Helen Shacklett (00:40.525)

So, okay. To explore our topic today, we have Lauralee Sheehan. She is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Digital 55. So, Laura Lee, how are you doing today?

Lauralee Sheehan (00:56.610)
I’m good, I’m good. Yeah, you know - just living the entrepreneur life.

Helen Shacklett (01:01.645)
Right, right. No, I hear that. All right, so I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself and your business.

Lauralee Sheehan (01:10.126)
Yeah, for sure. So I’m the founder of Digital 55, and we’re indie producers of digital and media content. The company has been full time for eight years now - or seven and a half, I think, which, every day, I’m like, oh my God, I can’t believe it, because it still seems like it’s, you know, the first year or something sometimes. But we get to do some really cool work. We work on unscripted media projects and subculture content, and then we also partner-produce with a lot of different organizations on their knowledge content. So we help people adapt content and sort of design and produce media and storytelling content. We get to work on a lot of emerging subject matters and a lot of social-purpose content and digital experiences for people. So…

It’s been really fun because the whole space has been evolving. The storytelling on the media side has been really changing in terms of being able to create and distribute stuff yourself, and the whole different model of how content’s being created - for our own stuff. And then for partner-producing, people are - there’s so much content that people are trying to adapt to digital and media, and definitely the storytelling and all those integrations are…

So, some of those partnerships - we’ve been able to work on some huge projects that are really purposeful. So it’s kept us busy.

Helen Shacklett (02:28.525)
No doubt. No, that is so meaningful and such a unique purpose. So I would love to hear about how Digital 55 has grown over time and what you think has contributed to the growth.

Lauralee Sheehan (02:40.672)
Yeah, it’s been interesting because I’ve been thinking a lot about that, especially over the past two years - for whatever reason, after year five or six. I had a lot of… just thinking about what the company has been, how it’s been growing and building and really changing. So I think one of the things that was probably a big part of the growth in the beginning was just being so in demand - like, just people really - like, the digital content explosion was happening when I took the company full time. So I feel like the timing was on my side. People were trying to produce content really quickly, and they had a lot of content they needed to digitize. It had to be meaningful, interactive - people wanted storytelling.

So we were just really prepped to be experts and innovators in that space around the time that everybody was looking for that. That did really help with being able to bring on big projects right on day one of full-time operations, sort of thing. And then I think, also, for me - I always say, fun fact about me is I’m an indie musician in my spare time. And so I think just always wanting to - like, always play music and wanting to - you know, I thought I was going to be a rock star for a while when I was in my 20s. And that was really a driver for me in terms of building - at the time, I was building the band and the brand and all these experience-based things. You were building stuff constantly. I find that creativity, and that sort of a little bit of a punk-rock attitude, helps me position us to stay lean and indie but be disruptors, and still be able to be alongside bigger organizations that have maybe more establishment or are just more well known in the space. I think we still have this great opportunity to be on the same playing field as people just because of some of those differentiators that the company’s really leaned into rather than trying to make D55 be like another company. We try to lean into the things that make us really unique. So I think that’s helped too.

Helen Shacklett (04:41.440)
Definitely - having that artistic, punk, against-the-grain vibe has really differentiated you, for sure. So I’m kind of curious: you’ve mentioned in a different interview that “walking a financial tightrope” is a challenge that you have. I’d love to hear about what that means exactly in your day-to-day life.

Lauralee Sheehan (05:01.166)
How much time do you have? I could talk about this for three days - like, just a monologue. And I - you know, some real talk too is I was - 

Helen Shacklett (05:02.860)
Ha ha.

Lauralee Sheehan (05:13.848)
You know, people think that after the startup phase, you’re more stable, but I’ve actually found the opposite, in a way. The startup days - I kind of have nostalgia for them. Like, that was so great when you could just say yes to everything. But everything was smaller in terms of your risks and responsibilities, what you were trying to build, even what you were investing into.

