Sara Olsher turned personal chaos—divorce, cancer, and pandemic layoffs—into Mighty + Bright, a Shopify brand selling visual tools that help kids and neurodivergent adults navigate daily life.
Sara Olsher started Mighty + Bright as a handmade calendar to help her toddler cope with divorce. A decade (and one breast cancer diagnosis) later, it’s a full-time Shopify business helping kids, adults, and neurodivergent folks navigate tough life stuff with visual structure. In this episode, Sara shares how she bootstrapped the brand, embraced customer feedback, and scaled with purpose—not just ad spend.
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Kurt Elster
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Sara Olsher
Uh it it was a disaster. Everything was falling apart. Um I was going through a really bad divorce. I had an 18-month-old daughter. And she was dealing with a lot of anxiety, and I was like totally clueless about how to help her. Um, the stress was unreal and she was seeing her dad every other weekend and uh once during the week and she was going to daycare when I had worked at home before and it was just like total chaos. And so Um, my solution at that point was to find a therapist for a toddler. And my ex-husband was like, How is this going to help? And I was like, listen, I don't know. But we gotta try something. Um, and so I I took her to a therapist and the therapist helped me really made me understand how fascinating kids are because I my background is in psychology, but I studied adults. And if I had known how interesting kids are and how brain development works, I probably would have studied them because they were fascinating. Um, and so it helped me a lot to understand kind of like how kids' brains work. Um, but it wasn't really helping my daughter so much until um the therapist went on vacation and she brought out this like I don't know, construction paper calendar she had used or with like a ruler and she'd made it with like, you know, Crayola markers and door of the explorer stickers, and she was like Usually you see me on this day with this sticker, but we're not going to see each other that day. We're going to see each other this day instead. And I was like, Is this really necessary? Like, I don't understand what benefit this has. She does not understand the concept of time. She doesn't know what yesterday is. She doesn't know what today is. She doesn't know what tomorrow is. And she certainly does not know what next Thursday is. And the therapist said, you know, it's actually really important to talk to kids about changes to their schedule because it can really erode trust. between a therapist and a child if big changes are made and nobody talks about it. And I'm thinking the whole way home, I'm like, Missing one appointment with a therapist she just met erodes trust. What is it doing that our lives have completely changed and no one said anything about it? And she had explained, you know, how kids are visual learners and how you explain things to them and it goes in one ear and out the other. And I was like, okay. I need to make a th make something that is gonna show her what to expect each day. And so I went home and made this like janky calendar out of electrical tape and like handmade magnets, little illustrations of our family and school. And, you know, I showed her which day was today. And I would talk to her about like how many sleeps it was until she'd see her dad. Um, and when I tell you it, her anxiety changed overnight, I am not exaggerating. It was like night and day. And I was like, holy crap, this is bananas.
Kurt Elster
Kids thrive on routine.
Sara Olsher
Yes, they do, but also they thrive on visually seeing that routine.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, only recently to my eight year old. I was like, wait a second. She asked me about you know when something was. I said, Do you even know what day it is? She knew the exact date I said, you know what? I I'm sorry. She was like, Yeah, you know, May fifth. Like what? That caught me off guard, but certainly. Yeah, they they thrive on routine and and you know, being being involved
Sara Olsher
Yeah, and they're so smart. They're way smarter than anybody gives them credit for. Even even a year and a half, they they understand things that I had no idea that they understood.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, you had this experience and then you went, you create created this own handmade calendar for your own home, for your daughter. How does that how does that take you into e-commerce?
Sara Olsher
Well, I used to have a small business that was like wedding related. I would do wedding illustrations and I had created like a line of greeting cards. um that you know just was not going super far. So I was actually familiar with Shopify already and I was mace basically using it as like a creative outlet before um and just trying to create products and see what happened um and so then I uh basically decided hey what if I am able to take this you know calendar situation and turn it into something that other families could use as well. Because if I'm using it, then for sure other people are going to need it.
Kurt Elster
Where do you go from there? Like how do you develop the first one? It almost seems you this is too simple or too obvious a product.
