indie.bizWhile serving as Senior Director of Brand Strategy at Microsoft, I sponsored a company-wide initiative to unify Microsoft's value proposition to small businesses. That project took me across the country to interview more than 50 small business owners in their own places of business. Drawing on my own experience starting a business back in 2001, I was struck that in the 13 years since, almost nothing had changed in how independent business owners were supported and encouraged. That gap became the spark for indie.biz—a company built on the principle that being independent shouldn't mean being alone, designed to help anyone plan, launch, and grow their own business.
I left Microsoft to build indie.biz as a fully bootstrapped operation, taking on every role the company needed. I envisioned and designed the core product, led fundraising conversations and partner outreach, ran marketing and promotions, and hired and managed a small development team to bring the vision to life. The result was a tool that let aspiring or current business owners answer a short set of questions about themselves and their goals and receive a fully custom Action Plan—essentially a checklist of checklists, with step-by-step guidance tailored to their industry and stage of growth.
Several hundred entrepreneurs signed up for indie.biz, and dozens used it directly to help launch their businesses. I continued building and running the company until the pandemic hit in early 2020, when the sudden closure of millions of small businesses nationwide—indie.biz included—forced me to put the venture on hold. Despite that setback, the product proved out the core idea and demonstrated real demand for accessible, personalized business guidance. I'm now in the process of relaunching the platform, applying the lessons learned from the first run to build a stronger, more resilient version of indie.biz.