So I found that one thing I was not prepared for - and that I’m still learning how to manage and deal with in terms of the stress levels - is once you bring in revenue, you’re like, that’s great. In the startup days, everything’s a win. But then, when you’re actually investing back into your company and trying to grow different aspects of it - for us, we’ve been trying to build our own IP for a couple of years and monetize a whole different part of the business, which is a whole different revenue model and a much different value for what the business can do in the future. You know, for me as a woman entrepreneur, that’s super important. But I found that once you’re reinvesting in the business, if a couple of things go wrong in a row, you’re like, my God - like, all the cash has gone into reinvesting in that side of the business. So you almost find yourself with just more responsibilities and risks and less safety than you would think as you mature in the business.

No one told me that. That’s not in the - people don’t talk about that a lot, but I think that’s a real-talk moment to say it doesn’t get less scary. It actually gets more scary because you’re going for bigger, bolder things, and you’re maybe taking on riskier investments in terms of what you’re doing with the company. So that’s been something I’ve been learning to deal with. And especially on the stress-level side, I find that whatever coping mechanisms I had for year one to three - they’re not working anymore. Having a bath - I’m like, that doesn’t work anymore. There are just things you have to think about to say, how can you keep yourself calm and strategic and creative in terms of that whole mix of things you constantly have to deal with on the financial side so that you can grow, but also maintain your sustainability and safety.

For me, that’s been a big thing I’ve been thinking about - just that safety. Sometimes you don’t have people - support - not supporting, but sometimes, say, traditional banks might not be supporting your business as much as other businesses. So you don’t have some of those safeties in your - 

Lauralee Sheehan (07:36.952)
Portfolio that other businesses can lean on. So you’re operating in a totally different space, and you have to think totally differently to kind of make that work.

Helen Shacklett (07:46.713)
It does sound like playing the game on hard mode.

Lauralee Sheehan (07:50.196)
Yes, I know. It’s like extra, extra hard level. Yeah.

Helen Shacklett (07:51.500)

Well, speaking of that, I’m curious: was there ever a moment where you thought the business wouldn’t make it? I’d love to hear about - not love to, but - yeah, just what that was like and what you did.

Lauralee Sheehan (08:07.532)
I think at least once a year I have that feeling. It’s happened eight times now. And it’s been different along the way. Sometimes I laugh at year-one-to-three Laura Lee, because I’m like, my gosh - she didn’t even know what was going to happen. She didn’t know what was going to happen in year five to six.

But yeah, I’ve had definitely - really scary things where it’s like, okay - legal things where you’re paying money, money you didn’t expect to pay, and you have to pay it right away. Or I invested in a lot of hiring, which was a really challenging space for me at the time as a small, indie business, and investing that much that quickly really brought a lot of precarity into the whole business structure and sustainability.

And then even investing in our IP and then needing that to monetize a bit more quickly than we’ve been able to monetize it. Those things are all really scary and do put your business at risk while you’re… And I hope one day I’ll -  not laugh - but with a glass of wine be like, ha ha, remember that time that this happened and you went from a six-month runway to a two-week runway, or whatever it is. And I know that…

I think it’s good for people to hear that too. They always say, with any financial advice - even your personal advice - people are like, “I have this safety net of three months,” or “emergency funds.” With the business, you’re always thinking in the same way, but it’s the fluctuation of what can happen in your business with any set of circumstances at any given time. Sometimes there are things beyond your control that all happen at the same time. And you’re like, “Shit.” You have to - 

Helen Shacklett (09:36.575)
Mm-hmm.

Lauralee Sheehan (09:59.374)
- and I think that most people can usually figure it out. You have to get really strategic and creative when those things happen, and you always have to plan for the worst set of things happening all at once. But it’s hard when it happens - and it does. You will go through a cycle where five really bad things all happen at once. If one of them happened, it would be bad. But when five of them happen, you’re like, this is not good. So I’ve been through a couple cycles like that where a couple sets of things happen all at once that are all really bad. You have to work it out. And I’ve been able to, which is great, but sometimes you don’t know how you’re going to work it out. That’s the other thing. There’s no manual that you can read and be like, “What do I do in this situation?” So that’s a scary thing - to say you don’t actually know how it’s going to work out a lot of the time. You’re kind of free-jumping - or what’s that called when people jump off a building? You’re kind of feeling like you’re - yeah - without a parachute.

Helen Shacklett (10:52.011)
Skydiving.