Sara Olsher
I know, but when I googled it, no one else was doing it. And I thought Okay, there's gotta be something here. Um, so I basically went, I had this like leftover for my business, I have this like magnet machine where you could like handmake magnets So I designed, like I illustrated a little, you know, generic, you know, mom, a generic dad. Um, and I started handmaking magnets and then just made the had these like I guess you could it was like a MVP, you know, the minimum viable product. And I it was like a piece of vinyl that stuck to the refrigerator. And these magnets and I took pictures of it. I had a girlfriend who was also a single mom who was a photographer, so she took some pictures and I just kind of slapped it up and wanted to see what was gonna happen. And it turned out that SEO really took off for me because it turned out I wasn't the only one that was searching, you know, for help during a period like this, which is unsurprising. Um, and all of my sales basically were organic and came from SEO. And then eventually I ended up getting featured in like Reader's Digest and Pop Sugar Moms and That's when I would say it really took off from a like side hustle perspective.
Kurt Elster
So what was this people were searching for this thing, but no one had gone out and actually made this product. Mm-hmm. What did you title it? What was it called that you were coming up with these searches?
Sara Olsher
It was called um divorce or co-parenting calendar, but I think the thing that was coming up the most were the blog posts that I'd written. You know, this was back in 2013. I wrote like a whole bunch of blog posts posts and I put stuff into my product description that basically was like, you know, things like um how to help kids through divorce or how to help kids deal with divorce related anxiety or uh you know, separation and how to put the kids first. Because that was the big thing for us was through this terrible divorce, everyone kept saying put the kids first, but then when asked, you know, what does that mean? There was really not an actual answer that involved the kids. It was mostly like stop fighting, don't talk smack about each other. It wasn't anything that actually related to how to actually help the kids. And so I think that was what You know, there were certain types of parents that were looking for ways to actually help their kids, and that was what they were Googling, and then the product would pop up and it would just kind of like make sense, or they were like, Oh, I'll try it You know, and then they would leave a review, and the review was like, oh, I can't believe what a difference this made. Um, and you know, it just kind of snowballed from there.
Kurt Elster
And so you had a you had a a previous business, you were doing uh custom illustrations? Mm-hmm. Okay.
Sara Olsher
I was doing wedding illustrations. So I would draw people in front of their wedding venue. or, you know, some place that was special to them. My favorite was a couple that got married in San Francisco and I drew them in front of a famous uh theater with and their cats were wearing 3D glasses. It was fun. It was really fun. But going through divorce, it was like, I don't really want to talk to another bride about how this like shade of orange isn't perfectly matched to their, you know, bridesmaids' dresses.
Kurt Elster
Uh yeah, having been involved in the wedding industry, I could see where that gets old quickly. Yes, for sure. And so you end up But uh from this idea, you end up creating uh these magnetic magnetic calendars, right? And that's mightyandbright. com. Was that always on Shopify? Yes, it was. And so, ooh, you were early on Shopify 2013. I was. Yeah. Um the that's about the time I started with it. Yeah. And it is so different now, right?
Sara Olsher
It is but I feel like it's grown in a way. Yeah. And I feel but I feel like it's grown in a way that has made it, you know, easy to learn all of the updates, you know. Like I taught myself basic coding And that stuff has, you know, i it's been easy to learn through the updates, I'd say. So I've been happy about that.
Kurt Elster
And so the this calendar product, uh what were you charging for it initially?
Sara Olsher
Oh gosh, that's a good question. I think I was probably charging around $24 for it because it was these, you know. uh just p it was just like a sticker basically that would stick onto a refrigerator and then these like handmade magnets. So Um and I don't think I was putting a ton of thought into, you know, where this could go so much as I was just using it as a creative outlet. So I wasn't really trying to make money or thinking that much about margins or, you know, any of that.
Kurt Elster
But you know, it was out there, it was successful, it was working, and you're getting noticed for it. So at what point do you decide you could scale the this is your full-time gig now, right?
Sara Olsher
Yes, it is. Um, I would say it wasn't actually until 2020 that I tried to for sure like actually scale it. Um, but I did start to realize later like, oh, there are other products that kids could use that would be um you know, helpful to them like a routine chart. Um, I tried a reward chart for a while. Um, I went through a whole phase of trying to create an entire like kids' mental health thing So I I definitely was trying to get creative and see what other products I could create.
Kurt Elster
So what's the thing in in 2020, what's the thing that makes it take off?
