We are Ben and Caitlin Pyle, digital “couplepreneurs” from Orlando, Florida whose lives quickly and radically changed when we ditched our limiting beliefs and started taking action on our own unique “genius.”
We went from a $4,000-a-month average income to a six-figure business in just over three months, and earned over half-a-million dollars in ten months.
We no longer believe earning money has to be a lifelong struggle or endless exchange of our time for money. Instead, we believe following our “genius” — our own unique know-how — plus a lot of passion and hard work (read: action taking!!!) can and does bring a greater reward. Now we’re paying it forward by coaching other people in obtaining the necessary skills and resources to turn their own “genius” into a valuable product that enhances not only their own lives, but others’ lives, too.
Our Story
Ben enrolled in an entrepreneurship program via The Foundation in August 2014. Meanwhile, I was content proofreading transcripts for court reporters on my iPad the way I’d been doing for the last several years, earning between $3000 and $5000 a month working part-time hours. Being exceptionally budget-conscious, this was enough money to support us and allow us to save some, too. September rolled around and, much to the shock of our families, Ben and I made the crazy decision we wanted to go spend a year living in Ecuador. Around the same time, Ben decided it was time he think about leaving his job so he could focus on building the business he’d set out to build. I agreed with him, and he set his official departure date for mid January 2015.
Although it was Ben who enrolled in The Foundation program, his enthusiasm for his new life path was contagious. He’d occasionally share videos and resources about what he was learning. I tried to remain uninvolved. While I loved how much more “in charge” Ben was of his life and his intentions, I didn’t think it was for me. I supported Ben in his quest for entrepreneurship, but was perfectly happy making my $40k a year and thought I’d do that for the rest of my life.
I even uttered the words, “Yeah, I’ll never make more than $40k a year or so, and that’s okay with me.”
The Turning Point
In October, I met a new friend, Victoria, in the Ecuador Expats community group on Facebook. Someone had asked the community the various ways they support themselves, and I had chimed in that I proofread transcripts on my iPad. Victoria messaged me to ask me about it and long story short, I agreed to train her. She was a very motivated, talented student and caught on quickly to what I taught her. Victoria and her husband are very close in age to Ben and I and are currently living in Ecuador themselves — Victoria’s income from proofreading transcripts amounts to about $2,000 a month, which is a very handsome sum in Ecuador.
It may seem like I was the one who influenced Victoria’s life by teaching her my craft. But she also influenced mine — see, Victoria was my last “apprentice”, and seeing her succeed was amazing, and it still is.
To this day, I think it was the last push I needed to finally listen to what Ben had been ever so softly whispering in my ear: monetize your genius.
Little by little, Ben had rubbed off on me. Before Victoria, I’d taught quite a few people how to proofread transcripts, and most of them would just waste my time by never doing anything with the information. Ben had mentioned in passing several times he thought I should just charge for it, that way if they decided not to do anything with it, my time would still be compensated.
When he’d mention it, I’d usually just say something like, “Nope, too much work,” or “No one’s gonna wanna learn from me, anyway.”
I really, truly thought that way. Sad, right? Looking back, I had some major limiting beliefs that I’d actually accepted as facts of life!
Ben kept on with his gentle prodding, though. That, coupled with Victoria’s success, pushed me to finally write an eBook and created some rough-but-useable practice materials with which to train people. I started building my website, ProofreadAnywhere.com, and our first newsletter went out to just nine people. I launched a 32-page training guide (paired with some personal coaching) on November 9, 2014. I made my first “sale” just a day later. A good sign, but I still had very little hope.
“You can’t think like that, don’t you see?” Ben would say. Deep down, I knew I didn’t believe in myself. But I kept listening to Ben’s advice, albeit halfheartedly at times, and always full of doubt.
In mid January 2015, he approached me with another idea. This time, he suggested I expand what I offered in my eBook training (which I had sold for $150 to about 15 people) into a full-blown online course.