Helen Shacklett (10:59.179)
Well, you - I think one of the great things you’ve done - like you mentioned - you came out of that. And I think that really is a great segue into our next topic, because you’ve mentioned this concept of “smart scaling” before. I’d love to dive into what that means to you and the creativity and innovation you bring to that as well.

Lauralee Sheehan (11:18.508)
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about smart scaling because a couple of years ago there was a model of scaling, and it was really this mix of things. Like: how many people are on your team? Do you have a studio space? Do you have - there were definers that people would say your business is growing if these things are happening. And I kind of bought into that for a while. Obviously, the past couple of years have been so disruptive - with so many disruption points - that it’s been hard to even figure out what is stable and what’s not.

When my company started growing and I started seeing the opportunities to grow, I was thinking in almost more traditional definers of what scaling meant. They meant: you hire somebody, then you hire another person, and then you get a studio space, then this and this and that. What I’ve found with smart scaling is it’s actually the opposite. You have to look at what you need to produce, and what’s also bringing value back into your business. Maybe it’s not those traditional markers. Maybe it is - maybe some of those things are the right things for you. But the thing I’ve stopped doing is saying, okay, whatever people think scaling is - people in your family, your friends, other business organizations, or people in the business world or in your industry - you have to let that go and say, what does scaling mean for me? If it’s my dollar that I’m putting in, what do I want to get out of it? What is the most valuable thing that I can feel good about? Can I build in safety? Can I build in opportunities to keep reinvesting in things that I believe in?

Lauralee Sheehan (13:03.062)
For me, it was really thinking: okay, smart scaling for me means more the creation part. We want to be creating stuff. Maybe that means we don’t have a studio, because if we’re paying money for the studio, then we’re not paying money for the creation part - which is the thing that has the most value for the future of the company. So, yeah - kind of mood-boarding what scaling looks like for you. It could be different for every business, but the things for me were: okay, the creation part. I wasn’t thinking like that a couple of years ago. I wish I would have been, but…

That’s how I think about smart scaling: don’t get trapped into the way scaling might look for someone else. Really think about - if you’re the guarantor of everything and you have to risk everything - you want to see that value back, and you want to make sure that whatever scaling you’re doing, future you is going to be really happy about it, or really proud, or content, or safe because you made those decisions. That’s how I look at it now.

Helen Shacklett (14:06.162)
No, that makes a lot of sense. So what was the turning point for you when you realized, I’ve got to start approaching this differently - I’ve got to look at scaling in a different way?

Lauralee Sheehan (14:15.340)
Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of chaos. There were a couple of shocks that my business went through that I was not expecting. And I know every business has them. For me, some of the investments that I had made just really, really went sideways and didn’t work out - actually not only didn’t work out, but were detrimental to the future of the company. That was a big shock to say, okay, that money is now gone, and that value is not here now or in the future. And you’re now more tired. 

Helen Shacklett (15:07.772)
It was that chaos and those shocks that made you think, it’s got to be different. Have there been any personal sacrifices that you’ve had to make to scale like that?

Lauralee Sheehan (15:35.692)
Yeah, totally. This is the thing people don’t see - you sacrifice some of your own safety, personally. For me, if I give money to the business, or I guarantee this, or I guarantee that and something happens - who’s - there’s no safety, right? There have been times when I haven’t paid myself to pay my team or to get through a project. If that is ever the case, there are always things where you will do anything for the business, sometimes at your own detriment. And sometimes people will say, “Why would you do that?” It’s like, well - start a business and then tell me what you’d do in that situation.

But a lot of safety, and a lot of giving up moments of my life, for the business and for the future of the business. Sometimes that’s hard because you don’t know what you’re - you don’t know the things that you’re now not going to experience because you’ve been investing so much time or energy into building the business. And a lot of sanity, I would say. I keep it pretty - you know, I have that indie-musician thing where you just kind of make it through. But I do find that it’s really uncomfortable most of the time. You’re constantly thinking about it. It never shuts off. That’s the thing - it’s always with you. It’s like another part of your persona. I know people say you have to put up boundaries, but it is really hard to do that when you’re also like, I have to make sure payroll is ready. I have to make sure this is ready. I have to make sure all our deliverables - this new part of the business is ready. I have to make sure we’re getting this strategy, this partnership - whatever it is. There are just so many things.