Sara Olsher
my attention basically was I was playing it it was we're back in March of 2020 and everything has been shut down. My partner and I both got laid off from our jobs. Both within the same week, and we thought lockdown was gonna last three weeks, and we're out there, you know, in the living room playing Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch. And after about three weeks of negotiating with raccoons to try and build a fake house, um I realized, you know. I could look at my business like a game. And instead of negotiating with raccoons, maybe I could negotiate with real people. And instead of making a like fake house. Maybe I could, you know, turn this into something that I could eventually, you know, make myself a real house out of. And so I was like, well, I got nothing better to do. And so I I put a lot of attention into taking classes and trying to figure out what it is that makes a business scale. Uh and number one was not using uh individually handmade magnets because at that point I had a whole bunch of different magnets for all different things. And they were all individually made. And so somebody would order holidays and I'd be hand making 36 magnets, and there was no way that was scalable. So it was it was um definitely a period of trial and error for sure
Kurt Elster
So you've got at this point, you know seven years have passed and people are shopping more online than ever. Your product catalog has expanded to like various themes of these planners, these magnetic planners. And you have figured out that maybe you should not be handmaking them in huge variety. How yeah, did you outsource it? Do you start manu getting someone else to manufacture it? Simply the product line? What do we do?
Sara Olsher
So I thought about uh what would actually make them uh scalable and I I had initially tried packaging them uh into like little bags and then realized that also wasn't really that helping that much. Um And so I did a lot of honestly like meditating on it. Like I went into my closet and like sat there and just like tried to clear my mind and come up with an idea. And eventually realized that if I could make them into reusable stickers, that I could print entire collections really easily and then just have magnets and people would be able to interchange them. And that way, you know, I had a lot of customers just saying that they had a just so many magnets everywhere. And So by doing that, I was able to create like a sheet of holidays or a sheet of you know school related things or a sheet of co-parenting uh stickers and then people could use the ones that they wanted and then interchange them, you know, week to week. And that was the real game changer, I would say, for me as a business. And I did end up outsourcing that to China. I could not find anyone in the United States that could uh produce them at a good quality. uh and then at a price that was not gonna make them like a hundred dollars each. Um and yeah, that's the direction I took and I really never looked back. It made it it was incredible.
Kurt Elster
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Sara Olsher
So what I I when I I am obsessed with quality I have like really hyper focused on trying to make like the highest quality and like, you know, I have a vision in my head of what I want these to look like. And I tried a lot of different options. And eventually I landed on a steel chart that is powder coated and then screen printed. So they are frameless. and very beautiful and will also just hold up. So sticky fingers, like you name it, like these steel charts will literally last for decades. We are still using ours. uh that I had first made 10 years ago. And then I got some feedback from a bunch of different TikTok comments or people emailing us. Saying, hey, my refrigerator's not magnetic and I don't necessarily want to put these on my wallet. Right. Oh my God. I'm like Who does this? You are seriously robbing people of the ability to get tacky magnets. Why would you do that to them? Uh so I don't know why refrigerator manufacturers didn't uh make that a priority, but they didn't. And a lot of people don't have magnetic refrigerators. And so the flex option is like a magic material and it is a it'll stick to a whole bunch of different surfaces. Um, but it is still magnetic. And so you could literally stick it on the mirror in your kids' bathroom and it would work with our magnet system. So that's the difference between those two. And uh it's starting to outsell our steel m our steel charts, which is kind of crazy. Like we've had people buy both to test them out and then love the steel um or love the flex and return the steal, which was like never something that I would have imagined happening. Um, but they're really cool.
Kurt Elster
And so you've got about go through the store, it looks like you've got about eighty-five products and they're all these these charts, these various charts, but we've expanded. It's not just kids stuff anymore. I see there's adult charts as well. But once you realize the idea and the concept. And you know, just the power of a visual organizational tool. It feels like there's, you know, a million niche directions you could go in with it. How do you decide?