“Too much work,” I said (again). “The eBook is doing its job.”
Except it wasn’t. In reality, students were sending me mile-long lists of questions, making it obvious that the guide and practice transcript just didn’t cover everything necessary to really learn the craft. Even though I charged $150 for the program, my earnings were eaten up very quickly by the enormous amount of time I was spending with each student, and worse still, I feared I wasn’t adequately preparing them for the work they’d be doing.
Ben eventually succeeded in his efforts to convince me to build an online course on the website. We discontinued the eBook, and for almost a month, there was nothing to buy on my website — which totally freaked me out, by the way! I thought if there wasn’t something to buy, people would just move on. Not so, Ben assured me.
We launched the course, which I had dubbed Transcript Proofreading: Theory and Practice™, on February 16, 2015, and we earned over $1800 in our first day, selling the enrollment at a 30% discount ($266). We were amazed, as $1800 was more than either of us had earned in a single 80-hour paycheck, ever!
The course generated just under $4000 in profit during the entire seven days of our launch, an amount that would usually take me all month to earn, and to earn it, I’d have to proofread over 8,000 pages. I loved proofreading, but I was still exchanging time for money, and it put a cap on the amount I could earn.
There were no enrollments for about 10 days following our launch, and I, of course, being the doubter that I am, immediately concluded that was it; it was over. No more enrollments. We’d reached the only people we were going to reach with this thing.
Again, not so. I kept adding value, expanding my network, began an affiliate program to help the site grow, and I continued pouring my heart and soul into the content of both the website and the course.
Here’s a timeline of how things have unfolded:
In our first month, we earned $9,000 in profit.
On April 5, we hit $17,000 in profit.
On April 17, we’d reached $30,000 in profit.
By May 1, profits had increased to $47,000.
May 19 we hit the $100,000 milestone.
On June 3 we had reached $144,000.
July 1, 2015, profits climbed to over $250,000. Here’s some proof:
Our earnings surpassed $575,000 by the end 2015! … just over a year after launching ProofreadAnywhere.com.
Guess what we did first? We paid off our mortgage.
The money is cool, yes, but the best part of all this is seeing my students’ lives changed, too. I quit doubting myself and just put my “genius” out there. The product I created (which would never have come to fruition without Ben’s own genius) not only changed our lives, it’s having a ripple effect on thousands of people around the world.
This. This is why I do what I do.
What’s Next?
We still get lots of questions about how Caitlin built her proofreading business, but the success of ProofreadAnywhere has turned many heads in the entrepreneur world as well. Many other people are anxious to learn just how we pieced together Caitlin’s proofreading “genius” that became ProofreadAnywhere.com and how we were able to do it so quickly. Building that beast was no joke, and there were exactly zero shortcuts, which is why we’ve created a shortcut for others who’d like to build a business with a similar model.
That shortcut takes the form of an online course titled Monetize Your Genius: How to Profit from Your Personal Know-How.
Monetize Your Genius™ details every step we took to create our website, our product, and how we rapidly expanded its reach to effectively monetize our genius in a very short period of time.
The program includes live coaching calls with both of us, a 5-phase, 5-module online coaching program packed with features and bonuses like audio .mp3’s, screencast videos, planning tools, and loads of content with all the necessary resources you need to create your own high-quality online business — without all the guesswork.
We’re not here to brag.
Please know that we’ve decided to share our “numbers” with you not because we want to brag, but because we want you to see what’s possible. We want the other doubters of the world (I (Caitlin) was one of them!) to know anything is possible — we are living proof.
Back in January this year, I would have laughed in your face if you had told me we’d have a fully functional six-figure business and no more mortgage by the end of May. I found my genius and we created a business out of one of the tiniest niches on Earth: proofreading transcripts for court reporters.
Now our mission is to pay it forward by helping others knock down their limiting beliefs, find their genius and enhance their lives by building profitable web-based businesses of their own.