Lauralee Sheehan (17:39.030)
One thing that I’ve put back into my life that I kind of did stop for a bit - and it wasn’t even with the business, but life in general - I stopped making music for a couple of years, and that was really, really bad for me. So one of the things I’ve been able to do over the past couple of years is get back into music in a way that helps me - that feeds back into the business as well. Even with our own subculture content and our own content we’re doing, that’s really grounded in the Toronto music scene and very underground. That’s all helping with the creation part. So I think it’s also good not to forget about the other parts of you that support the business but have nothing to do with the business.

Helen Shacklett (18:17.982)
You know, to me that really goes back to what you were saying earlier about how some of the coping mechanisms you had before don’t work. And that’s so key to hold on to for that reason, at least.  Switching gears a little bit here - what are your top lessons that you would like to pass on about managing cash flow at a time of growth, especially when costs are high right now with inflation and everything else going on?

Lauralee Sheehan (18:44.204)
I know - it’s such a nightmare. Okay, so I have a couple things, and I think this is really important, especially for founders that might be solo - they don’t have another founder, or they don’t have a managing team that can help them with some of the high-level strategy. For me, one of the biggest things was: lean, lean, lean. I almost went back to the start of the company. I had mentioned I was scaling up in a certain way, and then that all went sideways. So, okay - bring it back to the beginning and think lean. That doesn’t mean you’re not scaling or growing - maybe it just looks different. I found that really looking at everything and being like, do I need this? Should I be spending money on this or investing in this? Yes? No? And getting really tough with myself and what I want to be doing.

So that was - I think going through that every year. Because I feel like sometimes you start spending, you start doing stuff, and then it keeps going, and you never assess: what is this? Do we need that? What is this? So maybe having some sort of assessment system every year: what is still providing value? What is - A) you don’t even know what it is, and B) it’s not providing value? The worst is if it’s detracting from the value of what you’re trying to do. Okay, that has to go.

I think getting creative with cash flow - people don’t think it’s a creative process. But when you are - especially when you’re having trouble with cash flow or you’re in one of those down periods - which, again, happens to everybody no matter what you do; it’s going to happen to everybody, and probably more often than you would like - there’s that set of things that happens at a time, even with preparedness. There’s just some stuff you cannot predict. I think getting creative - whenever I’m getting a little bit worried, like, okay, our runway is shrinking really quickly because of these things - my God - every entrepreneur’s worst nightmare - I think about the opportunities that could help support that in the short term and long term. Sometimes you pull out these diamonds in the rough you might not spend as much time on - like smaller opportunities rather than the bigger, more “sexy” ones. Maybe you go back to some of the basics: who are your friendlies in your network? Who would want to maybe produce a smaller pilot project? Stuff like that where you can sleep a little bit better for a week or whatever.

I also think it’s really creative. It’s not just one thing when you’re trying to build in safety and sustainability when that is happening to your business. Think about all the opportunities that are there and then start doing those reach-outs, and you’ll be surprised who shows up for some of those things when you least expect it. 

 

Helen Shacklett (22:00.327)
To me, it shows that classic scrappiness - finding the opportunities, knocking on doors, virtually or otherwise. So I’m kind of curious - you mentioned cash flow, and you’ve been a client of FundThrough for quite some time. I would love to know what led you to FundThrough and the influence that invoice factoring has had in your growth.

Lauralee Sheehan (22:26.998)
Yeah - I know I always say this, but I love FundThrough. It’s been such an important part of the whole strategy for my business, especially as an indie. Not everybody has as much trouble as I do, but I’m one of those entrepreneurs that traditional banks just don’t like. So I’ve had a lot of challenges in getting some of what you need in terms of financial support or systems that you can count on. I’ve had a lot of trouble building some of those for my business. Even in year eight, it’s almost worse now, for whatever reason, with the traditionals.

And I always wished there was this - I was like, the FundThrough model - oh, it would be so great if there was something like this for entrepreneurs. Then, when I found you, I was like, they’re doing what I always thought would be just the perfect way to support entrepreneurs and the variability and the real-time-ness of what happens when you have a business, especially an indie business.