Sara Olsher
Well, um, it was really driven by my own personal experience um because in 2017, so I've been running this for four or five years. uh just as a side hustle, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was 34 and I immediately took a leave of absence from work. And, you know, uh was like my whole life had been turned upside down. And I r remember saying to my mom, like the day after I was diagnosed, I was like I just don't want this to be any harder than my divorce. And my mom looks at me and I was like, I know it's already way worse. I just had been through so much already. And really it opened my eyes to the number of things that really I I had been, I didn't realize just how sheltered I had been. Um, and I it really opened my eyes to the number of things that can just come out of left field and and traumatize a person. Um, and I of course like was mostly worried about my daughter. She was six at that point. She already had a history of anxiety. And I was like, how is this going to impact her? I just wish there was a way that I could make this. you know, easier on her. And I again reached out to a therapist and was like, hey, you know, I'm worried about my daughter. I don't know how to like make this easier. And I had in my email signature my um, you know, link to my website, and she responded And said, I would I really, I'm not taking you patience right now, but I would really like to talk to you about your business and what you've created if you, you know, have the energy to do it. And I was like, okay. Um, and she so I went and chatted with her and she was like, I don't know why you haven't thought of this. But what if you took the chaos of cancer treatment and turned that into a calendar? You have already invented the solution. And I was like, uh, good point. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Um, I had already spent the majority of my cancer treatment at that point. writing a children's book to explain the science of cancer to kids because when I went to find a book on Amazon I ordered like six or seven and hated all of them. Like nothing actually explained to kids what was going on and Like with all of my research and everything, I realized, you know, kids can understand a lot more than we give them credit for, and we should really just like explain to them what's happening Um, so she loved the book. She told me to, you know, see about making a calendar. And so I did that. I threw that up on the website because at this point I'm just like, hey, let's roll spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks And again through Google, I had a mom of a pediatric cancer patient reach out to me via email and say, hey. you know, could you create one of these for kids with cancer? And I was like, oh yeah, of course. And so I Asked her, you know, what kinds of magnets she would want, what would be helpful, and then I sent them one and it really helped. Uh, and and then I thought, you know, I don't know what to do with this. So I put that on my website and then I put it on Facebook for all my friends. And I was like, I don't know what to do with this, but I made this. Like, if you know anybody that might use this, let me know. And it turned out a friend of a friend uh had a child who had been through cancer She passed it along to um UCSF San Francisco and said, hey, you know, a friend of a friend created this resource. And it kind of spread from there in the hospitals because it turns out uh they're looking for resources all the time. And I had therapists and child life specialists, those are the people in hospitals who are, you know, helping the kids cope with things, whether it's their own diagnosis of something or, you know, a parent's diagnosis or grandparent. Um, they were all reaching out to me and saying, you know, hey, you know, can you create one for siblings? And so at that point, I started creating a book to go with each of these calendars for kids. And um so I had like this whole product line for pediatric cancer patients, their siblings, um, kids who had a parent with cancer. I had one a book and a calendar for divorce. And so it was just kind of expanding into like all of these like hard things and like how to help people help their kids cope with like really hard things.
Kurt Elster
It seems like that's the commonality here is like, hey, when life's throwing curveballs at you in the worst possible ways and just turning your life upside down. You know, the the thing we need is stability. And these organizational tools that address those things head on are powerful, aren't they? In giving us a sense of normalcy and helping us take take some control back.
Sara Olsher
Absolutely.
Kurt Elster
Out of all those products, essentially you there are are two overlapping audiences here. You were selling two adults. And it you're not selling directly to kids, you're selling to their parents, but the end use is supposed to benefit kids. And so which becomes the the stronger seller here? Is it you know adults or kids organizers? Or calendars. Planners.
