39
Exactly. And that's kind of what he recommends that you do in the intro. And when I've been reading it, I find it's helpful to only read like five pages at a time because it's so dense that like you don't want to just sit down and read it. So it's definitely something to just kind of, yeah, flip through whenever you're inspired to do so.
Gresham Harkless 9:00
Yeah, and I think a lot of times, just as you mentioned, with the Chrome extension, there's a lot of things that you can, you can do. And it's kind of like one of those. I don't know if I want to call it a workbook, would you kind of feel like each of you want to implement some of those things. So a lot of times you do just want to use a little bit instead of trying to read the whole thing and try to implement all of those hacks that they have in there.
Stacy Caprio 9:18
Yeah, exactly. And I always have my phone next to me when I'm reading it because I always Google everything and because there's so much it's almost just like a starting point for research and then you just kind of go off and start Googling more and I even I've ordered so many books while I'm reading it because he recommends so many really good books so it's well all the people he interviews to kind of recommend books and yeah, so you can kind of get yourself into a book buying whole there if you read.
Gresham Harkless 9:47
Exactly well keep the Library app open just in case maybe that help out a little bit more so but I appreciate Tim Ferriss Yeah, he's he writes incredible stuff, and he's always providing like different hacks and definitely off mostly related to business, but definitely technology and health as well, too. So I appreciate that hack. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?
Stacy Caprio 10:17
One thing that I would say is never tell people, you're going to do something, and then go try to do it, I would just recommend to do it. And then after it's already successful, you can kind of tell people if you want, but I've just found that you're more likely to follow through and do it if you don't tell people about it, because their reaction will either be very positive or very negative. So it could influence you. And either way, just to kind of not do it, because you already feel like you've gotten either the positive reinforcement, if it's positive, or if it's negative, it might dissuade you from thinking it's even possible. So I think it's more important to actually do, what you the idea that you have and what you want to do, than to kind of tell people about it until it's already done.
Gresham Harkless 11:12
Absolutely, that that makes so much sense. You know, what to say actions speak louder than words. And I think and I don't know if you've read this or heard this, but I feel like I heard and granted, I definitely don't know, but I thought I heard it from somebody where a lot of times if we tell people we're going to do something, it creates kind of like a little bit of accomplishment, like we actually have done it. So sometimes it also makes it more unlikely that we're actually going to follow through with it. If we say we are going to do it. That's some of the excitement that kind of happened just by saying it, but we actually haven't actually done anything towards that, that that mission or that goal.
Stacy Caprio 11:45
Yeah, I've heard similar things to online. And yeah, it's definitely for me, I found it to be true. So I would definitely recommend that to other people.
Gresham Harkless 11:55
I love it. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote unquote, CEOs on this show. So Stacy, what is being a CEO mean to you?
Stacy Caprio 12:08
Being a CEO means to me having that freedom to set your own goals and schedule, and being able to really just choose your daily life path?
Gresham Harkless 12:27
Absolutely, yeah, a lot of times we have, you know, a lot of tools and hacks and things at our disposal. But a lot of it is just how you put it into action and things that you do. And you kind of have the flexibility and the freedom to some degree to make those decisions and in charge your path and make you know those goals that you want to create it and went ahead and those that you don't. So I appreciate that definition in that perspective. And I appreciate your time even more. And what I want to do is pass you on the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get ahold of you get on the wait list and do and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.
Stacy Caprio 13:04
Yeah, of course. So I actually have a cool opportunity for anyone who's interested in writing a guest post for her.CEO, they can reach out to me at Stacycaprio@gmail.com. And if they've had a successful side hustle or business, or have their own website Investing story, I'd love to have them write a post and they would be featured on the site. And as well as get a link to the site of their choosing, which would help with their SEO. So I've had a handful of people to do this already. And it's been great for the her.CEO site and audience. So I'd love to welcome anyone else who is interested. And if people are interested in getting on the website Investing waitlist, they can go to her.CEO About page and sign up there, as well as to just the regular email list as well. And we'd love to have you on the list.
Gresham Harkless 14:10
Awesome, awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Stacy for your time and all the awesome things you're doing. We'll make sure to have those links in that information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you what we if they have guest posts or they of course, want to join the waitlist or just find out you know, all the awesome things you guys are working on. So, again, I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day and take care.
Stacy Caprio 14:32
Thank you so much and we'll talk later.
Outro 14:35
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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