So the way it’s been such an important part of my financial strategy is the agility, the adaptability, and the real-time - like, it actually fits what you need as an indie business. If I go to a traditional bank, I’ll hear from them in six months. I’m like, that doesn’t help anybody. My business will be closed if I’m waiting around. It’s just not going to work. I find that the FundThrough model really does speak to what businesses need in real time, so you don’t have to be reactive - you can be proactive. That’s a game-changer for me. I can use some of those financial supports with the invoice factoring for immediate operational needs, strategic needs - whatever it is. But I feel like it’s one of those models that actually speaks to what businesses need, and it works and functions the way businesses need it to as well. It’s transparent. You have your dashboard - you always know what’s happening. It’s such a relief. It’s such a breath of fresh air when normally it is so, so difficult to get support like that.

Helen Shacklett (25:08.496)
I think that also kind of goes back to - it enables you to, like you were saying, the agility. You can take on those other opportunities that might be a little bit difficult otherwise if you didn’t have that cash. It all kind of ties together. 

Lauralee Sheehan (25:30.744)
I had a term for it, It’s high-functioning financial support. And again, especially - it’s not to knock traditional banks - but it’s so difficult and so behind - so behind when you would support - that it’s almost not viable for a lot of businesses. So yeah, the FundThrough model is just really high-functioning, really built for entrepreneurs and indie businesses and businesses.

Helen Shacklett (26:17.020)
I’m curious, by the way - do you remember how you found FundThrough? Just out of curiosity.

Lauralee Sheehan (26:22.006)
Yeah. I was doing research, and I had seen maybe earlier models of it with other companies, but it was never so established and so platform-driven. Also, I know you guys are in Toronto - Canadian - that was a huge factor for me as well. But I was doing research on it at the time because, again, with my “creative chess” financial strategy, I was looking for alternatives. I’m an indie business; traditional banks don’t love me. So I need to really look at what’s out there that would support me as a diverse entrepreneur - woman entrepreneur. Where are the supports for that?

So I found FundThrough in that research. At first I was like, no, this is too good to be true. When I saw the platform, I’m like, it’s good. It’s tech-forward, which is great. The dashboard - it’s so dreamy. It’s just so good. So yeah, I put an application in. We didn’t set up right away, but it was like six months after that - everything was good. I was like, yeah, let’s green-light this and get on the platform, and then I haven’t looked back since.

Helen Shacklett (27:43.781)
I love that. You’ve mentioned it a few times about banks - and yeah, that’s a sticking point for so many of our clients. I’m kind of curious: do you have any experiences you can share - tips to do or not do - that would help your fellow CEOs out there?

Lauralee Sheehan (28:10.562)
I would say - you always try. Even though it can be really frustrating and even really disheartening, every year I put a case forward and say, this is what the business is doing, and this is where we’re at - you just get up and you keep asking, even though you’re like - and then you have to brush yourself off if it’s a no again. Don’t depend on it, but always ask for what you need.

Helen Shacklett (29:05.788)
It’s not the final word, right. It could still happen, and it’s worth asking. The worst they can say is no.

Lauralee Sheehan (29:16.512)
Exactly. So you should still ask for what you need and see what happens.

Helen Shacklett (29:43.470)
Okay. So I’m kind of curious - how have you been able to manage costs in this environment and reinvest in your business?

Lauralee Sheehan (29:52.482)
Yeah. I had to get brutally honest with myself about what I should be spending on and what I should not be spending on. I’m stabilizing from some investments that totally went sideways - where it didn’t work out and I spent a lot of money on it. But I think you have to look at all your costs and get brutally honest with what you need and what you don’t. Sometimes you get sucked into these things where you’re paying for something you don’t need, or you’re investing in something that’s not really the right thing to be investing in. It can be hard to say, “Let’s just stop doing this,” especially when it’s just you and you’re like, okay, I’m in my own echo chamber of what should be happening. So I do have business advisors that help me be objective about those things.

It is scary now because, again, even five years ago, the things that were usually safe bets - if you do this, if you hire somebody, your business will grow X amount - were a bit more dependable. But now it’s a chaos system. Anything that might have worked for scaling or growing your business - you don’t know that now. So you have to be really honest about your risk level, and where you have to cut off spending, or even investment in new parts of the business that are not working or not going to work. If you’re right at the cusp of it working, then you can’t cut it -  but you also have to be realistic about some things that are just not going to provide what you need, and may even detract from what you’re doing or get you into a bind - which can happen so easily.