Sara Olsher
So yeah. Um I so we kinda got into kid adult stuff accidentally. Um I had been working on a line for autistic kids. And kind of came across a um influencer uh on accident on TikTok. And Friend of mine runs a really cool podcast for parents called Failing Motherhood. And she had intro she had interviewed uh this woman. Her name is Casey Davis. She is a therapist who helps people. She had postpartum depression and her house just kind of fell apart. And she got famous by basically coming up with ways to take care of her house even though she felt like she was drowning. And she had made this like DIY version of uh task chart, which is one of my best sellers now. Um, and it looked very similar to the chart that I had designed for autistic kids. And basically, it's a line of to-dos. And when you move the magnet, it exposes a check mark. And so it's basically like a to-do list, but it's really satisfying because when you move the magnet, it makes this clicking sound and you see that you've completed the task with this. check mark and I thought man what she created looks really similar to what I created and I knew that she had ADHD And I was one and I knew that she like wanted to create this product, but it turns out that um, you know, almost a decade of trying to like make your own products, you realize how much is involved. in making a product and selling it and managing inventory and how expensive it is to invest in that inventory and figure out who's gonna pack the boxes And I thought, I wonder if I reach out to her if she would be interested in collaborating, where I could make this product for her, and then she could like I would take a small portion of the proceeds. And, you know, we she would basically just sell it, but I would fulfill all the products. So that was my initial thought. And I reached out to her and I was like, hey, here's my idea. What do you think? And I was kind of shocked because she had 1. 4 million followers at that point. Uh, but she actually responded to me and she was like, I would love to talk to you about this. And so we talked about it. We created a whole line of products that were matching her book. Uh she wrote a book called How to Keep House While Drowning. And so she had all these icons already done. And so we launched three charts that were specific to her brand. And they sold out, and people in the comments were leaving all kinds of suggestions. And and I thought this could actually be something really big. And I had all she had this theory uh or this method of um cleaning called the room reset. And I said to her, Do you mind if we create a kids version of this that's like color-coded so it's easier for them to understand. And it essentially turns into like a a you know a list of how to clean your room because it turns out we don't actually teach kids how to clean their rooms. We just get frustrated then for not doing it. Um and so I created that right afterward with my own illustrations and it was colorful and people that went viral and people in the comments of that kept saying, I wish that you had this for adults. And so I went back to Casey and I said, hey, I'm thinking maybe we, you know, change this up a little bit. Some of the feedback on hers was that the color scheme of her icons. were all, you know, too much of one color. And I was like, okay, the science of, you know, visuals shows that, you know, we really need to have these all look kind of different and colorful. Everybody wants the like you know, dopamine hit of, you know, ha looking at something pretty and fun. And so we redesigned her products and they became a mighty and bright product in collaboration with Casey Davis. And then I started creating other things for adults, including that one that you talked about earlier, which is an adult short chart that also works for division of labor. which was inspired by my own past relationship, that basically, you know, you can be running a household and one person thinks that they're holding their weight, but in reality, they're not And there's a whole bunch that goes into, you know, running a household that's invisible and requires planning and thinking and coming up with ideas. And there was a thing called the fair play method, which was a documentary, and then it turned into a card deck where people were talking about like distributing things equitably. But then they were saying in the comments of, you know, those posts about fair play was, I don't know how to make this actually actionable. And I thought, okay, like That's what this chart is. It's an actionable way to have a conversation about running your household and then honestly divide the labor. Now you can physically see on this chart in front of your face. You know, what things need to be done, whose responsibility they are, and whether they've been done. And so that was the huge game changer for us. And now the adult line outsells the kids' products. And all of it just kind of has been by testing things and you know seeing if throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if if it sticks.
Kurt Elster
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Sara Olsher
Yes, uh absolutely it is the case and we welcome it because some of our uh, you know We've made changes to sticker sheets where it's like, oh, you know, this sticker sheet for kids says play date, but my kid is older, so we, you know We don't want to call it a play date. And so like I've changed entire sticker sheets the next time they go to printing. So it now it says time with friends. And so we we have a public roadmap. Um we use a um, you know, piece of software where people can go in and look. It's usually used for software companies, you know, where they're like you know, hey, I want this feature in your software, and then they can, you know, use this thing to show people, you know, where their suggestion is. And we use it for a product-based company.
Kurt Elster
The community then upvotes like Exactly. They see a feature, like, I like that, and then you know they upvote it. Okay. I like this this approach.
Sara Olsher
So that's what we do and we link to it on our sticker sheets page Um and then also people will reach out to us, you know, via Instagram or via customer service and just say, hey, you know, I wish that you had this sticker sheet. And we're like, please put it in this place and then You know, you can enter your email and then if we, you know, uh decide to do it, you'll get an email notification and people can vote on it. Um and our customers really love that. Um, and we do too, because it makes it really clear to us like people wanted a monthly version of the calendar. And so once I found the flex magnetic um product, you know, material, I was like, okay, now we can do this thing that like 25 people have upvoted in the last, you know, 90 days. um that clearly people want. And because before it was like making a steel magnetic monthly calendar would have been a expensive nightmare. So I was like, there's certain things we just can't do.
Kurt Elster
This whole this whole business, this whole time, it's been bootstrapped, right? Why choose that path and Do you think that's made that harder, easier?