Lauralee Sheehan (31:45.085)
People think after a certain number of years you don’t have to do that anymore. I’d say I’m going to try to do that every year. Maybe even what I thought last year was an important investment - Is it? Because it’s almost like you have to cut the arm off before - like that Requiem for a Dream - I know that sounds very dramatic - but if things are going bad, you can’t keep going. You have to cut the arm off and keep going. And that’s hard, especially when it’s your pet project or you really want something to work and it’s not working. It’s hard to tell yourself, this is not working and it’s not going to work - so stop doing that.

Helen Shacklett (32:29.521)
So I’m curious - have you ever been in a situation where you did have to proverbially cut the arm off, but in the end it paid off and it helped you eventually? I’d love to hear about that.

Lauralee Sheehan (32:41.218)
Well, I don’t know if I can talk about it quite yet, but I’ve had to do that over the past couple of years - pretty much with everything from - almost with everything from year two to five. Everything I was doing in year two to five, I had to kind of stop most of it.

And if I didn’t stop it, I had to refocus - change the scope of what was happening and change the focus, and then say, how do I actually invest in the things that are going to move these things forward? It’s been a continuous cycle for me, and very challenging. The goalposts have moved on all of us - there’s the economy, the pandemic - one thing after another. There have been all these chaos systems, and the goalposts keep moving for anything you’re thinking about. That’s been really hard.

But the thing I invested the most in was growing a certain team and a certain structure. Maybe five years ago that structure would have been good for the type of industry and business I’m in. For whatever reason, it really didn’t work out the way I thought it would. It was quite painful, because you’re really investing - roles, spending a lot of money and time, placing a lot of emphasis on these things. It’s a little heartbreaking: okay, that really didn’t work.

So you have to scrap all of that and rethink how you’re thinking about scaling. That’s when I started the smart-scaling thing - what am I doing? I don’t want to go through another cycle of that, because that was painful - and it’s still painful. You’re not going to never make mistakes or invest in the wrong thing, but you have to try to minimize the damage when you know things are not going the way they should. If you’re looking at your books and you’re like, this is not - this is not working out. How do I reconcile this? Literally and figuratively - how do you reconcile?

Lauralee Sheehan (34:38.626)
You have to keep assessing, probably more regularly than you think. And once you know something is really not going the way it should, you have to deal with it.

Helen Shacklett (35:11.367)
You know, it kind of reminds me of that mantra of failing fast - recognize it’s happening and do something about it as soon as you know, even though it’s going to be hard.

Lauralee Sheehan (35:15.170)
Yep.

Lauralee Sheehan (35:20.622)
Yeah, exactly. That’s like my Requiem for a Dream, cutting-your-arm-off thing - but you said it much better. Much more - 

Helen Shacklett (35:29.371)
Hey, I get the benefit of you feeding me the content - I’m just giving it back. You’re coming up with the original ideas here. All right, I’d love to hear - if you had to give your top takeaways for anybody who wants to scale smart and is facing these challenges, what would they be?

Lauralee Sheehan (35:52.790)
Okay, so this is what I’ve learned - and not even the stuff I’ve been able to - I’m working on building it in for my company - but these are the things I’ve been thinking about and the things I think are really important for an indie business like mine, but also any business.

Diversifying revenue is one thing. My company specifically -  a lot of the stuff we did in the early years was service-producing. We produced stuff for other people and then gave it away, which seems so exciting - until you think about how, once a project is done, you’re like, there’s nothing - you’re done. That whole model can be very precarious. So, if you can diversify revenue - try not to only have a service-based business. If there’s anything else you can do - recurring revenue seems like - I’m trying to build that in for my business, and that just seems like a dream. I know it comes with its own -  I can say that now as I’m trying to build that. I know once you’re there, there are other problems, but think about your revenue streams and diversify them as early as you can without overstepping or pushing your cash flow. Start that process early. By year five, you’ll be like, thank God I did that - or thank God I started two years ago - so now my business has more stability.