Sara Olsher
Um, I started that way out of necessity and also because I think I was just kind of doing this as a side hustle and for like a creativity and not necessarily because I thought this was gonna be a whole business. But then as time went on, I realized, you know, I could take on money and grow faster. But I remembered something that Dolly Parton said, which was that she kept the copyrights to all of her songs so that she could own it. And as a woman, I am the first woman in my entire line of, you know, all the generations. who has been able to not only, you know, have her own credit card, you know, and and own my own life. And the idea of handing this over, any portion of it over, I thought, I don't want to do that. I'm gonna be like badass Dolly Parton and I'm gonna own the whole thing And so uh that's what I decided to do. And I own all of everything for my books and I get all of the royalties. I self-pub I created like a publishing you know, company in order to to do that and keep all the revenue from that. I just feel really passionate about that. Um and so yeah, I mean it it definitely re means that you have to be Scrappy. It means you have to think outside the box and be creative about how you're gonna do things. And as a result, I would say I have found the least expensive ways to create things and grow and it has resulted in a really healthy business. Like I uh my accountant is like I can't believe That you, you know, have been able to make all these things happen. You're like growing really well with, you know, you're making a profit. And most companies that they're working with are not. um and they're spending it all on ads or you know whatever else. So um I think it's resulted in a really healthy business.
Kurt Elster
Do you probably not great if you're counting surprised by a profitable business. I don't know what that says. So do you you mentioned paid ads. Do you you do anything with paid ads? I did not do anything with paid ads until last year. Okay. What uh why wait or what changed?
Sara Olsher
Well, I wanted to make sure that the business was profitable and like actually useful. And I think that's the thing that my accountant was surprised by is that a lot of companies are like overly reliant on paid ads. And I had some like real experience with paid ads in twenty two thousand eight or maybe it was no it was later than that. It was probably like two thousand eleven or twelve. And my day job was um working in a media company and Some of our competitors were, you know, selling ads to big companies like Amazon, etc. , and then they were using Facebook ads in order to drive traffic to those articles in order to get the impressions on the ads that they had sold. And then when Facebook changed how expensive their ads were, the entire company tanked. And I was like, okay, that is dangerous. If you are only relying on ads and you're focused on top-line revenue and not profitability. Um, that is a dangerous place to be. So I wanted to see how far can I get using organic marketing methods? um and not relying on paid ads and then in s and then just try and add you know fuel to an already burning fire. rather than using ads to test and see if I can reach people and then becoming dependent on them.
Kurt Elster
And when we say ads, are we talking meta TikTok? YouTube. Meta.
Sara Olsher
I haven't had a lot of ex good experience with um TikTok ads. Um and yeah, so it's Meta and Google. And I actually found Store Hero through uh the unofficial Shopify podcast. And again, they are like, wow, I can't believe you've grown this business to what you've, you know, grown it from. Because their whole thing. is about profitability and helping accounts really understand like your exactly ex understand your finances so that you don't end up in a position where you're entirely relying on ads. So they're helping a lot of people do the opposite of what they're helping me with. So they were like, okay, like we can help make sure that you start ads in a way that they are profitable for you and, you know, take the anxiety out of like starting this and worrying that you're gonna just like be completely dependent on them versus a lot of the other companies that they were working with were like overly dependent on ads and then Store Here was helping them kind of dial it back and focus on profitability.
Kurt Elster
Any other apps or services in your in your Shopify store that you're thrilled with?
Sara Olsher
Uh we've been using octane uh dotai for uh quizzes And that seems to be working really well. Um, I really enjoy um, you know, recommending things to people because that was one of the things that we were hearing from people was hey. you know, I don't know what product to buy. And so this started, you know, to help us grow our newsletters list, but it also was genuinely something that people were asking for. So I really like that one. And then we're also using one called Sensible Forecasting. I just installed that a couple of uh weeks ago Because I was really struggling with trying to figure out when to order things. And so far that one has been working really well. And then the third one that I absolutely love is bundles. app for inventory syncing because most of our products look like they're like different kits, but they're actually bundles. And so we have like three or four basic charts. and um as one kind of magnet and then like 70 different sticker sheets and People will order, like for example, that division of labor one, and they'll get two of a certain kind of chart, they'll get two sets of magnets, and then they'll get one uh pack of sticker sheets And that app is run by a guy named Harold who is like so awesome. He's super helpful and has gone through and helped me with a bunch of different like issues that I've had. Um I love this customer service and it makes it so that um we're fulfilling things correctly. Oh, and oh my gosh, I can't believe I almost didn't say anything about iPacky. We had a 3PL for a while and it was a nightmare, and then we switched another 3PL, also a nightmare. and then finally decided to bring it in house and s you know, get our own warehouse. And iPacky is what we use with a, you know, scanner to make sure that when we're packing products uh in boxes that they're actually getting what they ordered.
Kurt Elster
So I I love all those apps.
Sara Olsher
Yeah. It's a it was necessary.
Kurt Elster
Give me one moment that almost derailed you. You've been around thirteen years you've been doing this. Twelve years, thirteen? What uh yeah. What's a moment that almost took you uh took you out?
Sara Olsher
There have been a lot of things that were mindset related, I would say. Um because I grew this so slowly um and you know was bootstrapped. There were a few times where I would like invest in things that did not end up going well. Um, we do have a charitable mission as part of our um business. So for every order we get, we donate a book or a visual schedule to a child facing cancer or another, you know, difficult life experience. And so there have been times where I've like ordered too much of a product, but then we've just, you know, donated that product. So it didn't end up being as terrible as it could have been. Um, but on a personal note, I had a partner, you know, during during the pandemic when I was trying to grow this that didn't see my vision. And It actually almost derailed me because he was it like really eroded my confidence. And then once I left that relationship, the whole thing exploded Um, so it was like I I think I was really holding back on what this could be because I was listening to my partner, which is not coming.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, having someone you know in your ear who's just questioning you and wearing down your confidence, it's not going to help your mindset. And then certainly that's not going to be good for for you as a business leader, as an entrepreneur.
Sara Olsher
Totally.
Kurt Elster
You've I wanna know what's kept you going. I want to know what your why is because you have faced a lot of challenges. And you've done a lot. You know, at this point, launch dozens of products, written books. You've got uh non-for-profit where you're you're donating products. What keeps you going?
Sara Olsher
Helping people. I genuinely have a passion for the things that we are creating, but I mostly have a passion for the idea of making somebody's life even a little bit easier. And we get a lot of people writing in and saying, you know, some of our products have saved marriages. Um we I get letters from children. saying, you know, that they loved my books or that their dad has cancer or that they have cancer and they don't have any hair. and that my book helped them. Um really that that feedback from people that have help we've helped uh is enough motivation to keep me going probably for the rest of my life.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, I could see that would be uh inspirational. Absolutely. What um have you been around a while and you listen to you know e-commerce podcasts, you've got to do the the continuing education. Uh what's one piece of common advice that you think is overrated for e-commerce store owners?
Sara Olsher
Um there's a couple. I would say the first is saying to outsource customer service first. Um, our business has obviously grown in part because we are listening to the customers. And while negative feedback can be hurtful because this is your baby that you're creating. Uh, it can also really help you grow something that is genuinely helpful for people. So I definitely think that advice is overrated. And I would also say that the advice of hiring help from overseas and creating remote teams is overrated. Um, because I I tried that and it wasn't until I hired like an actual in-person employee. that I finally felt like I actually had a grip on what was going on. Um I have like a basically a right hand woman named Katie and she uh she was m eighty million times more helpful than anybody that I ever hired remotely. So I think that can be overrated too.
Kurt Elster
Well, shout out to Katie for helping out. For sure. Last one, what's one lesson, what's one lesson you wish you knew in 2013?
Sara Olsher
That this could actually be something. I don't think I believed it could be. Um, you know, uh, I uh that I it what you focus on grows. And I think in Between 2020 and 2022, I made more revenue in that amount of time than I had in the entire previous time that I had been running this. And I think if I had known that back in 2013, I would have given it um given it a go earlier for sure.
Kurt Elster
Yeah. It's well, you know, uh survivorship bias, right? It worked out, and so now it's easy to go, like, yeah, absolutely. Like a hundred percent we should have done this. But you you know when you're starting it, you don't know. There's no way of knowing.
Sara Olsher
And that's slow and steady growth is how we got there.
Kurt Elster
Uh so where can listeners connect with you and and get their own uh charts and organizers?
Sara Olsher
You can find us at mightyandbright. com and we're on social media platforms at MightyandBright Co.
Kurt Elster
Sarah Ulsher, Mighty and Bright, thank you so much.
Sara Olsher
Thank you so much. I love the podcast. I've listened to every episode.
Kurt Elster
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