The other thing is what we were talking about: think about your definers for what scaling means, and don’t get trapped in the buzz of things - “We need to hire this role,” or “We need a cool studio.” Maybe you do, but maybe you don’t. Think about your definers and what that means for you, because it might not be the traditional things or what everybody else is doing.

And make sure that when you reinvest in your business there’s a clear value back. For me, that was saying it’s the creation part for me and my company, because I know that will have value in the future. If I’m investing in creation, then I can go get a distribution deal for that. Having IP and having creation be what we reinvest in - it took me a while to say that’s my definer for reinvestment. Anything else - probably not. People can bring you great ideas, and you can get excited about so many things, but you have to be a minimalist, otherwise you’ll drown in all the ideas or possibilities.

Lauralee Sheehan (37:58.998)
I’m still learning that - and I’ve learned some really hard lessons about the minimalist focus on what reinvestment needs to look like. It took me a while to figure that out. So I think it’s really important to define one, two, or three things that are really important and valuable for your business in the future, so you’re working on that now.

Helen Shacklett (39:00.014)
No, that’s so true. As a marketer, I understand shiny-object syndrome. There are so many cool things - especially nowadays with AI. No, it makes a lot of sense. And I think those - yeah - they hit the nail on the head.

Lauralee Sheehan (39:15.372)
Yeah, because there’s never - I’m not short of good ideas and people around me with great ideas. Anything could be a good idea, but it could also be a time-suck, or a resource-suck without having a reason. I find that - especially in creative - you can get excited about anything, but you have to put on that strategic hat and be like, that is cool, but it’s not going to be me. Yeah.

Helen Shacklett (39:46.704)
Fair enough. So, Laura Lee, this was such a great conversation. Is there anything you wanted to add that I didn’t ask about?

Lauralee Sheehan (39:53.230)
I think we kind of talked about everything. I do want to maybe highlight again the fact that, for me, researching financial partnerships and ways to have financial stability - I think every founder should really look at what’s out there. FundThrough - it’s something that was really game-changing for me, and I really struggled with some of my relationships with traditional financing institutions. So I think people should do their research and find good partners, because that could be the difference between your company making it or not.

Putting that strategy first - finding what works for you and what your needs are - and looking for disruptors in the financial space that can be more agile and have different models. Sometimes people think they only have certain options, but if you research and look at your financial ecosystem in that strategic way, you can come up with something that could really save your business and save your sanity at the same time. Don’t ever be limited by what you think is out there. Always look at all the options and possibilities and go from there in terms of your strategy.

Helen Shacklett (41:17.370)
You hit on something really salient there - a lot of founders, a lot of entrepreneurs, think the bank is their only option. And then, when they get shut down, they’re like, “Well, why now?” Understandably so - but like you said, there’s a lot more out there that people don’t realize is available.

Lauralee Sheehan (41:37.558)
Yeah, it’s a good time for that. There are a lot of really creative things happening. It’s been really exciting for me. And sometimes those relationships can really be the difference between your business having sustainability or not. So, get disruptive with your own thinking about what those financial partnerships look like and what they could be.

Helen Shacklett (42:05.283)
I love that.

Lauralee Sheehan (42:05.580)
And especially women and diverse entrepreneurs - because everyone says “money” - and we know the stats are bad for investment in women or diverse entrepreneurs. Especially for entrepreneurs in those categories where it is harder and there are systemic barriers - look for the people beyond that who can help support your business. Find that as early as you can, and ask as early as you can. That will provide so much safety for you. You can think about your business rather than floundering or freaking out. I think it’s really important to build that safety and ecosystem as early as you can.

Helen Shacklett (43:00.035)
And just like that, we are full circle, right? Well, thank you so much, Laura Lee, for coming on. This was a great discussion. Appreciate the time.

Lauralee Sheehan (43:03.510)
Yeah.

Lauralee Sheehan (43:11.182)
Thank you. And I do want to say one more thing - thank you to the whole FundThrough team. I could name a whole bunch of different names, but I won’t, because I’ll start - it’ll be like an award speech. But I just want to say the team is so - they take such good care of me. The whole FundThrough team - every time, every email, on the chat, whatever it is - I really appreciate it. So I just wanted to say thank you.

Helen Shacklett (43:13.347)
Thanks again Lauralee for coming on Cash Flow and Tell.